Aquinas University of Legazpi

Rawis Legazpi City Philippines

Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy

COMPREHENSIVE ESSAYS ON
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

WYRLO B. DELACRUZ

The essays focused on the History of Philosophy from Thales to Derrida (I), Transition of
Phusis to Arche (II), idea of God according to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas (III),
idea of Subjective Phenomenalism (IV), and the Postmodernism (V) as the summary of the
entire History of Philosophy.
History of Philosophy from Thales of Miletus to Jacques Derrida

The civilization of the world began where near at water. Tigris and Euphrates River are
rivers in Mesopotamia, Indus and Ganges in Egypt, Wang Hu and Yang Tse in China, and
Rubicon in Rome. These are evidences that prove our civilization were developed where near at
rivers. This is more or less connected when Thales of Miletus a Pre-socratic thinker who thought
of phusis as the basic stuff of the world and it is he thought the origin of everything, he said,
water is the phusis. Because of him, and of his wonder, phusis is the first philosophy in Greece.
Many thinkers prior to Socrates came to think of phusis. Anaxemander Mileisan thinker said,
Apeiron (boundless indeterminate realm is the phusis. No, for Anaxemenes it is the air, because
of the rarefaction and condensation that is why it creates water. It is not air for Heraclitus but it is
fire that causes change and becoming. Parninides, said it is not becoming rather being.
Empedocles said, it is the four elements where everything originates. Per-socratic thought phusis.
When Socrates came, he thought of abstract things such as justice, and founded the Socratic
Method. Plato came and expressed his philosophical idealism. A great student of Plato opposed
his idealism, Aristotle the empiricist synthesized the metaphysical dualism of being and
becoming, and the phusis became arche. The entire Ancient Philosophy is centered to the cosmos
The medieval age became God centered. Theologians and Philosophers became busy to
seek for salvation. Jesus Christ came in the medieval time and declared his divinity. Disciples
spread the good news and write articles about the Christ. Issue of transubstantiation, three divine
persons in one body arose as well as issue on faith, and religion. The four patristic fathers came
and meditate for the church. St. Augustine when reason ends, faith begins. Because of God that
is why we thing and love, St. Anselm with his ontological arguments, St. Albert the Great the
Great teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas. Lastly, St. Thomas Aquinas the scholastic synthesized the
metaphysics of Aristotle in connection to the idea of God. After of St. Thomas, the continuity of
Christianity became prevalence. Yet they left a problem, ‘outside the church, there is no
salvation.’ This is how the Theocentrism revolved.
The beginning of 15th Century is the beginning human reason to develop new, clear
distinct epistemology. This epistemology was the new metaphyics. The Modern Period is from
15th century until 18th century C.E. where subjective phenomenalism is the epistemology of the
entire period to defy the scholasticism. We as the subject just give impressions to the certain
phenomena. The impressions depend on the philosophical movents during that time such as,
(French) Rationalism, who are Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, and Liebniz, (English)
Empiricism who are, Locke, Berkeley and Hume the philosophical project of Emmanuel Kant;
the Criticism and the Idealism of Hegel. The Entire philosophy in the Modern Period is revolved
in the subjective phenomenalism and realized by centering to humanity, we can create our own
reality.
After of Hegel’s Idealism, 19th Century came, this is now the Contemporary Period. Marx
criticized the Geist, and resort to have revolution to change the status quo of ploretariat and
borgeuise. Nietszie as influenced of becoming thought the ubermensch, unending overcoming of
oneself, to challenge all systems of values such as religion. Sigmund Freud thought truth can
never find in man’s consciousness rather in sub-consciousness of man. Another theme in
contemporary time is existentialism. After that, 20th and 21st Century arrived, that is the
Postmodern Period, to declare there is no truth. Lyotard declared the postmodernism. Rorty
declared philosophy is dead. Bauldrilard believed the hyper-reality is present in this time.
Focault investigated the history of sexuality, and declared knowledge is power, and power is a

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social construct. Lastly, Derrida denied the philosophy from the past because it talks about
existence and essence; we must deconstruct everything that is constructed. Truth does not exist;
everything is but an interpretation, and knowledge/power.
Transition of Pre-Socratic Phusis to Aristotelian Arche

Ancient philosophers who came before Socrates are called the pre-socratic philosophers.
They are Thales, Anaxemanander, and Anaxemenes. These three are Milesians who thought of
phusis. To be specific, Thales of Miletus was the first pre-socratic philosopher who thought
phusis. Phusis is the basic stuff on earth and the origin of everything. For him, water is the basic
stuff on the earth. That everything is constituted by water. For Anaxemander, he had an idea of
Apeiron as the basic stuff of the earth. The apeiron is the boundless and indeterminate realm
where the world is bounded. It is the space outside of the world and it is the apeiron. Later,
Anaxemenes student of Anaxemrander, thought of phusis. For him, air is the basic stuff of the
earth. Through rarefaction and condensation of air, it produces heat and moist, that latter, it
created the world. These three Milesian made first the philosophy that is indeed, the phusis.
Later, there were reactors who reacted to their concept of phusis that is basically
elemental. Heraclitus of Ephesus, on the other hand, conceived the fire as the phusis, and thought
the idea of becoming. Because of the unstable life of fire, it indicates ‘becoming.’ For him,
everything is come from fire and shall return to fire. Fire changes into different form such water,
and air. As such, it gives idea of becoming or change. After thinking of change or the becoming,
Parmindes of Elea thought against Heraclitus idea of becoming. He thought that is not becoming
as the phusis rather ‘being.’ His principle; being is, and being is, is ‘what is.’ The phusis posed
by others affirms for Parminides the notion of being. ‘Whatever is,’ exists and something there
is, indeed for him being. By that, he gave a principle to it, that we distinguish being to another
being (individuation). Thereafter, Empedocles came to reconcile the posed by Heraclitus,
Parminides, and the elemental basic stuffs posed by those thinkers prior to him. According to
him, everything is composed of water, land, fire, number, and air, because there is something
like these, there a presence of harmony because of love. When hatred exists among the existing
elements, destruction happens. But, because of destruction, another entity of being has created.
From phusis, that indeed elementary or basic stuff, it was arrived on the metaphysical discourse
of Parmides and Heraclitus on being and becoming. From material to non-material cosmological
cause left by pre-socratic philosophers, it became metaphysical issue. However, when Aristotle
came to philosophize, one of the great students of Plato, he used to think of arche. Arche is the
first principle of mind (nous), which is being. He synthesized the metaphysical duality left by
two pre-socratic thinkers, the ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ and the epistemology of Plato. For Plato,
there is world of forms. It is the world of ideas that is the truth and not the matter itself. Because
matter is just a representation only of forms, and form is in the world of ideas. But for Aristotle,
in order for us to know the object, it must exist first. The transition of pre-socratic phusis to
Aristotelian arche is the development of way thinking from material to principle based way of
thinking. Since arche is the first principle, and this principle is; there is ‘being’ (of Parmides) that
is empirical by which we can able to perceive in reality. Being is unchangeable, and immutable.
But in reality, the being has continuous ‘becoming’ (Heraclitus). However, he sought this
becoming is come from being, by the motions do by being. He thought also, that the being has
the capacity ‘to be’ because of continuous becoming and able to conclude that it is not the world
of ideas where everything came from. By this, we are able to know the truth behind all existence
through sensual perception of being in reality. Arche, becomes (metaphysical) principle and not

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simply elemental material stuff where the world has been originated as posed by pre-socratic
philosophers.

Idea of God According to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Thomas Aquinas were born during the medieval period.
The Period of Theocentrism, wherein, God was the center of discourse. Ancient period was
Cosmo-centric; the period that used to know the cosmos. After discoursing on cosmos, another
discourse on truth and God had done by philosopher theologians such St. Augustine of Hippo
and St. Tomas Aquinas. God’s idea made them famous especially they became patron saints in
Catholic Church.
For St. Augustine, he believed, like Plato, that our soul had been trapped in our body, and
our body is sinful yet imperfect. Also, believing on such, he agreed on idea of Plato that what is
in our mind is the perfect. He doubted the knowledge he acquired. There is a question on
knowing for him. Since the body is imperfect, and to know thing must pass first through our
senses then the question is, can we know? Can we really know thing using our senses? We
cannot. We know nothing. He doubted the knowledge he knew. Why he knew? Where his /our
knowledge came from? His epistemological skepticism led him to arrive on certain being. Since
there is a presence of imperfection to us, there must some who will cause us to know, someone
that is perfect. It is the God who illuminates us to know the thing. Everything we knew and we
do know is because of God illumination. To know the truth of imperfect entity, he must need the
grace of God who is perfect because man alone as imperfect, cannot know thing with his all
senses. With all our senses, we are incapable to know the truth, but because of divine
illumination that is why we are able capable to know it. Because of divine illumination, that the
idea of divine is immutable, our mind capable to know, as such, we are able to reflect through
the divine light, the God’s eternity and perfection. The epistemology he used is s priori. Through
love, we realize the existence of God, and by love we become happy.
As such, St. Thomas Aquinas dealt with the idea of God through his epistemology;
synthetic a posteriori. This was through synthesizing the metaphysical dualism established by of
Aristotle and the idea of God by his predecessors, who were patristic fathers-though he belonged
to them. We are able to know the God from effect to cause (synthetic a posteriori). This
manifests on the arguments he had posed on his book entitled ‘Summa Theolegeae.’ The five
ways to demonstrate the existence of God as posed by St. Thomas Aquinas are; Argument from
motion (I), Argument from causality (II), Argument from contingency (III), Argument from
gradation of being (IV), Argument from design or the teleological argument. These five
arguments by him are proofs to demonstrate the existence of God. Through effect we are able to
know the metaphysical cause and attributes of God; God is the unmoved mover, the uncaused
cause, the necessary being, the supreme amongst all beings, and the one who are behind of all
designed creatures; universe, man, animals, as well as non-beings. God as perfect being has no
potentiality at all, because he is pure act, he is one (metaphysics). He is, cannot be at the same is
not, he is true (epistemology). He is perfect by which there is no presence of privation to him, he
is good (ethics). Also, he is in harmony by which he can and intelligibly created being in-order,
he is beautiful (aesthetics). These transcendental attributes of God are seen in different branches

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of philosophy; metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Since the God is not self-
evident, and we can know it through his epistemology, the question is, ‘what is then his essence?
That for every being is one, and always corresponding essence, what would be the essence of
God? Is possible he has no essence? Then Aquinas would say: ‘Ipsum est subsistens’ the God’s
essence is his existence. God is onmnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.

The Idea of Subjective Phenomenalism

Let us concede the modernity as its center of discourse is man. Anthropocentrism the
period of modernity came after the Theocentrism. It is subject to be destroyed to realize the
essence and value of man. It was during 15 th Century C.E until 18th Century C.E. Man can create
his own reality given by his own reason not only in centering himself in the reality of God.
Subjective Phenomenalism, on one hand, is the epistemology of modern philosophers. It
was the epistemology posed in contrary to moderate realism or known as the scholasticism.
Moderate realism as the epistemology in the Theocentric period, such St. Thomas Aquinas or the
Aristotelian Thomistic tradition, can be synthesized in ‘adequatio intelectus vet rei,’ the
adequation between mind and reality, of subject and the object. But in modernism, moderate
realism was being challenged by the subjective phenomenalism. The idea is, whatever there is, as
representation by the object, is mere impression represented by the object. Because we cannot
know the object itself, what we do, as a subject, as a perceiver, is to give an impressions to the
certain phenomena, which is a representation of the object. Truth then was never an issue of
conformity, as we just give impressions to the phenomena that we are being experienced.
There are five philosophical movements arose and undergone on the epistemological
subjective phenomenalism during modernism, they are; (French) rationalism, (English)
empiricism, (Kantian) criticism, (Philosophes) illuminism, and (German) idealism. These five
philosophical movements were antitheses of medieval philosophy or the scholasticism. Rene
Descartes started to oppose scholasticism, and created a new clear and distinct idea. He doubted
everything he knew, specially, scholasticism. Unlike St. Augustine, he arrived at certitude by
knowing that the mere fact that he doubts, he was already thinking. Part of thinking is to doubt,
but he was certain that he doubts. Therefore, ‘thinking’ or mind what validates truth, not even
experience by his body. It is clear, distinct and concrete idea. But, what about his body, this is for
him an extension of his idea. By that, he changed and began a new way of thinking. He was the
first rationalist during the renaissance period. As such, his problem on metaphysical dualism
(mind and body) left a problem, that later became the subject of argumentation in modern period.
Later, Spinoza, Nicholas de Malebranche, and Liebniz followed his rationalism. Their
argumentation revolved in the impression, metaphysical dualism; Mind and body, God and the
world. These were became epistemic agenda in modernity. Since Renaissance is the re-birth of
ancient culture, Aristotelianism and Platonist were reborn. Later, English Empiricism came; they
were John Locke who is famous of his tabularasa, Berkeley of his esse est perciepi, and David
Hume of his dictum, ‘we are but a bundle of sensation. They believed, impressions come from
sensation and experience through perception and never through with our thinking. After a year of
argumentation on epistemology, Emmanuel Kant came and criticized the two (rationalist and

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empiricist). He claimed both were correct, but both were not opened with the other point. He
knew the way the rationalists’ epistemology is analytic a priori and to the empiricists’
epistemology is synthetic a priori. He synthesized the two; synthetic a posteriori. Yet, posted
that, in reality, object has a sense data, and we-as the subject- have categories of intellect. We
cannot know the object itself (ding-un-sich), but because of our categories of intellect (time,
space, substance, and cause) we are able to know the data presented by the object. All his
epistemology rest on his philosophical project, the three critics which are; critique on pure reason
(knowledge), critique on practical reason (desire), and critique on judgment (feeling)-for him,
these tree are faculties of the soul. His philosophical project called Kantian criticism.
Historically, Illuminism follows; Illuminism is movement of so called philosophes, because they
thought of politics such as the Social Contractarians, Barron de Montesque, ect. They came in a
certain period because of political issues. Lastly was the German Idealism, Hegel was s fame
when it comes to idealism. Because he had level up the idea of Kant that is the idea –in –itself,
by posing the thesis (being), antithesis (nothing), and synthesis (becoming).
Postmodernism
Every epoch in history has its theme; Ancient Period is Cosmocentric, Medieval as
Theocentric, and Modern Period as Anthropocentric. Contemporary Period on the other hand, is
era of Pluralism. It began on 19th until 20th Century C.E. after of Hegelianism as the end of
modernism. History, Politics, Science, Existentialism, and Structuralism in this period bloomed
out. These features summed up the entire 19th contemporary period. When human reason has
flourished and seeks for the becoming, history started to be wrote and established, Politics began
to be developed articulated based on human reason, Science explored more in all spheres of the
earth, Existentialists defied the system of essentialist’s, and seek for the meaning and happiness
of life; passion over reason, and the Structuralist founded the method of structuring. Hence,
Religion is being challenged of contemporary events and disciplines. These suggest for plurality
of human reason in the 19th Century-different systems and different disciplines.
Until 20th and the Present Century came, plurality grew, different disciplines had
intertwined. Given the context of contemporary time and 20th Century, how are we able to know
the truth? Can we still know the truth regardless of pluralism? This becomes the premise in this
20th and 21st Century, more known as the Postmodern Period. ‘There is no truth’ anymore given
such, what is being presented is unpresentable and just a hyper-real. Everything that is presented
as truth is but an interpretation. Truth as knowledge is power, and power is a mere social
construct, power is dispersed.
There is no truth, truth is multifaceted; truth lies on everyone’s meta-narrative, that every
story and experience of one’s subject is a claim of truth. We cannot know the reality, in contrary,
the subject is being known by the object and not the subject who knows the object. Whatever we
know is just a language or the worlds of language and not the object itself. If that so, whatever is
being presented must be questioned; truth that is structured should be post-structured. If truth
still exists, we must suspicion it, we must go after structure and construction of system that being
presented to us, and we must deconstruct whatever is constructed such as sexuality, power,
knowledge, morality, religion, and patriarchy and all forms of systems that present us as truth.
These are teachings from our three great Prophets of Postmodernism who are; Richard Rorty,
Michel Focault, and Jacques Derrida.
But, what makes Postmodern the Postmodernism is the background of our tolerance in
presenting the unpresentable truth. We do not question those who create the reality whatever that

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is, that supposed to be questionable, sadly, we just easily accept it, and we tolerate the
panoptocism. This is the momentariness of the tenor of times.
Hence, Postmodernism as an offshoot of plurality, on this condition, is an age of
hopelessness of humanity, as defined by neo-capitalism, self-interest, hyper-reality, tolerance and
irrationality. Yet, a quite gratitude to Postmodernism, because this is the age where they removed
the truth, a mere constructed truth, if we remove the construction, no truth comes. Like the
visible vagina-as being told to us, that is sexual organ of the female-, there is nothing within it,
but a mere space, but what and where vagina is? A mere hole, space and hard to identify whether
it is the opening skin or the muscles surround it. Likewise, the truth is nothing like the vagina;
space and hole. Alike the penis that already been removed the condom feels like removing of
things that is being presented, removing the condom is like freeing ourselves from all social
construct reality, such as truth. The vagina which has a hole, space and nothing more, when this
was discovered, it has been waiting to be penetrated by the condomless penis, and this we can
explore for our own truth.