Philosophy 1000 16-669

Summative Assessment

By Norbea May Rodriguez

What is the Meaning of Philosophy?

I. Introduction

Every time you hear the word philosophy, what comes into your mind? Is it complex? Is

it all about God and the principles of life? Some of the people tend to define philosophy as

something rather complicated and profound. Like only some experts can do. But no, everyone

can philosophize, though it requires practice.

What is philosophy? How does someone philosophize? How can one apply philosophical

methods? And what sample problems can we use to philosophize? These questions are

fundamental questions that are neglected most of the time. In this paper, these questions will

finally be answered.

II. What is philosophy?

What is philosophy? Philosophy is seeing the whole, like seeing a house as a house and

not seeing a house through its kitchen. Philosophy is when one base on the whole idea and not on

its parts. Putting perspective over the entire system of something and not mainly on its

components. One good narrative illustration is the poem that John Godfrey Saxe wrote, The

Blind Men and the Elephant. These men described the elephant base on their other senses apart

from their eyes. They were examining some of its parts and concluded about what is it. A wall, a
spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, and a rope, these are their conclusions. They did not look at the

elephant as a whole.

Also, philosophy is seeing with the mind. Like what Fr. Roque Ferriols said, philosophy

is associated with thinking, and so, let’s insert insight as an element of thinking, just like what

Fr. Ferriols did. Insight is also seeing with the mind, like understanding a joke without its

explanation. As seeing with the mind, philosophy is procuring knowledge or wisdom from the

things around you. In Christianity, we call this a revelation from God.

Aside from seeing the whole and seeing with the mind, philosophy is also knowing the

truth; this might be intractable for all humans because one might deceive someone. Philosophy

as knowing the truth is like knowing the shadow’s light, for the shadow will never exist without

light. This has been discussed in The Republic, Plato’s book, particularly in Book VII, Allegory

of the Cave, wherein three prisoners were being shackled for as long as they can remember.

Their whole lives saw only the shadows cast by the fire behind them, believing that those were

the truth. However, when one prisoner was freed, he saw things beyond the shadows they knew

as he got out of the cave. The sun represents the truth because, without it, nothing can be seen;

the shadow represents opinion; the prisoners are us, humans; the cave is this world’s

representation, and the outside world symbolizes the world of Forms.

To dig deeper into the meaning of philosophy, the question being asked is, “How does

one philosophize?”

III. How does one philosophize?

There are two methods of philosophizing. The first method is called a conceptual

analysis. According to professor Eleanor Stubley, “conceptual analysis is defined as the

analytical process that uses paradigmatic examples to define and clarify the meanings of

particular terms and concepts.” One of the perfect examples is the Concept of Performance by

Thomas Carson Mark. He viewed performance as a quotation and applied analogical inference.

The analogical inference is defined as the analysis of the properties or attributes which two or

more things have in common.

In applying analogical inference, he defines the performance (musically) and quotation as

what people do. It also involves a speaker or a performer; it has an utterance or the sequence of

sounds produced by the performer. And they were both from a previously uttered statement or

sequence of sounds instantiating work of a composer as prescribed as a score. He later found out

that performance is more than a quotation. It is a form of assertion through quotation. In short, in

applying conceptual analysis, one can better define something through the similarities and

contrasts of two things.

The second method is the phenomenological method. It goes under two stages of

reflection: the primary reflection and the secondary reflection. The primary reflection is defined

as the process that dissolves the unity of experience, and the secondary reflection is the process

that recuperates the dissolved unity of experience. In Gabriel Marcel’s Primary and Secondary

Reflection, one example he gave is losing a watch. Losing a watch is his everyday habit. He

primarily reflected on this by remembering what happened before discovering he does not have

his watch with him. Marcel gave another example, and this is where he told his friend a lie.

Primarily, he reflected upon this by thinking about why he said the lie, and if Marcel will confess

that he lied, what would be the response of his friend? Would he ridicule him? On the other

hand, secondary reflection reflects these questions by answering it and applying it because it

adds value to one’s life.

 Primary reflection is when someone breaks their united experience, reflecting what or

why such a thing took place. Moreover, secondary reflection is when one reflects on the pieces

that were dissolved in primary reflection.

IV. How can one apply the philosophical method?

Now that the definition of philosophy and the philosophizing methods are identified,

enriching understanding of philosophy’s meaning is also applying these methods in real-life

situations. Failure might be applicable in this situation. Fundamentally, failure is a state that does

not reach the desired goal. In using conceptual analysis, failure is like the one line in parallel

lines. Under this analysis and using analogical inference, failure is like the one line in parallel

lines because it never reaches the other.

Furthermore, I have provided three definitions of parallel lines. Parallel lines are lines

that never cross each other (as stated earlier), they are close to each other, and parallel lines have

the same length. I have concluded that failure is the lower state of success.

Phenomenologically, one can primarily reflect on failure by asking one’s self, how did I

fail? Did I not study well my courses? Are my time not enough to study? Did I procrastinate? To

reflect on failure, one would remember the things they did before they failed the class. It could

be because of procrastination. To secondarily reflect in this case, they learned the value of time

and discipline and might include the value of passion for studying.

V. Conclusion
 In conclusion, philosophy is indivisible from humans. For some, it is an everyday habit;

for others, sometimes, it’s an obstruction to their desires. Besides, how things started, grow,

evolved, and even die is the product of philosophy. As someone who believes in God, nature is

also the manifestation of God’s philosophy. Whether people like it or not, everything is the

manifestation of philosophy—everything, including us.