WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? EMERITA S. QUITO he answer to the question “What is Philosophy?” is, to me, a historical one. Not that the answer is different in every age, but that the viewpoint or perspective shifts in every age, even as the original answer is still the same. ‘This may sound enigmatic. For how can the answer be different and yet still the same? ‘What was the beginning of philosophy for the early Indians and the early Greeks? ‘The early Indians asked the fundamental questions about man, the universe and the Supreme Being, the totality of which is called Brahman. The early Greeks asked a fundamental question, “What am I To which Socrates answered “Know thyself.” For Socrates, the first task of philosophy is to know oneself, and to this day, it still is. Why is the Socratic answer still relevant after 24 centuries? Why is it that despite the enormous difference between our world today and the agora of Athens where Socrates walked, unshod and unwashed, his answer is as new and as fresh as on the day it was said? ‘Who was Socrates anyway? Socrates, like Confucius of the East, never wrote down a-single line. What we know of Socrates comes from Xenophon, Diogenes Laertius, and his faithful pupil, Plato, who wroteWHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 29 about him in the Dialogues. We learn from Plato's Theaetetus that Socrates was the son of a midwife and who, like his mother, helped in the birth of ideas through dialectics or the question-and-answer method; from the Symposium, that he was a small but robust, ugly man who did not work for a living; from the Republic, that he was a humble and patient man but rarely went home to Xantippe, his wife, who was a nagging woman, which perhaps explains why Socrates preferred male company; from the Phaedo, that he was asked to drink hemlock for polluting the minds of youth and worshipping false gods. By today’s standards, Socrates would be considered a hobo, a bludger, a good-for-nothing gay who is better off buried in oblivion. Yet, he is regarded as the wisest man of the West; he is held in awe by philosophers and non-philosophers alike because his answer is as simple as the question, What am I?, is complex. His maxim “Know thyself” summarizes the beginning of all philosophy. Despite the spectacular progress in science and technology over the centuries, the fundamental question, What am I? is still being asked. This can only mean that human beings have only changed on the peripheral, and not on the core level; that the essence of being human has not changed. We may now be engineers instead of hewers of stone; we may now use computers instead of bungling typewriters and tedious adding machines; we may now travel by jet instead of steam, but the psyche of man is still the same. In developed countries, people begin to recognize themselves in their property. As Herbert Marcuse wrote, “They find their soul in their automobiles, hi-fi sets, split-level homes, kitchen equipment” — which is an insidious form of domination. No longer do they exist as free individuals but have become slaves of progress. How strange that the production of consumer goods, which is a sign of progress, plunges them into a new enslavement to artificial needs and desires. Hence, for more reason, there is a need to pause and ask funda- mental questions in highly developed countries, for despite scientific breakthroughs, misery, unhappiness and disease have not been elimi- nated. On the contrary, rapid industrialization has produced pollu- tion, mysterious diseases and a skewed morality. Very often, persons do not see the need to ask questions because of the demands of modern living. Karl Jaspers, one of the major exis-30 EMERITA S. QUITO tentialists, said that every human being eventually encounters das Scheitern, the shipwreck. Jaspers likens life to a voyage at sea; when the sun shines brightly and the wind is calm, persons feel safe and do not ask questions. When life is easy and comfortable, when no ill-wind blows, indeed, why bother about “airy fairies"? But as Jaspers said, when one encounters a shipwreck, as when one is laid up in a hospital bed, helpless and immobilized, or when one becomes extremely cepressed due to a crisis and is unable to continue living, then one asks the fundamental question, “Why am I here in the first place?” Perhaps one will answer back that life in this part of the globe is stable and easy and so there is no possibility of any shipwreck. We can learn a lesson fom the Gulf war. The millionaires of Kuwait became paupers over- night. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. These are the imponderables in life, imponderables so-called, because they cannot be plotted or foretold by the most sophisticated computer or artificial intelligence. The Chinese explain life’s syndrome by means of the yang (the positive) and the yin (the negative). Life, according to the Chinese, cannot be alll light and all darkness; there is the bitter and the sweet, joy and pain, sunshine and rain. In the Analects, Confucius was reputed to have said, “If I had only vegetables to eat and water to drink, and a bent arm for a pillow, I would still be happy.”* This philo- sophy explains to a great extent the character of the Chinese people. We in the Philippines have a similar philosophy. Life to us is a Gulong ng Palad, a wheel of fortune, and like a wheel, life goes up and down in an eternal recurrence. This explains why despite natural, and man-made calamities that befall our country in the form of storms, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, brownouts, coups d'etat, revo- lutions, we never sport a long face because we believe that misfortunes are a part of life, that storms come and go, just as the sun rises and then sets. Night must follow day, but day inevitably follows a night of sorrow? As a people, therefore, we are optimistic. We believe that in the divine scheme, things will right themselves. There is also, however, a built-in fatalism in the Filipino psyche. We believe in an immutable lew that dispenses justice without mercy. No evil deed shall escape this lew, and in the end, the mills of the.gods, while grinding exceedingly slow, will grind exceedingly fine.WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 31 Every person must ask the question about life. Every action must be a result of clear, logical thinking. Jaime Balmes, a Spanish philoso- pher, wrote, “In order to live well, one must think well, and when one does not live as he thinks, he begins to think as badly as he lives.” ‘There are people who live their lives in utter disregard of the only lasting values, not because they willingly ignore them but because they never even posed the question; and, not having posed the question, they do not get answers. What we are depends on what philosophy we have, and the man who does not philosophize well will live as badly as he philosophizes. At this juncture, one could ask, “But what is philosophy?” It is indeed customary to begin with a definition. Philosophy, however, covers almost the entire spectrum of knowledge; in fact, it is the umbrella term for most, if not all disciplines. We have a Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics, a Ph.D. in Education, in Literature, in Psychology, in the Social Sciences, in History and even in Nutrition. Since the word “define” comes from the Latin definire, meaning to assign limits or put up boundaries to circumscribe the term defined, it is most difficult to fence in philosophy. No formula can exhaust the meaning of philosophy. The best I can manage by way of an answer to the question of what is philosophy is to give a philosophizing one: Philosophy is a discipline where the questions are more important than she answers and every answer becomes a new question. ‘The classical definition of philosophy as “the science which, by the light of human reason alone, studies the ultimate causes and first principles of all things” is still being memorized by students of philo- sophy. The philosopher is one who is not satisfied by proximate or near causes but pushes his questioning to the limit until he reaches the ultimate reason or cause. Hence, the scientist, the mathematician, the historian, the engineer, the computer scientist or any layman becomes a philosopher the moment he begins to question and will not be satisfied until he reaches an absolute or a near-absolute conclusion. No wonder many scientists and mathematicians have become philo- sophers: Alfred North Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Edmund Husserl, and who will forget René Descartes and Blaise Pascal? Philosophy, however, has gone a long way since the classical defi- nition of Aristotelico-Thomism. Philosophy used to be this dry, drab,32 EMERITA S. QUITO inert subject which students merely tolerated in order to earn’ units for graduation. This, however, is no longer so. There is a renaissance of philosophy in many parts of the globe. Students flock to lectures in philosophy in the last five decades. Something has been added. The philosophers of our century have centered their attention on the | individual, his uniqueness and freedom. No longer is universal man given importance; universal man was quashed in order to give way to the individual, to Peter and Mary, flesh and blood, who live and die, who suffer and rejoice in a world full of the cares of everyday living. This triggered a shift in point of view. All human sciences are to be considered in function of the individual. Even physical sciences must pass through the individual's manner of understanding, making them less objective and no longer value-free. Maurice Merleau-Ponty says, “All that I know of the world, even science, I know from my own point of view or from an experience of the world without which the symbols of science could mean nothing.” The individual has been i put on a pedestal by 20th century philosophers. In order to appreciate this apostheosis of the individual, let us briefly scan the development j of philosophy through the centuries regarding the individual. Philosophy began in the East cirea 2000 B.C. (by conservative estimate) in China and India. Philosophy in the West began with ‘Thales in the 6th century B.C. but philosophy per se began in the East— | Ex oriente lux, light from the East, antedating Western philosophy by { at least 13 centuries. The Indian thinkers asked fundamental questions about man, the universe and the Supreme Being, the totality of which is called Brahman, from the Sanskrit word brah, meaning “ever-growing.”* The Indian thinkers posed a question about the Totality or Brahman. In the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, the pupil questions the teacher, “Master, is the sun Brahman?” to which the teacher answers, “Neti, neti (no, no), and the pupil continues questioning in Platonic fashion about whether the moon, stars, sky, lightning, cardinal points, space, air, fire were Brahman and the answer was always no. Then the student poses the same litany of questions negatively, “Is the sun not Brahman?” to which the teacher now answers, “Yes, but some- thing more.” Finally, the teacher concludes the dialogue and says, “Brahman is the’ subtle’ essence of the universe'and it is in you. It is you. Tat tvam asi. That art thou.”WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 33 The early Indian thinkers questioned the world around them and, unable to determine its origin or cause, they arrived at a totality which includes the creator and the created, the cause and effect, the eternal and the temporal in a certain all-at-once-ness, a totality which one arrived at through meditation. In meditation, the dichotomy of thinker and thought disappears; there is now only a oneness or a Totality. For Indian thinkers, therefore, the individual as individual is not important since he is but a link in a chain of being; he is born from another, and when he dies, another comes into the life cycle of life and death. ‘The Chinese, who are a this-world people, were more concerned about the good life, not necessarily of individuals. Their philosophy is a philosophy of life. Contrary to popular belief that the Golden Rule came from the West, Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was the first to enunciate it: Do not do unto others what you do not want them to do unto you.’ Respect for elders abound in Chinese classics. Children who do not respect their parents will reap the same disrespect from their own children when they become parents. This is why the Chinese speak of “honourable father” owing to the Golden Rule, and this cycle continues, down the line of generations. The individual is not given importance in Chinese culture as a whole. Observe a Chinese painting. The tiny figure of man is dwarfed by the mountains and the sky and the trees surrounding him. Nature is important, man is not, and the individual, even less. As we proceed to the first thinkers of the West, we find their interest centered on the universe. They were cosmocentric. Thales merely said that the world was made of water; Empedocles, of air, fire, water, earth; Anaxagoras, of the indefinite; Democritus, of atoms. Heraclitus thought that everything changes while Parmenides held on to the opposite view that nothing changes. The triumvate of philo- sophy, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, was concerned still about the physical universe, and if they spoke of man, it was universal man, and not the individual. In the Medieval Period, the interest shifted from the cosmos (world) to theos (God). The period is theocentric. The principal philo- sopher, Thomas Aquinas, wrote his Summa Theologiae which contains34 EMERITA S. QUITO the famous Quinguae Viae or the five ways of proving God's exis- tence.* Thus began an era of God-centeredness, and Scholasticism reigned supreme. This extreme theocentrism, however, led to religious intolerance. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for espousing a belief contrary to that of the established Church. As a consequence, religious schisms developed and new religious were formed. In the Renaissance, there was already a growing resentment against this extreme theocentrism and the Aristotle-based Scholas- ticism, and slowly, interest shifted from the theos (God) to anthropos (man). The Renaissance and the Modern Period are anthropocentric. ‘The Renaissance genius, Giovanni Pico, better known as Pico della Mirandola, after being chastised by Pope Innocent VIII for writing a compendium allegedly containing 13 heresies, wrote ‘Oration to the Dignity of Man’ which upheld man’s use of reason. Marcillo Ficino revived Platonism by translating Plato’s Dialogues into the vernacular as commissioned by the dei Medici family. The Renais- sance set the mood for the next period. ‘The Modern Period brought about new interests, new points of view and drastic changes in philosophy. At that time, many so-called truths were disproved due to scientific advancement. It was the earth that revolved around the sun and not the sun around the earth; the earth was not flat but round and one could sail West and reach the East. This shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism and from the flatness to the roundness of the earth created a profound effect on the philosophers of the Modern Period.. Francis Bacon wanted to rid the human mind of its prejudices which he called “idols of the mind.” René Descartes was more drastic. He wanted to demolish the edifice of knowledge in order to build anew. One must doubt everything. “We will also doubt the other things we had before held as most certain, even the demonstrations of mathe- matics, and their principles which we have hitherto deemed self- evident.” After the mind is finally rid of all things we had before held certain, Descartes admonished “never to accept anything as true which I did not know to be manifestly so, that is, carefully to avoid precipitancy and bias and to include nothing in my judgment except what has presented itself so clearly and distinctly to my mind that I would never have the occasion to doubt it.” The first and indubit-WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 35 able truth is “I think, therefore, I am.” Cogito, ergo sum. The starting point of Descartes is the I of consciousness. Despite the anthropocentrism of the Modern Period, however, the individual was momentarily shelved for the sake of the universal. Immanuel Kant'’s Critique of Pure Reason was about the syn- thetic a priori proposition, time and space, phenomenon and noumenon, antimonies of reason, all in the realm of the abstract. The other German Idealists, Hegel, Fichte and Schelling, followed the cue from Kant, and they too dealt with the Abstract Idea, the Intelligence- in-itself, the thing-in-itself, far removed from the individual as indi- vidual. Before the end of the 19th century, there was a return to the theme of anthropocentrism. Arthur Schopenhauer wrote in The World as Will and Representation that the world was “my idea”, implying that the world is not just the earth that revolves around its axis, but that there would be no world unless it is one’s own private world. In this world, there exists a tendency, a strong will-to-exist. The world continues to move because of this will. Living as well as non- living things manifest this will, and yet the world has no purpose or reason for its existence. Life has no meaning; it is sadness, hardship and unhappiness. Pleasure is negative because it is only the interval between two pains. In the end, what remains is hunger, pain, fatigue; ina word, suffering. Schopenhauer is known in history as the philosopher of pessi- mism, “If there are any optimists”, he writes, “let them visit the hos- pitals, the prisons, the war zones, the executioner’s scaffold, the poor men’s hovels, the calamity areas, and let us see if they would still remain optimistic.” “If a God created this world,” he continues, “I would not want to be this God, for the misery in the world would break my heart.” Yet, why do people want to continue living? It is due to the sinister will-to-exist. This is nature’s hold on the individual to per- petuate the species. Hence, when persons give in to sex, they become the unwitting tools of the will-to-exist for without being aware of it, they perpetuate grief by giving birth to more human beings. There are only two ways to:escape or havea reprieve -from-this sinister will: art and pity. When we listen to music or look at a beau-36 EMERITA S. QUITO tiful painting, we temporarily forget our misery. When we see people who are more miserable than we are, this is a reprieve from suffering. There is a Spanish saying to this effect: “I cried and cried because I had no shoes until I saw somebody who had no feet.” Then came Friedrich Nietzsche, the last philosopher of the Modern Period. In each one of us, says Nietzsche, there is Ubermensch,® translated as Overman, or a hidden ideal of what we can be, waiting to be expressed. Every man is like a crude block of stone which a sculptor hammers and chisels to reveal the bust within it. Similarly, the Overman will emerge only through effort and sacrifice and the will-to-power. Nietzsche's will-to-power is stronger and more ruthless than Schopenhauer’s will-to-exist, for it is the opposite of meekness, goodness, charity, humility—qualities considered by Nietzsche to be the morality of slaves. Man must “revaluate values’, i.e., look upon the good as evil, and evil as good. He seems to say that we cannot sriumph by being meek and mild. He writes, “The only way to live is to live dangerously.” Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Nietzsche believed in the Master race but he was referring to the Slavic, not to the Germanic, race. Unfortunately, Adolf Hitler misread his favourite philosopher. The idea of Deutschland uber alles, Germany over all, came from a misreading of Nietzsche. As a result of this idea, Hitler caused six million Jews to be killed in order to purify the Master race. Perhaps from hereon, we should not underestimate the power of ideas. The 20th century, known as the Post-Modern era, carried the importance of the individual to the extreme. While there is much to be said of our present century's philosophy, I shall dwell only on two: Phenomenology and Existentialism. Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), father of Phenomenology, revolted against the excessive idealism or abstract ideas of Kant, Hegel, Fichte and Schelling. His battlecry was Zu den Sachen selbst—back to the things themselves. He was implying that we have tarried too long in the realm of the abstract and universal, and we have forgotten about Peter or John or Mary. By means of the phenomenological method, Husserl aimed to arrive at apodicticity or certitude concerning the indi- vidual. To be able to do this, however, we must bracket our previous knowledge; we ought t have tio presuppositions; we must look at the individual with an open mind in order to see him in the proper light.WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 37 Husserl claims that we have always begun with theory regarding the individual. We have always worked from the abstract to the con- crete; we thought individuals to be the same and have applied the same law to them, expecting them to talk and understand and behave in the same manner. But, said Husserl, every individual has his own essence, ie., every individual is unique. Classical philosophers define essence as universal and abstract because it is possessed by all members of a class. For example, man’s essence is rational animality; nothing is said of color, age, nationality, etc. The tree's essence is that it is e plant about 10 ft. high with a trunk firmly rooted to the ground and having twigs and leaves. Nothing is said of what kind of tree it is, or how old it is, etc. The expression “individual essence” is a contra- diction in terms for classical philosophers. Husserl, however, speaks of das Wesenschau, meaning “seeing the essence” or seeing the real individual or real thing, and where true apodicticity or certainty can be found. How can we reach the real individual or thing? ‘The phenomenological method of Husserl is one of the most diffi- cult to understand in Philosophy. As late as 1932, Husserl bewailed the fact that not ten men on earth have understood his phenomenology. In about a thousand pages, he describes his method which is a series of bracketing or suspending or putting into parentheses several layers of consciousness as well as the correlata of these consciousness. Husserl says that there are three levels of consciousness, each level having an object or correlation of consciousness. On the first level of consciousness which he calls the natural stand- point, we perceive an individual or thing. The individual is covered by several layers accruing from custom, tradition, upbringing. The tree is in time and space; it is out there in a meadow on a late afternoon. ‘Thes2 are not yet the real individual or tree. There is yet no apodi ticity or certitude. We could mistake Peter to be Japanese when he is Chinese, or the tree to be a mirage. Our knowledge or relationship with a person may be on a hello-and-goodbye basis such as between professor and student, school or office mates, or mere acquaintances. This is the natural standpoint or first level of consciousness. Once this level is bracketed or-suspended; we reach a second-level. of consciousness called the reflexive I and has for object or correlatum,38 EMERITA S. QUITO a more intimate knowledge of the individual or thing. The tree which was simply out there in the meadow on a late afternon assumes a different aspect when a deeper knowledge of it is reached. Knowledge deepens because of circumstances whereby our relationship with another becomes closer or more intimate. Or as in the case of a tree, we might have developed a better knowledge because we sat under it or fell from it. On this second level of consciousness, we know a person or thing better because of time we spent on them. This is perhaps what the fox meant in Antoine de St. Exupery’s The Little Prince when it said, “It is the time that you spend on your rose that makes your rose so important.” Many psychologists and scientists would agree with Husserl until this second level, but Husserl mentions a third level that we reach the phenomenological I or the pure I, and its object is the real thing. Between the two, i.e., the pure I and the real thing, there is no longer any distance; the two have become congruent, no longer two but one, and it is on this level where two apodicticity or certainty is found. Lest you misunderstood me, sex intimacy is not necessarily on the third level of consciousness. Sex partners may not really know each other even after years of conjugal union. The better example is the relationship between mother and child. A mother does not have to be told that her child is sick or is troubled. There is intimacy between them. When a mother says that she knows her child and is sure her child would not do such an act, this is an apodicticity or certainty which science would find difficult to accept. Many philosophers are not too eager to accept Husserl’s theory since such certainty is not scientific but merely intuitive. Neverthe- less it is a scientific intuition arrived at through a studied metho- dology. The truth is that on this third level, it is we who confer a meaning on the object. For Phenomenology, meaning is not this universal dictionary meaning but always a meaning-for-me. Meanings are therefore personal, they have been arrived at after a series of epoche or bracketing or suspending. Is there an application of Phenomenology to life? The answer is yes. Since phenomenology, education has become tolerant of student “idiosyneracies. Young people now sport different kinds of attire or hairdo. They express their soul in rock music which more matureWHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 39 people do not understand. There are several perceptions or several ways of looking at an object and therefore several meanings also, depending on one's point of view. A tree may be perceived in may ways: by a woodcutter, a chemist, a tourist operator, an ecologist, an envirorimentalist, a poet, each-one seeing a tree in a different way. Examinations cannot—or should not—be this totally objective type; a leeway for subjectivism must be allowed. What is the lesson that can be learned from phenomenology? ‘That we should be tolerant of the other's point of view, that we ought to spend more time with a person if we really want to know him/her, that we are individuals with different tastes, values, peculiarities. Edmund Husserl had many famous students, foremost of whom are Max Scheler, Edith Stein, and the existentialists Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre. It is impossible to encompass all of Existentialism in a few pages, hence I shall dwell only on general lines. For Existentialism, there is no human nature, no universal man. There are only individuals. Man exists first and then fashions his essence later. This is the one concept which all existentialists have in common whether they are theists, like Gabriel Marcel and Karl Jaspers, or atheists, like Martin Heidegger and Jean-Paul Sartre. Martin Heidegger in Sein und Zeit (Being and Time) divided human beings into authentic and inauthentic individuals. The authentic individual is called Dasein, and the inauthentic individual, das Man. Speakers of the German language do not say das Man since Man is indefinite and anonymous, very similar to the French On. When we read on the doors of boutiques “Hier spricht Man Deutsch”, Man can mean anyone, someone in that store speaks German. Hiedegger was able to convey what he meant by using das Man to name the inauthentic individual: he is one who has no face; he does not stand out; he is anonymous. On the other hand, Dasein translates to Being-there. To avoid confusion, translators retain Dasein for obvious reasons What are the characteristics of Dasein and das Man? Dasein realizes that he is thrown into the world (Geworfenheit) and-aban- doned to fend for himself. He understands (Verstehen) that his futurerr 40 EMERITA S. QUITO is his alone to carve; itis a virgin feature or a never-never land that. he alone can tread on. He manifests himself in speech (Rede) which means that he may not hide behind the cloak of anonymity and say, “People say that...” but rather, “I say that...” and own responsibility therefor. He is also a being-towards-Death (Sein-zum-Tode). This does not simply mean the purely biological event at the end of life. Death for Heidegger has a morbid, existential meaning. In order to be authen- tic, Dasein must live his life with the grim reminder of death. Every breath he takes, every morsel of food he ingests, every moment of his life must be permeated with death. Every minute that ticks brings him closer to death; hence, every minute is a reprieve. He says, “As soon as a man is born, he is old enough to die.” Dasein is a project, from the Latin pro-jacere, meaning “to throw ahead,” or to plan. In the special language of Heidegger, Dasein is sich vorweg-im-schon-sein-in-einer-Welt," literally, one-who-is-ahead- of-himself-already-in-the-world, i.e., one who must always have an objective to achieve, one who is a self projecting being in the world. The realization of this tremendous responsibility of Dasein creates in him Angst or anguish. In Angst, writes Heidegger is an unheimlich,!” literally, “un-home-ness” or a disorientation like a great shock that what has always been taken for granted—as the belief that his destiny has already been determined—is not really so. Hence Dasein discovers a new sense of his humanity, a new discovery of self. On the other hand, the inauthentic das Man does not realize that he is abandoned; he does not seek the meaning of life and goes about it in a merry way. He is not anguished. He sends unsigned, ano- nymous letters to his enemies. He is only curious about his future and consults fortune tellers about it. He thinks that death is “later than one thinks.” Jean-Paul Sartre divides reality into en-soi (in-itself), perfect being, incapable of further perfection, and pour-soi (for- itself), imper- fect but conscious being. All other beings except men: plants, animals, heavenly bodies, earth objects, artifacts are en-soi. Man alone can be pour-soi but not all men are. The individual essence of pour-soi is not yet formed; he does not come out of a mould nor is he made aiter a pre-conceived plan. On the other hand, en-soi is static, inert, full and perfect.WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? a1 For Sartre, until the human person sets a goal or objective for himself, he is nothing; he does not exist. He will only begin to exist the moment he “purposes” to be. “Thus the first effect of existentialism is that it puts every man in possession of himself as he is and places the entire responsibility for his existence squarely on his shoulders.”"* Sartre defines pour-soi, the authentic individual, as freedom itself. He says, “Man is not first and then free later but there is not difference between the being of man and his being free.” “Freedom is not added to my being; it is the very fabric of my being.”® For Sartre, when we abdicate freedom, we abdicate our humanity. Since universal man does not exist, human nature is a blank. It is a tabula rasa.on which every authentic individual can paint what he wants human nature to be. By his actions and commitments, he already fashions human nature. The authentic individual is like Adam all over again, for whatever Adam did, impinged on the entire nature of which he was the prototype. The pour-soi must therefore be careful in forming his own essence for he does not only create one for himself but for all mankind. This is what Sartre meant when he said, “In fashioning myself, I fashion man.” Each individual is a species; he is unique. No longer do we say, “Every man is like every other man “as do the Traditionalists, or that “Some men are not like some other men” as the moderates say, but rather “No man is like any other man.” For Sartre man is only what he makes himself to be. This is why he needs a wide latitude of freedom. For the same reason, he is completely responsible for his success or failures. ‘Total freedom implies total responsibility. For all his effort, however pour-soi is doomed from the very start. ‘The tragedy of pour-soi is that at the moment he reaches his goal and becomes perfect, he reverts to en-soi; he becomes a perfect human in the same manner that cows are perfect bovines and dogs are perfect canines. The summary of Sartre’s philosophy is “Man is born by chance, prolongs life by weakness, and dies by accident.” Gabriel Marcel, the Catholic existentialist, also speaks of the authentic individual, as a moi, one who ex-ists, literally meaning “to stand out.” Marcel says that all of us are born into a society, a family,42 EMERITA S. QUITO. a clan, a community. As such, we are faceless and anonymous. But the moment we ask the fundamental question, “What am I?” we begin to stand out from society and assume a distinct personality. We ex-ist. By existing or becoming moi,” however, we are breaking up society where from we came, resulting in a broken world. But the be- all and end-all of existence is not simply to stand out. We must have disponibilite, a beautiful word which means availability, readiness to help others or treating them as foi.” Marcel’s belief in God now comes to the fore. Only when we use the familiar toi or thou to our fellowmen can we hope to have a relationship with the Absolute Thou (Toi absolu) who is God. Karl Jaspers, the Christian existentialist, was a Doctor of Medi- cine and had authored a book on Psychopathology before he realized that science could not answer life’s questions. Jaspers says that there are stages of being human: 1) those who are just there (da-sein), 2) those who are at least conscious of environ- ment (Bewusstsein uberhaupt), 3) those who are conscious of a global context (Geist), 4) those who are aware of Totality. Only the fourth and the highest stage is the stage of authenticity or that of Existenz. Existenz, the authentic individual undergoes Boundary Situations (Grenzsituationen), namely, struggle Kampf, suffering Leid, guilt Schuld, and death Tod. One who does not struggle is not authentic. Only those who struggle towards an objective or goal can be Existenz. One who does not suffer is not eligible for authenticity. Only those who feel guilt whether for one’s failures or the sins of one’s forefathers are capable of becoming Existenz. Lastly, only those who are conscious of death, those who never forget that they are not going to live forever on this earth can be called Existenz. Jaspers claims that death gives Existenz the sobering thought of man’s finiteness, and he is thus shorn of his pride and conceit. One who is always conscious of death is authentic. Jaspers’ doctrine of the ciphers is tied up with Existenz. He claims that events in life have no meaning in themselves; they are neutral events; they are neither positive or negative. It is Existenz who confers a meaning on them. Wealth or winning in the lottery is always con- sidered positive, and poverty or failure is considered negative. Nothing can be farther from the truth, says Jaspers. If poverty motivates andWHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 43 spurs an individual to achieve his goal by working harder, then poverty is positive. If'a rich man or one who wins in the lottery squander his money in harmful pleasures, then wealth is negative. Sometimes too, a positive event becomes negative or what was a curse turns into a plessing. Any event can lead a person either to hope or despair, to per- severe or to give up. A shipwreck is a cipher. It depends on Existenz whether to give it a positive or negative value. As such, triumphs and failures are so only when Existenz considers them as such. What can be learned from Existentialism? It is a reminder that because of our age of mechanization and computerization, man begins to feel that he too is like the machine he manipulates. The problems and cares of our post-modern age have become so numerous that he easily drowns in a sea of activity relating to the earning of the daily bread. But alas, man does not live by bread alone and, as Martin Buber says in I and Thou,most unexpectedly man “suddenly wakes up in terror and feels the world pinning him down.” The one important lesson of Existentialism is that if a person wants to achieve a goal and is willing to work for it, there is no reason why he will not achieve it. ‘The study of the individual is only one facet of philosophy. There are other facets such as the world, as in the Philosophy of Science; God, as in Theodicy; knowledge, as in Epistemology; morality, as in Ethies; reality, as in Metaphysics; valid thinking, as in Logic. All of them constitute Philosophy, formerly known as the queen of the sciences. ‘There is a decided advantage in studying. It enriches our back- ground and keeps us abreast of intellectual movements all over the world. It makes us total engineers, total scientists, educated specia- lists, well-rounded, well-prepared, well-developed, at home in any intellectual conversation. Philosophy produces total persons. Philosophy is a decision, a unique desire to find ourselves as indi- viduals, to discover a new Weltanschauung or a manner of looking at the world, to forge a new relationship with the Supreme Being. In a word, philosophy teaches us how to live and how to die.44 EMERITA S. QUITO ENDNOTES 1 Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), p.9. 2 Confucius, Analects, Book VII, 15. 3 Emérita S. Quito, A Life of Philosophy (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1990), p. 73. 4 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenologie de la Perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), p. 22. 5 At that early time, the Indian thinkers were bereft of divine revela- tion. The Christian Bible was to appear only several centuries later. I have to mention this historical datum in case one summarily discards Asian thought owing to its pantheism. 6 Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, 2.1-2.1.20; 2.5.2-2.5.18. 7 Analects, op cit., Book XII, 2. ® Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Pl, Q. 2, A.3. ®René Descartes, Principles dela Philosophie 1 er partie, V. 10 René Descartes, Discours de la Methode, 2 partie, 1 er regle. 1 Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, 2 Vols. (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), Vol. I p. 325. 22 Ibid. 18 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (Great Britain: Penguin Classics, 1969). 14 Husserl wrote a total of 40,000 pages of which only 3000 pages were published in Holland in the German language. Of his famous work entitled Ideen zu einer reinen Phaenomenologie und phaenomenoloigschen Philosophie consisting of three volumes, only the first volume is available in English under the title, Ideas. Husserl was a Jew and his papers had to be smuggled out of Germany during Hitler’s time. 1 Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tubingen: Max Niemeyer, 1960) p. 245. 18 Jbid., p. 192.WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? 45 19 Jean-Paul Sartre, Letre et le neant, (Paris: Gallimard, 1960) p. 61 20 Ibid., p. 514. 21 Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism is a Humanism.” 2 The French often use the indefinite and impersonal On even when they refer to themselves or to definite persons in order to avoid intimacy or familiarity or responsibility. The use of the word moi makes the person responsible for his statement. 28 The toi in French is used rarely by foreigners and sparingly even by the French, since it is too familiar. The French vous on the other hand, is not too formal and may be used by married couples like Napoleon and Jose- phine. When relationships becomes closer or intimate, people use the toi. 24 Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, 2 vols. (Chicago: Gateway edition, 1964) Vol. I Journal Metaphysique (Paris: Gallimard, 1935). 25 Karl Jaspers, Philosophie, 3 vols. (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1956) Vol. T, p. 203. 26 Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: The Scribner Library, 1958), p.70.