Reviewer on Philosophy

Holistic Perspective
• A genuine sympathy and an understanding of all the most diverse points of view.
Partial Perspective
A narrow provincialism of mind, limited to the ideas and outlook of a single party or single
age
Philosophy
• Defined as the science by natural light of reason studies the first causes or highest
principles of all things.
• “Philo” means to love
• “Sophia” means wisdom
Highest Principles of Philosophy
• Principle of Identity
• Principle of Non Contradiction
• Principle of Excluded Middle
• Principle of Sufficient Reason

Principle of Identity
• Whatever is it is; and whatever is not is not; everything is what it is. Everything is its
own being , and not being is not being.
Principle of Non Contradiction
• It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time, and at the same
respect.
Principle of Excluded Middle
• A things is either is or is not; everything must be either be or not be or between being
and not being, there is no middle ground possibility.
Principle of Sufficient Reason
• Nothing exists without a sufficient reason for its being and existence.
Branches of Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Ethics
• Epistemology
• Logic
 • Aesthetics
Metaphysics
• It is an extension of a fundamental and a necessary drive in every human being to
know what is real.
Ethics
• A branch of philosophy that explore the nature of moral virtue and evaluate human
actions.
Epistemology
• Deals with nature, sources, limitations and validity of knowledge.
• It explains:
• 1.How we know what we claim to know
• 2.How can we found out what we wish to know
• 3.How we can differentiate truth from falsehood
Logic
• A treatise on matters pertaining to the human thought.
• It is not interested on what we know regarding certain subjects. Its concern, rather, is
the truth or validity of our arguments regarding such objects.
Aesthetics
• It is the science of the beautiful in its various manifestations.
Methods of Philosophizing
• Phenomenology
• Existentialism
• Post modernism
• Analytic Tradition
• Logic and Critical Thinking
• Fallacies
Philosophizing
• It is to think or express oneself in philosophical manner. It considers or discusses
matter from a philosophical standpoint.
Phenomenology
• This focuses on careful inspection of phenomena or appearances, defined as any
object of conscious experience, that is that which we are conscious of(Johnson 2006)
• It is the scientific study of the essential structures of consciousness
Existentialism
 • One’s search for truth might be based on one’s attitude or outlook.
• Soren Kierkegaard- The 1st Existentialist
• “The authentic self was the personally chosen self”.
Sartre
• a French philosopher emphasizes the importance of free individual choice,
regardless of the power of other people to influence and coerce our belief and
decisions
• “Consciousness is such that it is always free to choose and free to negate the given
features of the world”.
-Sartre
Post Modernism
• As the name for rather diffuse family of ideas or trends that tends to respect, aims or
supersedes modernity.
• Post modernists believes that humanity should come at truth beyond the rational or
non rational elements of human nature including the spiritual.
How do we acquire reliable knowledge?
• Induction, The particular things seen, heard and touched are more important. They
believe that general ideas are formed from the examination of particular facts.
• Empiricism, is the view that knowledge can be attained only through sense
experience.
• Deduction, It is important to find a general law according to the particular facts can be
understood or judged.
Analytic Tradition
• It is defined as the conviction that to some significant degree, philosophical
problems , puzzles and errors are rooted in language and can be solved or avoided
by a sound understanding of language and careful attention to its workings.
Logic and Critical Thinking
• Logic is the centered in the analysis and construction of arguments.
• Critical thinking is distinguishing facts and opinions or personal feelings. In making
rational choices, first we suspend beliefs and judgement until all facts have been
gathered and considered.
• Though facts are important, critical thinking also takes into consideration cultural
systems, values, and beliefs. Critical thinking helps us uncover bias and prejudice
and open to new ideas not necessarily in agreement with previous thought.
Types of reasoning
• Inductive reasoning, it is based from observations in order to make generalizations
• Deductive reasoning, draws conclusions from usually one broad judgement or
definition and one more specific, assertion, often an inference.
 • All philosophers are wise(Major premises)
• Confucius is a philosopher(Minor premises)
• Therefore, Confucius is wise(Conclusion
Fallacies
It is considered as the defect in an argument other than it’s having false premises.
Appeal to pity
A specific kind of appeal to emotion in which someone tries to win support for an
argument or idea by exploiting his or her opponents feelings of pity
Appeal to ignorance
Whatever has not been proved false must be true and vice versa
Equivocation
This is a logical chain of reasoning of a term or a word several times but giving the
particular word a different meaning each time.
Composition
This infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part
of the whole.
Division
One reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some
of its parts
Against the person(Argumentum ad hominem
This fallacy attempts to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the
persons advocating the premise.
Appeal to Force(Argumentum ad baculum)
An argument where force, coercion or the threat of force is given as a justification for
a conclusion
Appeal to the people(Argumentum ad populum)
An argument that appeals or exploits people vanities desire for esteem and
anchoring on popularity
False cause(post hoc)
Since that event followed this one that event must have been caused by this one this
fallacy is also referred to as coincidental correlation or correlation no causation
Hasty Generalization
One commits errors if one reaches an inductive generalizations based on insufficient
evidence. The fallacy is commonly based on a broad conclusion upon the statistics of a
survey of a small group that fails to sufficiently represent the whole population
Begging the question(petition principi)
 This is a type of fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or
explicitly in the premise

Realize the methods of Philosophy that lead to wisdom and truth

Critical thinking, is the careful, reflective, rational, and systematic approach to questions of
very general interest. It means understanding of philosophy and refraining from merely
giving claims but thought, one reasons through argumentations.
Critical thinking consists of:
1. Defining, Analyzing and devising solutions
2. Arriving at reasonable and informed conclusions;
3. Applying understanding and knowledge to new and different problems
4. Willingness to change one point of view
5. Continually examining and re examining ideas
6. Willingness to say “I don’t know”.

Attributes of a critical thinker

• Looks for evidence to support assumption and beliefs
• Adjusts opinions
• Looks for proof
• Examines problem
• Rejects irrelevant and incorrect information

Evaluate Opinions
• Critical thinking and logic are important to distinguish facts from opinions.
• Opinion, can be a belief or judgement that rests on grounds insufficient to produce
complete certainty.
• Asking relevant questions assessing arguments and statements, looking for evidence
to support assumption and beliefs and deciding rationally what to believe or not are
important to evaluate opinions.
Human Person as an Embodied Spirit
• “There is no other way to find who we are than by finding ourselves the divine image
we have to struggle to regain spontaneous and vital awareness of our own
spirituality”.
Thomas Merton

Hinduism
 • Human beings have a dual nature one is the spiritual and immortal essence the other
is empirical life and character.
• Hindus believe that the soul is eternal but it is bound by the law of Karma to the world
of matter, which it can escape only after spiritual progress through an endless series
of birth. God allots rewards and punishments to all beings according to their
karma(Puligandla 1997)
• Hinduism holds that humanity’s life is a continuous cycle(samsara) while it is the
spirit is neither born nor does it die, the body on the other hand goes through a
transmigratory series of birth and death
• Transmigration, is a doctrine that adheres to the belief that a persons soul pass into
some creature , human or animal. If the person has led a good life the soul goes
upward the scale. The soul of an evil person pass into the body of an animal.
Buddhism
• It contains in the teachings of its founder, Siddharta Gautama or the Buddha. Out of
the life experience and teaching of highborn Prince Gautama of the Sakya clan in the
kingdom Magadha, who live form 560 to 477 B.C.
• “Clear realization that the solution lays in his own mind”
Dharma
• A simple presentation of gospel of inner cultivation of right spiritual attitudes coupled
with a self imposed discipline whereby bodily desires would be channeled in the right
directions
Augustine
Philosophy is amor sapiential, the love of wisdom its aim is to produce happiness.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Human beings have the unique power to change themselves and things for the better
Evaluate Own Limitations and the Possibilities for their Transcendence
1. Forgiveness
When we forgive, we are freed from our anger and bitterness because of the actions
and/or words of another
2. The Beauty of Nature

We need to offer praise in order to touch deeply the human heart which is
spontaneously lifted
3. Vulnerability

The experience that we are contigent that we are dependent for our existence on
another is frightening.

4. Failure
 Our failures force us to confront our weaknesses and limitations. When a relationship
fails when our immediate desires are not met we are confronted with the possibility
of our plans and yet we are force to surrender to a mystery or look upon a bigger
world

5. Loneliness

It is rooted from our sense of vulnerability and fear of death

6. Love

The more we love the more risks and fears are there in life

Nirvana
The state in which one is absolutely free from all forms of bondage and attachment it
means to overcome and remove cause of sufferings
Reincarnation
Everything in this life is a consequence of actions performed in previous existence
Moral evil
Which arises with virtual inevitability from the inherent imperfections of the universe
as created and dependent order
Natural evil
Does not comes from human but that is natural
Metaphysical evil
Pertains to certain imperfections that are inevitable in a created and dependent
universe and thus inevitable imperfections are the source of many or all the other evils that
occur in it
Anthropocentric model
Humans are superior and central to the universe
Ecocentric model
The ecological or relational integrity of the humans provides meaning of our morals
and values.
Anaximander
Employed the tem boundless to convey the further thought that nature is
indeterminate boundless in the sense that no boundaries between warm and cold or the
moist and dry regions are originally present within it.
Pytagoras
Described the universe as living embodiment of nature’s order, harmony, and beauty.
He sees our relationship with the universe involving love of other living things(biophillia) and
love of other living beings(cosmophillia)
Immanuel Kant
We must ignore any practical motives or inclinations that we have instead
contemplate the object without being distracted by our desires
Herbert Marcuse
Humanity had dominated nature. There can only be change if we will change our
attitudes towards our perception of the environment
George Herbert Mead
As a human being we do not have only rights but duties. WE are not only citizens of
the community but how we react to this community and in our reaction to it, change it.
Deep Ecology
The controlling attitude of humankind is extended to nature when in fact humanity is
part of nature
Social Ecology
Destroying nature is a refection wherein few people over power others while
exploting the environment for profit and self interest.
Ecofeminism
The ecological crisis is a consequence of male dominance, whatever is superior is
entitled to whatever is inferior.
Erich Fromm
Proposed a new society that should encourage the emergence of a new human
being that will foster prudence and moderation or frugality toward environment.