I. Introduction
1. The Act of Philosophizing
- this course, Philosophy of Man or Philosophy of Human Person, is not simply a study of the
different philosophies of man, i.e. the different ideas or theories of the philosophers on man, or
human person.
- it aims primarily to initiate the students, to lead them to philosophize about themselves, about who
they are - human persons. As Fr. Roque Ferriols in the first text that we will use in our course
remarks: this course "does not teach what philosophy is but to try to give you a chance to
philosophize."
- The first thing that we will clarify in our course is what it means to philosophize. Or more
properly, what one does when one philosophizes since the act of philosophizing is easier to do
than to define like all other activities, e.g. basketball, dancing, etc.
- In order to get familiar with the act philosophizing,
- first, we will put it in the context of our day to day activities and experience.
- We will try to realize that philosophizing is at the heart of our common experiences and
activities.
- And we will use the article of Fr. Roque Ferriols, Insight, to help us realize this.
- In this article, Insight, Fr. Ferriols illustrates and explains to us that philosophizing has to
do primarily with having an insight and doing something about it. And having an insight
is one of most common experiences and activities that we have.
- then, we will use the article, The Philosophical Enterprise by John Kavanaugh to point out
that the act of philosophizing is deeply personal act. Through this article, we will try to grasp
that:
- I, myself, must get involved in this activity.
- I must not remain as a spectator, distant observer and inquirer, an audience or just letting
others do it for me.
- My personhood is at stake in the act of philosophizing: my liberation and my growth as a
human person.
- Lastly, we will discuss the place and importance of studying the different philosophers in the
deeply personal act of philosophizing. With the article of William of Luijpen, The
Authenticity of Philosophy, we hope to correct any attitude or view that considers the study of
philosophers' ideas as substitute for one's own philosophical activity.
1. "Insight" by Fr. Roque Ferriols, SJ
Introduction:
- the act of philosophizing, doing philosophy has to do with thinking, and the crucial element of
thinking is INSIGHT.
- thus, in order to understand the act of philosophizing, we have first to clarify what is insight.
- And in order to help us understand what insight is, we need to consider three things:
- The experience of having an insight
- What can we do with the insight
- Some cautions or notes when doing with insight
1. The Experience of Having an Insight
- having an insight is the most common experience of our day to day life.
- And Fr. Ferriols gives us three examples of having an insight to illustrate how common
this is and how it is to have an insight:
- The first two examples or illustrations are two extreme situations in our day to day
where one experiences having an insight:
- First: hearing and getting a joke
- Second: the experience of death
- The last has to do with how we come to grasp number, like #4
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Thus, the simple insight into the meaning of four is seen to involve a rather
complicated preparation involving at least two abstractions.
- According to Aristotle, there are three levels of abstraction:
- First Degree of Abstraction: we consider things as dogs, cats, car, wood, etc. (Natural
Sciences)
- Second Degree of Abstraction: we consider things in terms of number (Mathematics)
- Third Degree of Abstraction: we consider things as Being (Metaphysics)
These two extreme situations or illustrations and the case of counting things show that having
an insight is part of our day to day experience, something that happens in our ordinary life,
from the most trivial to the most serious or even tragic event of our life.
And insight has to do with seeing deeply with our mind into the deeper aspects of reality, of
things that are presented in our senses, in our experience.
The point is that we could see something more if we just learn to think, try to think over our
experience, and not simply experience.
As the fox would say to the Little Prince, "what is essential is invisible to the eye."
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Metaphor
use of something familiar, ordinary to articulate, clarify, and deepen what is not familiar
and ordinary.
E.g.
- Juan and Homer use the ordinary, familiar phenomenon/experience of the fall and
return of leaves to articulate, clarify and deepen his insight on the rhythm of life and
death of the generations of men and women
Metaphor is very important because:
1. it fixes the insight in the mind
2. it sharpens the insight in the sense that:
- it clarifies the insight
- it makes us understand the insight more deeply
3. it enables us to understand the ordinary and familiar more deeply.
Analysis
We use analysis also to articulate, clarify and deepen our understanding of the insight
analysis:
- breaking down into parts
- breaking down the insight into the different elements or dimensions which constitute
it.
E.g.:
- If I want to clarify the point of a joke, to understand it, to be able articulate and
deliver it more effectively, I could break down the joke into different parts and see
how each part is related to one another:
1. Knock, Knock
2. Who's There?
3. Mary Rose
4. Mary Rose who?
5. Me Relos ka ba? Anong oras na?
- And I would discover, it would be made clear to me:
- that the point of the joke is this: Mary Rose and Me Relos which sound different
are made to sound alike by mispronouncing "me relos" into "me reros" as a
Japanese would.
one of the tools in analyzing an insight is conceptual analysis
- an insight as an idea is made up of constitutive ideas. E.g.:
- idea of a man contains the idea of rational, animal,
- idea of triangle contains the idea of 3 sides, 3 angles, 180 degrees
- when I break down the idea into its constitutive ideas and see their relationship, then
I do conceptual analysis:
- e.g. idea of the rhythm of life and death
- could be understood in terms of biological aspect (i.e. in terms of physical
growth and decay)
- could also be understood with regard to the cycle of life and death of the
human spirit
Other Techniques
according to Paul Ricoeur:
- Symbol
- Myth
- Speculation
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Conclusion/Summary:
- questioning, then, is the starting point and the continuing force of all philosophy
- questioning leads one to find answers, and finding the answers he himself must see the truth
of those answers
- but in finding answers to the depth-questions primarily about himself: his identity and action,
he will not reach a point of no return; rather leads him back to new questions, leading to a
new search, new answers, so on and so forth.
- In so doing, he is liberated from those which enslave, he becomes open to his own
possibilities, and takes responsibility of himself as a creative self-project
3. The Authenticity of Philosophy (William Luijpen)
a. Introduction
i.
The Innumerable Contradictions of Philosophy
- for 2,500 years, man has been philosophizing and the result is innumerable and
contradictory claims and systems of philosophy.
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much older than Modern Science, yet unable to formulate even a few theses (statements)
which are unanimously accepted by all philosophers as observed by the philosophers
themselves like the Sceptics, Rene Descartes, Hume, Kant
not a single thesis is not denied by another philosopher in the past, present, or/and future.
Reactions Leading to Inauthentic Philosophy
Scientism: Rejecting Philosophy and Absolutizing Physical/Empirical Sciences
- Unlike philosophy, Physical/Empirical Sciences:
- Very successful discipline
- Better knowledge of the physical world
- Fruitful knowledge: leads to mastery/control of the physical world
- Greatly contributed in making life better
- Highly Verifiable/Intersubjective Knowledge
- Because of these characteristics of Physical Sciences, some are led to reject
philosophy and to absolutize Science (Scientism). How? By claiming/believing that:
1. Science alone is the only genuine and reliable source of knowledge, not
philosophy or any other means.
- what can be known and is known by Science constitutes alone as the true
knowledge
- knowledge, pure and simple, is the knowledge offered by Science
- here, Science, already claims and decrees, not about the physical world but
claims and decrees on Theory of Knowledge: the possibility, extent and
validity of knowledge
2. Science alone discloses reality such that whatever cannot be disclosed or are not
disclosed by Science is not real.
- here, reality is equated or reduced with the reality accessible to Science
- from its epistemological claim, Science is led to an ontological claim: A
Theory of Reality: The Structure and Constitution of Reality.
- Scientism (absolutizing Science) is not a science, not scientific
- It already claims about things beyond the competence/realm of physical sciences
- It deals with or addresses some things beyond its tasks, namely: Theory of
Knowledge, Theory of Reality
- This is already the work of philosophy.
- Thus, in rejecting philosophy, it philosophizes although in a contradictory way,
an inauthentic philosophy
- Scientific yet unscientific
- Verifiable yet unverifiable
- Rejects philosophy but already takes a philosophical position on the issues
of Knowledge and Reality
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Scepticism
- rejection of all claims of knowledge of reality, all claims as doubtful, not only
philosophical claims, but all claims
- this is itself is a philosophy, a philosophical position/view about knowledge and
reality
- yet a self-contradictory philosophy; thus, an inauthentic philosophy
- claim: all knowledge is doubtful
- yet this claim is also a form of knowledge
- therefore, this claim (that all knowledge is doubtful) is also doubtful
- this shows that the conclusion falsifies the first premise; thus the argument
contradicts itself.
- Any rejection of philosophy (Scientism, Scepticism and others) is itself a philosophy
though a bad one
- To ridicule philosophy, to laugh at philosophy is itself a philosophy
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Dogmatism
- claims that of the different philosophical systems, one can be the philosophy, is the
philosophy
- thus, one looks for THE philosophy:
- in the past: turns to different philosophies or philosophers in the past
- in the present: turns to every new philosophy or system to whether at last it
present THE philosophy
- in the future: expects that THE philosophy will be formulated in the future.
- This expectation, of course, meets with disappointments, frustrations, and
disillusions. Why?
- Because there was, is and will be never such thing as THE philosophy
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without Augustine, we would not have been sensitive and understood the meaning of
our restlessness of being-in-the-world.
- Without Marx, Darwin, Freud, we could not have been corrected of our exaggerated
spiritualism.
Therefore, they make it possible for us to have personal experience of reality, to make us
sensitive to the superabundance/wealth contained in the totality of all that is.
What the great philosophers saw/experienced remains fruitful and source of inspiration
works of great philosophers are considered classical not only because they make us
see/experience what they saw/experience which otherwise we could have been blind of.
But at the same time they inspire us to see/experience over and beyond what they saw
- They further inspire us to ask questions, further beyond, deeper than they have asked
- To find/seek answers beyond what they found
- To see ourselves the truth of the answers beyond what they themselves saw.
Yet as every philosopher was struck/awed by a particular aspect of reality, and every
system constructed by a great philosopher is an expression/articulation of some aspect of
reality, there is a danger:
- that a particular aspect of reality might be elevated by him to the rank of reality, pure
and simple, or THE REALITY
- that a particular experience of reality may be proclaimed as the only REALITY and
its articulation and systematization as the SYSTEM, THE PHILOSOPHY.
When this happens, it becomes antiquated.
Conclusion:
- If constituted philosophy is a speaking word (i.e., an articulation/expression of a
particular experience of reality), then the study of the works of the different philosophers
leads us to:
- Experience the philosophers' particular experiences of reality (APPROPRIATION)
- Experience new and deeper aspect of reality other than what they have experienced
(EXPANSION)
- And one does not simply accumulate knowledge but listens to reality no matter where it
speaks to him.
5. The Intersubjectivity of Philosophical Truth
i.
Denial of Intersubjectivity of Philosophical Truth
- Subjective View of Philosophical Truth: Philosophical Truth has to be subjective in order
to be authentic. Why?
- Philosophy is a personal task/affair:
- Asking one's own depth-questions
- Seeking find by himself answers for them
- Seeing himself the truth of the answers
- As a personal task, it involves study of other philosophers in order to see the truth
they discovered as true to me, to be inspired to see myself more than what they have
seen.
- Subjectivistic View of Philosophical Truth
- Philosophical truth (that which I see, discover, know in my philosophical enterprise,
that which is unfolded before me in philosophical pursuit) is true/valid to me alone
but not true/valid for all.
- Philosophical Truth is per se not truth for all (not intersubjective)
- Intersubjective View of Scientific Truth
- Scientific truth is the only intersubjective truth, i.e. the only truth which could be
accepted/validated by all as true.
- Intersubjectivity as the exclusive characteristic of Science
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