INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

LESSON 1 FREEDOM

LET’S EXPLORE

1. take everything you want inside the mall

Stay in a luxurious hotel without paying

get money in the bank

Travel without paying anything

get a car and drive without drivers’ license

2. I will vote for NO because there would be total chaos and anarchy in every sphere of life,
and social order would cease to exist. However, from the point of view of existential
philosophy man is condemned to be free, and he is endowed with the unique position of
freedom of choice which is ironically the sole source of his anxiety, agony and dilemma
during period of his life on earth being based on temporality.

LESSON 2 INTERSUBJECTIVITY

LET’S EXPLORE

1. Transactional relationship is all about the short -term. Get the sail of all costs. The focus is on
winning this one sale without much thought to the costumers needs or the longer term.
Relational selling is all about building long-term relationship.
2. A. I thou relationship- it refers to the world of encounters and relationships where there are
persons. It is a concrete encounter without any qualification or objectification of one another.
B. I and It Relationship- it refers to the world of experience and sensation where there are
objects.
C. I and God Relationship- it is through relationships in the context of ‘being’ (not in the context
of ‘having’) that the love of the I-thou overcomes death and meaninglessness. A conscious effort
to overcome ‘death and meaninglessness” is genuinely needed

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1. Mutual Respect-
way of seeing intersubjectivity in relation to respect is that by keeping an open mind and
accepting that people will always be different from one another due to their own experiences
and learned behavior, people can still get along by agreeing to respect one another and agreeing
to disagree on certain things.
 2. Genuine Communication-
Genuine communication means speaking, active listening, understanding and action.
3. “To be is to be with”-
to be is to be with “simply means -one has to accept what is real and what is reality surrounding
him or her
4. Love and Justice-
Justice (properly put) is a rational agreement between all concerned parties about the correct
method for redressing a wrong. You can think of this in terms of Kant’s Categorical Imperative:
take no action except that one might will it to be a universal law. So in order for the means of
redressing wrong X to be considered just, we must all be willing to accept it if we ourselves
commit wrong X.
5. “Responsibility and Justice”-
justice tries to eliminate bias. Someone who commits a wrong is biased towards softer and
gentler forms of redressing wrongs; someone who is the victim of a wrong is biased towards
harsher and more extreme forms. Bystanders may be biased one way or the other depending on
their inclinations; authorities are generally biased towards harsher punishments because
authorities are primarily interested in maintaining order through fear, not in redressing wrongs.
Justice can only be achieved by finding a balance that all parties (including the victim and the
perpetrator) could agree to in principle: an intersubjective agreement.

II.

Every day, people are confronted with conflicts. At some point in our life, we are all confronted with a
difficult situation and are unsure of how to go. An inner conflict, a conflict between oneself and nature,
a dispute between oneself and another person, a fight between oneself and God, or a conflict between
oneself and society are examples of such conflicts. This paper will recount a conflict that occurred in my
life.

The biggest conflict I have experienced so far is whether or not continue to do my passion- Drag Racing. I
have been loving riding motorcycles since time immemorial. Every time I ride, I seem to forget all of my
problems. But one event led me to questioning if I still have to continue this passion. I got into an
accident which almost led me to a great injury. This did not just hurt me physically but emotionally as
well. My mom got so devastated. My family was so sad because of what happened to me. This led me to
questioning myself, should I continue riding motorcycles even if my family is not happy? Even if they feel
nervous every time I ride?

What I did was to make it a secret to my family. I continued my passion. Until they learnt about it. My
mom was so angry. We had a heated argument. After that, she did not speak to me for so long. I had to
be the one to compromise. I said sorry to her.

This illustrates how easily a simple misunderstanding can escalate into a conflict between family. Family
is expected to be reliable, willing to listen, caring and supportive. Family should be able to work through
whatever problems no matter what. Two parts to effective communication involves: presenting
information and active listening. Without both, resolving conflict is impossible, as is maintaining your
good ties with your family. Practice these skills: Think before speaking. Know exactly what message you
want to convey. Make sure your family has your full attention and understands your meaning. Stay
focused on the matter at hand, be clear and precise. Listen to yourself speak.
LESSON 3 THE HUMAN PERSON IN SOCIETY

LET’S EXPLORE

1. With dominate transactional business relationships we end up being controlled from a mafia
perspective. It is all about respect of the dark light ways of greed, selfishness, and control by
punishment. With a dominate personal relationship is about control using bullying techniques.
Creating and then dominating control dramas. At this time, it is close to the end of business as
usual. The window of opportunity to shift in consciousness will soon begin to close. Free will
with love and light reigns supreme. For people who need to dominate others, they are now
imprisoning themselves within the laws and punishments of the dark light path. When we relate
from a dominating transactional or personal position, our relationships are going to be toxic by
degrees.
2. If social order is destroyed the structure of society becomes homogenous with individualistic
entities and cannot survive. Society needs some entity to distinguish stratification to ensure
social order.
3. Habermas's thought since these tend, I think, to have to do with the degree to ... Perhaps the
decisive step in his formation as a thinker was.

LET’S EVALUATE

1. Distinguish between transactional and personal relations

Transactional relationship is all about the short -term. Get the sail of all costs. The focus is on
winning this one sale without much thought to the costumers needs or the longer term.
Relational selling is all about building long-term relationship.

2. Explain the following concepts:

a. Three main spheres of society
three spheres of society – the political, economic, and cultural. The conviction here is that
when economy, culture, and polity are relatively independent of one another, they check,
balance, and correct one another and thus lead to greater social health and progress. This
should not be confused with laissez-faire economics, however. Steiner was concerned
rather that businesses should not be able to buy favorable laws and regulations, and that
governments should regulate the economy and protections for workers impartially and not
be corrupted by participating in business. A sphere of life calls forth interests arising only
within that sphere. Out of the economic sphere one can develop only economic interests. If
one is called out of this sphere to produce legal judgements as well, then these will merely
be economic interests in disguise
b. Transactional and personal relationships in the 3 main spheres of society
three would only become mutually corrective and function together in a healthy way
when each was granted sufficient independence. increased autonomy for the three
spheres would not eliminate their mutual influence, but would cause that influence to be
exerted in a more healthy and legitimate manner, because the increased separation
would prevent any one of the three spheres from dominating the others, as they had
frequently done in the past
 c. Communicative action in the lifeworld
Jürgen Habermas proposes a theory of “communicative action” and sets it within a concept
of society he calls “lifeworld.” In both his Theory of Communicative Action and later in
Between Facts and Norms, Habermas describes the “lifeworld” as the basic conception of
society, to be amended or supplemented only for cause. In addition, Habermas argues that
in the course of social evolution, systems of economic and political action arise whereby
action is coordinated by the consequences of self-interested action, rather than consensual
understanding.
d. Colonization of the lifeworld
According to Habermas' colonization thesis, reification is a social pathology that
arises when the communicative infrastructure of the lifeworld is 'colonized' by money
and power. ... As a result, Habermas cannot explain why only some forms of
colonization lead to reification effects.

LESSON 4 THE HUMAN PERSON AS BEING UNTO…

LET’S EXPLORE

1. Denying the existence of an afterlife doesn't have to be about cowardice as opposed to courage
– after all, everyone's going to make this journey one way or the other. And some of the many
different visions of what the afterlife might be like may be more reasonable and more
persuasive than others. Tune in and decide for yourself.
2. Belief in the afterlife is little more than a comforting fantasy to suggesting just the opposite.
After all, people who believe in the afterlife are like people who knowingly set out on a journey
to a distant land that they know just might not exist. Cowards don’t do that. Only people with
the courage to take a leap of faith into the unknown. There’s nothing comforting about that.