M

DR. AURELIO MENDOZA MEMORIAL COLLEGES

Poblacion, Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay

0
d Introduction To
Philosophy & Logic
u
l
e Week 1 & 2 (6 hours)
Philo 2

1 Introduction to Philosophy

Instructor: Mr. Ernesto M. Abesamis, JD

 Introduction to Philosophy

Why do we need to study Philosophy?

a.) It helps us clarify issues, discriminate among options and make better
decisions. Philosophy helps us to choose the better choice or options.

b.) Philosophy has a practical side. Philosophy is something that we can do. It
helps us to be critical and with the help of philosophy, we protect ourselves from
destructive ideas.

c.) Philosophy can be a pleasurable and inspirational element in our life. It helps
us to recognize the truth and the false, real and unreal.

d.) Philosophy assists us to the truth of commitment and that commitment

involves faith. As according to Samuel Butler “You can do very little with faith but you
can do nothing without it.” This means that thinking should guide our faith not faith
guiding our thinking.

According to Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers “every human being must philosophize
because first of all philosophy is everybody’s business; every time we reason, we use
philosophy.”

People come to philosophy by many different routes. The physicist Schrödinger, who developed
some of the key concepts of modern quantum theory, was drawn into philosophy by the
profoundly puzzling nature of the world he and others discovered when they started to examine
things on the scale of the atom. One of my former mentors came to philosophy when, as a
teenager, he was first developing adult relationships of friendship and love. He was perplexed
about how easy it was to think you understood somebody and then discover that you had not
understood her at all. This led him to wonder whether we ever really know what is going on in
other people’s minds. And many people come to philosophy when they are trying, as we say, to
“find themselves”: to make sense of their lives and to decide who they are.

If, for these or any other reasons, you come to have an interest in philosophy, it is natural to turn
to the works of great philosophers. But for most people the content of these works is rather a
shock. Instead of offering direct answers to these questions—What is physical reality really like?
Can we ever be sure we know what other people are thinking? Who am I? —a philosopher is
likely to start with questions that seem to him or her more basic than these . . . but which may
seem to others far less interesting. Instead of beginning by asking what we can know about other
people’s thoughts, a philosopher is likely to start by asking what it is to know anything at all—
thus beginning with epistemology, which is the philosophical examination of the nature of
knowledge. Despite the natural disappointment it produces, I think that starting with these
fundamental questions makes sense. Let me suggest an image that might help you to see why.

Imagine you are lost in a large old city in Africa or Asia or Europe. Every way you turn there is
interest and excitement. But you’d like to know where you are. The trouble is that just when you
think you have found your way out of one maze of alleys; you are plunged into another. If, in
your wanderings, you climb to the top of a tall tower, you can look down over the streets you
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have been lost in, and suddenly everything begins to make sense. You see where you should
have turned one way but went another; you realize that the little shop you walked past, with the
cat in the window, was only yards away from the garden in the next street, which you found
hours later. And when you get back down into the maze you find your way easily. Now you
know your way about.

In this subject we shall find ourselves discussing the nature of morality, when we set out to
decide whether it is always wrong to kill an innocent person; we shall end up talking about what
it is for a theory to be scientific when we started out wondering about the claims of astrologers.
And when this happens, I think it will help to bear in mind this image of being lost in an old city.
When we move to these abstract questions, apparently remote from the practical concerns we
started with, what we are doing is like climbing up that tower. From up there we can see our
way around the problems. So that when we get back down into the city, back to the concrete
problems that started us out, we should find it easier to get around.

People are normally introduced to philosophy by one of two routes. The first is through reading
the more accessible of the great historical texts of philosophy—Plato’s dialogues, for example, or
Descartes’ Meditations. The second is by examining some central philosophical question: “What is
knowledge?” say, or “Is morality objective?” We shall be following this second route, but I shall
discuss the views of some of the great philosophers on the central questions on the way. Still, it is
important to keep in mind that I will always be trying to move toward a philosophical
understanding of the problem I am looking at, rather than trying to give a historically accurate
account of a past philosopher.

It is fashionable, at the moment, to stress the way that the central problems of philosophy change
over time. People say that no one nowadays can really be concerned with all of the problems that
worried Plato. There is some truth in this. There are things in Plato that it is hard to understand
or get excited by: much of the theory in the Symposium about the nature of love, for example, is
likely to seem to a modern reader hopelessly wrong. Fortunately, however, a good deal more in
Plato is extremely interesting and relevant: his Theaetetus, which is a dramatic dialogue about the
nature of knowledge, remains one of the great classics of philosophy, which we’ll touch later in
the semester.

So, the reason we continue to read Plato and many other philosophers between his time and ours
is not simple curiosity about the history of our subject. Rather, we find in the great works of the
past clues to a deeper understanding of the philosophical questions that trouble us now. That’s
why mentioning Plato and Descartes isn’t some kind of concession to the proponents of the
historical route into philosophy. It isn’t even just a concession to old habits in the teaching of
philosophy. It is simply a reflection of the facts that make the historical route work.

Philosophy, like all scholarly disciplines, has its own technical terms. We use them because
technical language allows you to keep track of important distinctions and to speak and write in
ways that are somewhat more precise than our everyday talk. The important thing is to grasp the
ideas these terms express and the distinctions they make and to see how these distinctions and
ideas can be used in arguments that deepen our understanding. And one general rule to keep in
mind was set out by the Greek philosopher Aristotle about twenty-five hundred years ago: he
insisted that we should adopt the degree of precision appropriate to the subject matter. We could
say, more generally, that distinctions are worth making only if they do some work in an
argument or help us to see something we wouldn’t otherwise see. The technical terms are tools
for a purpose, not the point of the exercise. As far as possible, contemporary philosophers
actually prefer to use what the English philosopher Bernard Williams once called “moderately
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plain speech.” So, while philosophy has a technical vocabulary, doing philosophy means more
than knowing and throwing around those special terms.

Now I’m going to start straight in with Mind and this may seem surprising. You might have
supposed that a good question to answer at the beginning of an introductory philosophy book is:
“What is philosophy?” But I think that is a mistake, and if we consider the same question about a
different subject, I think you will see why.

So, consider the question: “What is physics?” If you asked what physics was, you might well get
the answer that it is the study of the physical world. In some ways this isn’t a very helpful
answer. One trouble is that if you take the answer broadly, then biology is a branch of physics:
living organisms are part of the physical world. But this just shows that not every part of the
physical world gets studied in physics. Which aspects are the physical aspects? Well, if you knew
that, and were thus able to rule out biological questions, you would already be well on the way
to knowing what physics is.

Nevertheless, there is a reason why most of us don’t find this answer just unhelpful. We learned
some physics in high school, and so we already have lots of examples of physical experiments
and problems to draw on. These examples allow us to understand what is meant by “the
physical world”: it consists of those aspects of the world that are like the ones we studied in high
school physics. If we tell someone who has never done any physics that physics is the systematic
study of the physical world, we should not be surprised if they find our answer rather unhelpful.

There is a lesson here for how we should begin to develop an understanding of what philosophy
is. What it suggests is that rather than tackling the question head on, we should look at some
examples of philosophical work. With these examples in mind it won’t be so unhelpful to be
given an answer like the one we got to “What is physics?” For if we end up by saying that
philosophy is the study of philosophical problems, that won’t be uninformative if we have an
idea of what some of the major philosophical problems are. So, I’m not going to start this module
by telling you what I—or anyone else— think philosophy is. I’m going to start by doing some.
Just as you are in a better position to understand what physics is when you have done some, so
you will be better able to see how philosophy fits into our thought and our culture when you
have a “feel” for how philosophers argue and what they argue about.

The Origin of Philosophy

The origin of philosophy is rooted in the origin of the state. The state is not a mere assemblage of
people upon a certain territory. It is an assemblage of people upon a certain territory with a
purpose which is to live the good life. The good life according to a people is always determined and
defined by their ideology implicitly and explicitly. The totality of the laws, the morals and the
cultural practices of a people are a function of their ideology. Philosophy and religion are at the
service of ideology. Philosophy and religion are same enterprise with different methodologies.
Both of them aim at the preservation of the ideology and purpose of the state. Sometimes the
attainment of the purpose of the state requires a fundamental change or a modification in their
ideology. Philosophy does this easier than religion for philosophy is by methodology amenable
to change while religion is by methodology resistant to change.

The diverging point between philosophy and religion is that while philosophy seeks the
realization of the good life for the state relying solely on reason or rationality, religion seeks the
good life for the state relying solely on faith in a given revelation. The reliance of religion on
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revelation which is a temporal event of a certain era makes it resistance to change for revelation
is not a continuous event. It is not dynamic. Revelation once documented cannot be altered.
Hence any event unforeseen by the revelation becomes an automatic source of tension to the
religion that results from such a revelation. Philosophy on the other hand is open-ended and
dynamic. It does not lay claim to any revelation or any doctrine as the final truth. Philosophy
indeed, celebrates change and responds to any new event with a new philosophy.

Much of the history of philosophy is the history of the tension between philosophy and religion.
They are like the two opposite ends of a straight line. The crux of the tension is the interpretation
of truth. For religion, truth is static; it is a revelation; "as it was in the beginning, it is now, and
ever shall be". Philosophy on the other hand, sees truth as dynamic. The cosmos is characterized
by change. The truth about the cosmos must necessarily be characterized by change.

To the question, what is philosophy? The answer may be like: philosophy is the enterprise at the
service of the society that seeks the truth about the good life and the cosmos using the sole power
of reason. By stating that philosophy is an enterprise, it is hereby emphasized that it is a
deliberate endeavor. By stating that it is at the service of the society, it is hereby emphasized that
philosophy does not happen in vacuum. Philosophy is not an abstract exercise but a community
endeavor that is at the service of the society. Philosophy seeks the truth about the good life for
the state exists essentially to live the good life. The organization of the state reflects its
understanding of the good life. Philosophy seeks to prescribe for individuals as well as the state,
the conducts that would guarantee the good life. Philosophy seeks the truth about the cosmos.
Philosophy is ambitious of interpreting the cosmos in bits and as a whole. Whenever, the
interpretation of a particular aspect of the cosmos becomes too complex and too technical for
philosophy to handle while attempting to understand the cosmos as a whole, philosophy leaves
it for a branch of science. It rather relies on the information provided by specialists in that field of
science and places it in perspective in its interpretation of the cosmos.

To be able to live the good life, man must know his place in the cosmos for he is a part and parcel
of the cosmos. It is in the cosmos that he has his being. His fate is tied to the fate of the cosmos. If
the cosmos is a divine project intended for a divine purpose, man has to discover this divine
purpose, interpret it, understand it and attune his life to it. It is the position of religion that the
cosmos is a divine project. History however shows that the priestly class has always claimed the
monopoly of the knowledge, interpretation of this divine purpose. They normally claim a
revelation of this purpose to one of their own who they variously refer to as founder, demigod, a
god or a prophet. In some religions, this revelation is written down and taken as the final
authority. Hence, they suppress any ideology which is inimical to their interpretation of the
cosmos or their revelation.

Philosophy on the other hand rejects revelation entirely. Even when philosophers hold that the
cosmos is a divine project, they do not bequeath the interpretation of the nature and purpose of
the project to any revelation or the priestly class. At all times they hold the project discoverable
and accountable to reason. Philosophers have not always attributed the cosmos to a god.
Sometimes, they attributed the cosmos to nature, and to the tension and chagrin of the priestly
class interpreted the cosmos accordingly.

Philosophy is said to have originated in Miletus in the present-day Greece. The first philosopher
was said to be Thales of Miletus. But these assertions are actually Western biases. Thales himself
admits that he travelled to Egypt to be tutored in philosophy. If Thales went to Egypt to learn
philosophy, it meant there must have been a school of philosophy in Egypt. There must have
been teachers and students of philosophy in that school. Therefore, Thales could not have been
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the first philosopher in recorded history. It should rather be said that Thales was the first
recorded philosopher in the Western world. The 'West' here means Western Europe and North
America (U.S.A and Canada).

Rather than Miletus popularly touted by the Western bias, formal philosophy actually originated
in Egypt. Until the destruction of Egyptian culture by the Islamic revolution in the seventh
century, the coastal town of Alexandria which was then the capital of Egypt flourished in culture
and learning. The school of Alexandria was a flourishing hub of learning. It is a tragedy that
most of the writings housed in Alexandria did not survive the vicissitudes of history. Philosophy
and science had been indeed flourishing in Egypt long before Thales philosophized in Miletus.
The eclipse of the sun which Thales predicted was an art he learnt in Egypt. The Egyptians
measured the length of pyramids by measuring the shadow it cast at the time the shadow cast on
the body is equal to a person's height.

Unlike Europe where the philosophic exercise was individualistic, in Egypt it was rather
communal. In the history of Western Philosophy, philosophers strive to personalize the
philosophic enterprise. There are frequent cases of individuals modifying communal knowledge
in a bid to personalize the credit. For instance, the assertion that all things came from water was
a common assumption at the time of Thales, yet he personalized it. In African Philosophy
however, knowledge is viewed as a property of the community. There were no such attempts at
personalizing the credit for knowledge which is there in the community. Even when such
knowledge is modified or improved upon, it is done for the community. It is not presented as a
new idea by an individual. But the reverse is the case in the Western of tradition. The communal
nature of African philosophy deprived it of the kind of individualism that characterized
philosophy in the Western tradition. It was this kind of individualism that gave Thales credit of
originality for merely writing down what the community already believed. The second factor
that downplayed Egyptian philosophy was the burning of books in the Alexandrian libraries by
the conquering Mohammedans who overran Egyptian culture. The destruction of Alexandrian
writings and the absence of the art of writing in most African literary traditions led to the
collapse of the communal credit mode knowledge transmission and the subsequent success and
supremacy of the Western individualistic model which is use today.

Again, the student must be conscious and wary of the bias in Western literature. The experience
of slavery and colonialism led to the degrading of everything African. Colonial literature viewed
Africans as inferior humans who are incapable of philosophy. Hence the Western bias in
ascribing the origin of philosophy to Greece rather than Egypt despite overwhelming literary
evidence. Every author writes from a value system, and for an audience. Therefore, the bias of
the value system and his audience will invariably filter through the writing. It is not surprising
therefore, that most books written by Western philosophers attribute the best of philosophy to
the West.

Meaning of Philosophy

The term 'philosophy' was coined by a philosopher-mathematician known as Pythagoras. He

formed the term from two Greek words: 'philos' which means love, and 'sophia' which means
wisdom. So, philosophy literally means love of wisdom. It is pertinent to note that formal
philosophy has existed for hundreds of years before Pythagoras gave it that name. In other
words, he was not the first philosopher. He merely renamed a phenomenon which has been in
existence. Philosophers who existed before him must have known philosophy by a certain name,
certain names or some description. In Pythagoras' era, superstitious beliefs held sway.
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Philosophy was the much-needed wisdom that would enable one to extricate oneself from the
web of superstitions around which the conventional order has been woven.

Philosophy can mean different things in different contexts. For instance, everyone has a
philosophy of life. In this context, philosophy means a set of principles or values that guides one's
life. In the bible, Paul charges his audience to beware of philosophy. In this concept, philosophy
means atheism and anti-Christian way of life. Sophistry and argumentativeness are sometimes
termed as philosophy. Philosophy is in certain quarters regarded as stargazing and bandying of
meaningless abstractions.

But philosophy is an inquiry. It is methodic and rational inquiry into the ultimate causes of
things. Philosophy goes beyond the face value of things and investigates their root causes.
Philosophy analyses the relationship between things and the language of the investigation itself.
The subject of matter of philosophy is reality. Therefore, philosophy investigates the ultimate
causes of reality. Philosophy asks the question of "why" and "how". It is the ambition of
philosophy to give interpretation to reality as a whole. While different fields of study concern
themselves with specific aspects of reality, philosophy concerns itself with reality as a whole.
Biology may explain in the parts of the human body in detail but it can never explain why the
human body has its form in the first place. Biology cannot why humans have a will and
consciously make choices. It cannot explain what life is neither can it pinpoint the actual location
of life in the body. Biology cannot address the question whether man has a soul or not. It cannot
answer the question whether life has a purpose or whether it is a meaningless exercise of chance.
Philosophy attempts to address these questions in other to give humanity a deeper
understanding of existence.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

— Socrates, fifth century BCE

Know thyself!
— Oracle at Delphi (Socrates’ motto) _

Philosophy is all about our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves and the world. Doing
philosophy, therefore, is first of all the activity of stating, as clearly and as convincingly as
possible, what we believe and what we believe in. This does not mean, however, that
announcing one’s allegiance to some grand-sounding ideas or, perhaps, some impressive word
or “ism” is all that there is to philosophy. Philosophy is the development of these ideas, the
attempt to work them out with all their implications and complications. It is the attempt to see
their connections and compare them with other people’s views—including the classic statements
of the great philosophers of the past.

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It is the effort to appreciate
Socrates was one of the greatest philosophers of all times,
the differences between
though he never recorded his philosophy in writing. (All that we
one’s own views and
know of him comes down to us from his student Plato and other
others’ views, to be able to
philosophers.) Socrates was born in 470 BCE and lived his whole
argue with someone who
long life in Athens. He had a spectacular gift for rhetoric and
disagrees and resolve the
debating. He had a much-gossiped-about marriage, had several
difficulties that they may
children, and lived in poverty most of his life. He based his
throw in your path. One of
philosophy on the need to “know yourself” and on living the
my former students once
“examined life,” even though the height of wisdom, according
suggested that she found it
to Socrates, was to know how thoroughly ignorant we are. Much
easy to list her main ideas
of his work was dedicated to defining and living the ideals of
on a single sheet of paper;
wisdom, justice, and the good life. In 399 BCE he was placed on
what she found difficult
trial by the Athenians for “corrupting the youth” with his ideas.
was showing how they
He was condemned to death, refused all opportunities to escape
related to one another and
or have his sentence repealed, and accepted the cruel and unfair
how she might defend
verdict with complete dignity and several brilliant speeches,
them against someone
dying as well as living for the ideas he defended.
who disagreed with her. In
effect, what she was
saying was something like this: she would really enjoy playing as a forward with the basketball
team, as long as she didn’t have to cooperate with the other players—and then only until the
other team came onto the court. But playing basketball is cooperating with your team and
running against the team that is out to stop you; in the same vein, philosophy is the attempt to
coordinate a number of different ideas into a single viewpoint and defending what you believe
against those who are out to refute you. Indeed, a belief that can’t be tied in with a great many
other beliefs and that can’t withstand criticism may not be worth believing at all.

To defend your ideas is quite different from insisting, no matter how self-righteously, on the
mere sound of a word. To say that you believe in freedom, for instance, may make you feel
proud and righteous, but this has nothing to do with philosophy or, for that matter, with
freedom, unless you are willing to spell out exactly what it is you stand for, what it is that you
believe, and why it is that this freedom, as you call it, is so desirable. But most students, as well as
many professional philosophers, get caught up in such attractive, admirable words, which we
can call “buzzwords.” These sound as if they refer to something quite specific and concrete (like
the word dog), but in fact they are among the most difficult words to understand, and they
provide us with the hardest problems in philosophy. Freedom sounds as if it means breaking out
of prison or being able to speak one’s mind against a bad government policy; but when we try to
say what it is that ties these two examples together, and many more besides, it soon becomes
clear that we don’t know exactly what we’re talking about. Indeed, virtually everyone believes in
freedom, but the question is what it is that they believe in. Similarly, many people use such
words as truth, reality, morality, love, and even God as buzzwords, words that make us feel good
just because we say them. But to express the beliefs these words supposedly represent is to do
something more than merely say the words; it is also to say what they mean and what it is in the
world (or out of it) to which we are referring. Buzzwords are like badges; we use them to
identify ourselves. But it is equally important to know
what the badges stand for.

The words science and art are examples of how some buzzwords seem to be ways of identifying
ourselves. How many dubious suggestions and simpleminded advertisements cash in on the
respectability of the word scientific? What outrageous behavior is sometimes condoned on the
grounds that it is artistic? And in politics, what actions have not been justified in the name of
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national security or self-determination? Such buzzwords not only block our understanding of the
true nature of our behavior, but they also can be an obstacle—rather than an aid—in philosophy.
Philosophers are always making up new words, often by way of making critical distinctions. For
example, the words subjective and objective, once useful philosophical terms, now have so many
meanings and are so commonly abused that the words by themselves hardly mean anything at
all.
Would-be philosophers, including some of the more verbally fluent philosophy students, may
think that they are doing philosophy when they merely string together long noodle chains of
such impressive terms. But philosophical terms are useful only insofar as they stay tied down to
the problems they are introduced to solve, and they retain the carefully defined meanings they
carry. Buzzwords become not aids for thinking but rather substitutes for thinking, and long
noodle chains of such terms, despite their complexity, are intellectually without nutritional
value.

The abuse of buzzwords explains the importance of that overused introductory philosophical
demand, “Define your terms.” In fact, it is very difficult to define your terms, and most of the
time, the definition emerges at the end of the thought process rather than at the beginning. You
think you know quite well what you mean. But when certain philosophical terms enter our
discussion, it is clear why this incessant demand has always been so important; many students
seem to think that they have learned some philosophy just because they have learned a new and
impressive word or two. But that’s like believing that you have learned how to ski just because
you have tried on the boots. The truth, however, is to be found in what you go on to do with
them.

Articulation and Argument: Two Crucial Features of Philosophy

Philosophy is, first of all,

reflection. It is stepping Primary Features of Philosophy:
back, listening to yourself
and other people Articulation: putting your ideas in clear, concise, readily
(including the great understandable language.
philosophers), and trying
to understand and Argument: supporting your ideas with reasons from other
evaluate what it is that ideas, principles, and observations to establish your conclusions
you hear, and what it is and overcome objections.
that you believe. To
formulate your own Analysis: understanding an idea by distinguishing and
philosophy is to say what clarifying its various components. For example, the idea of
it is that you believe as “murder” involves three component ideas: killing,
clearly and as thoroughly wrongfulness, and intention.
as possible. Often, we
believe that we believe Synthesis: gathering together different ideas into a single,
something, but as soon as unified vision. For example, the Pythagorean notion of the
we try to write it down “harmony of the spheres” synthesizes mathematics, music,
or explain it to a friend, physics, and astronomy.
we find that what
seemed so clear a moment ago has disappeared, as if it evaporated just as we were about to
express it. Sometimes, too, we think we don’t have any particular views on a subject, but once we
begin to discuss the topic with a friend it turns out that we have very definite views, as soon as
they are articulated. Articulation—spelling out our ideas in words and sentences—is the primary
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process of philosophy. Sitting down to write out your ideas is an excellent way to articulate
them, but most people find that an even better way, and sometimes far more relaxed and
enjoyable, is simply to discuss these ideas with other people—classmates, good friends, family—
or even, on occasion, a stranger with whom you happen to strike up a conversation. Indeed,
talking with another person not only forces you to be clear and concrete in your articulation of
your beliefs; it allows you—or forces you—to engage in a second essential feature of doing
philosophy: arguing for your views. Articulating your opinions still leaves open the question
whether they are worth believing, whether they are well thought out and can stand up to
criticism from someone who disagrees with you. Arguments serve the purpose of testing our
views; they are to philosophy what practice games are to sports—ways of seeing just how well
you are prepared, how skilled you are, and, in philosophy, just how convincing your views
really are.

Articulating and arguing your opinions has another familiar benefit: stating and defending a
view is a way of making it your own. Too many students, in reading and studying philosophy,
look at the various statements and arguments of the great philosophers as if they were merely
displays in some intellectual museum, curiously contradicting each other, but, in any case,
having no real relevance to us. But once you have adopted a viewpoint, which most likely was
defended at some time by one or more of the philosophical geniuses of history, it becomes very
much your own as well. Indeed, doing philosophy almost always includes appealing to other
philosophers in support of your own views, borrowing their arguments and examples as well as
quoting them when they have striking things to say (with proper credit in a footnote, of course).
It is by doing philosophy, articulating and arguing your views, instead of just reading about other
people’s philosophy books, that you make your own views genuinely your own, that is, by
working with them, stating them publicly, defending them, and committing yourself to them.
That is how the philosophies of the past become important to us and how our own half-baked,
inarticulate, often borrowed, and typically undigested ideas start to become something more.
Philosophy, through reflection and by means of articulation and argument, allows us to analyze
and critically examine our ideas, and to synthesize our vision of ourselves and the world, to put
the pieces together in a single, unified, defensible vision. Such a synthesis is the ultimate aim of
philosophical reflection, and scattered ideas and arguments are no more philosophy than a
handful of unconnected words is a poem.

The Fields of Philosophy

For convenience and in order to break the subject up into course-size sections, philosophy is
usually divided into a number of fields. Ultimately, these are all interwoven, and it is difficult to
pursue a question in any one field without soon finding yourself in the others, too. Yet
philosophers, like most other scholars, tend to specialize, and you, too, may find your main
interests focused in one of the following areas:

Metaphysics: the theory of reality and the ultimate nature of all things. The aim of metaphysics
is a comprehensive view of the universe, an overall worldview. One part of metaphysics is a field
sometimes called ontology, the study of “being,” an attempt to list in order of priority the
various sorts of entities that make up the universe.

The term 'metaphysics' comes from two Greek words, 'meta' which means 'after' and 'physika'
which means 'physics'. It was coined by Andronicus of Rhodes who was the editor of Aristotle's
works. Andronicus was at a loss on what to call the part of Aristotle's works which come after
Aristotle's works on physics, as arranged in the book he was editing. So, he called those works

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'ta meta ta physikabiblia', that is, the books after the books on physics. That was how the term
'metaphysics' came to be.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies being. Being in this sense can be regarded
as existence as an entity. Therefore, metaphysics studies existence holistically. It studies existence
as an entity. Metaphysics studies the cosmos and its content. Metaphysics is divided into two:
cosmology and ontology.

Ethics: the study of good and bad, right and wrong, the search for the good life, and the defense
of the principles and rules of morality. It is therefore sometimes called moral philosophy,
although this is but a single part of the broad field of ethics.

The term 'ethics' comes from the Greek word 'ethos' which means custom or habit. Ethics is the
branch of philosophy that studies the principles of human action. Ethics deals with the morality
of human actions. It deals with values of good and evil. Ethics is preoccupied with prescribing
the values that will enable man live the good life. Ethics investigates the principles behind the
norms and conventions of the society.

Epistemology: the study of knowledge, including such questions as “What can we know?” and
“How do we know anything?” and “What is truth?”

The term 'epistemology' comes from two Greek words 'episteme' which means 'knowledge' and
'logos', which means 'study'. It is the branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of
knowledge. It studies the nature and extent of human knowledge. Epistemology asks such
questions as: What is knowledge? What is truth? What can be known? Is knowledge possible?
Epistemology seeks to know the difference between appearance and reality. It seeks to
distinguish knowledge and opinion; and truth from belief. Epistemology also seeks to know
whether the mind gives us an accurate picture of the world or whether it adds its own nature to
knowledge of the world it gives us. Epistemology seeks to know the source of human
knowledge.

Logic (or philosophical logic): the study of the formal structures of sound thinking and good
argumentation.

The term 'logic' comes from the Greek word 'logos' which can be translated into reason, word,
study or rationale. But in the philosophic sense, the term 'logic' denotes rationale, justification or
reason. The term 'logic' was introduced in philosophical discourse by a man called Zeno. Logic is
the science of thought. It is the study of the laws of correct reasoning. It is the art that guides
reason on the path of truth. The term 'logic' connotes reason, rationale, justification and study
because reasoning is all about providing justifications or rationales. Reasoning is done with
words and communicated in words.

There is an inherent order in nature. That order is the logic of nature. There is an inherent order
in reasoning. That order is logic. There cannot be any thinking without reasoning. There cannot
be any reasoning without logic. Logic is that order upon which reasoning operates. If thinking is
orderly, we say it is logical and rational. If thinking is disorderly, we say it is illogical and
irrational. The thinking mind is guided by the order called logic. When the logic of the mind is
faulty, the individual goes astray in errors.

Logic is a systematic process of reasoning that establishes the cause of a conclusion or the
justification for truth. Logic is the science that studies reason. Every field of science is the study
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of the logic that particular field. That is, the product of logic as applied to that field. That is why
almost every field of science has the suffix '-logy' affixed to it. Suffix '-logy' stands for logic. It is
the application of logic to that field that makes it scientific.

Logic is divided into two: material logic and formal logic. Material logic deals with the logic that
obtains when the conclusion obtained from the process of reason is correct and also true as
things are in the world. Material logic demands that the conclusion be correct and also factually
true.

For instance,

o All mammals reproduce.

o Man is a mammal.
o Therefore, man reproduces.

Formal logic deals only with the correctness or coherence of the conclusion arrived from the
process of reasoning. Unfortunately, an argument can be correct without being true. For instance,

o All US presidents live in the Whitehouse.

o Michelle Obama lives in the Whitehouse.
o Therefore, Michelle Obama is a US president.

The argument above is coherent but untrue. Formal logic is solely concerned with the conformity
to the rules of logic. But material logic is concerned both with the rules of logic and the
truthfulness of the products of logic.

Philosophy of religion (or philosophical theology): the philosophical study of religion, the
nature of religion, the nature of the divine, and the various reasons for believing (or not
believing) in God’s existence.

Political (or sociopolitical) philosophy: the study of the foundations and the nature of society
and the state; an attempt to formulate a vision of the ideal society and implement ideas and
reforms in our own society to better achieve this.

Aesthetics (or the philosophy of art): the study of the nature of art and the experiences we have
when we enjoy the arts or take pleasure in nature, including an understanding of such concepts
as “beauty” and “expression.”

Aesthetics and ethics are sometimes grouped together as a branch of philosophy called axiology.
Aesthetic is the branch of philosophy that studies beauty. It deals with what appeals to the eyes
and the ears. It asks such questions as: What is beauty? What makes a thing beautiful? What are
the properties or nature of beauty? Aesthetics studies the works of art. The term is derived from
the Greek word, 'aesthet-ikos' which means perception. Axiology is derived from two Greek
words 'axia' which means value or worth, and 'logos' which means study.

Methods of Philosophy

Just as there are five branches of philosophy, there are also five methods of philosophy or
approaches through which a philosopher can embark on philosophical inquiry in any branch of

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philosophy. These methods are not branches of philosophy but styles through which a
philosopher can philosophize in any branch of philosophy. They are: speculative, analytic,
prescriptive, hermeneutic and phenomenological method methods.

Speculative Philosophy

This involves system building. It is the method of philosophy through which a philosopher
establishes a grand principle and builds a system of philosophy on it. The philosopher makes
hypothesis of possible sequence of events based on the established principle. Plato's dualistic
system of knowledge was built on the principle of forms.

Analytic Philosophy

The analytic method of philosophy is employed by philosophers who approach philosophical

issues by breaking down complex systems into simple propositions. It involves analyzing the
language of the issues in contention into simpler forms.

Prescriptive Philosophy

This is the method of philosophy usually employed in discussing ethical issues. It involves
philosophers prescribing what ought to be done and what ought not to be done.

Hermeneutic Philosophy

This is the method of philosophy employed by philosophers dealing with complex issues of
language, especially when the meaning of a word depends on the meaning of another word and
the meaning of that other word depends on the meaning of the earlier word. It is the method
favored by philosophers who embark on the interpretations of thorny philosophical issues. An
element in a text can depend on the understanding of the entire text while the understanding of
the entire text presupposes the understanding of that very element. For instance, one cannot
understand clearly, a particular event in a crisis without understanding the whole situation. But
one cannot actually understand the whole situation without understanding the particular events
that constitute the situation. Hermeneutics deals with paradoxes like this.

Phenomenology

The phenomenological method of philosophy involves suspending all previously held biases
and ideas and describing the contents of consciousness are they appear to the consciousness.
This is the method of philosophy used in investigating subjective experiences.

Dimensions of Philosophy

Just as philosophy has branches and methods, it also has dimensions. The dimensions of
philosophy as like the trajectories of philosophy. They are the applications of philosophy to other
disciplines. Popular among them are: the philosophy of law, the philosophy of science, the
philosophy of mathematics.

Philosophy of Law
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The philosophy of law studies the philosophical foundations of law, the justice or otherwise of
law, the purpose of law and the limitations of law. While lawyers interpret laws and judges
make judgments on interpretations, the philosopher of law asks questions on the propriety of the
law itself. Philosophy of law asks such questions as: Who has the power to make laws? What
makes a pronouncement a law, it because it has been pronounced thus by someone in authority
of because it is just? What is the relationship between law and justice? Is the law made for man
or man made for law?

Philosophy of Science

The philosophy of science studies the philosophical foundations of science. It critiques the
scientific method and sets values for science. The products of science affect man. Philosophy of
science delves into the argument whether science should flourish unchecked or whether it
should be controlled lest it destroys man. Don't forget that the atom bomb is a product of science.

Philosophy of Mathematics

Philosophy of mathematics critiques the theorems of mathematics.

Concepts and Conceptual Frameworks

The basic units of our philosophical projects and viewpoints are called concepts. Concepts give
form to experience; they make articulation possible. But even before we try to articulate our
views, concepts make it possible for us to recognize things in the world, to see and hear
particular objects and particular people instead of one big blur of a world, like looking through a
movie camera that is seriously out of focus. But in addition to defining the forms of our
experience, concepts also tie our experience together. Concepts rarely occur in isolation; they
virtually always tie together into a conceptual framework.

An example of a concept would be this: As children, we learn to identify certain creatures as

dogs. We acquire the concept “dog.” At first, we apply our new concept clumsily, calling a “dog”
anything that has four legs, including cats, cows, and horses. Our parents correct us, however,
and we learn to be more precise, distinguishing dogs first from cats, cows, and horses and then
later from wolves, coyotes, and jackals. We then have the concept “dog”; we can recognize dogs;
we can talk about dogs. We can think about and imagine dogs even when one is not actually
around at the time, and we can say what we think about dogs in general. We can refine our
concept, too, by learning to recognize the various breeds of dogs and learning to distinguish
between dangerous dogs and friendly dogs. On certain occasions, therefore, the concept takes on
an undeniably practical importance, for it is the concept that tells us how to act, when to run, and
when to be friendly in turn. But the concept “dog” also becomes a part of our vision of the world
—a world in which dogs are of some significance, a world divided into dogs and nondogs, a
world in which we can contemplate, for example, the difference between a dog’s life and our
own. (One of the great movements in ancient philosophy was called Cynicism after the Greek
word for “dog.” The cynics acquired their name by living a life of austerity and poverty that, to
their contemporaries, seemed little better than a “dog’s life.”)

Some concepts have very specific objects, like “dog.” These specific concepts, derived from
experience, are often called empirical concepts. We have already seen this word empirical
referring to experience (for example, knowing the various breeds and behaviors of dogs). We
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will see it again and again; the root empiri means having to do with experience. Through
empirical concepts we make sense of the world, dividing it into recognizable pieces, learning
how to deal with it, and developing our ability to talk about it, to understand and explain it, and
to learn more and talk more about it. In addition to such specific concepts, we make use of a set
of much more abstract concepts, whose objects are not so tangible or empirical and which cannot
be so easily defined. These are a priori concepts, because they are conceptually prior to empirical
concepts. One example is the concept of “number.” However important numbers might be in our
talk about our experience, the concepts of arithmetic are not empirical concepts. Mathematicians
talk about the concept of an “irrational number,” but there is nothing in our everyday experience
that they can point to as an example of one. To understand makes sense only within the rules of
your society. But it is not as if the word freedom already means one or the other; the word and its
meaning are open to interpretation, and interpretation is the business of philosophy. This is not
to say, however, that what we might disagree about is simply the meaning of a word. What we
disagree about is the concept, and the concept in turn determines the way we see the world.

The concept of “self” is like this, too. In a purely grammatical sense, the word self just points to a
person—for example, to myself when I say, “I presented myself to the dean.” But what is this
self? Again, it is not defined by the word, which only points. Is my self just the I, the voice that is
now speaking, or does it refer to a whole human being? Does it include every trivial and
insignificant fact about me? (For example, the fact that I forgot to brush my teeth this morning?)
Or does it refer just to certain essential facts—for instance, the fact that I am a conscious being? Is
my self a soul? Or is my self perhaps a social construction, which must be defined not in terms of
one person alone but in terms of my society and my particular role in it?

The concept of “truth” is an important concept in philosophy. Is the truth simply the “way things
really are”? Or does it depend upon the nature of what and how we believe as well? Could it be
the case that we are all caught up in our limited view of the world, unable to see beyond the
concepts of our own language and our own restricted range of experiences? The most abstract
and controversial concepts of all are not those through which we divide up the world into
understandable bits and pieces but rather those grand concepts through which we try to put it all
together. Religion is the traditional vehicle for this total understanding, but in our culture
religion has been challenged by science, by art, by the law, and by politics for this ultimate role,
as well as by philosophy.

These all-embracing pictures and perspectives are our ultimate conceptual frameworks—that is,
the most abstract concepts through which we “frame” and organize all of our more specific
concepts. The term conceptual framework stresses the importance of concepts and is therefore
central to the articulation of concepts that makes up most of philosophy. But what we are calling
a “conceptual framework” can also be viewed, from a more practical perspective, as a set of
values
and a way of looking at life, as a way of living, or, in our contemporary vocabulary, as a
lifestyle. If the emphasis is shifted to politics and society, the framework can be called an
ideology—that is, a set of ideas about the nature of society and our political roles within it,
which themselves are reflected in one’s lifestyle. If we shift to a more historical viewpoint, we
find that historians sometimes refer to the same thing as a climate of opinion. If we shift the
emphasis away from the concepts through which we give form to our world and emphasize
instead the view of the world that results, we can use a popular philosophical term, worldview
(which is often left in German, Weltanschauung, because a number of German philosophers used
this term quite often in the last century or so). But whether we use one term or the other, with
one emphasis or another, the important point is that we in some sense already have such
viewpoints, through which we give shape to our world and define our lives within it. When we
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articulate them in philosophy, we are not just creating an arbitrary structure of ideas; we are
making explicit and clarifying what we already believe—to be more aware of our ideas, to be
able to defend them, and, sometimes, to be able to change them.

Our conceptual framework, our lifestyle, our ideology, our climate of opinion, or our worldview
is usually taken for granted
as the intellectual ground Three Important Names to Know
that we walk on. But,
sometimes, it is necessary to Plato (427–347 BCE) was a student of Socrates and the leading
examine that ground, to spokesman for Socrates’ ideas. He was shocked by Socrates’
look carefully at what we execution and dedicated his life to developing and spreading
usually take for granted. If his philosophy. In 385 BCE he set up the Academy to educate
we are planning to construct the future leaders of Athens in morality and philosophy in
a house, it is a good idea to general.
investigate the ground we
will build on, especially Aristotle (384–322 BCE), a student of Plato, strongly disagreed
when something seems with many of his teacher’s theories. Aristotle was an
wrong—the soil is too soft, accomplished scientist as well as a philosopher, and his ideas
or it is on a fault and ruled most of the sciences—especially biology—until modern
susceptible to earthquakes. times. He was the tutor of Alexander (who became “the
This is often the case, too, Great”) and later founded his own school (the Lyceum) in
with our conceptual Athens. When Alexander died, Aristotle was forced to flee,
frameworks; as soon as we commenting that he would not let Athens “sin against
look at them, they may philosophy a second time.”
seem to be soft, ill formed,
perhaps in danger of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was, in the opinion of many
imminent collapse, or liable philosophers, the greatest philosopher of modern times. He
to disruption by a well- spent his entire life in a small eastern Prussian town
placed question or (Konigsberg). He was famous for his simple, regular life. (He
confrontation with someone never married, and his neighbors were said to set their clocks
who disagrees with us. This by his punctual afternoon walks.) And yet this somewhat
is a common experience uninteresting professor was also an enthusiast of the French
among college freshmen, for Revolution—and a revolutionary in his own way, too. His
example; they come to ideas turned many of the traditional views of knowledge,
school with certain religion, and morality upside down.
religious, moral, political,
and personal views that they have always taken for granted, which they
have never questioned or been forced to defend. Then they meet someone—a roommate, a
teacher, a friend in a course—and these lifelong views are thrown into chaos. Students who are
not prepared for intellectual confrontation may find that they are no longer so sure; then they get
defensive, even offended and belligerent. But with time and some philosophical thinking, the
same students again become clear about what they believe and why. Before the ground was
examined,
it might have been soft or near collapse, but once they see where they stand, they can fill in the
holes, make it solid, protect themselves against unexpected “ideaquakes,” and renew or revise
their beliefs, which they now hold with a confidence much greater than before.

It is possible, of course, that you will find yourself using two or even more conceptual
frameworks—for example, a scientific framework in school, a pleasure-seeking (or hedonistic)
framework for Saturday night, and a religious framework on Sunday morning. The question
then becomes, How do these different frameworks tie together? Which is most important? Are
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they actually inconsistent with one another? If our lives are to be coherent, don’t we have to
unify our various beliefs so that they all hang together? Ultimately, what makes an
understanding of concepts and conceptual frameworks so important and rewarding is the fact
that in understanding them, we are also in the process of creating them, and in so doing enriching
them, developing them, solidifying them, and giving new understanding and clarity to our
everyday lives.

Doing Philosophy with Style

The quality of a philosophy depends upon the ingenuity with which its ideas are presented, the
thoroughness with which they are worked out, the care with which one idea is tied to another,
and the vividness with which the entire view comes across to the reader. The greatest
philosophers in history—for example, Plato, Aristotle, and the German philosopher Immanuel
Kant—did not believe anything very different from most of their contemporaries, including
other philosophers whom they knew and talked with every day. But they became the great
philosophers of our tradition because they presented their ideas with eloquence, defended them
so brilliantly, and put them together in monumental constructions that are wonderful (if also
very difficult) to behold. Philosophy is first of all articulation and argument, but it is also
articulation and argument with style. Every philosophy, and every essay or book in philosophy,
is essentially making a case. That is why philosophical training is so valuable for students going
into law, or politics, or business, or—ultimately—almost every career where articulation and
argument are important.

Disjointed articulation and argument not aimed at making a case to some particular audience
(even if that audience is only your roommate or philosophy instructor) is without a point or
purpose. Philosophy should be persuasive. That means that, in addition to evidence of hard
thinking and a display of wisdom, philosophical writing should be somewhat entertaining,
witty, dramatic, and even seductive.

It is working out common views in ways that are not at all common. But whether philosophy is
the somewhat modest thinking of a first-year philosophy student or the hundreds of pages that
make up the classic texts of the great philosophers, the activity is the same—to try to articulate
and clarify and present one’s own view of the world as attractively as possible. It is possible to
appreciate philosophy only by participating in it, by being a philosopher, too. And by the time
you have completed this course, you too will be a part (if a small part) of that long tradition that
has come to define the world of Western philosophy, perhaps non-Western, too. To be part of the
extended conversation that is philosophy, you will need the following:

1. Your ideas: Without ideas, articulated clearly, there is nothing to think or write about.

2. Critical thinking: Ideas unqualified and uncriticized, undeveloped and unargued, are not yet
philosophy. One of the most valuable tools you can carry away from a philosophy class is the
ability to read and think critically, to scrutinize ideas as well as gather information.

3. Argumentation: Philosophy is not just stating your opinions; it is providing arguments to

support your opinions, and arguments against objections to your views. The best philosophy
always includes a kind of point– counterpoint format. Don’t just state your views. Argue for
them and anticipate the kinds of objections that will probably be raised against you, countering
them in advance. (“Now you might object that . . . , but against that I want to point out that . . .”)

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4. A problem: Philosophy does not consist of random speculations and arguments about some
topic or other. It is motivated by a problem, a real concern. Death and the meaning of life are
philosophical problems because—to put it mildly—we are all concerned with questions about
life
and death, our lives and deaths. Problems about knowledge arise because someone somewhere
challenged our ability to know as much as we think we know, and philosophers ever since have
been trying to answer that challenge. (For example, how do you know that you are not dreaming
right now? Or, how do you know that the world wasn’t created five minutes ago, with all of its
fossils and supposedly ancient relics, and with us and all of our memories of the alleged past?)
Philosophy may begin by wondering about life and the world in general, but it comes into focus
on a problem.

5. Imagination: A list of your ideas with qualifications and arguments might count as philosophy,
but it would be uninspiring and dull. Don’t be afraid to use metaphors and analogies. As you
will see, some of the greatest philosophers developed their views of the world into visions that
are as much poetry as philosophical essays.

6. Style: Anything in writing is readable only if it is written in a lively style. The rules of good
essay writing apply to philosophy, of course, but so do the rules of entertaining—be exciting,
attractive, appealing, persuasive. No matter how exciting an idea or incisive a criticism, it always
gets across better when presented with eloquence, with a personal touch and an elegant turn of
phrase.

Socrates might have said, “Everyone should think about his or her life because at least
sometimes that helps us out of hard situations and makes life more valuable,” but probably no
one would remember it. Instead, he said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and a
hundred generations have been struck by the boldness and bluntness of his statement, whether
or not, on examination, they have agreed with it. Socrates’ aphorism is only a summary
statement, not the whole body of Socrates’ philosophy, with all of its ideas, images, and
arguments. Your philosophy, too, is nothing less than the entirety of what you believe,
articulated and argued as convincingly and as elegantly as you can.

-o0o-

Guide Questions for the Journals of Learning (Part 1)

Instruction: The following set of questions should be answered in your own words and
understanding. Your answer to each of these questions should not be less than 200 words.

1. Define and explain philosophy in your own words.

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2. What is your philosophy in life?
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3. What is the importance of studying philosophy and logic in your life as a student?
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4. As a social being, how should a person relate with other people? (On social philosophy)
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5. Is morality really important to human beings? Why? (On Ethics)

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6. Explain: “Absolute beauty is completely independent of the senses” (On aesthetics)

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7. If you are to choose, how will you arrange the world? Why? (On Cosmology)
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8. If I lie, do I conceal the truth to others or to myself? (On Epistemology)

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9. Give your understanding by the concept that “Philosophy is an inquiry”.

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10. In your own understanding, what is it to be a Filipino?

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(Please continue in another page if necessary.)

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