Reviewer in Introduction to Philosophy
Topic 1 PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL
What is Philosophy?
Etymology: Philein = Love &
Sophia = Wisdom
Literal translation: Love for Wisdom
Philosophy - study of general and fundamental
problems concerning matters of existence,
knowledge, values, reason, mind and language.
KNOWLEDGE vs. WISDOM
Knowledge - about facts and ideas we acquire
through study, research, investigation, observation,
or experience.
Wisdom - is the ability to discern and judge which
aspects of the knowledge are true, right, lasting,
and applicable to your life.
Philosophy involves questioning, critical discussion,
and rational argument.
BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
Metaphysics: the most abstract part of philosophy,
having to do with the features of a reality
Epistemology: or the theory of knowledge, branch
of philosophy concerned with the nature of
knowledge, its possibility, scope and general basis.
Ethics: An investigation into the fundamental
principles and basic concepts that are or ought to
be found in a given field of human thought and
activity.
Logic: The study of the structure and principles of
reasoning or of sound arguments.
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
ANCIENT
Focus of Question: origin of the universe
(COSMOCENTRIC)
URSTOFF-principle of all things
Thales: Water
Anaximenes: Air
Anaximander: Apeiron-“the boundless”
Heraclitus: Fire/Change
Parmenides: Stability
Pythagoras: Numbers
Leucippus: Atoms
Transition from ANCIENT to MEDIEVAL
-the problem during the ancient was there was no
consistency on identifying the URSTOFF. What they
did was they agreed that everything has a cause,
since they cannot identify it they shift the question
from “asking what it is” to “is the Higher Being
really existing?”.
MEDIEVAL
Focus of the question: existence of a Higher
Being/God (religious concept)
(THEOCENTRIC)
St. Augustine of Hippo: Divine illumination-our
minds must be enlightened by God’s light to see
the realities hidden in the dark
St. Thomas Aquinas: Quinque Viae/5 ways of STA
Transition from MEDIEVAL to MODERN
-after establishing a good argument that a higher
being exist, the thinkers wanted to be sure and
certain on how they were able to come up with the
argument. So they decided to know the validity of
the ideas inside their minds by identifying the
conditions of a Justified True Belief Knowledge, a
knowledge which is not subject to doubt or
indubitable.
MODERN
Focus of the question: formation of ideas/validity
of ideas in the mind
Rationalism: believes that all knowledge comes
from the intellect
Rene Descartes: “Cogito ergo sum”
Empiricism: believes that all knowledge comes
from sense experience
John Locke: “Tabula rasa”/blank slate theory
Transition from MODERN to CONTEMPORARY
-after establishing a good argument regarding the
formation and validity of knowledge, the
philosophers shifted the question to the one
responsible for questioning, MAN, at the same time
the focus of the question will be the one who is
questioning.
CONTEMPORARY
Focus of the question: “What is man?” and “Who is
man?”.
Existentialism: focuses on the existence of the man
Topic 2 PHILOSOPHY The Discipline and its
Methods
Characteristics of a Philosophical Statement
-no definite answer
-general/broad
-no single methodology
-no practical utiliy
Development of Science through the concepts,
UNIVERSAL, PARTICULAR, and SPECIFIC
Philosophical questions or statements are
considered to be as general and universal question.
You cannot have any immediate answer, so to
answer this universal questions one must reduce it
to a smaller one, from UNIVERSAL to PARTICULAR.
A particular question has two possibilities,
answerable and unanswerable, if the particular
question turned out to be unanswerable, one must
reduce it to a smaller one which is Specific, from
the specific questions we can get specific answer
and later on become specific discipline or famously
known as courses and subjects.
Martin Heidegger from Messkirch Germany,
He answered the universal question “Why am I
here?” using the condition of man as someone who
was thrown into the world or in German word
“Dasein”
DIALECTICS
Also known as dialectic method
◦ Discourse between two or more people
holding different point of views about a
subject but wishing to establish the truth
through learned arguments.
◦ Not Equal to Debate : not necessarily
invested w/ emotions, frequently display on
emotional commitment that may cloud
rational argument.
◦ Not Equal to Rhetoric : art of discourse that
seeks to persuade, inform, or motivate an
audience.
SOCRATIC METHOD
Proponent: Socrates-considered as the wisest
person ever existed
Socratic method is also called as intellectual
midwifery
HEGELIAN DIALECTIC
Proponent: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Major work: The Phenomenology of the Spirit
Dialectic: Triadic movement of knowledge through
thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis.
DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM
Proponent: Karl Marx
◦ Marx introduced the concept “historical
materialism” which embodies a theory that
societies rise and fall as a result of class
struggles.
CAPITALISM vs COMMUNISM
COMMUNISM aims to have a “classless society”
Communism is an anti-thesis of capitalism that give
birth to different social class and social issues.
Topic 3 DISCOVERING THE SELF
“Man is always more than what he knows about
himself/herself” –Karl Jaspers
introspection: evaluation of one’s self
Human Being
-Source of question
-capable of answering
-with rationality: implies that we have intellect
which object is real truth and will which object is
real good.
- capable of connection
WHO AM I?
▪ This question unveils the existence of a
Man.
▪ This question encompasses historicity and
self-being
▪ The source of question is now in question
Immanuel Kant
MAN is endowed with REASON and he/she is
AUTONOMOUS and with a SELF_REGULATING WILL
JOHARI WINDOW
▪ A technique that helps people their
relationship with themselves and with
others.
▪ t was created by psychologists Joseph Luft
(1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–
1995),
Boundary Situations Two kinds of senses:
▪ Inescapable and inevitable breaks of the EXTERNAL and INTERNAL
ordinary patterns of human existence.
▪ Break the conventional pattern or EXTERNAL
ordinaries of life External Medium Object
▪ Lead human being to a deeper Sense
consciousness and his/her limitations and Sight Retina Colors
finitude Hear Auditory Sound/Vibrations
Nerves
Topic 4 MAN AS BODY AND SOUL Smell Olfactory Odor
BODY: physical material existence in man Nerves
Philosophical properties Taste Taste Buds Flavor
-size Touch Tactile Texture
-mass Nerves
-impenetrability
• Philosophers believe the body as any
material object. INTERNAL
• Phenomenologists distinguish the human Imaginative Sense
body, called body-subject, because it is • To combine images or phantasms to form
related to subjectivity. unreal images.
• To know quantity (thus the imagination
SOUL: metaphysical immaterial existence in man plays an important role in Mathematics
-justified through explaining the certainty of Estimative Sense
the immaterial existence of idea which is the • The power is called “instinct”
mental representation of an essence of a thing • Capable of perceiving the beneficial and
conceived abstractly and in universal. harmful character of a concrete object.
• Enables human being through immediate
The soul is the form of the body –Aristotle intuition to avoid what is evil and to tend
• the spiritual or immaterial part of a human towards the good.
being or animal, regarded as immortal Memorative Sense
• Retain the perception of the estimative
KINDS OF SOUL accdg. to Aristotle sense, namely, to remember what is
harmful and beneficial for the animal.
• To recognize the experiences of the past as
concretely past.
• This is called reminiscence in man.
Common Sense
• To know all the sensations of the external
senses which are known separately by the
external senses.
• To compare and distinguish these qualities
e.g., color and taste
• To be aware of the operation of the
external senses.
• Summarizes all the perception of both
internal and external senses.