HPH 121 / HE 1114 Examples of Metaphysical questions:

o What is real?
Prelims Reviewer o Do we have immortal soul?
o Is there God?
o What is the nature of reality?
Lesson 1: Introduction to Philosophy of the Human
Person
2. EPISTEMOLOGY
Philos (Love) - the study of the nature of knowledge
- analyzes the nature of knowledge and
PHILOSOPHY
how it relates to similar notions such as
Sophia (Wisdom) truth, belief, and justification

Examples of Questions on epistemology:

What is Philosophy?
• Philosophy accounts for the method of
thinking that involves questioning, critical
analysis, reflection, and rational
argumentation. (Maboloc, 2019)
• Philosophy may refer to any body of
knowledge, including the early natural
sciences that encompassed biology,
astronomy, and physics.
• The search for knowledge and truth,
especially about the nature of man and his
behavior and beliefs.
o How do we know what we know?
o Are the things that we know true?
3. ETHICS
- is the formal study of moral standards
and conduct and often called “moral
philosophy”
- concerned with questions of how people
ought to act, and the search for a
definition of right conduct (identified as
the one causing the greatest good) and
the good life (in the sense of a life worth
living or a life that is satisfying or happy)

Lesson 2: The Branches of Philosophy Examples of Ethical Questions:

o What do people think is right?
THE FIVE GENERAL TYPES OF PHILOSOPHY o Do we pursue our own happiness, or do
we sacrifice ourselves to a greater cause?
I. The Thematic Types
II. The Positional Types
III. Methodological Types 4. LOGIC
IV. The Regional Types - a study of reasoning
V. Historical Types - distinguish between correct and incorrect
forms of reasoning
- investigates and classifies the structure of
I. Thematic Types - Kinds of philosophy that are statements and arguments, both through
distinguished from one another. Under the group of the study of formal systems of inference
thematic are the branches of philosophy. and through the study of arguments in
natural language
1. METAPHYSICS Examples of Questions on Logic:
- the study of the fundamental nature of o What is correct reasoning?
reality – what it is o What distinguishes a good argument from
- that which is above or beyond the a bad one?
physical, and so over time metaphysics o How can we detect a fallacy in reasoning?
has effectively become the study of that
which transcends physics

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 5. AESTHETICS
- branch of philosophy dealing with the
nature of, art, beauty, and taste

Example questions on aesthetics:

- What is beauty?
- What is our basis of judgement to say
that it is beautiful?

II. Positional Types - Correspond to what are called

philosophical school of thought or philosophical
views.

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III. Methodological Types - these are the philosophical of the proletariat "with the ultimate goal of public
movements, approaches, and traditions. ownership of the means of production, distribution, and
exchange.
Phenomenology

Phenomenology is a broad discipline and method of

inquiry in philosophy, developed largely by the German Feminism
philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger,
Feminism comprises a number of egalitarian social,
which is based on the premise that reality consists of
cultural and political movements, theories and moral
objects and events ("phenomena") as they are perceived
philosophies concerned with gender inequalities and
or understood in the human consciousness, and not of
equal rights for women. It is the doctrine advocating
anything independent of human consciousness.
social, political and all other rights for women which are
Phenomenology is the study of experience and how we equal to those of men.
experience. It studies structures of conscious experience
Feminist political activists have been concerned with
as experienced from a subjective or first-person point of
issues such as a woman's right of contract and property; a
view, along with its "intentionality" (the way an
woman's right to bodily integrity and autonomy (e.g. on
experience is directed toward a certain object in the
matters such as reproductive rights, abortion rights,
world).
access to contraception and quality prenatal care);
women's rights to protection from domestic violence,
sexual harassment and rape; women's workplace rights
Hermeneutics
(e.g. maternity leave, equal pay, glass ceiling practices,
Hermeneutics is all about interpretation in fields of etc); and opposition to all other forms of discrimination.
study, such as interpreting plays or novels, but also in
day-to-day life, when we interpret actions of our friends
or try to figure out what a job termination, for example, Post-modernism
means in the context of our life story.
Post-Modernism is a broad movement in late 20th
Hermeneutics is the art of understanding and of making Century philosophy and the arts, marked in general terms
oneself understood. It goes beyond mere logical analysis by an openness to meaning and authority from
and general interpretive principles. unexpected places, and a willingness to borrow
unashamedly from previous movements or traditions. It
is often defined negatively as a reaction or opposition to
Marxism the equally ill-defined Modernism, although some claim
that it represents a whole new paradigm in intellectual
Marxism is a philosophical, political, and social movement thought.
derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
(1829 - 1895) in the second half of the 19th Century. It is a IV. Regional Types -
theoretical-practical framework based on the analysis of
"the conflicts between the powerful and the subjugated"
with working class self-emancipation as its goal. It
promotes a pure form of Socialism and provides the
intellectual base for various subsequent forms of
Communism.

According to Marx, it is class struggle (the evolving conflict

between classes with opposing interests) that is the
means of bringing about changes in a society's mode of
production, and that structures each historical period and
drives historical change. Marx believed that a socialist
revolution must occur in order to establish a "dictatorship

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V. Historical Types ✔ MATHEMATICS PURIFIES THE SOUL. EVERYTHING IS
MADE UP OF NUMBERS
Ancient Philosophy-Ancient Greek and Roman
Philosophy III. CHANGE AS THE NATURE OF REALITY
Medieval Philosophy- God centered philosophy
Heraclitus of Ephesus
Modern Philosophy- The rationalist & Empiricist
✔ Everything is constantly changing.
Contemporary Philosophy-Analytic philosophy, ✔ Believed in Libertinism.
Frankfurt school of philosophy and phenomenology. ✔ Everyone is free to make their own choice and
everyone has a free will.
✔ Everything is made out of fire.
Lesson 3: History of Philosophy ✔ CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT THING IN THE
WORLD. BUT IT IS ALSO CHANGE THAT STABILIZES THE
Philosophy started in 6th century BCE in Greece.
WORLD.
PRE SOCRATIC PERIOD
Paraminedes of Elea
I. THE MILESIANS
✔ Things don’t change - the past and the present are set.
Thales of Miletus ✔ Time and free will are just illusions
✔ Father of Modern Science ✔ Fatalism – We have a fate and we are stuck to it.
✔ First known Philosopher in Greece. ✔ Determinism – Everything in this world was already
determined by someone before us.
✔ Used geometry to measure the height of a Pyramid and
the distance between ships in the shore. ✔ CHANGE AND DIVERSITY IS AN ILLUSION
✔ EVERYTHING IS WATER (Water is the underlying
IV. THE ATOMISTS
principles of all things)
Democritus of Thrace
Anaximander of Miletus
✔ Invented the Atomic Theory.
✔ A student of Thales who latter succeeded him.
✔ The lights in the sky are distant stars and different
✔ Also an Astronomer, Mathematician and Scientist.
worlds.
✔ Created a map
✔ THERE IS SPACE. IT CONSISTS OF ATOMS
✔ EVERYTHING CAME FROM AN INDETERMINATE (Maintained the impossibility of dividing things)
BOUNDLESS (Boundless has no origin, because it is itself
the origin) = Apeiron
✔ V. THE SOPHISTS

Anaximenes of Miletus Protagoras

✔ A student of Anaximander ✔ traveled around Greece earning his living primarily as a

teacher and perhaps advisor
✔ EVERYTHING IS AIR (It should be something that is
infinite but we know that it is there. And that is air. Air is ✔ MAN IS THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS
everywhere and we know it’s there) (The individual is the ultimate standard of all judgments
that he or she makes.)
II. THE PYTHAGOREANS
SOCRATIC PERIOD
Pythagoras of Samos
Socrates
✔ Great Contributions to Math
✔ Had an idea that the world is round ✔ Credited as one of the founders of Western Philosophy.
✔ Idea of a square ✔ Father of Political Philosophy, Ethics/Moral Philosophy

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✔ Developed the Socratic Method or Elenchus (Art of St. Augustine of Hippo
Questioning)
✔ Socratic Dialogues The Argument by Analogy
✔ THE UNEXAMINED LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING. De Civitate Dei (City of God)

Plato St. Thomas Aquinas

✔ One of the Forefathers of Western Philosophy ✔ Summa Theologica - (outlines five 'proofs for God’s
✔ Founded the Academy existence)
✔ Wrote The Apology - the judges who condemned ✔ Scholasticism - an intellectual activity promoting a
Socrates to death, and the climate of opinion in Athens coherent system of traditional thought carried on
that led to the charges against Socrates, were unjust and cathedral schools
untrue. In the Apology, Plato argues that Socrates, not the ✔ Advocate of rationalism
judges and not Athens, represent the truth.
✔ Also wrote The Republic - the importance of being just
in the world, and by being just, one is happy. It is a text MODERN PHILOSOPHY
that describes an ideal city and a way through which a just
and philosophical governance can create happiness. I. Rationalism
✔ Theory of Forms or Platonic Realism = Allegory of the - believe that reason is the sole source of
Cave knowledge

Rene Descartes
Aristotle
• Dualism - that body and mind are two separate
✔ A philosopher and a Scientist at the same time. substances
✔ Known to be the Father of Biology • Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am.)
✔ Founded the Lyceum
II. Empiricism
✔ The student of Plato and the Teacher of Alexander the
- claimed that experience is the sole source of
Great.
knowledge
✔ He developed the syllogism; two valid premises - use of 5 senses to gather empirical data (“to see is
guarantee the truth of a conclusion. to believe”)
• Premise 1: Every tree is a plant.
• Premise 2: Every plant is alive. Immanuel Kant
• Conclusion: Every tree is alive. • A Priori Knowledge - use of 5 senses to gather
empirical data (“to see is to believe”)
MEDIEVAL PERIOD • criticize reason by reason itself to establish a secure
and consistent basis for science, religion, and morality
• confluence of faith and reason
• a handmaid of theology CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
• concerned with proving God’s existence and
understanding what is man in relation with God Contemporary period has 2 perspectives – the analytical
• Primarily focus in faith and reason period and the continental period
ANALYTIC PERIOD CONTINENTAL PERIOD
Movements like German
St. Anselm of Canterbury Logical analysis of language to
idealism, phenomenology,
solve the problems
existentialism, etc.
✔ Known for God In Proslogion - (written as a prayer, or Scientific method is insufficient
meditation which serves to reflect on the attributes of Method of verification to provide an explanation to the
world
God and endeavors to explain how God can have qualities -Bertrand Russell –
which often seem contradictory) George Edward Moore Centrality of human action
✔ believes that there is NO clear line between philosophy -Ludwig Wittgenstein
and theology