What is Philosophy

Sunday, 9 September 2018 10:26 PM

8-17-18
St. Thomas Aquinas Critical Thinking
(First session)

Philosophy begins in wonder. Philosophy is inevitable. Life is a problem. I am a

problem that i have to solve. Man is an insatiable desire. No amount of
wealth/power/sex can satisfy a man. Wealth and power come and go. Sex
weakens with age/overtime/banishes in time. (mapaparang sa kalaunan). No
amount of meaning
*Philosophy is a liberating force / isang magpalayang lakas. Although we are
often times prisoners of our own beliefs/cultures which is already part of us. But
still, that’s the challenge in Philosophy.

-to Philosophise is the ultimate search for the meaning of life

What is the meaning of life? ultimate meaning of life? Where is it?
-Can we find it in wealth?power?

1. Life is a great mystery/enigma/paradox

-man is born without his knowledge, then he suffers until he dies.
-suffering we didnt ask for.

2. *****Human life is an incomprehensible contradiction- a the moment a

person is born, he or she already begins to die.
(di makatinkalang kasalungatan, sapagkat isinilang na ay magsisimula ng
mamatay, ang masakit ay sya’y mamatay bago pa lumaking tuluyan)
-life is a journey towards death
-ano mang may simula ay may katapusan
*******And we’d die before we’re fully born.
2 kinds of birth
1. Physical: man thrown in to the world through human sexuality
2. Existential birth: total self fulfillment

*how can we attain afterlife? problem of the soul.. if indeed is their an afterlife,
it’s useless unless something in the body that can survive

3. Human life is a great tragedy. Isang malaking trahedya/kapahamakan

because we are born to die
*how can we attain afterlife? problem of the soul.. if indeed is their an afterlife,
it’s useless unless something in the body that can survive

3. Human life is a great tragedy. Isang malaking trahedya/kapahamakan

because we are born to die
Accdg to existentialist: man usually dies before his loveones, or vise versa,
unbearable because excruciatingly painful

St. Augustine
-Believed in 2 Gods (good/evil) because of the good/bad things that happen
around. -later converted to Christianity

Characteristics of Philosophical Inquiry

1. Freedom
• means that the truth-seeker must liberate himself from sociocultural
orientation or factors that undermines the search for truth and meaning
**man is born in different culture which fashions his own thinking, a
prisoner of his own culture. And the things/acts are because of his culture.
For philosophy: the challenge is to overcome these certain aspects of the
culture that impedes search for truth or meaning
-as we develop grow intelectually/ we have to outgrow these aspects
Types of Culture
1. Culture with which we are born: those we are born with
2. Culture that we acquire after we become intelectuals
2. Intellectual Openness
-we have to be openminded so we can open our views/widen our perspective. by
sharing our insights to other culture.

3. Critical Reflection
-in search for meaning, we have to critique other people’s views, and borrow
other’s insights. In a constructive way. Overcome our own biases/prejudices

4. Endlessness
-Philosophical inquiry never ends. Those who cannot accept it are the young.
There are always some news for explanations and interpretations.

Various forms of Intellectual Search: coined to deal with various problems

encountered in Life
1. Problems of reasoning: Logic
2. Problems of morality: Ethics
-Can there be morality without God? due to our culture, perhaps we’re
leaning towards a “no”. But it is possible to distinguish bet. good/bad.
-Ethics can be a practical and normative sciences: which studies human
acts, and determines the goodness and badness.
**Normative Sciences: deals with norms. by means to determine the
goodness or badness of acts
 -Can there be morality without God? due to our culture, perhaps we’re
leaning towards a “no”. But it is possible to distinguish bet. good/bad.
-Ethics can be a practical and normative sciences: which studies human
acts, and determines the goodness and badness.
**Normative Sciences: deals with norms. by means to determine the
goodness or badness of acts
ex. One norm said that pleasure is the norm for “good”, if it gives
pleasure, it’s good. but it’s flawed/ not reliable because what’s
painful for you might be painful for others.
** Practical sciences: …….

Human acts:
2 acts by St. Thomas Aquinas:
A. Human acts- done with knowledge and freedom
**will an individual be held morally responsible for his acts? the answer: man is
only responsible for human acts.
**will an individual be held morally responsible for his acts performed in
ignorance? the answer: depends on the ignorance involved.
Types of Ignorance
a. Vinsible ignorance: yes, one which one can be overcome by exerting
effort to do so. Ex. you do not know if there’s no exams, hence you
can just ask your classmates
b. Invinsible ignorance: No. One can hardly overcome. Even if one
exerts extra effort to do so.
**will an individual be held morally responsible for his acts performed in
erroneous conscience? (search for explanations/examples)
ex. you honestly do it, but based on conscience, acting in good faith. It’s okay.
ex. you are acting in bad faith, but you still do it, although the act is good. It’s still
bad.

B. Acts of Man- done in the absence of the conditions of the human acts.
The absence of either the knowledge/freedom or both.

PROBLEMS
1. Problems in the beginning/finality of life: Cosmology
2. Knowledge
3. Problems of the soul: psychology
-We often encounter the problem of the soul. Problem: death, if not for death,
we wont talk about the soul. As St. Thomas would say, Man has something other
than the body, the existence of the soul.
***Existence of the human soul
man is capable of 2 vital operations, Physiological (includes: grinding
of food/digestion/reproduction/excretion) and intellectual/psychical
(includes non-bodily operations of the man; thinking, reasoning,
decision making..**attributed to something distinct from the body: as
St. Thomas would say, that SOUL.)
***Existence of the human soul
man is capable of 2 vital operations, Physiological (includes: grinding
of food/digestion/reproduction/excretion) and intellectual/psychical
(includes non-bodily operations of the man; thinking, reasoning,
decision making..**attributed to something distinct from the body: as
St. Thomas would say, that SOUL.)
man does not only knows, he only knows that he knows. Mind is capable of
grasping intangible concepts/objects.

St. Thomas said:

1. The soul is indestructible per se, because it’s spiritual.
2. The soul cannot be destroyed accidentally by an external force, only God
can anihialate the soul. But it’s something ungodly for him to do so, there’s
no sufficient reason for him to destroy it.
(types of sins: mortal/ menial)

**Death for the Hindus: you have to Die in order to be reborn. Unless you go to
Nirvana.

1. Problems of the God: theodecy/Theology

2. Problem of art and beauty: aesthetics
3. Problems of being in existence: metaphysics

Our advantage over the beasts: blessing because we are beings which survived
the evolutionary process because we have morality, but a curse because we are
worst than these beings if we don’t act the way we should act as a human being.

BLAZE PASCAL: ITS BETTER TO BELIEVE THAN NOT TO BELIEVE.

Filipinos has their own culture

Philosophy begins in wonder
Filipinos also wonders in the problems of life
They have their own experience and language (and language and thoughts are
intertwined)

if the human does not know we sometimes create images of something to explain
things. Concoction of the mind.

EXISTENCE

COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS: GIVE EXAMPLES 3