GE105 Social Science and Philosophy.

Lemery Colleges, Inc.
A. Bonifacio St., Brgy. Bagong Sikat, Lemery, Batangas
Academic Year 2020-2021

FIRST SEMESTER
An Instructional Module and

Compilation of Resources in GE
105: Social Science and Philosophy
NAME OF
STUDENT
YEAR & SECTION
Course Code : GE 105

Course Description : Social Science and Philosophy
Credit Unit : 3 Units
Instructor : Archie Leynes, LPT
NOTE
No part of this compilation may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior
written consent of the institution.
VISION:
“Expanding the Right Choice for Real Life Education in Southern Luzon”
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 1

MISSION:
Cognizant to the vital role of real life education, LC is committed to:
1. Provide holistic higher education and technical-vocational programs which are valued by the stakeholders.
(Academics)
2. Transform the youth into world-class professionals who creatively respond to ever changing world of work.
(Graduates)
3. Advance research production to improve human life and address societal needs. (Research)
4. Engage in various projects that aim to build strong community relation and involvement. (Community)
5. Promote compliance with quality assurance in both service delivery and program development. (Quality Assurance)
CORE VALUES:
L- Love of God and Country

C- C’s (Competent, Committed and Compassionate) in service
I- Innovative Minds
A- Aspiring People
N- Noble Dreams
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LESSON TOPICS PAGE

Title Page 1
Preliminaries Lemery Colleges’ Vision and Mission 2
Table of Contents 3
Flexible Learning Design Worksheet (Course Outline) 4
1 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 10
Definition of Philosophy 10
Branches and Fields of Philosophy 12
Significance of Philosophy 16
Activity 1 17
2 ANCIENT GREEK AND SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS 19
Thales 20
Anaximander 20
Anaximenes 21
Pythagoras 21
Heraclitus 22
Parmenides 23
Empedocles 23
Anaxagoras 24
Democritus 24
Protagoras 26
Socrates 26
Plato 27
Aristotle 28
Activity 2 29
PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION
Midterms
3 INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY 30
St. Augustine 32
St. Thomas Aquinas 34
St. Anselm 36
Blaise Pascal 37
Activity 3.1 39
Activity 3.2 40
4 INTRODUCTION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT 40
Rene Descartes 44
Thomas Hobbes 46
Activity 4 49
MIDTERM EXAMINATION
Semi-finals
5 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: EMPIRICISM
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Locke
David Hume
Immanuel Kant
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Arthur Schopenhauer
Perspectivism, Nihilism and Individualism

Activity 5
6 INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES
B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning

Ayn Rand and Objectivism
Activity 6
SEMI-FINAL EXAMINATION
Finals
7 FILIPINO INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY
Loob and the Filipino Philosophy

Filipino Philosophy of Time
Bahala na
Activity 7
8 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCES AND ITS BRANCHES
Economics
Anthropology
History
Political Science
Psychology
Sociology
Geography
Demography
Activity 8
FINAL EXAMINATION

B. Bonifacio St., Brgy. Bagong Sikat, Lemery, Batangas
FLEXIBLE LEARNING DESIGN WORKSHEET

COURSE
GE 105
CODE
COURSE
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
TITLE
COURSE This course introduces students to the main debates in philosophy and social sciences. Departing from questions about the nature of society and our knowledge of it, we will
DESCRIPTIO address issues such as the nature of social facts and human action, the possibility for explanation in the philosophy and social sciences. We will discuss questions including: what
N could be an appropriate method of the philosophy of the social sciences; how to explain and predict social phenomena and the laws in the social sciences.
TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES WAYS OF
(PREFERRED DELIVERY) ASSESSING THE
WEEK/ OBJECTIVES LEARNING RESOURCES
LEARNING OBJECTIVE/S TOPICS VIDEO/ MODULAR (ASSESSMENT
SESSION NO. VIRTUAL
RECORDE TASKS)
CLASSROOM
D LECTURE
PRINTE
ELECTRONIC
D
▪Lemery Colleges’
▪Internalize and uphold the Vision, Mission, ▪Short essays
▪Lemery Colleges’ Vision, Mission, Mission, Goals
Institution’s vision and mission Goals, and (Students submit
1   and Objectives
▪Understand the college goals Objectives written work
and program objectives ▪ Introduction electronically)
about the subject
▪Voice over
narrated
Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 1-
powerpoint
ppt
Explain the meaning of presentation
Philosophy and its related ▪ Introduction to ▪Video Clip
2   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRG-
branches and importance in the Philosophy Presentation
rV8hhpU&t=49s
society ▪Assignments
▪Short Essays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H910KLJvkA
▪Worksheets/
Activity Sheets
3-4 Discuss how the philosophy ▪ Ancient Greek   ▪Voice over
started in the world through the and Socratic narrated Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 2-

powerpoint
presentation
ppt
▪Video Clip
contributions of Ancient Greek Presentation
Philosophers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk1fA5nDP88
and Socratic Philosophers ▪Assignments
▪Short Essays
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYHdfuJOKHs
▪Worksheets/
Activity Sheets
5 PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS
Describe the overview of the
▪ Introduction to
philosophies of the different
Medieval
medieval philosophers ▪Voice over
Philosophy
narrated
Identify the biography and powerpoint Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 3-
▪ St. Augustine
contributions of St. Augustine and presentation ppt
St. Thomas Aquinas in the ▪Video Clip
6-7 ▪ St. Thomas  
emergence of philosophy in the Presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yStlBaGAFjg
Aquinas
world ▪Video Reporting
▪Worksheets/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-SZv3UJTw
▪ St. Anselm
Explain the biography and Activity Sheets
contributions of St. Anselm and ▪Reflective essays
▪ Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal in the emergence
of philosophy in the world
8-9 Discuss the overview of the ▪ Introduction to   ▪Voice over Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 4-
philosophies of the different Modern narrated ppt
modern philosophers Philosophy and powerpoint
the Enlightenment presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHi6-_cZjg
Explain the biography and ▪Video Clip
contributions of Rene Descartes ▪ Rene Descartes Presentation
and Thomas Hobbes in the ▪Video Reporting
emergence of philosophy in the ▪ Thomas Hobbes ▪Worksheets/
world Activity Sheets

10 MIDTERM EXAMINATIONS
▪ Eighteenth
Century:
Empiricism
Understand the empiricism and ▪ Jean-Jacques

the contributions of Rousseau Rousseau
and John Locke
▪ John Locke
▪Voice over
Explain the biography and
narrated
contributions of David Hume, ▪ David Hume
powerpoint
Immanuel Kant and George Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 5-
presentation
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the ▪ Immanuel Kant ppt
11-12   ▪Video Clip
emergence of philosophy in the
Presentation
world ▪ George Wilhelm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-s4JrymKM
▪Video Reporting
Friedrich Hegel
▪Worksheets/
Discuss the biography and
Activity Sheets
contributions of Arthur ▪ Arthur
Schopenhauer and the Schopenhauer
perspectivism, nihilism and
individualism ▪ Perspectivism,
Nihilism and
Individualism
13-14 Describe the overview about the ▪ Introduction to   ▪Voice over Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 6-
contemporary philosophical Contemporary narrated ppt
issues Philosophical powerpoint
Issues presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuQvCxsa5Ns
Explain the B.F. Skinner Operant ▪Video Clip
Conditioning and the work of Ayn ▪ B.F. Skinner and Presentation

Operant
Conditioning
▪Video Reporting
Rand and the objectivism ▪Worksheets/
▪ Ayn Rand and
Activity Sheets
Objectivism
15 SEMI FINAL EXAMINATIONS

▪ Filipino
Indigenous
Philosophy
▪Voice over
narrated
▪ Loob and the
powerpoint
Filipino
presentation
Recognize the different Filipino Philosophy Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 7-
16    ▪Video Clip
Indigenous Philosophy ppt
Presentation
▪ Filipino
▪Video Reporting
Philosophy of
▪Worksheets/
Time
Activity Sheets
▪ Bahala na
▪Voice over
narrated
powerpoint
Social Science and Philosophy Module-Lesson 8-
Explain the meaning of social presentation
▪ Introduction to ppt
sciences and its related fields and ▪Video Clip
Social Sciences
17 its importance in the society   Presentation
and its branches https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR2s8gcBNwk
▪Video Reporting
▪Assignments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKw8vscbeX0
▪Short Essays
▪Worksheets/
Activity Sheets
18 FINAL EXAMINATIONS

GRADING SYSTEM:
(LECTURE/ LABORATORY COURSES)
MAJOR EXAM : 50%
ATTENDANCE. :10%
CLASS STANDING : 40%
-Assignment
-Seatwork/ Activities
-Project
-Quiz
-Report
-Presentation
-Case Studies
-Problem Analysis
-Other outputs
TOTAL 100%
Lesson 1
TOPIC: INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
DURATION: 1 WEEK
PREFERRED DELIVERY: Video/ Recorded Lecture/Printed Module

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this module, students will have completed the following objectives:
1. Define the philosophy.
2. Identify the different branches of philosophy.
3. Recognize the significance of philosophy.
TO DO LIST
Reading
o Course Content and Lecture in Module 1 (page 10-16)
Watch Lecture Video

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRG-rV8hhpU&t=49s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H910KLJvkA
Take Activity 1
COURSE CONTENT
There was a time in the history of education, where being educated meant having gone through just a handful of subjects, among which are music, mathematics, rhetoric and philosophy, with
philosophy occupying a certain preimminence. That time was Medieval Europe, a faraway place in the faraway past. Many changes had occurred since. At present, being educated means having
gone through the evergrowing literature of an ever narrowing discipline, and philosophy is longer considered preimminent - in fact, far from it. While some students expect to glean exotic knowledge
about the nature of the subject, others are disgusted at the thought of its endless debates (Demetrio, 1997). Taking a course in philosophy is indeed a little bit different from taking other courses from
the languages, mathematics or the natural and social sciences.
The aim of this chapter is to discuss briefly, meaningful aspects and issues of philosophy.
Definition of Philosophy

When humanity began trying to explain the nature and origin of the universe through reasoning and observation, instead of through poetry and mythology, it is said that humanity was taking the first
step in the development of philosophy. Etymologically, the word "philosophy" comes from two Greek words, philo, meaning "to love," and sophia, meaning "wisdom." Thus, philosophy originally
meant, "love of wisdom," and in a broad sense, wisdom is still the goal of philosophy. This "love of wisdom is something in which all human nature in some measure at least participates and which
predisposes all toward sympathy for the philosopher s enterprises (Scott, et al., 1993). With this meaning, we realize that there is nothing disgusting with philosophy. It is not about rummaging
through musty manuscripts of great dead men (though this is a part of "philosophizing"). Rather, philosophy emphasizes our living desire to understand the world that surrounds us and the world
within us (Demetrio, 1997).
The proceeding discussions will have their present purpose if they make clear the point that "philosophers" are not strange human beings, with interests and ambitions alien to the rest of
humankind. Rather, one is a "philosopher" precisely because one possesses and cherishes above the rest of humankind that "love of wisdom" which is a part of all human nature and because one
more reflectively and critically brings to light and examines the largest and widest implications of the life of all human beings.
The ancient philosophers understood the term philosophy as the sum total of the main branches of scientific study (physics, or the study of nature; mathematics, or the science of proportion;
metaphysics, or the science of being as such; logic, or the science of correct inferential thinking; and ethics, or the science of morality). Thus, there is no distinction between philosophy and science,
for the entire body of these sciences constitutes what we call philosophy.
Philosophy is also defined as the science that by natural light of reason studies the first causes or highest principles of all things. Under this definition, four things are to be considered:
1. Science
It is called science because the investigation is systematic. It follows certain steps or it employs certain procedures. In other words, it is an organized body of knowledge just like any other
science.
2. Natural Light of Reason
Philosophy investigates things, not by using any other laboratory instrument or investigative tools, neither on the basis of supernatural revelation, otherwise it becomes theology instead the
philosopher uses his natural capacity to think, or simply human reason alone, or the so-called unaided reason.
3. Study of All Things
This sets the distinction between philosophy from other sciences. All other sciences concern themselves with a particular object of investigation. For example, anthropologists study human beings
in relation with the society; sociologists study society, its form, structures, and functions; botanists focus their attention to plants; linguists limit themselves with language; theologians investigate God;
whereas, a philosopher studies human beings, society, religion, language, God, plants, and many more. In short, a philosopher does not limit himself to a particular object of inquiry. He questions
almost anything, if not everything.
4. First Cause or Highest Principle

A principle is that from which something proceeds in any manner whatsoever.

4.1 The First Principles
a. Principle of Identity - states that, whatever is, is; and whatever is not, is not; everything is what it is. Everything is its own being, and not being is not being
b. Principle of Noncontradiction - states that it is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time,and at the same respect.
c. Principle of Excluded Middle - a thing is either is or is not; everything must be either be or not be; between
being and not-being, there is no middle ground possible.
d. Principle of Sufficient Reason - nothing exists without a sufficient reason for its being and existence.
4.2 A cause is defined as that from which in any way whatsoever exerts a positive influence in the production of thing. The main kinds of causes explain the how and the why of a being.
a. Material Cause - is that out of which something is made.

b. Formal Cause - is that through which something is made.
c. Efficient Cause - is that by which something is made.
d. Final Cause - is that on the account of which something is made.
Since its beginnings, however, the scope of philosophy has changed. Early philosophers studied aspects of the natural and human world that later became separate sciences astronomy,
physics, psychology, sociology. On the other hand, certain basic problems-the nature of the universe, the standard of justice, the validity of knowledge, the correct application of reason, and the
criteria of beauty - have been the domain of philosophy from its beginnings to the present. These problems are the subject matter of the five branches of philosophy-metaphysics, ethics,
epistemology, logic, and aesthetics. Other than these branches, there are also special branches of philosophy like, philosophy of science, philosophy of state, philosophy of politics, philosophy of
mathematics, philosophy of education, philosophy of law, philosophy of language, and others.
For Double, (1999), although, philosophy is an organized body of knowledge, the subject matter of philosophy is questions, which have three major characteristics: (1) philosophical questions
have answers, but the answers remain in dispute; (2) philosophical questions cannot be settled by science, common sense, or faith; (3) philosophical questions are of perennial intellectual interest to
human beings. The methodology or method that philosophers use to address philosophical questions is critical thinking that comes from the word "criticize." Critical thinkers criticize the beliefs of
everyone, including themselves. By "criticize," Double means the careful, reflective, rational, and systematic approach to questions of very general interest. Critical thinking means understanding of
philosophy and refraining from merely giving claims but through careful thought, one reasons through argumentations. Though not every philosopher shares Double's beliefs, different philosophers
have their views of what philosophy is and should try to do.

Four main branches of Philosophy

1. Metaphysics
The investigation of the nature of being- the cause, the substance, and the ultimate meaning or purpose of things -is the province of metaphysics. Despite its profound, occult, and mysterious
sound, the word "metaphysics" resulted from a misunderstanding by an editor. Aristotle wrote a series of books dealing with nature that he called the Physics (from the Greek word physis, "nature").
An even more fundamental inquiry, he thought, was the nature of ultimate reality. Aristotle called this inquiry "first philosophy." However, when his editor, several decades after Aristotle's death, was
sorting through his works and giving them titles, he came to the batch of writings that followed the Physics. The editor did not know what to call them so he invented the word- After Physics (7meta
meaning "after," and physica meaning "physics"). Metaphysics asks such questions as: What are space and time? What is a thing and how does it differ from an idea? Is a human being free to
decide his fate or do circumstances determine his actions?
Perhaps the simplest distinction in the world is that between persons and things. Persons move at their own will. Things do not move unless they are acted upon. Philosophers who see the
world as made up entirely of things, or matter, are called materialists. Those who believe that the world of reality is primarily mind are called idealists. Although the philosophical pursuit of
metaphysics is a specialized and often highly technical discipline, metaphysics is really only an extension of a fundamental and necessary drive in every human being to know what is real. One of the
most important tasks each of us faces in our lives is sorting out the differences between appearance and reality, the phony and the genuine, the mask and the substance. In fact, everyone
distinguishes appearance from reality, though not usually in a very systematic way. Most of us simply rely on the appearance-reality distinction that we were taught by our parents and teachers at an
early age. Throughout our formative years we are taught to distinguish fiction from fact, film, and dramatic representation from reality. Consider the expressions like "this is only make believe," "it is
only a movie," "it is just a play; they are only acting." Similarly, most of us learn fairly early the difference between telling a joke and telling a lie. If you are chased by a shadow, but at the last moment
find yourself lying in your own bed at home, you realize that the shadow was "not real" but was "only a dream."
As we grow older we may begin to modify what have been taught is real and unreal, selecting our own personal views about reality in the light of our experiences and beliefs. The examples
reveal a lot about the metaphysician's search for reality, and we can learn from it if we reflect on it philosophically. We experience things in daydreams, fantasies, wishing, playacting, but these are
usually discounted as unreal.
Sub-branches:
• Ontology – nature and existence of being.
• Cosmology – nature and origin of the universe.
• Theology – nature of God and religious beliefs.
2. Epistemology

How often have entire societies found themselves deluded about the valid sources of knowledge and truth? For several hundred years, European society and science believed that the earth
was flat and that it lay at the center of the universe. Everyone believed that the sun, planets, and stars revolved around the earth. When Copernicus, Galileo, and others suggested that this was a
mistake, they were condemned and persecuted by church authorities. Church authorities believed that the Scripture is the only source of true knowledge. According to the Scripture, they claimed, the
earth lies at the center of the universe. Today, "creationists," who believe that the Bible account of how God created the world as literally true, are sometimes attacked by biologists who believe in the
theory of evolution. During the Nazi era, German society claimed that it was a "scientific fact" that the Germanic races were superior to all others. In the recent past, reputable scientists claimed that
women were inferior to men and that society should treat them as such (Velasquez, 1999).
All these events demonstrate the critical importance both to us personally and as society of looking carefully at the issues of truth and knowledge. What is knowledge? What is truth? How do
we tell the difference between the scientific knowledge and doubtful pseudo-science? What are valid sources of knowledge and truth? One of the fundamental branches of philosophy is epistemology
the study of human knowledge and the conditions that make knowledge possible. Specifically, epistemology deals with nature, sources, limitations, and validity of knowledge (Velasquez, 1999).
Epistemological questions are basic to all other philosophical inquiries. Everything we claim to know, whether in science, history, or everyday life, amounts to little if we are unable to support
our claims. Thus, neither a concept of human nature and self, a theory of the universe, nor an assertion of an ordinary event ("It is sunny" or This mango tastes sweet") escapes the need for
justification. Epistemology presents us with the task of explaining how we know what we claim to know, how we can find out what we wish to know, and how we can judge someone else's claim to
knowledge. Epistemology addresses a variety of problems: the reliability, extent, and kinds of knowledge; truth; language; and science and scientific knowledge.
How do we acquire reliable knowledge? What is the source or basis of our knowledge? Human knowledge may be regarded as having two parts. On the one hand, he sees, hears, and
touches; on the other, he organizes his mind what he learns through the senses. Philosophers have given considerable attention to questions about the sources of knowledge. Some philosophers
think that the particular things seen, heard, and touched are more important. They believe that general ideas are formed from the examination of particular facts. This method is called induction, and
philosophers who feel that knowledge is acquired in this way are called empiricists. Empiricism is the view that knowledge can be attained only through sense experience. According to the
empiricists, real knowledge is based on what our sight, hearing, smell, and other senses tell us is really out there, not what people make up in their heads.
Other philosophers think it is more important to find a general law according to which particular facts can be understood or judged. This method is called deduction; its advocates are called
rationalists. For instance, what distinguishes real knowledge from mere opinion, in the rationalist view, is that real knowledge is based on the logic, the laws, and the methods that reason develops.
The best example of real knowledge, the rationalist holds, is mathematics, a realm of knowledge that is obtained entirely by reason that we use to understand the universe (Velasquez, 1999). A
newer school, pragmatism, has a third approach to these problems. Pragmatists believe that value in use is the real test of truth and meaning. In other words, the meaning and truth of an idea are
tested by its practical consequences. Thus, it derived from the Greek word “episteme” meaning knowledge or understanding and “logos” meaning study. In other words, it is the study of the nature
and scope of knowledge.
3. Axiology
Axiology derived from the Greek words “axios” meaning worthy and “logos” meaning study. It is the study of principles and values. Axiology is the branch of philosophy that considers the study of
principles and values. These values are divided into two main kinds: ethics and aesthetics. Ethics is the questioning of morals and personal values. Aesthetics is the examination of what is beautiful,
enjoyable, or tasteful. In axiology education is more than just about knowledge but also quality of life.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that explores the nature of moral virtue and evaluates human actions. It is generally a study of the nature of moral judgments. Philosophical ethics attempts
to provide an account of our fundamental ethical ideas. Whereas religion has often helped motivate individuals to obey the moral code of their society, philosophy is not content with traditional or
habitual ethics but adopts a critical perspective. It insists that obedience to moral law be given a rational foundation. In the thought of Socrates, we see the beginning of a transition from a traditional,
religion-based morality to philosophical ethics (White, 1991).
Virtually, all societies have developed rules and regulations, in particular, about how business should be transacted and how business organizations should be managed. For instance, food
service institutions that intend to participate in the "global marketplace," must first know the rules. In this case, the "sine qua non" for "Business Ethics" is undeniable. Business ethics is a specialized
study of moral right or wrong. It is generally a study of moral judgments in a business context or environment. Specifically, it analyzes the different ethical issues arising from the conduct of doing
business in its various forms and levels (White, 1993).
Why be ethical? And, what does being ethical really mean? Socrates and Plato answered the first question by asserting a close relationship between moral virtue and the healthy human
personality. They argued that no matter what vice looks like on the surface or what it achieves - wealth, power, fame, romance it is actually a sign of weakness, not strength. Aristotle answered the
second question by stressing the inner dimension of human action. Virtue depends on character, not deeds, and our character is shaped by every action that we perform.
The ideas of these three thinkers thereby underscore the relationship between ethics and the very core of our being. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle showed that what we do helps or hurts
ourselves as much as, if not more than, the people with whom we deal. These philosophers therefore forcefully demonstrated that our welfare is ultimately in our own hands; they argued for the
seriousness of taking care of the moral character of our actions; and they gave an interesting twist to what it really means to "look out for number 1". In contrast to the pervasive belief in our culture
that satisfying an ever expanding list of physical and material wants will lead to happiness, Socrates and Plato suggested precisely the opposite. Their ethical outlook then, is a sobering caution about
the difficulty of remaining in control of our lives. By making our character, will, and intentions central elements of moral virtue, Aristotle pointed out how critical it is to study our motivations and master
the inner forces that could lead to moral compromise (White, 1993).
There is a fundamental distinction in philosophical ethics. (1) The moral discourse or normative ethics underpins what people ought to do. The person who engages in this discourse is a
moralist and moralizes in a non-pejorative sense. A moralist is someone who uses moral language to what may be called a first-order way. The moralist engages in reflection, argument, or discussion
of moral judgments, that is, a particular group of normative judgments that is concerned with what is morally right or wrong, good or evil. Finally, he talks about what people ought to do.
Metaethics is interesting not only due to its connection with normative ethics, but because it connects metaphysics and value theory. Scientific realism yields subjectivism about many of the
common sense properties of the physical objects. This metaphysical subjectivism provides a model for subjectivism regarding value. For instance, there is a natural inclination for philosophers who
think that redness exists only in the consciousness of the perceivers to take a similar view toward evaluative properties such as goodness. Thus, subjectivism in metaethics is supported by scientific
realism in metaphysics and in turn supports subjectivism in the free will problem.
As soon as human beings have comfortable homes to live, enough food so that they are not endangered of starving, they begin to ask questions which concern moral or ethical values and
which give rise to religion. The first of these is humanity's desire to find order in the universe that they seek through philosophy, religion, and science. Human beings desire to find meaning in what
they do. They can find fulfillment in the great literature of the world that records the adventure of the human soul. When humanity has learned to make something that is useful to them, they begin to

plan and dream how to make it beautiful. What therefore is beauty? The establishment of criteria of beauty is the function of aesthetics. Aesthetics is the science of the beautiful in its various
manifestations-including the sublime, comic, tragic, pathetic, and ugly.
Beauty is defined as the capacity of an object aesthetically contemplated to yield feelings that are pleasant. This definition cannot be characterized simply either as objective or as subjective.
Even where beauty was most honored and most produced- in ancient Greece philosophers were helpless to pierce the secret of its lure. Pythagoras began the game of aesthetics by reducing music
to a mathematical relation and ascribing a subtle harmony to the spheres. The pre Socratic Greeks sought to define beauty in spatial and quantitative terms: music was a regularity of sounds and
plastic beauty was a regularity of proportions.
4. Logic
Logic introduces us to the abstract thinking of philosophy and familiarizes us with some of its technical terminologies. It is the study of the methods and principles used to distinguish correct
reasoning from incorrect reasoning (Copi and Cohen, 1998). There are objective criteria with which correct reasoning may be defined. If these criteria are not known, then they cannot be used. The
aim of the study of logic is to discover and make available those criteria that can be used to test arguments and to sort good arguments from bad ones.
Reasoning on every subject matter is the concern of the logician: reasoning in science and medicine, in ethics and law, in politics and commerce, in sports and games, and even in the simple
affairs of everyday life. Very different kinds of reasoning may be used, and all are of interest to the logician.
How often it happens that we have a vague suspicion that something is wrong with an argument or even know for certain that it is invalid and yet cannot state precisely what is wrong with it.
The study of logic will enable us to pinpoint the defects of faulty arguments - to explain exactly what is wrong with them and to give the flaw a name. Logic, then, has the very practical purpose of
helping us think with order and ease and without error. It should enable us to discover defects in the thinking of others and to avoid defects in our own thinking.
The strictly philosophical portions of logic, which show the connection of the laws of logic with the basic principles underlying them, should give us a deep understanding of the conditions of
sound argument and therefore a profound trust in the competence of the human mind, as well as great mental satisfaction.
The term "logic" comes from the Greek word "logike" and was coined by Zeno, the Stoic (c.340-265 B.C.). Etymologically, it means a treatise on matters pertaining to the human thought. Itis
important to underpin that logic does not provide us knowledge of the world directly, for logic is considered as a tool, and therefore does not contribute directly to the content of our thoughts. Logic is
not interested in what we know regarding certain subjects. Its concern rather, is the truth or the validity of our arguments regarding such objects
Specific fields in Philosophy.
1. Philosophy of Education
It deals with how children should be educated, what they should be educated in, and what the ultimate purpose of education should be for society.
2. Philosophy of Mind

It deals with the consciousness and how it interacts with the body and the outside world.
3. Philosophy of History
It is a relative minor branch in the field of philosophy, focusing on the study of history, writing about history, how history progresses, and what impact history has upon the present day.
4. Philosophy of Science
It is concerned with how science operates, what the goals of science should be what relationship science should have with society, the differences between science and other activities.
5. Philosophy of Law
It explores such topics of what law is, what kinds of laws there are, how law is or should be related to morality, and what sorts of principles should govern punishment and criminal justice in
general.
6. Philosophy of Language
It has close ties to both epistemology and metaphysics. It treats a broad spectrum of questions about language, the nature of meaning, the relations between words and things, the various
theories of language learning, and the distinction between literal and figurative uses of language.
Significance of Philosophy
1. Critical Thinking and General Problem Solving
2. Communication Skills
3. Persuasive Powers
4. Writing Skills
5. Probe into the Meaning and Value of Life
6. Help Paved the Way Towards Self-development and Self-discovery
7. Creation of our Own Philosophy in Life

REFERENCE/S (minimum of 5 references)
 Ramos, C. C. (2004). Introduction to Philosophy. Manila: Rex Book Store, Inc.
 Ramos, Christine Carmela R (2016). Introduction to Philosophy of Human Person. Manila, Philippines. Rex Bookstore Inc.
 http://www.philosophy-index.com/philosophy/branches/
 https://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/what.shtml
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRG-rV8hhpU&t=49s
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-H910KLJvkA

ACTIVITY #1
NAME DATE
YEAR & SECTION SCORE:
DIRECTION: Answer the questions below. Write your answers legibly on the space provided.
1. Why is it important to study philosophy?

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2. How can you apply the four main branches of philosophy in your own chosen field?
Metaphysics
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Epistemology
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Axiology
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Logic
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Lesson 2
TOPIC: ANCIENT GREEK AND SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS
DURATION: 2 WEEKS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Discuss how the philosophy started in the world through the contributions of Ancient Greek and Socratic Philosophers.
2. Recognize the important contributions of the different Ancient Greek and Socratic Philosophers.
3. Compare and contrast the ideas of philosophers about different things in this world.
TO DO LIST
Reading

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk1fA5nDP88
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYHdfuJOKHs
Take Activity #2

COURSE CONTENT
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
Many philosophers hold that there are three great original centers of philosophy in the world - Greek (or Western), Indian, and Chinese. All three arose as critical reflections on their own
cultural traditions. In this sense, early Greek, Indian, and Chinese thinkers tried to prove their individual theories by carefully defining their terms, drawing distinctions, and by constructing arguments
for their positions and counterarguments against the positions of their opponents.
Historically speaking, Asian classics of the Indians and the Chinese predate the oldest of Western classics. Indian and Chinese philosophers of note also lived earlier than their Greek
counterparts (Quito, 1991). One readily observes that during the first centuries, there was more philosophical activity in the East than in the West. Before the Greek period, there was hardly activity in
the West. Greeks before Thales did not have philosophy (Velasquez, 1999). From the time of the Greek triumvirate (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), there was a reversal. The Western thinkers started
to indulge in feverish philosophical speculation, whereas the Asian thinkers began philosophical activity. In our present century, almost all the major philosophical ideas emanate from Western
thinkers (Quito, 1991).
THE ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHERS

We begin by studying the earliest rational thinkers in the Western world - the pre-Socratic philosophers. "What is the world made of?" "How did the world come into being? and "How can we
explain the process of change?" were philosophical questions already brought up approximately 600 B.C.E. (before the common era) in the Western lonian seaport town of Miletus across the Aegan
Sea from Athens, Greece. Because lonia was a meeting place between the East and West, Greek philosophy may have Oriental as well as Egyptian and Babylonian influences. In both East and
West, philosophers were asking questions about the universe we live in and our place in it. Eastern sages probed nature's depths intuitively through the eyes of spiritual sages, while Greek thinkers
viewed nature through cognitive and scientific eyes (Price, 2000).
The speculations of the pre-Socratic philosophers represent a paradigm shift - a change from the mythical explanation of the origins of the cosmos to a more rational explanation. These
philosophers were looking for the underlying laws of nature. They wanted to understand the processes by studying nature itself, not by listening to stories about the gods. Though not as sophisticated
in the 21 century standard, the pre-Socratic philosophers do represent the first intellectual and scientific attempt to understand the origins of the universe.
Only the fragments have survived of what these natural philosophers said and wrote. Most information, in fact, comes from the writings of Aristotle who lived two centuries later. Plato's
extensive discussion in his Theaetetus, for instance, was the main source of information concerning Protagoras. What is clear is that we do know that the pre-Socratics were interested in the question
of a basic substance and the changes involved in nature.

THALES OF MILETUS (CIRCA 585 B.C.E)

Miletus began in the city of Greece as a great seafaring power Her colonies surrounded the shores of the Black Sea and she founded the first Greek settlements in Egypt (Harnkinson, 1998).
The very limited information of value about Thales comes from a few references by Herodotus and Aristotle.
Often called as the "Father of Western Philosophy," Thales, based on Aristotle's accounts, argued that, in spite of the differences among the various physical objects we experience (such as
earth, lakes, and trees), they all have basic similarity. There must be one substance that goes into the composition of everything in the universe. And the many objects in the world must in some way
relate to this one substance: water. Water, he said, is the basic substance of all physical reality. All things have moisture. As the one substance, water contains its own principle of change.
The following statements are attributed to Thales (Hamlyn, 1992):
 The earth floats on water.
 Water is the material cause of all things.
 All things are full of gods. The magnet is alive for it has the power of moving iron.
How Thales arrived at these doctrines, we do not know. A part may well have been played by all sorts of other considerations apart from the obvious ones - the observation of water
appearing both as a liquid, as a solid and as a vapor, the phenomenon of rain and dew, the effect of water on the growth of vegetation, even the old myth that the ocean was the father of all things.
Price (2000) thinks that perhaps, Thales meant that all life originated from water and al life returns to water again when it dissolves. Aristotle wrote that Thales could have seen that moisture
nourishes all things, generates heat and keeps everything alive. However, what is really important is that Thales could have assumed the existence of a coherent universe and should have looked for
one underlying reality as a substratum or cause for everything.
ANAXIMANDER
Anaximander, born in 610-609 B.C., represents the second generation of the Milesian School. He is distinguished by certain practical inventions: he was the first cartographer, the first to
construct a map that illustrates the movements and dimensions of heavenly bodies. He decided, from his observation of or information about the breeding habits of sharks, that human beings,
originally, were like another animal, namely a fish. He was the first Greek philosopher to leave his doctrines in a book written in prose.
The Boundless. Anaximander rejected Thales' hypothesis that Nature is water and his reasons for doing this seems still possible to discern. Things in the physical world display the most
bewildering variety of sense qualities. Of the numerous qualitative contrasts among physical things, the two that played the chief role in the earliest theorizing were the contrasts between the moist
and the dry and between the warm and the cold.
In the next century, these two pairs of qualitative opposite became the basis of a theory of four "elements," the irreducible kinds of matter: the moist-warm (air), the dry-cold (earth), the moist-cold
(water), and the dry-warm (fire). Scientists not earlier than the seventeenth century, have found good empirical evidence for this view. To Anaximander, these contrasts of quality appeared to be
cases of an actual antagonism manifesting itself within Nature: fire evaporates water and water extinguishes fire, it being of the very character of each to encroach upon and destroy its opposite.
Thus, how could the contrary kinds of matter now actually present in the world have arisen? For water, being cold and moist, is naturally the destroyer rather than the progenitor of things warm and

dry. Thus, he was led to believe that Nature must have some of the determinate opposite of qualities. Nature, he therefore taught, is a substance, indeterminate and neutral; it is best described simply
as "the Boundless or "the Unlimited."
All the Milesians regarded Nature as spatially without boundaries, 1.e. as infinite or indefinite in extent. Anaximander employed the term "boundless" to convey the further thought that Nature
is indeterminate - boundless in the sense that no boundaries between the warm and cold or the moist and dry regions are originally present within it (Solomon and Higgins, 1996).
Creation and Destruction. According to Anaximander's sketch of the genesis of the world (cosmogony), the evolution of the world begins with the generation of opposites in a certain region of
Nature: a portion of the Boundless first differentiates itself into a cold-moist mass surrounded by a roughly spherical shell of the warm-dry. Once the warm-dry has been separated out, surrounding
the cold-moist, it begins to evaporate the moisture of the latter, and this process forms a vaporous atmosphere. Eventually, the expanding vapor or steam bursts the enclosing fiery shells into rings
and rushing, outward, envelops them. The opposite forces caused an imbalance that necessitated their ultimate destruction (Price, 2000). What appear to us as heavenly bodies are in reality parts of
the fiery rings that we glimpse through openings left in their steamy, vaporous envelopes. The revolution of the stars, sun, and moon around the central earth is in reality the rotation of the vapor-
enveloped rings of fire.
ANAXIMENES
The developments of Anaximenes doctrines are from those of Thales, although Anaximenes follows a totally different line of speculation. The style of Anaximenes is simple and
unpretentious. For him, the underlying substance is one and Infinite, but not indeterminate but Determinate: it is air. All things that are and have been, and shall be, took their existence from the air. It
differs in different substances by virtue of its rarefaction and condensation. By rarefaction, air becomes fire, whereas through a series of contractions it becomes in furn cloud, vapor, water, earth,
rock, etc. All substances are air in some degree of density; all becoming, every change throughout the whole cosmic process, is in its true nature simply rarefaction and condensation.
The importance of this philosophical discovery makes the Milesian Cosmology thoroughly consistent for the first time; explaining everything by the transformation of a single substance. All
differences are regarded as purely quantitative. The unity of the primary substance is saved by saying that all diversities are due to the presence of more or less of it in a given space. The analogy
from human breath suggests that the primary substance bears the same relation to the life of the world as to that of humanity. It is early instance of the argument from the microcosm to the
macrocosm (Solomon and Higgins, 1996).
Whereas Anaximander held that the cylindrical earth remains suspended in space because there is no reason why it should move in any one particular direction rather than in another,
Anaximenes reverted to the "flat-earth" theory. For Anaximenes, the earth and the heavenly bodies are flying saucers, or rather saucers floating on air. Neither of the two theories is regarded today as
correct.
PYTHAGORAS
What is known as the "School of Miletus" ends with Anaximenes. The next "schools" of philosophy appear in the Greek Cities of Southern Italy and the next philosophers are also Ionians.
Pythagoras, one of the most important and elusive, came from the island Samos at about 531 B.C.

Rebirth. Pythagoras founded a brotherhood originally based on a moral and religious one. He shared with the Orphics in the belief that the soul is, in its life here on Earth, immured in the
body as in a tomb; the body is a "prison-house of the soul. The soul was supposed to be of divine origin, and the fact that it dwells in the body is looked upon somehow as a consequence of an
ancient contamination or pollution of its natural divinity. The incarnation of the soul was both a symbol of its degradation and a real obstacle in the way of realizing its deepest aspiration: to recover its
original purity and thereby to be released from their irksome succession of lives in the flesh. Death effects no real release; tor as long as any trace of its carnal contamination remains upon it, the soul
is destined to be reincarnated again and again. The cycle of birth, death, and rebirth must continue for every soul until it is purged.
Number. The Key to Nature. However, what really distinguished the Pythagorean order aside from their religious cult, originates from Pythagoras himself. According to Pythagoras, the most
effective means of purifying man's soul is the cultivation and exercises of the intellect in the pursuit of knowledge and science. Based on Aristotle, Pythagoras was the first to discuss the subject of
goodness. Pythagoras was the first to carry arithmetic beyond the needs of commerce and made it a study for its own sake. The traditional Pythagorean proposition that the square on the hypotenuse
is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides was the real foundation of scientific mathematics (Hamlyn, 1992). Broadly speaking, two main points emerged out of the works of the early
Pythagoreans: their views on transmigration and their interest in mathematical studies. It is thus, possible to maintain that the Pythagoreans laid the foundations of modern mathematical physics,
especially when they said that "things are made of numbers." In the next century, Plato would turn to Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans for insight into the soul, mathematics, harmony, and form as
he probed into the meaning of human nature and universe.
HERACLITUS
Nature ldentified with Fire. Giving a different kind of answer to Thales' question, Heraclitus argued that the substance that holds everything together 1s fire. Fire is in a constant process of
formation, and therefore it is in a continuous state of change. However, Heraclitus' "fire" 1s not a material thing: it is a unity not of substance underlying change but the unity of pattern (Heidegger and
Fink, 1996).
The Universality of Change. Heraclitus used fire as an analogy to universal reason or "logos." According to him, fire consumes what it is fed by giving off heat or smoke or ashes. Thus, fire is
a process of change: that which "is fed" into it becomes something else. He concluded that although everything constantly changes, nothing is ever lost in nature.
The Logos and Human Nature. Fire is not a random movement but God's universal reason (logos). Reason is the order and structure of the universe. This universal reason guides everything
that happens in nature. As a pantheist, he saw that human soul as a part of God, for God is in everything (Joan, 2000). It is God, the universal reason, the Fire, that is the unity holding everything
together. Because God is reason, human beings possess the capacity for thought. It is clear from Heraclitus' beliefs that mere knowledge is not enough. He claims to be able to see into the nature ot
things and to have discovered a universal law connected with humanity's own nature and also with something that Heraclitus calls "God" (Heidegger and Fink, 1996).
PARMENIDES
His doctrines are composed in a poem that begins with a chariot ride of the poet to the "goddess" who reveals to him the plain truth and the deceptive beliefs of human beings. He is said to
have been converted to the philosophical way of life by a Pythagorean to whom he afterwards built a shrine as a hero. Parmenides seems unique in having been inspired with rapture by logic. He
was the first logician and is considered to be the first philosopher in the modern sense of the word. His system depends entirely on logical deduction. The logical method: a method that depends
entirely on thought and not at all on experiment and observation is the creation of Parmenides.

What Is Is, What Is Not Is Not. For Parmenides, only that can he which can be thought: for thought exists for the sake of what is. Thus, the Non-Being must be entirely rejected. In this vein
Parmenides goes on to consider the consequences of saying that anything is. In the first place, it cannot have come into being. It cannot have arisen from nothing, for there is no nothing. It cannot
have arisen from something: for there is nothing else than what is (Ex nihilo nihil fit). Plato speaks of Parmenides as a person to be at once revered and feared. Plato's testimony 1s definitely of real
value. In his book, Plato tells us that Parmenides regarded Not-Being as unspeakable, inconceivable, irrational, meaning thereby in order to exist, anything must be thought, conceived, and reasoned
about.
For Parmenides, change is the confusion of appearance (motion with reality (permanence), and therefore change is simply an illusion. Reality is the basis of truth (knowledge), whereas
change produces only opinion (lack of knowledge). Although the senses tell us that things appear to change and therefore things do change, our reason can distinguish the truth from that which
appears to be true. When reason says reality must be a single permanent substance, then there can be no change. Zeno, a member of the Eleatic School, supports the concept that there is no
change. Weaknesses of Eleatic doctrine however did not succeed historically (Hankinson, 1998).
EMPEDOCLES
For Empedocles, the purpose was to discover what forces govern the natural world and to subject them to the service of his fellow human beings (Hamlyn, 1992). He sides with the Eleatics in
his denial of becoming, but assumes the reality of motion. He accepts the idea of permanency of "what is," but insists also on the permanency of a "process."
Unlike Anaximenes, Empedocles argued that matter is immutable in its essence, but bodies are in a state of constant change their constituent elements are combined and separated in
different proportions. Hence, we must abandon the notion of elementary unity; we must cease deriving air from water, or earth from fire, or water from air, and consider these four elements as equally
original. In other words, the four kinds of matter are interchangeable, yet intermingling they form the concrete objects of the world. Everything is a mixture of earth, fire, air, and water but in varying
proportions
The theory of the four roots is the theory intended to account for a change and motion, for the process of development and dissolution. Empedocles proclaims the existence of two "things
which he calls Strife and Love. Love and Strife, attraction and which he repulsion, are two different forces at work in nature. Love binds things together, and strife separates them (Price, 2000).
ANAXAGORAS
Anaxagoras (500-425 B.C.) said that there are infinite number of minute invisible particles that are the building blocks of nature. We can divide everything into smaller parts, but even in the
minutes parts are fragments of all other things. These miniscule particles that carry the blueprint of everything else he called seeds.
He was the first philosopher to distinguish the mind (Nous) from matter. He agreed with Empedocles that all coming into and going out of consists in the mixture and separation of preexisting
matter, but he rejected love and strife as the responsible forces. Nor did he agree with the Milesians that one particular substance, such as water or air, might be transformed to everything we see in
the world (Price, 2000).
He held the view that matter is a continuum, infinitely divisible and that, however, much it may be divided, each part will contain elements of everything else. Thus, the difference between, for
instance, fire and earth, is accounted for simply by the fact that in fire there is more fire than there is in the earth; there is some earth in fire. Gray, for example, is intermediary between white and

black, but it is neither; and to say that by combining black and white we produce gray explains nothing; unless we suppose that the gray was really in the black and the white was only there
conspicuously when they were combined (Kirk, et al., 1995).
Anaxagoras had made Mind the cause of all things. To Anaxagoras, the world appeared in an orderly structure produced by the principle of Nous. Mind (Nous) is the principle that gives
matter its order. It is the living force of everything in the cosmos. The power of Nous brings together and separates them in an orderly fashion. Nous animates everything in nature, including the earth,
life in plants, and sense perception in humans.
Mind (Nous), for Anaxagoras started motion; it sets in order all things, past, present and future (Velasquez, 1999). On the other hand, nothing is completely separated off or distinguished
from others except Mind. However, Nous, like Love and Strife by Empedocles, is considered as a substance by Anaxagoras thus eliminating the possibility that he is introducing a "spiritual" element
into philosophy. In Anaxagoras' cosmogony, the world evolved mechanically without divine support or guidance. The intent of Anaxagoras' thought is now evident: it was to exclude, more rigorously
than Empedocles had done from our conception of cosmic processes anything resembling creation or generation out of what is not.
Finally, Nous is mixed with nothing, exists for itself alone and is absolutely simple (as opposed to matter which is completely composite and mixed). Its essential function consists in the
separating of the mixed mass. Matter, before Nous has worked upon it, exists as a mass in which nothing is separated from anything else Anaxagoras explained mechanically this process of
separation and world creation.
One critique regarding Anaxagoras' view on the Mind is that it is likely that human beings are the efficient cause of human behavior (the power that sets the body in motion) a concept that he
extended to the larger whole, the universe. In the universe, as in living animals, Mind has "all power"; power, rather than goodness or wisdom of design, is the attribute of Mind most stressed in the
statements of Anaxagoras (Kirk, et al., 1995).
DEMOCRITUS
Democritus embraced the whole of the philosophical knowledge of his time and critically addressed the issues in a purely materialistic and mechanical theory (Price, 2000). He was
convinced, like Parmenides, of the impossibility of an absolute creation or destruction. However, like Leucippus, he agreed that transformations in nature could not be the result of anything that
actually changed. Like Leucippus, he believed everything in nature was made of tiny invisible particles or units called atoms. Being and Not-Being, the full and the empty, are declared by Democritus
to be the basic constituents of all things. The full is divided into innumerable particles, which are too small to be perceived. They are separated from one another by the empty and are themselves
indivisible. Hence, they are called "atoms" or dense bodies, having no empty space in them. The "atoms" of Democritus have neither come into being nor can they cease to be they are completely
homogenous in substance and are distinguished only by their change of quantity but are not capable of qualitative change
If Pythagoras posited that all things are numbers, the Atomists believed everything is a combination of atoms, formed by the motion of atoms moving about in the void. Parmenides argued
that to have a void in space was impossible. Space would then be nothing (non- being) and therefore would not exist. Democritus argued there is empty space, but is infinite without boundary. For the
Atomists, everything in nature is the product of the collision of atoms moving about in space. As materialists, they did not think there was a conscious' design in the movement of atoms. In nature,
everything happens mechanically, obeying the inevitable laws of necessity. Everything that happens has a natural cause that is inherent in the object itself (Price, 2000).

As the soul is composed of atoms like everything else, sensation must consist in the impact of atoms; the organs of sense being "passages" through which these atoms are introduced.
Democritus strived for the "cheerfulness" as the state of the soul. Here we can see the germs of an idealistic theory of conduct in a philosopher who had a mechanical and materialistic theory of
nature and reality.
The Atomists marked the end of Greek natural philosophy (Price, 2000). After them, philosophers turned their concentration from the physical world to questions about how people should
behave. The next development in philosophy started with the Sophists and Socrates, who turned their natural philosophy to concentrate on the nature of human beings, their ethical problems, and
philosophy of life. They struggled with the questions: "Who am 1?" and "What do I want out of life?"
PROTAGORAS
The first step in understanding Protagoras of Abdera (490 B.C.E. - c. 420 B.C.E.) is to define the general category of "sophist," a term often applied to Protagoras in antiquity. In the fifth
century, the term referred mainly to people who were known for their knowledge and those who earned money by teaching advanced Pupils and seemed to be a somewhat neutral term, although
sometimes used with pejorative overtones.
Like the pre-Socratic philosophers, the Sophists were critical of traditional mythology, but they also rejected the validity of pre Socratic's speculations. Even if ultimate truths exist, they
questioned the human ability to know them. To prove their point, the Sophist, illustrated how each of the pre-Socratic philosophers disagreed with the others' answers about the universe. If Thales
believed the ultimate was water, Anaximander the unlimited, and Anaximenes the air the Sophists concluded that we humans could not know the truth about nature's riddles. This view is known as
skepticism (Price, 2000)
Rather than speculate about alternate theories of nature, the Sophists turned their attention to practical day-to-day problems of people and their place in society. Through this fresh method of
inquiry, philosophy took a new direction. The most outstanding Sophists in Athens were Protagoras, Gorgias, and Thrasymachus. (For the purpose of discussion, we shall focus on Protagoras.)
Protagoras' teaching included such general areas as public speaking, criticisms of poetry, citizenship, and grammar. His teaching methods seemed to consist primarily of lectures, including
model orations, analyses of poems, discussions of meaning and correct uses of words (orthoepeia), and general rules of oratory. His audiences consisted mainly of wealthy men from Athens' social
and commercial elites. The reason for his popularity among this class had to do with specific characteristics of the Athenian legal system.
Man-Measure Statement (homo-mensura). For Protagoras, "Man is the measure of all things, of things that exist, that they exist, and of things that do not exist, that they do not exist."
Abstractions like truth, beauty, justice, and virtue are also qualities and it would seem that Protagoras' dictum would lead us to conclude that they too are relative to the individual observer, a
conclusion which many conservative Athenians found alarming because of its potential social consequences. If good and bad are merely what seem good and bad to the individual observer, then
how can one claim that lying or murder are somehow wrong? Moreover, if something can seem both hot and cold (or good and bad) then both claims-that the thing is hot and that the thing is cold-
can be argued for equally well. government corruption is both good and bad (good for one person and bad for another), then one can construct equally valid arguments for and against corruption in
general or an individual corrupt government official. What will make a case triumph in court is not some inherent worth of one side, but the persuasive artistry of the orator. And thus, Protagoras
claims he is able to "make the worse case the better." The oratorical skills Protagoras taught thus had potential for promoting what most Athenians considered injustice or immorality.

At first, the Sophists reputation of professional teachers of philosophy was highly favorable. Presenting their ideas with strength and conviction was essential for those who wanted to speak
before and the Athenian assembly. Education also was necessary for anyone who wanted to sue for personal or business reasons. Soon, however, the Sophists developed the reputation of charging
exorbitant fees and teaching young men to think critically about their traditional religious and ethical views. Even worse, the students learned how to make dishonest arguments appear honest and
just cases appear unjust (Price, 2000). Socrates had studied under the Sophists, that somehow some Athenians consider him another Sophist. However, Socrates and Plato condemned the
Sophists; Socrates regarded them as "prostitutes of wisdom."
As a consequence of Protagoras' view, he may have considered laws (legislative and judicial) were things that evolved gradually by agreement (brought about by debate in democratic
assemblies) and thus could be changed by further debates. He was a strong believer in organized society and held that institutions and conventions were what raised humanity above brutes (Hamlyn,
1992). Protagoras' influence on the history of philosophy has been significant. Historically, it was in response to Protagoras' and his fellow Sophists that Plato began the search for transcendent forms
of knowledge that could somehow anchor moral judgment. Along with other older Sophists and Socrates, Protagoras was part of a shift in philosophical focus of natural philosophy to an interest in
human philosophy. He emphasized how human subjectivity determines the way we understand, or even construct, our world, a position that is still an essential part of the modern philosophic tradition
(Price, 2000).
SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle discussed ethics in a way that probably feels foreign to contemporary sensibilities (White, 1993). Nonetheless, these "great masters" of Western philosophy took
up central ethical questions that are too frequently ignored: Why be ethical? What does being ethical mean? Socrates and Plato answered the first question by asserting a close relationship between
moral virtue and the healthy human personality. They argued that no matter what vice looks like on the surface or what it achieves - wealth, power, fame, or romance - is actually a sign of weakness,
not strength. Aristotle answered the second question by stressing the inner dimensions of human action. Virtue depends on character, not deeds, and our character is shape by every action we
perform.
The idea of these three thinkers thereby underscores the relationship between ethics and the very core of our being. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle showed that what we do helps us or hurts
us as much as, if not more than, the people with whom we deal with. These philosophers, therefore, forcefully demonstrated that our welfare is ultimately in our own hands; they argued for the
seriousness of taking care of the moral character of our actions. In contrast to the pervasive belief in our culture that satisfying an ever-expanding lists of physical and material want will lead to
happiness, Socrates and Plato suggested precisely the opposite. Their ethical outlook, then, is a sobering caution about the difficulty of remaining in control of our lives. Aristotle pointed out how
critical it is to study our motivations and master the inner forces that could lead to moral compromises.
SOCRATES
Ethics began in ancient Greece when philosophers focused primarily on the nature of moral virtue (White, 1993). Plato saw, understood, and built on Socrates' greatest intellectual
achievements. He saw that where all the Greeks praised the virtue to the skies, Socrates raised the simplest and yet more startling question, a question that apparently nobody had thought of before,
and certainly nobody understood or pursued in a Socratic way: What is virtue? What is it that is common to all the things we count as virtue and by reason of which they are virtue?

Socrates (469-399 B.C.) took a practical approach, regularly accosting his fellow Athenians and challenging them to think about virtue and the "health of the soul." Socrates' ideas may seem
to be elementary but it was him who, so far as can be seen, created the conception of the soul which has ever since dominated European thinking. For more than two thousand years, it has been the
standing assumption of the civilized European man that he has a soul, something which is the seat of his normal waking intelligence and moral character, and that, since this soul is either identical
with himself or at any rate the most important thing about him, his supreme business in life is to make the best of it and do the best for it. There are, of course, a minority of people who reject this
theory of lite, and some of them even deny the existence of soul, but they are a small minority. To the vast mass Europeans, to this day, the existence and the importance of soul is a doctrine so
familiar that it seems self-evident. The direct influence, indeed, which has done most to make the doctrine so familiar to ourselves is that of Christianity but when Christianity came to the Greco-
Roman world it found the general conception of the soul which it needed already prepared for it by philosophy.
Comparatively little is known about Socrates teachings on ethics, except that he believed that vice resulted from ignorance and that a Socratic-assisted examination of one's deepest beliefs
could free an individual from the snares of confused and contradictory thinking and pave the way to virtue. Accordingly, Socrates main ideas about ethics are related to convincing people to be
virtuous.
Plato saw that where the Greeks enjoyed great success in the arts and crafts, Socrates perceived an opportunity in this success to try to conceive of a parallel success in the art of living and
ruling. Socrates taught that the proper way to solve our problems is to discover our true nature. He believed that the soul preexisted the body and the problems that we experience at present result
from lack of knowledge or ignorance.
For Socrates, knowing oneself is a condition to solve the present problem. Socrates' major ethical claims were that happiness is impossible without moral virtue and that unethical actions
harm the person who performs them more than the people they victimize. Although it is not totally clear what Socrates meant by these notions, he seems to have believed that an unethical person is
weak, even psychologically unhealthy. He apparently thought that we today would call cognitive and non-cognitive capacities are harmed as the unethical person gives into his or her desires and
ultimately becomes enslaved by them. Someone in the grip of corruption can no longer be satisfied and endlessly seeks new pleasures. In addition, the individual's intellect and moral sense are
impaired. Socrates thus saw someone steeped in vice as lacking the freedom, self-control, and intellectual clarity that are needed to live happily. The immoral person literally becomes a slave to his
desires.
Socrates was a great teacher in Athens around 469 B.C. He turned into teaching to improve the social and moral conditions of his time. Instead of confining his teaching in a classroom, he
went out to the streets to meet people and pupils, and conversed with them
Moreover, he was first moral philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic questioning about the self. He believes that every man is composed of body and soul. He also believes in a divine
a divine voice (daimonion).
PLATO
Plato (428-348 B.C.) is considered to be the greatest individual production of Socrates, that without him, the world could not have come to appreciate the greatness of Socrates. Plato
continued Socrates focus on the relationship between ethics and the human personality (White, 1993). Thus, he supported the idea of Socrates that man is a dual nature of body and soul. Plato
described moral virtue in terms of a proper balance and harmony among different aspects of the "soul"- reason would rule over the physical desires with the assistance of the emotions. Like Socrates,

Plato saw moral virtue as necessary for the health of the soul, but he thought that genuine virtue was difficult to attain and ultimately depended on learning highly sophisticated, metaphysical truths
that required years of study. For Plato, then, he was rooted on the intellect (White, 1993). On the whole, it is safest to conclude that Plato's Dialogues really presents the philosophy of Plato himself,
though it may have found its inspiration in the personality and teaching of Socrates.
Plato's Dialogues in the Republic has overshadowed all his other Dialogues in fame, for it undoubtedly brought out the many-sidedness of his genius no other Dialogue of his can aspire to
do. It is for that very reason that it has been looked upon as a masterpiece in world literature. The Republic, as its name implies, is a book on politics, however, it was found difficult to define justice in
an individual without studying the broader perspective of the State. So it is in its origin ethical. The art of government leads on to the topic of education. However, the book also became important for
Eugenics for Pedagogics because of its refreshing discussion of poetics and aesthetics. Finally, due to his Idea of Good, the Republic became a great book on metaphysics as well.
According to Plato, the body is the source of endless trouble to is by reason of the mere requirement of food; and is liable also to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after
true being: it fills us full of love, lusts and fears, and fancies of all kinds, and endless foolishness. For example, when war comes, money has to be acquired by and for the sake of the body. The body,
for Plato, causes us turmoil and confusion in our inquiries. Thus, to see the truth, we must quit the body the soul in herself must behold things in themselves. Then, we shall attain the wisdom we
desire. Knowledge however can be attained (if at all) after death: for if while in the company of the body the soul cannot have pure knowledge.
For Plato, the soul of the true philosopher, which has, in life, been liberated from thralldom to the flesh, will, after death, depart to the invisible world, to live in bliss in the company of the gods.
However, the impure soul, which has loved the body, will become a ghost haunting the sepulcher, or will enter into the body of an animal, such as an ass or wolf or hawk, according to its character. A
person who has been virtuous without being a philosopher will become a bee or wasp or ant, or some other animal of a gregarious and social sort.
ARISTOTLE
Aristotle (384 to 322 B.C.), was Plato’s student and saw moral virtue different than his teacher did, however, linking it less to the intellectual and more to what we today refer to as character or
personality. Indeed, Aristotle defined virtue in the Nichomachean Ethics not accordig to the nature of the actions, but according to the disposition of the doer." Aristotle also argued that moral virtue
was developed in the same way as physical skills- through practice and habit (White, 1993). Although he made important contributions to many fields that are now cultivated by specialized experts,
chief among these are his logic, his doctrine of the four causes, his conception of substance, and his all-pervasive notion of development and end or purpose. He never lost sight of the aim of unifying
knowledge, of understanding the world as an organized whole. In him we find what is always found even in philosophers of his stature, a meeting of the two main philosophical motives: a desire to
understand the world and a desire to understand humanity and its place in the world (Hankinson, 1998).
Aristotle's concept of moral virtue involved our hearts as well as our heads. In essence, Aristotle offered a personality type as his moral standard: the virtuous person. The temperate and just
man is not he who does these acts, but he who does them in the way in which just and temperate men do them. This means, according to Aristotle, choosing to do the right thing for its own sake and
from a firm and unshakable disposition.
THE SOUL

For Aristotle, a human being is a rational being. This makes the human being by far over and above the animals. It is reason that makes humanity resemble the Supreme Reason that rules
and guides the destinies of individuals and nations, and leads all things to their proper ends. The highest faculty in humanity is reason that should dominate passion, the lower nature of humanity.
Among the creatures of the cosmic universe, we discern three kinds of be souled organisms: plants, animals, and human beings. Accordingly, there are three kinds of souls immersed in
matter: the vegetative soul, the aesthetic or sensitive soul, and the rational soul. Each soul is distinct by virtue of the special powers or properties that it manifests in its operations. Plant life reveals
itself in acts of nutrition, growth, and reproduction. Animal life is exhibited in acts of sensitive cognition, sensitive appetition, and local movement. Human life, the crowing perfection of physical nature,
is manifested in acts of rational cognition and rational appetition. Just as acts of thinking is different from the act of sensing, so the power of thinking is different from the power of sensing.
For Aristotle, there is no matter without form and no form without matter. Matter is the substance out of which something is made (whether human or chicken), and "form" is its essence
characteristics). When a human or chicken dies, its "form" ceases to exist. Its "substance (matter) remains, but it is no longer a person or a chicken. Substance always contains the potentiality to
realize a specific "form." "Form" is knowable only when it actualizes in the physical world and we can experience it with our senses. The "form" of a seed is the actual tree. The "form'" of a human
body is the soul. Matter in its pure state needs "form" to trigger its potential.
THE FOUR CAUSES

Aristotle discovered four causes that contribute to change. We can ask four questions regarding change (1) What is it? (2) What is it made of? (3) What or who made it? and (4) For what end
is it made? To these questions, Aristotle responds with the four causes.
Aristotle regarded these causes as first principles found in every realm of reality. They are (1) the formal cause (form), (2) the material cause (matter), the efficient cause (motion) and (4) the
final cause (end). The four causes are the principles that govern all things as they develop from potentiality to actuality.
For example, in making a house, the formal cause is the plan the carpenter has in mind, the material cause is the wood, the efficient consists of the carpenter building the house and the final
cause is the purpose for the house - to provide shelter. The four causes Constitute the principles of change from a potential state of unformed matter to the end for which it is made - actuality.
THE UNMOVED MOVER
For Aristotle, all things are destructible but the Unmoved Mover is eternal, immaterial, with pure actuality or perfection, and with no potentiality. Being eternal, it is the reason for and the
principle of motion to everything else. Because motion is eternal, there never was a time when the world was not. The Unmoved Mover has neither physical body nor emotional desires. Its main
activity consists of pure thought (Nous). As such it is a mind that is perfect and its object of thought can only be itself.
Striving to realize themselves, objects and human beings move toward their divine origin and perfection. Our highest faculty is the reason, which finds its perfection in contemplating the
Unmoved Mover. Aristotle explained how an Unmoved Mover could cause motion of the world and everything in it by comparing it to a beloved who “moves” its lover by the power of attraction. The

object of love is the cause of a change in the lover, without itself being changed. Similarly, God is the object of the aspirations of other substances but is not Himself susceptible to change or motion
(Hare, et., al 1991).
 https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/classical-greek-philosophy/
 https://www.athensinsiders.com/blog/the-top-10-ancient-greek-philosophers
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk1fA5nDP88
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYHdfuJOKHs
ACTIVITY #2
NAME DATE
DIRECTION: Write down the different major contributions of the Ancient Greek and Socratic philosophers using the table below.
Philosophers Contributions

Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
Pythagoras
Heraclitus
Parmenides
Empedocles
Anaxagoras
Democritus
Protagoras
Socrates

Plato
Aristotle
Lesson 3
TOPIC: INTRODUCTION TO MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
DURATION: 2 WEEKS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe the overview of the philosophies of the different medieval philosophers.

2. Identify the biography and contributions of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas in the emergence of philosophy in the world.
3. Explain the biography and contributions of St. Anselm and Blaise Pascal in the emergence of philosophy in the world.
TO DO LIST
Reading


- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yStlBaGAFjg
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-SZv3UJTw
Take Activity #3.1 and Activity #3.2
COURSE CONTENT
MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
The Middle Ages cover about 1,000 years from about A.D. 500 to about 1500. However, the change from ancient ways to medieval customs came so gradually. Some historians say that the
Middle Ages began in A.D. 476 when the barbarian Odoacer overthrew Emperor Romulus Augustulus, ending the Western Roman Empire; still others say about A.D. 500 or even later. Historians say
that the Middle Ages ended with the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, with the discovery of America, in 1492; or with the beginning of the Reformation in 1517.
German barbarians sacked and pillaged the declining Western Roman Empire. The invaders, however, lacked the knowledge and skills to carry on Roman achievements in art, literature, and
engineering. In effect, highly developed systems of Roman law and government gave way to the rude forms of the barbarians. Thus, the early Medieval Period is sometimes referred to as the Dark
Ages (Solomon and Higgins, 1996).
It was, nonetheless, a time of preparation, like working afield before planting seeds. For instance, to the Romans, the State had been more important than the individual. From the barbarians'
ideal of personal rights grew their respect for women, their "government by the people," and their crude but representative law courts where kings and chiefs were elected by tribal councils (which
also served as court of laws).
In the reign of Clovis, Christianity began to lift Europe from the Dark Ages. Many barbarians had become Christians earlier though mostly hold the Arian belief, a doctrine that holds the
conviction that Son of God is finite and created by God the Father and thus, condemned as heresy by the Church. Christianity’s influence widened when the great Charlemagne became king of the
Franks who founded schools in monasteries and churches for both the poor and nobility.

The way of life in the Middle Ages is called feudalism, which comes from medieval Latin feudum, meaning property or “possession.” Peasants, about nine-tenths of them, are farmers or
village laborers. All peasants men, women, and children worked to support their lord. Many peasants built their villages of huts near to the castles of their lords for protection in exchange of their
services.
Besides labor, peasants had to pay taxes to the lord in money or produce. In addition, they had to give a tithe to the Church for instance, every tenth egg, wheat, etc. Famines were frequent.
Plagues cut down the livestock. Floods, frosts, and droughts destroyed the crops. Burst or warfare ravaged the countryside as the lords burned each other's fields and harvests.
By the 4" century, the acceptance of Christianity by the Homan Empire as its religion, signaled new kind of art, Sculpture, like painting music, and philosophy turned for inspiration to the
Church, which in turn used arts to good advantage. Art was austere, symbolic, and otherworldly from about 8h to 12h centuries, the middle period of the Middle Ages. Religious in subject matter,
sculpture was closely related to church architecture.
The "Dance of Death" was a popular allegorical theme among European artists in the 14h and 15 centuries due to recurring plagues and wars in the medieval society. This engraving by
Hartmann Schedel, taken from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), portrays the skeletons thought to entice the living into a dance that eventually brought them to their death.
However, with the growth of commerce and towns, feudalism as a system of government began to pass. As changes in business government, and social customs steadily shaped a new life
in Europe rising interest in artistic and intellectual achievements reached a peak in the Renaissance - a revival of classical learning. An interest in beauty and culture was reborn. In the 14th and 15h
centuries, leadership in art and literature returned to Western Europe.
Amid the turmoil of the Middle Ages, one institution stood for the common good - it was the Roman Catholic Church. Many historians say that its spirit and its work comprised the "great
civilizing influence of the Middle Ages." By the 13t century, the Church was the strongest single influence in Europe. Everyone except the Arabs, Jews, and the people in the Byzantine Empire
belonged to the Church and felt its authority.
1. God and Religion
In this section, new body of philosophical writings that sets forth new problems is discussed. In the 5th century, Augustine's writing is considered to be the most influential in the early
Medieval period (Hare, et al., 1991). In Aquinas, new material is made fundamental and the old assimilated to it. This chapter looks at the reasonableness of belief in God's existence. In doing so, we
shall treat the statement "God exists" as a hypothesis, which we call the theistic hypothesis. This means we shall ask whether or not the existence of God provides the best explanation of the
existence of the world, as we know it. To treat the existence of God as a hypothesis is to take a decidedly philosophical attitude toward the matter. It is to approach it from the point of view of
agnosticism, a claim of ignorance or the claim that God's existence can be neither proved nor disproved.
Religious people definitely do not treat God's existence as a hvpothesis, for God is a constant presence, rather than a being whose existence is accepted as the best explanation of available
evidence neither the Jewish nor Christian Bibles is there any argument Cod's existence. For the biblical writers, proving God's existence would be as pointless as trying to prove the existence of the
air we breathe. The religious problem reflected in the Old Testament narratives is not atheism but polytheism: not the denial of God but the worship of too many gods. Likewise, in the New
Testament, the reality of God is unquestioned due to the conviction that in Jesus of Nazareth the eternal God became flesh and dwelt among human beings. In its earliest missionary endeavors,

Christians directed their preaching to Jews who accepted the reality of God. It was only later when Christian missionaries confronted a variety of naturalistic philosophy that they felt the need to argue
philosophically for the existence of God. However, even then, the task was not considered too formidable for the basic structure of the arguments was already present in the writings of the Greek
philosophers.
For the first thousand years of the existence of the faith, Christian writers found the most useful philosophical framework within the philosophy of Plato. Indeed, the ontological argument is
highly compatible with the platonic view of reality, about which more will be said later. Most of the works of Aristotle, in contrast, had been lost to Western scholars, and what was known of his
philosophy was through the work of such Arabic commentators as Avicenna and Averoes. In the mind of most Christian scholars in the thirteenth century, Plato was the Christian philosopher,
Aristotle the pagan philosopher. In such a climate of opinion, Thomas Aquinas nonetheless found in Aristotle a better set of categories for communicating the Christian faith to the world. He was so
successful in his use of Aristotelian thought that Thomistic thought became the official doctrinal framework of the Roman Catholic Church and has remained so throughout most of the 20th century.
Thomas' was no small achievement: he single-handedly transformed the perceptions of Aristotle as a pagan philosopher into the perceptions of him as the Christian philosopher.
Religious thinkers such as Aquinas have offered various arguments for the existence of God, and they have expected these arguments to be evaluated on their own merits. To suspend the
influence of faith is not to ignore it. Indeed, after we evaluate Aquinas' arguments for God's existence, we shall turn to not justification for belief in God, which refuses to divorce God from the life of
faith. This section shall also provide necessary readings for the arguments of St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine of Hippo and finally, Blaise Pascal.
ST. AUGUSTINE
St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354 - 430) was an Algerian-Roman philosopher and theologian of the late Roman / early Medieval period. He is one of the most important early figures in the
development of Western Christianity, and was a major figure in bringing Christianity to dominance in the previously pagan Roman Empire. He is often considered the father of orthodox theology and the
greatest of the four great fathers of the Latin Church (along with St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory). Unlike the later Scholastics who took Aristotle as the classical model to be integrated into
Christian thought, Augustine developed a philosophical and theological system which employed elements of Plato and Neo-Platonism in support of Christian orthodoxy. His many works profoundly
influenced the medieval worldview.
Aurelius Augustinus (usually known as simply Augustine) was born on 13 November 354 in Tagaste (or Thagaste), a provincial Roman city in Algeria, North Africa, and he was, by descent,
a Berber. His father Patricius was a pagan, but his mother Monica (or Monnica) was a devout Catholic (and is herself revered as a Christian saint), so he was raised as a Catholic. At the age of 11, he
was sent to school at Madaurus, an old Numidian town just south of Tagaste, famed both for its schools and for its pagan influence, where he became very familiar with Latin literature, as well as pagan
beliefs and practices. Later he read the "Hortensius", a dialogue by the Roman philosopher and politician Cicero, which was largely responsible for sparking his interest in philosophy.
At the age of 17, he went to Carthage, Tunisia (the metropolis of Roman Africa) to continue his education in rhetoric, and there he came under the influence of the controversial Persian
religious cult of Manichaeism, much to the despair of his mother. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, including frequent visits to the brothels of Carthage, and developed a relationship with a young
woman named Floria Aemilia, who would be his concubine for over fifteen years, and who bore him a son, Adeodatus.

After a year or two teaching grammar back in his hometown, he returned to Carthage where he spent nine years conducting a school of rhetoric, until, in 383 (at the age of 29), he moved
to Rome to teach rhetoric. However, he was disappointed with the apathetic and crooked Roman schools, and the next year he accepted an appointment as professor of rhetoric for the imperial court
at Milan, a highly visible and influential academic chair.
During his time at Rome and Milan, he had moved away from Manichaeism, initially embracing the Skepticism of the New Academy movement. A combination of his own studies in Neo-
Platonism, his reading of an account of the life of Saint Anthony of the Desert, and the combined influence of his mother, his friend Simplicianus and, particularly, the influential bishop of Milan, Saint
Ambrose (338 - 397), gradually inclined Augustine towards Christianity. In the summer of 386, he officially converted to Catholic Christianity, abandoned his career in rhetoric, quit his teaching position
in Milan, and gave up any ideas of the society marriage which had been arranged for him, and devoted himself entirely to serving God, the priesthood and celibacy. He detailed this spiritual journey in
his famous "Confessions", which became a classic of both Christian theology and world literature.
In 388, he returned to Africa, although his mother died on the way there, and his son Adeodatus died soon after, leaving him alone in the world, without family. He sold his patrimony, giving the
money to the poor, and converted the family house into a monastic foundation for himself and a group of friends. In 391, he was ordained a priest (and later bishop) at Hippo Regius on the
Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and he became a famous preacher, particularly noted for opposing Manichaeism and heresies such as Donatism and Pelagianism. He remained in this position at Hippo
until his death in 430, working tirelessly to convert the diverse local racial and religious groups to the Catholic faith.
Augustine died on 28 August 430, aged 75, during the siege of Hippo by the Germanic Vandals, who destroyed all of the city except Augustine's cathedral and library. His body was later moved
to Pavia, Italy (or, according to another account, to Cagliari on the island of Sardinia). Almost throughout his life he had been a lonely, isolated figure, not attached to any intellectual or academic
movement, and without any university or institutional support for his work. At the time of his death, he was apparently the only person in his whole town who possessed any books at all.
He was made a saint (patron saint of brewers, printers, sore eyes and theologians) of the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and among the Orthodox he is known
as Blessed Augustine or St. Augustine the Blessed. He is the patron of the Augustinian religious order (the Catholic monastic order of both men and women living according to a guide to religious life
known as the Rule of Saint Augustine). In 1298, he was made a pre-eminent Doctor of the Church.
For Augustine, philosophy is amor sapiential, the love of wisdom; its aim is to produce happiness (Harland, 1991). However, Wisdom is not an abstract logical construction, it is substantially
existent as the Divine Logos. Hence philosophy is the love of God: it is then religious. Christianity, as presenting the full revelation of the true God, is the only full and true philosophy. However, we
can love only that which we know. When comes this knowledge of God? It begins with faith and is made perfect by understanding. All knowledge leads to God, so that faith supplements and
enlightens reason that it may proceed to over richer and fuller understanding. Indeed, without this enlightenment of faith, reason invariably sooner or later, goes astray.
Only the pure in heart shall see God; the progress in knowledge and wisdom is not only speculative, it is more fundamentally practical and moral. Augustine's theory of knowledge is at one
with the procedures o Speculative mysticism. From this mystic love and intuition of God follow all the principles to direct humanity in all their undertakings (Harland, 1991).

The truth of St. Augustine's message still rings true to this day. Despite Augustine’s era which was decadent, are our times any less corrupt? To be innocent of heart and see with pure eyes
can only be gained by God s grace. God can give that gift to some instantly or to others at the end of an entire life of struggle. That gift, in itself, is a major triumph. Only with prayer, modesty, fasting,
and other sound measures that the Church recommends, or God provides, can purify of heart, mind, and body be maintained and daily lived.
Feast day of St. Augustine, August 28. Doctor of Grace; called as one because of his miraculous transformation out of sin to the service of God's creatures He served the church in Africa
many years as Bishop with genuine love. His mother, St. Monica never stopped praying for him.
Those "addicted" to sin, fleeing from the church or decent principles or associate with immoral people, have marvelous example to learn from in St. Augustine, a great sinner himself who
turned saint. He discovered through prayer, change of heart, and the holy influence of St. Ambrose and others to capture authentic Life of Love instead of Love of Life. One of his famous sayings is:
Lord, give me what You ask of me and ask me what you will.
Definitely, living chaste is difficult not only for youth but even for all clergy and religious, grandparents, parents, and children. All are called to be chaste whether we are married or single.
Being pure also means being holy. All are called to different lifestyles and all are called to be holy, pure, and chaste within that lifestyle. Any lifestyle that does not include purity, innocence and
goodness, even with consenting individuals, is not pleasing to God because it does not lead to holiness, unselflessness, and full honesty. We do not have a right to do anything if it is not morally right
or if we hurt another. Rightness means pleasing God. God has given us a choice to discern between right and wrong though we are often ignorant in this manner unless we are wholly sincere,
honest, and pure.
Therefore, according to St. Augustine, physically we are free, yet morally bound to obey the law. The Eternal law is God Himself. According to this law, humanity must do good and avoid evil,
hence the existence of moral obligation in every human being. Christian life is not easy. However, no human being should become an end to himself. We are responsible to our neighbors as we are
to our own actions (Hare, et al., 1991).
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was born of Italian nobility and his education in Naples. After becoming a Dominican monk, he went to Cologne to study under Albertus Magnus, the leading
Aristotelian philosopher of the time, then went to Paris and taught theology. Aquinas returned to Italy in 1259 and remained there for most of the rest of his lite. He is generally regarded as the
greatest scholastic philosopher. Catholics consider him the greatest Christian theologian. His two major works are Summa Theologica and Summa Contra Gentiles.
Aquinas' famous "Five Ways" of proving the existence of God is the best-known passage from his works. The first way (of the five ways) infers from the fact of change the existence of an
Unmoved Mover that originates change. The second uses the fact that some things are caused to infer the existence of a First Cause. The third infers from the fact that some things are contingent, or
capable of coming into and going out of existence, the existence of something which is necessary, or incapable of coming into going out of existence. The fourth uses the fact that there are degrees
of excellence to infer the existence of a perfect being. The fifth uses the alleged fact that natural objects behave purposefully to infer the existence of an intelligent that directs the activities of natural
objects.

THE FIVE WAYS TO PROVE GOD’S EXISTENCE

The existence of God can be proved in five ways.
1. The argument from motion (The argument of the unmoved mover)
It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is moved is moved by another, for nothing can be moved except it is in potentiality to that
towards which it is moved. whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from
potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it.
Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be hot; but it
is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever
is moved must needs be moved by another. If that by which it is moved by itself moved, then this also must be moved by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go to infinity, because
then there would be no first mover, and consequently no other mover, seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are moved by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is
moved by the hand. Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, moved by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.
2. The argument from the nature of efficient cause (The argument of the first cause)
In the world of sensible things we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for
it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate
cause and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or one only. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no
first cause among efficient causes there will be no ultimate, nor intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause; neither will there be an
ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore, it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
3. The argument from contingency (The argument from possibility and necessity)
We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to be corrupted, and consequently, it is possible for them to be and not to be. But it is
impossible for these always to exist, for that which cannot be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything cannot be, then at one time there was nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now
there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist begins to exist only through something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been
impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence - which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the
existence of which is necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as
has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore, we cannot but admit the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather
causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.
4. The argument from gradation (The argument from degree)

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But more and less are predicated of
different things according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is the hottest; so
that there is something which is truest, something noblest, and, Consequently, something which is most in being, for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being. Now the maximum in
any genus, as fire, which is the maximum of heat, is the cause of all hot things, as is said in the same book. Therefore, there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being,
goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.
5. The argument from design (Theological argument)
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly
always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end,
unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed
to their end and this being we call God.
Thomas Aquinas' philosophical system is best grasped in his treatises Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologica. The existence of God is not self-evident or direct to human beings,
but requires proof. This proof can proceed only from the analysis of experience. However, we cannot comprehend the essential nature of God. Hence for us, His existence is not self-evident; nor
apart from experience we can experience the gap between concept and objective existence. So likewise with the Augustinian argument that the truth must exist, and God is the Truth.
Thomas' family was against him entering the Order of St. Dominic and laid snares for his virtue. When the temptress had been driven from his chamber, he knelt and most earnestiy implored
to God to grant him integrity of mind and body. Nor can we maintain that the existence of God is known only through faith, neither requiring nor admitting proof. It is rather one of the preambles of
faith; for grace presupposes nature and the existence of God can be known by a purely natural knowledge. We proceed, then, to prove the existence of God by arguing from effects, observable in the
world about us, back to the cause necessary to account for these effects. There are five proofs offered, which supplement and interpret one another.
The reading on St. Thomas will establish the existence of God as unmoved mover, a first cause. One can analyze these concepts so as to make more explicit further conclusions. Based on
St. Thomas' arguments, it follows also that God does not fall in any genus for God is a pure being. As fully actual, God must be perfect, and, as first cause, the ground of all perfections in all other
beings. It follows that He is also infinite that denotes perfection. God is omnipresent or present in every place and in everything by his essence and power, for He gives being to all else. As perfect
and immutable, He is eternal, for eternity means simultaneity, that is, lacking beginning or end and all successions.
As pure and perfect actuality, God is the supreme intelligence and the supreme intelligible: He understands Himself not through any species or form exposed, but in His own substance. In
fact, "in God, the understanding (intellectus), the one who understands, that which is understood, the intelligible species, and the act of understanding, are altogether one and the same."
Of all creatures of God, human beings have the unique power to change themselves and things around them for the better. Aquinas considers the human being as a moral agent. We are
both the spiritual and body elements; the spiritual and material. The unity between both elements indeed helps us to understand our complexity as human beings. Our spirituality, separates us from
animals; it delineates moral dimension of our fulfillment in an action. Through our spirituality, we have a conscience. Whether we choose to be “good” or “evil” becomes our responsibility. we have a
conscience. Whether we choose to be good" or "evil" becomes our responsibility.

Aquinas gives a fourfold classification of law: the eternal law, natural law, human, and divine law. Human beings, as being rational have laws that should not only be obeyed but also obeyed
voluntarily and with understanding (for instance, in following the traffic rules). The natural law, then, in its ethical sense, applies only to human beings. The first principle and precept of the natural law
is that good is to be sought after and evil avoided (This is the instruct of self- preservation.) There is inherent in every human being an inclination that he shares with all other beings, namely the
desire to conserve human life and forbids the contrary. For instance, if there is fire, and its burning heat is felt, then, it is but a human tendency to avoid it.
Since the law looks to the common good as its end, it is then conceived primarily with external acts and not with interior disposition. For example, if someone does not lie to his parents so
they will increase his allowance, then the reason of his goodness stems not because he does not want to lie because it will hurt them but because he knows that there is a reward for being so. Same
goes with government officials, who use full media coverage when they help their constituents, so that people would vote for them. A person thus should not be judged through his actions alone but
also through his sincerity behind his acts.
For Aquinas, both natural and human laws are concerned with ends determined simply by humanity's nature. However, since a human being is in fact ordained to an end transcending his
nature, it is necessar that he has a law ordering him to that end, and this is the divine law, or revelation.
It also gives human beings the certitude where human reason unaided could arrive only at possibilities. It deals with interior disposition as well as external acts and it ensures the final
punishment of all evildoings. Neither of which is possible for human law. This divine law is divided into old (Mosaic) and the new (Christian) that are related as the immature and imperfect to the
perfect and complete. We have, however, now passed beyond philosophy, since this rests on reason and experience alone; the analysis of the divine law is the function of theology.
For Aristotle, the purpose of a human being is to be happy. To be one, one has to live a virtuous life. In other words, human beings have to develop to the full their powers - rational, moral,
social, emotional, and physical here on earth. For St. Thomas, he follows the same line of thinking, but points to a higher form of happiness possible to humanity beyond this life, and that is perfect
happiness that everyone seeks but could be found only in God alone.
St. Thomas wisely and aptly chose and proposed Love rather than Law to bring about the transformation of humanity. For Love is in consonance with humanity's free nature, for Law
commands and complete: Love only calls and invites. Thomas emphasizes the freedom of humanity but chooses love in governing humanity's life. Since God is Love, then Love is the guiding
principle of humanity toward his self-perception and happiness his ultimate destiny.
ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY

St. Anselm (1033-1109), a Benedictine monk, as Abbott of Bec at the time one of the great centers of learning in Europe; he later became Archbishop of Canterbury. In his book Monologio1,
he advises the proof for God from the degrees of pertection found in creatures and also formulates a version of the cosmological argument (for later versions of these arguments, see the selection by
Aquinas). He makes the point that the meaning of "nothing" is "not anything." Stressing that "nothing" should not be regarded as the name of a shadowy mysterious entity. His book Proslogion
contains the famous ontological argument reprinted below; also reprinted are the monk Guanilo's criticism of the argument and Anselm's reply.

St. Anselm was an Italian-born Benedictine English philosophical theologian. He is best known for his ontological argument on the existence of God, and the satisfaction theory of the
Atonement. His Monologion and Proslogion both deal extensively with his ontological proofs for God's existence, and the hierarchical order of the universe.
His other works include De Concodia and his four teaching Dialogues: De gramatico, De veritate, De libertate arbitrii and De casu diaboli. All his works are remarkable in their display of
dialectic structure and his attention to proper linguistic.
What do we mean by "God" in our question? The medieval theologian, St. Anselm, has captured this conception best. According to Anselm, God is the being so great that we cannot
conceive of any greater being. That is, God is so great that he has every conceivable perfection.
Five perfections are particularly important (Anselm, 1996):
1. God is perfectly good, in the sense that he does not evil.
2. God is omniscient (knows all there is to be known).
3. God is omnipotent (has infinite power).
4. God is a personal God. That is, He is a being capable of acting in the world, of coming into personal relations with human beings, and of loving us and being loved by us.
5. God is a necessary being. He is the one being in the universe that must exist. Although it is conceivable that there might have been a universe without human beings, trees, the earth, our
sun, and so forth, according to Anselm's conception of God, it is inconceivable that there might have been a universe without God. God's nonexistence, according to Anselm, is impossible.
God is the one necessarily existing thing
Anselm thought that God's existence follows necessarily from our conception of Him. As long as we can think of God as a being so great that we can conceive of no greater being, we cannot
deny that God exists without involving ourselves in a hopeless contradiction. Anselm's argument is also called as the ontological argument. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Baruch Spinoza (1632-
1677) and Gottrie Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) also used this argument.
In the readings, the argument goes like this: God is the being so great that we can conceive of no greater being. Suppose that we conceive of something that has all conceivable perfections yet do
not exist. That cannot be God, because we can conceive of a being alike in all respect that does exist, and that which exists is greater than which doesn't. Therefore, existence is a perfection that
must belong to God. to God. That is, God must exist (Anselm, 1996).
Guanilo, a monk and contemporary of Anselm, refuted Anselm's claim and pointed out that he could just as easily define a perfect island into existence. Imagine an island called the Lost
Island, which is so great we can conceive of no greater island. Now conceive of an island that has every conceivable perfection yet does not exist. This cannot be the Lost Island, because we can
imagine an island duke in all respects that does exist. Therefore, the Lost Island exists.
So of course, when we conceive of God, we conceive of Him as existing. That does not mean, however, that God really exists, any more than our conception of the Lost Island guarantees
that it exists (Anselm, 1996).

BLAISE PASCAL
As we expand our portrait of the philosophers in this period, wonder what happened to all the other philosophers. Take for instance, Blaise Pascal. Pascal, however is considered to be a
modern we wonder philosopher. Nevertheless, in the light of our present discussion regarding God’s existence, Pascal's philosophical approach or his faith is incorporated in this chapter. According
to Pascal's wager, it is infinitely more rational to believe in God than not to. If God exists, the "pay off 1s so enormous and there is no loss if He does not.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), the brilliant mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and theologian was born in Clermont, Auvergne, in South-central France. As a mathematician,
Pascal's achievements were astounding. A genius at age nineteen, he invented the calculating machine. Pascal figured out the mathematical principles needed to construct a machine that would do
the calculations. This machine was considered to be one of the genuine achievements of the "new science" that was developing in the 17 th century. It was basically considered as the grandfather of
the computer since the latter is actually a much extended use of Pascal's principles. In recognition of this, one of the better-known computer languages is called PASCAL.
Pascal was a man of strong passion and his intellectual passion for truth was reinforced by his passionate dissatisfaction with human life unless a spiritual explanation could be found. His
book, Pensees (Thoughts), formed in 1660, was considered to have been a carefully constructed defense of Christianity, a true Apology, setting forth the reasons that will convince the intellect
(Solomon and Higgins, 1996). His other work was L'Esprit Geometrique, where he wrote his basic work on the philosophy of mathematics. Prior to his illness he composed his Ecrits Sur La Grace
(Writing On Grace), De l'Esprit Geometrique (On The Mathematical Mind) and De l'art de Persuader (On The Art Of Persuasion). However, in the Pensees, which was Pascal's unfinished work and
was published after his death, we see the important mathematical ideas that are interwoven with Pascal's philosophical and theological reflections.
To understand the method that Pascal employs, the reader must be prepared to follow the process of the mind of the intelligent believer. He succeeded in giving expression to the skepticism
of every human being. For every person who thinks and lives by thought must have his own skepticism, that which stops at the question, that which ends in denial, or that which leads to faith and
which is somehow integrated into the faith which transcends it.
In the famous Pensee of wager, Pascal treated the question of God’s existence as a problem of rational decision. If God exists, this could affect both our present lives and possible future
lives. If God does not exist, we are stuck with our present state of affairs, or misery without God. If we look at the matter as a gambler and consider the probabilities involved, Pascal contended that
the prudent person would be on the religious possibility.
From Pascal, we shall see the "Argument du pari" - the proof of God from the chances of a wager concerning the meaning of existence. Pascalian argument in the strict sense attains only to
the gaining on the reality of God, not to speak about His essence." The reader will hopefully not become indignant over the almost cynical rationality with which these things are here discussed.
Again, Pascal gives way to every objection of skepticism. According to Pascal, the life of man is by nature such that it forces you to a decision. Even if you abstain, you still made a decision - that is,
not to decide. The decision, thus, is left up to you.

 https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_augustine.html
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yStlBaGAFjg
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3-SZv3UJTw
ACTIVITY #3.1

NAME DATE
DIRECTION: Write your reflection about the life of St. Augustine


Rubric:
a) Content : 40%
b) Understanding/Application : 20%
c) Original Thinking : 20%
d) Grammar and mechanics : 25%
ACTIVITY #3.2
NAME DATE
DIRECTION: Interview a religious person and ask him/her regarding his/her philosophy of religion. You can conduct the interview through online. Submit the documentation of the interview through
teacher’s email. Make sure to take pictures with the interviewee. Then, write a short reflection about the interview.
Guide Questions:
1. What is faith?
2. Who is God in one’s life?
3. Cite the three things necessary for the salvation of humanity.

Rubric:
a) Content : 40%
b) Understanding/Application : 20%
c) Creativity : 30%
d) Grammar and mechanics : 10%
Lesson 4
TOPIC: INTRODUCTION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT

DURATION: 2 WEEKS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Discuss the overview of the philosophies of the different modern philosophers.
2. Explain the biography and contributions of Rene Descartes and Thomas Hobbes in the emergence of philosophy in the world.
TO DO LIST
Reading

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHi6-_cZjg
Take Activity #4
COURSE CONTENT
All history is the story of change. Change may be sudden continuous. If the change involves the thinking of not one person but a whole world of people, then certainly it cannot be abrupt. It
takes time for minds to get together, even though they need not meet to do so. A spirit must awaken, mature, and feel its way about to test its strength, before it can be fruitful.
And so for philosophy, and the attitudes of philosophic thought, there are no distinct moments in time to separate a later from an earlier period. They are only briefer in-between periods,
which in turn cannot be sharply marked off from those that come before and after. One such period coincides fairly well in time with that crucial interval during which the world of humanity is said to
have been born again, when it sloughed off its somber medieval shell, and appeared in sharper, clearer colors, as the modern world.
There was the general "revival of learning" which brought the mind of ancient Greece more intimately in contact with modern thinker's mind. There was the beginning of a new science, on the
one hand, and, on the other, exploration and discovery, enriching humanity's knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants, broadening their horizon and giving new scope to their thoughts. Mechanical
genius devised the printing press. Developments in art and literature had their part to play, and the religious reforms as well.

Discovery was the keynote of the time- discovery of the world of nature, discovery of the world of humanity, discovery of the world of thought and the world as a place in which people live in
all sorts of ways under various conditions. It was discovery, in almost every case, which in one way or another pushed away the limits of thought, to open up for Speculation new fields: some that had
been known before, but were considered to be closed for all time and other that had never been so much as guessed.As to the general scope of this chapter, modern philosophy is as wealthy and
complex an evolution in its way as is the life that it depicts. What we call modern thought, in these matters, dates back only to the seventeenth century. However, philosophy has lived through several
great periods.
Modern philosophy itself divides readily into periods; such division, takes into account only those movements and traditions that were widespread and lasting. At the beginning, there is the
philosophy of the seventeenth century. Rationalism was the predominant feature of this period. The development of its philosophy could be traced from the writings of Descartes (born in 1596 to
Leibniz who died in 1716).
The first period was one of what we may call naturalism, pure and simple. It belongs almost wholly to the seventeenth century. The philosophy of this first age lived in a world where two
things seemed clear: first, that nature is full of facts which conform fatally to exact and irreversible law, and second, that human beings live best under a strong, a benevolently despotic civil
government.
The philosophers of this time had left off contemplating the heaven of medieval piety and were disposed to deify nature. They adored the rigidity of geometrical methods; they loved the study
of the new physical science, which had begun with Galileo. Human beings they conceived as a mechanism (Wood, 1990). Human emotions, even the loftiest, they delighted in explaining by very
simple and fundamental natural passions. In these days of the seventeenth century, fear is out of place; you may even doubt if you Will. Descartes, a representative thinker of the century, begins his
reflection by doubting everything. As tor the method of escaping from doubt, which consists in the use of reason and in the study of the facts of experience; nothing else serves. For philosophy in this
age of the seventeenth century, the supernatural has only a secondary interest, if it has any interest at all.
The eighteenth century has its defining movement, too. The characteristic tendencies of the period are such that it is frequently called the age of Empiricism. John Locke, Hume, and Berkeley
were the main exponents of this general point of view.
The second age of modern philosophy turned curiously back to the study of the wondrous inner world of humanity's soul. To deify nature is not enough. Human being is the most interesting in
nature, and he is not yet deified. He may be a part of nature's mechanism, or he may not; still, if he be a mechanism, he is that most paradoxical of things, a knowing mechanism. His knowledge
itself, what it is, how it comes about, whence he gets it, how it grows, what it signifies, how it can be defended against skepticism, what it implies, both as to moral truth and as to theoretical truth
these problems are foremost in the interests of the second period of modern thought. Gradually, attention is turned more and more from the outer world to the mind of human being. The first period
had been one of naturalism; the second is one of a sort of a new humanism (Wood, 1990). Reflection is now more an inner study, an analysis of the mind, than an examination of the business of
physical science. Human reason is still the trusted instrument, but it soon turns its criticism upon itself. It distinguishes prejudices from axioms, fears dogmatism, scrutinizes the pieces of evidence of
faith, suspects, or at best has consciously to defend, even the apparently irresistible authority of conscience.
Near the end of the century, Immanuel Kant, whose philosophy is generally known as critical idealism, brought up his philosophic thoughts with the more general problem of knowledge. He
thought that humanity's nature is the real creator of humanity's world. It is not the external world, as such, that is the deepest truth for us at all; it is the inner structure of the human spirit that merely
expresses itself in the visible nature about us. Herewith begins the third period of modern philosophy.

These three isms are but a few of the many isms to be met with in the history of philosophy from the beginning of the modern period to the present day. Suffice to say, they can hardly be
treated as all that have been achieved in the modern era. They are fundamental, however, as providing the groundwork that underlies and supports the many-sided development that philosophic
theory has undergone since the time of Kant. In a sense, they represent the classic modem philosophy.
The Copernican Revolution
It might be well review, as briefly as possible, the general scientific knowledge concerning the matters of astronomy, as it had developed up to the later part of the medieval period. What had
been observed was this: the earth being at rest, the sun, the moon, the five planets (wandering stars), and the other stars, which were fixed the with respect to one another, all moved around it once a
day, from east to west. Besides, the sun moved south, then north, then south again, so that it regained its former place once a year. The moon had other motions likewise, including one that repeated
itself in twenty-eight days. The planets, too, had periodic motions besides daily turn. The fixed stars alone went round in the same old course. All these things had to be taken into account.
The fixed stars, taken to be all the same distance away, were conceived to be scattered about, fixed upon the surface of a sphere whose center was the center of the earth. And daily this
sphere revolved, with a uniform speed, in the same direction, carrying its stars about with it. Within this sphere, quite close to the earth, was another sphere, turning about each day in the very same
way. On this were fixed the poles of another, which moved round from west to east, round the axis of the zodiac, completing its course once a month. On this were fixed the poles of a third, which
turned slowly from east to west, as the first, but at a slightly different angle. On the equator of this third sphere was fixed the moon.
The sun likewise had its three spheres, and each of them its motion about its center, which was the earth. And so for the planets, except that they each required still another sphere to
account for their apparent behavior. There were, then, eight sets of spheres and twenty-seven in all. This early system of astronomy was devised about 350 B.C.
A man of purely scientific bent took the next important step in astronomy. Claudius Ptolemy introduced a system of combinations circular motions, in the form of excentrics and epicycles,
which, though complicated, gave an adequate picture of the heavenly orbits. Now Nicholas Copernicus, a Pole born in 1473, became interested and astronomy while a university student. The
astronomy taught in his days was that of Ptolemy's. Copernicus found Ptolemaic scheme too complicated; he turned to a study of the ancients and thereby discovered that there had been some who
had seriously proposed that the earth itself might move while the sun and the stars stood still. After a long period, Copernicus published, just before his death in 1543, De Revolutionibus Orbium
Coelestium.
The conclusion that he asserted and justified with mathematics computation is that the heavenly phenomena are adequately accounted for if one supposes the sun to be fixed at the center of
universe bounded by the sphere of the fixed stars, the earth to be just another planet moving about the sun from west to east, like the, rest, and at the same time rotating on its axis in the same
direction and the moon to be a satellite of the earth, about which it also moves from west to east. Epicycles and excentrics were still used to get these notions just right, for the conviction still prevailed
that uniform circular motion must be fundamental, but Copernicus found a need for only 34 arrangements, compared to Ptolemaic system's 79.
The consequences of this Copernican revolution were many. Galileo, convinced of the correctness of this new way of seeing the world, invented the telescope. From then on, the
development of modern astronomy was assured (Wood, 1990). However, it is not these consequences that are of greatest interest here. Rather it is the attitude of mind that is evident, and the effect
that it must have upon thinking in general.

This Copernican innovation may not be so impressive, but considered in its setting, its significance is great. As one of a number of steps in the same general direction, it represents a
questioning attitude toward the activities of nature, and a spirit of rebellion against things accepted solely on the basis of authority and tradition. It represents a search for new standards of truth and
acceptance, and the beginnings of a science that is to stand unaided upon the foundations of its own.
The effect is almost inevitable: this critical, searching, rebellious spirit which crops out in the scientific mind is bound to have its counterpart in the philosophic one. The new development in
science though exhibits open-mindedness, does not cease to be dogmatic in its way. It is critical of the old, sure of itself as the old had ever been. The conviction that the truth is attained and reality
laid bare, that the old is wrong while the new is right, seems to characterize all the innovators of science at this time. It was responsible for their troubles for difficulties (i.e., hindered publications), and
in some cases for and death. However, it may have been responsible imprisonment too, for progress they made and the success they had.
Copernicus stands as an example of a science in the throes of revolution, critical and yet self-assured and dogmatic, opening up new visions of the world of nature, and leaving the thinking
world in general to assimilate these changes and make of them the best it can. By the beginning of the modern age, the rapid growth of the increasingly cosmopolitan cities of Europe, with their global
reach, their extensive colonies and their national and international rivalries, required a new Kina or philosophy, intensely self-questioning but arrogant as well (Solomon and Higgins, 1996).
Enthusiasm for the new science ushered in a deep-seated philosophical trend, whose adherents stressed the importance of universally compelling science for philosophy. This attitude in
Descartes and in all others who have taken it - implied the expectation that the new Scientific philosophy would soon gain acceptance as the universally valid truth, and each of these philosophers
consequently prided himself on being the cornerstone and founder of the true scientific philosophy. Here was the starting point for the rationalistic intolerance that is so widespread in the modern
world: the dogmatic presumptuousness of reason made for an attitude of self-assurance (Wood, 1990).
RENE DESCARTES
René Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, scientist and writer of the Age of Reason. He has been called the "Father of Modern Philosophy", and much of
subsequent Western philosophy can be seen as a response to his writings. He is responsible for one of the best-known quotations in philosophy: "Cogito, ergo sum" ("I think, therefore I am").
He was a pioneer and major figure in 17th Century Continental Rationalism (often known as Cartesianism) later advocated by Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and opposed by the British
Empiricist school of thought of Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley and Hume. He represents a major break with the Aristotelianism and Scholasticism of the Medieval period.
His contribution to mathematics was also of the first order, as the inventor of the Cartesian coordinate system and the founder of analytic geometry, crucial to the invention
of calculus and mathematical analysis. He was also one of the key figures in the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th Centuries.
At the heart of Descartes' philosophical method was his refusal to accept the authority of previous philosophers, and even of the evidence of his own senses, and to trust only that which was
clearly and distinctly seen to be beyond any doubt (a process often referred to as methodological skepticism or Cartesian doubt or hyperbolic doubt). Only then did he allow himself
to reconstruct knowledge (piece by piece, such that at no stage was the possibility of doubt allowed to creep back in) in order to acquire a firm foundation for genuine knowledge and to dispel
any Skepticism.

He outlined four main rules for himself in his thinking:
 Never accept anything except clear and distinct ideas.

 Divide each problem into as many parts are needed to solve it.
 Order your thoughts from the simple to the complex.
 Always check thoroughly for oversights.
Using this process, which he detailed in his epochal "Discourse on the Method" of 1637 and expanded in the "Meditations on First Philosophy" of 1641, Descartes attempted to narrow down, by
what is sometimes called the method of doubt, what was certain and what contained even a shadow of a doubt. For example, he realized that he could doubt even something as apparently
fundamental as whether he had a body (it could be that he was just dreaming of it or that it was an illusion created by an evil demon), but he could not, under any circumstances, doubt whether he had
a mind or that he could think. He followed this up with a pure, abstract thought experiment. He imagined an evil spirit (or "deceiving demon") whose sole intention was to mislead him, and asked
whether there was anything about which the demon would not be able to mislead him. His conclusion was the act of thinking, that the demon could never make him believe that he was thinking when
he was not (because, after all, even a false thought is still a thought).
Having identified this single indubitable principle, that thought exists, he then argued that, if someone was wondering whether or not he existed, then the very act of thinking was, in and of
itself, proof that he did in fact exist: the famous "Je pense, donc je suis" ("I think, therefore I am") - the similar statement in Latin, "Cogito ergo sum" is found in his later "Principles of Philosophy". It is
worth mentioning here that, by "thinking", Descartes did not just mean conceptual thought, but all forms of consciousness, experience, feelings, etc.
Having dispelled all doubt by this process, Descartes then worked to build up, or reconstitute, the world again. But he was careful not to do this willy-nilly, but only according to his own
very strict rules, so that the "reconstituted world" was not the same as the original one which he had dismantled piece by piece due to doubts. The way he achieved this (which, it must be said, appears
from a modern viewpoint like something of a conjuring trick) was to argue that among the contents of our (certain) consciousness was the idea of God, which in itself he saw as proof of the existence of
God. He then argued that, if we have the overwhelming impression of the existence of a concrete world around us, as we do, then an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God
would ensure that such a world does in fact exist for us. Furthermore, he asserted that the essence of this physical world was extension (that it takes up space), contrary to the extensionless world of
the mind.
Paradoxically, this was an essential step forward in 17th Century science as it established a physical world which was of a mathematical character and permitted mathematical physics to be
used to explain it. Also important is that, as we have seen, although God was indispensable to Descartes' method of arriving at a physical world, once such a world was accepted, it was no longer
necessary to involve God in the description and measurement and explanation of how things work. Thus, the process of science was freed from theological constraints and interference.
Descartes dismissed the senses and perception as unreliable, and to demonstrate this he used the so-called Wax Argument. This revolves around the idea that a wax object, which has
certain properties of size, color, smell, temperature, etc, appears to change almost all of these properties when it is melted, to the extent that it appears to our senses to be a completely different thing.
However, we know that it is in fact still the same piece of wax. Descartes concluded from this that the senses can be misleading and that reason and deduction is the only reliable method of attaining
knowledge, which is the essence of Rationalism.

Descartes further argued that sensory perceptions come to him involuntarily (not willed by him), and are therefore external to his senses and therefore evidence of the existence of an external
world outside of his mind. He argued that the things in the external world are material because God would not deceive him as to the ideas that are being transmitted, and has given him the propensity to
believe that such ideas are caused by material things. Because of this belief that God is benevolent and does not desire to deceive him, he can therefore have some faith in the account of reality
his senses provide him.
Descartes believed that the human body works like a machine, that it has the material properties of extension and motion, and that it follows the laws of physics. The pieces of the human
machine, he argued, are like clockwork mechanisms, and that the machine could be understood by taking its pieces apart, studying them, and then putting them back together to see the larger picture
(an idea referred to as Reductionism). The mind or soul, on the other hand, is a non-material entity that lacks extension and motion, and does not follow the laws of physics.
Descartes was the first to formulate the mind-body problem in the form in which it exists today (see the section on Philosophy of Mind), and the first to clearly identify
the mind with consciousness and self-awareness, and to distinguish this from the brain, which was the physical seat of intelligence (Dualism). In his epistemological work in the "Discourse on the
Method", he had realized that, although he could doubt that he possessed a body, he could not under any circumstances doubt that he possessed a mind, which led him to conclude that the mind and
the body were two very different and separate things. His particular form of Dualism (known as Cartesian Dualism) proposed that the mind controls the body, but that the body also influences the
otherwise rational mind (such as when people act out of passion) in a kind of two-way interaction, which he claimed, without much evidence, occurred in the pineal gland. Gilbert Ryle later described
this kind of Dualism (where mental activity carries on in parallel to physical action, but where their means of interaction are unknown or, at best, speculative) as the "ghost in the machine". Although his
own solution was far from convincing, this kind of Cartesian Dualism set the agenda for philosophical discussion of the mind-body problem for many years after Descartes' death.
Tradition seems to require that treatment of modern philosophy begins with Descartes in the seventeenth century. However, a history of philosophy does not usually pass directly from the
medieval to the modern period. Some account must be taken from an event of great importance that, in one way, separates the two, in another, ties them together. This event is the Renaissance that
appeared in the twelfth century, the end merging gradually into the first stages of the modern period.
As the acknowledged Father of Modern Western Philosophy, Rene Descartes' fame is uncontested. His influence has been enormous, and the study of his principal works is still
indispensable to anyone who wishes to philosophize. German philosophers, since Hegel and Schelling, have looked upon him as the beginning and source of modern philosophy. When he was a
young boy, Descartes heard that Galileo had discovered the moons of Jupiter using the telescope. Such discoveries raised all sorts of questions, about the nature of knowledge, reliability of
appearances, our ignorance of the world, or about the methods we can use to examine and extend our knowledge.
He demonstrated the basic truths with his use of the mathematical method, the method of deduction, in which every principle must be derived or deduced from prior principles that have
already been established on the basis of other principles, or premises. Ultimately, all principles must be so derived from a fundamental set of definitions and axioms. The key to Descartes' grand
deduction will serve as a premise and is beyond doubt. He claims, "I think, therefore, I am (Cogito ergo sum)." Doubting is a sort of thinking, one cannot doubt that he is thinking and not be thinking,
and in the act of thinking one must be aware that which one thinks exists. There is no process or movement of thought by which one becomes convinced that he exists. The fact is simply set before
him, in the act of thinking, so clearly and distinctly that it is certainly true. It is, then, by intuition that he knows it.

Descartes approach of combining mathematics and logic with philosophy to explain the physical world turned metaphysical when confronted with questions of theology; it led him to a
contemplation of the nature of existence and the mind-body duality, identifying the point of contract for the body with the soul at the pineal gland. It also led him to define the idea of dualism: matter
meeting non matter. Because his previous philosophical system had given man the tools to define knowledge of what is true, this concept led to controversy. Fortunately, Descartes himself had also
invented methodological skepticism or Cartesian doubt, thus making philosophers of us all.
Descartes believed that all truths were ultimately linked, he sought to uncover the meaning of the natural world with a rational approach, through science and mathematics. In addition to
Discourse on the Method, Descartes also published Meditations on First philosophy and Principles of Philosophy, among other treatises. He is frequently considered the first modern philosopher. His
first publication, Discourse on Method (1637), was the touchstone of the scientific method –a response to the lack of clarity he saw in the world of science.
THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE
Descartes knew the limits of human knowledge. First of all, he held that the human mind as such is incapable of understanding everything; it is finite and imperfect. Only God is perfectly wise,
endowed with full knowledge of the truth of all things. If everything is just an illusion, Descartes maintains that he is not alone in the world. According to him: We must of necessity conclude from the
fact alone that I exist, or that the idea of a Being supremely is perfect that is, of God - is in me, that the proof of God's existence is grounded on the highest evident. However, this being cannot be evil
for evil is imperfection. Descartes sums up this whole development in the statement "Recherche de la verite: For if it is really from this universal doubt, which is like a fixed and unchangeable point,
that I have resolved to derive the knowledge of God, of yourself, and of all that the world contains."
THOMAS HOBBES
Thomas Hobbes was born at Westport, adjoining Malmesbury in Wiltshire, on April 5, 1588. He led a sheltered and leisured life. An uncle provided his education. He was already a good Latin
and Greek scholar when, not yet fifteen, he was sent to Oxford. On leaving Oxford, in 1608, he became a companion to the eldest son of Lord Cavendish of Hardwicke, and his connection with the
Cavendish family lasted till his death. Three times in his life, Hobbes traveled on the continent with a pupil. His first journey was begun in 1610, and in it he visited France, Germany, and Italy,
learning the French and Italian languages and gaining experience but not yet conscious of his life's work. On his return, he set himself to become a scholar. To this period, belongs his acquaintance
with Bacon, Herbert or Cherbury, Ben Johnson, and other leading men of the time.
When Hobbes made his third visit to the continent, which lasted from 1634 to 1637, and on which the young Earl of Devonshire accompanied him, he is found taking his place among
philosophers. Hobbes met Galileo in Florence and while in Paris, was introduced Cartesian philosophy. This period was of great importance in the development of Hobbes' mind and in determining
his philosophical interests. At least by the beginning of his residence in Paris in 1640, Hobbes matured the plan for his own philosophical work. It was to consist of three treatises, dealing respectively
with matter or body, with human nature, and with society. It was in Paris that he wrote with famous Leviathan or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil, which
appeared in London in 1641.
In Leviathan, written during the English Civil Wars (1642-1651), Hobbes argues for the necessity and natural evolution of the social contract, a social construct in which individuals mutually
unite into political societies, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept resultant duties to protect themselves and one another from whatever might come otherwise. He also advocates rule by an

absolute sovereign, saying that chaos--and other situations identified with a "state of nature" (a pre-government state in which individuals' actions are bound only by those individuals' desires and
restraints)--could be averted only by a strong central government, one with the power of the biblical Leviathan (a sea creature), which would protect people from their own selfishness. He also warned
of "the war of all against all" (Bellum omnium contra omnes), a motto that went on to greater fame and represented Hobbes' view of humanity without government.
The last twenty-eight years of Hobbes' long life were spent in England; and there he soon returned to the house of his old pupil, the Earl of Devonshire, who had preceded him in submitting to
the Commonwealth and like him welcomed the king on his return. He busied with the completion of his philosophical system, the long-delayed first part of which De Corpore, appeared in 1655, and
the second part, De Homine. His other works include of Liberty and Necessity, The Question Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance. His Historia Ecclesiastica, dates back from about his
eightieth year. When he was eighty-four, he wrote his autobiography in Latin verse. On December 4, 1679, he died in Hartwick.
The State of Nature

In his brief introduction to the Leviathan, Hobbes describes the state as an organism analogous to a large person. He shows how each part of the state parallels the function of the parts of
the human body. He notes that the first part of his project is to describe human nature, insofar as humans are the creators of the state. To this end, he advises that we look into ourselves to see the
nature of humanity in general. Hobbes argues that, in the absence of social condition, every action we perform, no matter how charitable or benevolent, is done for reasons that are ultimately self-
serving. For instance, when a teacher helps her students, she is actually taking delight in demonstrating her powers or intellect. In its most extreme form, this view of human nature has since been
termed psychological egoism. Hobbes believes that any account of human action, including morality, must be consistent with the fact that we are all self-serving. In this chapter, we shall be taking into
account Hobbes' speculations on how selfish people would behave in a state of nature, prior to the formation of any government.
1. In Leviathan, Hobbes argued that human beings are by nature equal in bodily and mental capacities; not everyone possesses the same degree of physical strength and of quickness of mind.
However, an individual's deficiencies in one respect can be compensated by other qualities. The physically weak can master the physically strong by craft or by conspiracy; and experience
enables human beings to acquire prudence n the things to which they apply themselves. Given our equal standing. Hobbes continues noting how situations in nature make us naturally prone
to quarrel.
There are three natural causes of quarrel among people: competition for limited supplies of material possessions, distrust of one another, and glory insofar as people remain hostile to
preserve their powerful reputation. Given the natural causes of quarrel, Hobbes concludes that the natural condition of human is a state of perpetual war of all against all, where no morality
exists, and everyone lives in constant fear (Sorell, 1996).
2. A Law of Nature (lex naturalis) is a precept, or general rule, found out by reason, by which a person is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life, or takes away the means of
preserving the same; and to omit that by which he thinks it may be best preserved.
Given our desire to get out of the state of nature, and thereby preserve our lives, Hobbes concludes that we should seek peace. This becomes his first law of nature. The reasonableness of
seeking peace, indicated by the first law, immediately suggests a second law of nature, which is that we mutually divest ourselves of certain rights (such as the right to take another person's

life) so as to achieve peace. That a person be willing, when others so too (this is necessary for peace- building), to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty
against other people, as he would allow other people against himself.
3. The third law of nature is that human beings perform their covenant made. Without this law of nature, covenants are in vain and but empty words; and the right of all human beings to all
things remaining, we are still in the condition of war. Further, this law is the fountain of justice. When there has been no covenant, no action can be unjust. However, when a covenant has
been made, to break it is unjust. Hobbes adds that covenants of mutual trust are invalid when there is fear of non-performance on either part, and that in the natural condition of war this fear
is always present. It follows therefore that, there are no valid covenants, and hence no justice and injustice until the commonwealth is established; that is, until a coercive power has been
established which will compel human beings to perform their covenants.
4. Hobbes makes a distinction between a commonwealth by institution and by acquisition. A commonwealth is said to exist by institution when it has been established through the covenant of
every member of a multitude with every other member. A commonwealth is said to exist by acquisition when the sovereign power has been acquired by force. In the latter, human beings fear
for death or bonds of that human being who holds power over their lives and liberty. In the former multitude of human beings subject themselves to a chosen sovereign from fear of one
another. Neither of these commonwealth affects the sovereignty. The subjects of a sovereign cannot either change the form of government or repudiate the authority of the sovereign:
sovereignty is inalienable (Sorell, 1996). No sovereign can be unjustly put to death or in any way punished by his subjects. For, inasmuch as every subject is author of all the sovereign's
actions, to punish the sovereign would be to punish another for one's own actions.
 Ramos, Christine Carmela R (2019). Introduction to Philosophy of Human Person Second Edition. Manila, Philippines. Rex Bookstore Inc.
 https://www.philosophybasics.com/philosophers_descartes.html
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHi6-_cZjg

ACTIVITY #4
NAME DATE
DIRECTION: Answer the questions below. Write your answers legibly on the space provided. (5 points each)
1. Why is Rene Descartes considered as the Father of Modern Philosophy?

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2. What is the meaning of Rene Descartes’ famous philosophical proposition “Cogito ergo sum.”
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3. What is Meditations on First Philosophy all about?

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4. What is the difference between intuition and deduction?

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5. What is the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes all about? Why is it interesting?

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6. What is Leviathan?
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7. Why does Thomas Hobbes believe that the absolute monarchy is the best form of government?
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8. What is social contract? Why is it important?

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Lesson 5
TOPIC: EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: EMPIRICISM
DURATION: 2 WEEKS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Understand the empiricism and the contributions of Rousseau and John Locke.
2. Explain the biography and contributions of David Hume, Immanuel Kant and George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the emergence of philosophy in the world.
3. Discuss the biography and contributions of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche the perspectivism, nihilism and individualism.
TO DO LIST
Reading

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-s4JrymKM
Take Activity #5.1
Take Activity #5.2
COURSE CONTENT

EMPIRICISM
In philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or
propositions are justifiable of knowable only through experience. Empiricism is a philosophical belief that states our knowledge of the world is based on your experience, particularly your sensory
experience. It is an important part of the scientific method because theories and hypotheses must be observed and tested to be considered accurate. According to empiricists, our learning is based
on our observations and perception, knowledge is not possible without experience.
History of Empiricism
The concept of Tabula Rasa or clean slate had been developed as the 11 th century by the Persian philosopher Avicenna. In the 12 th century Arabic philosopher Abubacer demonstrated that
the theory of tabula rasa as a thought of experiment in which the mind of a child develops from the clean slate to that of an adult in complete isolation from society through experience alone.
The “term empiricism” has a dual etymology stemming both from the Greek word for experience and from the more specific classical Greek and Roman usage of Empiric. The term Empirical
also refers the method of the observation and experiment use in the natural and social science. Thus, Empiricism is the theory that the origin of all knowledge s sense experience. It emphasizes the
role of the experience and evidences especially sensory perception. Most empiricist also discount the notion of innate ideas or innatism. Early empiricist such as John Locke claimed it asserts that not
all knowledge is gain from experienced and senses.
Some of the well-known empiricists
 John Locke - provides the ground works of its doctrine in his account of manner in which the mind comes from the experience to know.
 George Berkeley - concerned with the status on what is known with the relation of ideas that the reality is the result of an attempt to workout carefully the consequences of certain features of
Locke’s doctrine.
 David Hume - concerned primarily with the critical one questioning possibility and validity of knowledge by experience alone.
Types of Empiricism
1. Classical Empiricism based on the beliefs that there is no such thing as innate or inborn knowledge.
2. Radical Empiricism stems from the beliefs that our knowledge of the world is based solely in our sense, if something is not experienced through our senses it does not based on our senses
3. Moderate Empiricism means our experienced is based on our senses, but there are cases when our knowledge is not based on our senses.
Degree of Empiricism

1. Absolute Empiricism - There are NO a priori concepts, either formal or categorical, and NO a priori beliefs or propositions.
2. Substantive Empiricism - Empiricists who are unconvinced by attempts that have been made to interpret formal concepts empirically.
3. Partial Empiricism - The realm of the a priori includes some concepts that are not formal and some propositions that are substantially informative about the world.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
He is one of the famous and influential philosophers of the French Enlightenment in the 18 th century. In his time, a new era of sentimental piety found its beginning. He was born in 28 th of
June, 1712 at city of Geneva Son of a watchmaker. Unfortunately, his mother dies at his birth , that’s why he was raised only by his father. In the year 1746, he went first to Lyon, as tutor, then to
Paris where he met Diderot, Condillac and other thinkers linked to Enlightenment. He collaborated in the creation of the 'Encyclopedia.' He Dies in 4 th of July, 1778 at Ermenonville, Ile de France.
Other facts about Rousseau:
 No formal education
 Apprenticed to an engraver, but escaped;
 Wandering life until his 30’s
 He was secretary of the French ambassador in Venice.
 He had five children of Thérèse Levasseur who were sent to an orphanage.
 He is considered as an educator for his huge influence as of today.
 He elaborated his theory of human nature through his work, The Social Contract.
His Three Major Works (1750-1762)
1. A Discourse on the Science and Arts – the progression of the sciences and arts has caused the corruption of virtue and morality.
2. The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality – human beings are basically good by nature, but were corrupted by the complex historical events.
3. Emile and The Social Contract – Emile: explains how to teach a child; The Social Contract: legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individuals.
Rousseau and Revolution

 The revolution caused the shift of power from aristocracy (highest class in certain societies) to bourgeoisie (middle class) in France.
 The Declaration of Rights is the reason why the revolution began. It includes the right to life and the right to resist oppression.

 Thomas Jefferson – predicted a gradual improvement in the monarchy and the establishment of a truly representative government while he was visiting in a Paris as the American
Ambassador.
 In 1792, the revolution led the country into a bloodbath. The king and queen were executed by guillotine as well as the death of monarchy.
 Thomas Carlyle – wrote the extreme violence of the French Revolution in England.
 In 1795, France was on the verge of anarchy within and invasion by its neighbors when a young colonel named Napoleon Bonaparte appeared.
 In 1800, the Enlightenment and its ideals were about to begin another new chapter.
Theory of Social Contract

It state owes its origin to a social contract freely entered into by its members. The EDSA Revolution is the imperfect example of what The Social Contract is all about. Hobbes and Rousseau
differed in their interpretations of social contract.
Hobbes Rousseau
Man is by nature fearful, contentious Man is by nature capable of sociability before he enters
into society
To end continuous and self-destructive condition of Believes that a human is born free and good. They become
warfare, humanity founded the state with its sovereign bad due to the evil influence of society, civilization, leaning,
power of control by means of a mutual consent. and progress. From these come dissension, conflict, fraud,
and deceit.
Human beings have to form a community or civil community to protect themselves from one another, because
the nature of human beings is to wage war against one another, and since by nature, humanity tends toward self-
preservation, then it follows that they have to come to a free mutual agreement to protect themselves.
Therefore, a human being lost his original goodness, his primitive tranquility of spirit. To restore peace, bring back to him his freedom, and return to his true self, he saw the necessity and
came to form the state through the social contract whereby everyone grants his individual rights to the general will.
Social Contract – its term is not an actual historical event but a philosophical fiction, a metaphor, a certain way of looking at a society of voluntary collection of agreeable individuals. The
Constitution and the Bill of Rights constituted, as an instance of a social contract, however, is not a metaphor, but an actual agreement and actually “signed” by the people or their representatives.

The “1986 EDSA Revolution” was not a bloody one. People gathered in EDSA to voice their disenchantment peacefully and through mutual effort, successfully ousted Marcos. This had
inspired changes not only in our own country but also in Eastern Europe’s Perestroika.
JOHN LOCKE
He is credited with founding liberalism as a distinct philosophical tradition. He developed the then radical notion that government acquires consent from the governed and therefore authority
is derived from the people rather than from above. Locke emphasized the right of citizens to overthrow a monarch who violates the social contract. He argued that “conjugal society is made up by a
voluntary compact between men and women”. He was also a proponent of the separation of church and state; and of an individual having the right to follow his own religious beliefs without a religion
being imposed by the state. For his contribution to the philosophy, John Locke is known as the “Father of Liberalism”.
His most important work in the field is Some Thoughts Concerning Education, which was published in1693. As Locke believed that the human mind at birth was a “blank slate”, he stressed
that it was important for a child to make the right associations. This theory became known as “associationism” and strongly influenced 18th century educational theory .
His book, the essay, is one of the most influential works in philosophy. The most renowned work of John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, was published in December
1689. The Essay is divided into four books:
1. Book I rules out the notion of innatism, that the human mind is born with ideas and knowledge .
2. Book II argues that all of our ideas, including that of God, come from experience
3. Book III is concerned with language and the role it plays in our theorizing
4. Book IV, the final part, focuses on knowledge in general and its limitations.
The book also explains how to educate the mind using three distinct methods:
 the development of a healthy body;
 the formation of a virtuous character;
 the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum.
Ideas

For Locke, an idea is first of all something that exists in mind. It is something that exists in an understanding or what Locke calls the mind’s intellectual or cognitive part. Locke begins
the Essay by repudiating the view that certain kinds of knowledge—knowledge of the existence of God, of certain moral truths, or of the laws of logic or mathematics—are innate, imprinted on the
human mind at its creation. Locke argues to the contrary that an idea cannot be said to be “in the mind” until one is conscious of it.
In Book II, Locke’s claim is that the ultimate origin of all of these ideas lies in experience. Locke postulated that, at birth, the mind was a tabula rasa, a Latin phrase meaning “blank slate”. He
maintained that humans are born without innate ideas; and data is added and rules for processing are formed solely by one’s sensory experiences.
Two types of experiences
1. Outer experience or sensation - provides us with ideas from the traditional five senses. Sight gives us ideas of colors, hearing gives us ideas of sounds, and so on.
2. Inner experience or reflection - is slightly more complicated. Locke thinks that the human mind is incredibly active; it is constantly performing what he calls operations. Locke believes that we
are able to notice or experience our mind performing these actions and when we do we receive ideas of reflection. These are ideas such as memory, imagination, desire, doubt, judgment,
and choice.
Locke’s view is that experience (sensation and reflection) issues us with simple ideas and complex ideas:
 Simple ideas - These are the minimal units of mental content; each simple idea is “in itself uncompounded, contains in it nothing but one uniform appearance.
 Complex ideas - are the product of combining our simple ideas together in various ways.
Complex ideas are classified into three different groups: substances, modes, and relations.
 Ideas of substances are ideas of things which are thought to exist independently.
 Ideas of modes are ideas of things which are dependent on substances in some way. Modes come in two types: simple and mixed

1. Simple modes are constructed by combining a large number of a single type of simple ideas together.
2. Mixed modes involve combining together simple ideas of more than one kind.

 Ideas of relations are ideas that involve more than one substance.
Degrees of knowledge

1. The first degree Locke calls intuitive knowledge. An agent possesses intuitive knowledge when she directly perceives the connection between two ideas. this kind of knowledge is the
clearest, and most certain
2. The second degree of knowledge is called demonstrative. Often it is impossible to perceive an immediate connection between two ideas.
3. The third degree of knowledge is called sensitive knowledge and has been the source of considerable debate and confusion among Locke commentators.
DAVID HUME
He was born on April 26, 1711 in a tenement on the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father was Joseph Home- an advocate or barrister of Chirnside, Berwickshire, Scotland and is
mother was an aristocrat named Katherine Lady Falconer. He attended the University of Edinburgh at the unusually early age of twelve. At age of eighteen, he made a great “philosophical discovery”
(which remains somewhat unexplained and mysterious). He took a position in a merchant’s office in Bristol before moving to Anjou, France in 1734. Hume was refused a post at the University of
Edinburgh after local ministers petitioned the town council not to appoint Hume due to his Atheism.
From 1746, Hume served for three years as Secretary to a distant relative, Lieutenant-General St. Clair. In 1752, the Faculty of Advocates employed him as their librarian. From 1763 to
1765, Hume was Secretary to Lord Hertford in Paris, where he was admired by Voltaire and was friends with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He died in Edinburgh on August 25, 1776, aged of 65. Most of
Hume’s philosophical work dates from his earlier years, in particular stemming from a mysterious intellectual revelation he appears to have experienced at age of eighteen. He believed that, as he put
it, “the science of man is the only foundation of the other science”. Anticipating the Logical Positivist movement by almost two centuries, Hume was essentially attempting to demonstrate how ordinary
propositions about objects, causal relations, the self, etc., are semantically equivalent to proposition about one’s experiences. He argued that human knowledge can be divided into two categories:
 Relation of ideas - e.g. mathematical and logical propositions
 Matters of facts - e.g. propositions involving some contingent observation of the world
He freely admitted that we can form beliefs about that which extends beyond any possible experience (through the operation of faculties such as custom and imagination), but he entirely
skeptical about any claims to knowledge on the basis. He noted that humans tend to believe that things behave in regular manner, and that patterns in the behaviour of objects will persist into the
future and throughout the unobserved present (an idea sometimes called the Principle of Uniformity of the Nature).
Hume was a great believer in the scientific method championed by Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. The application of the problem of induction to science suggests that all of
science is actually based on a logical fallacy. Hume believed that the same argument applied to people, and he held that the self was nothing but a bundle or collection of interconnected perceptions
linked by the properties of constancy and coherence, a view sometimes known as “bundle theory”.
His theory of Ethics, sometimes described as sentimentalism, has helped to inspire various forms of non-cognitivist and moral nihilist ethical theories including emotivism, ethical
expressivism, quasi-realism, error theory, etc. In his “A treatise of Human Nature”, Hume definitely articulated the so-called “is=ought problem”, which has since become so important in Meta-Ethics,
nothing that claims are often about what ought to be in the basis of statement about what is.
In line with his ingrained Skepticism, he advised extreme caution against making such interferences, in this complete severing of “is” from “ought” is sometimes referred to as “ Hume’s
Guillotine”. As an Empiricist, Hume was always concerned with going back to experience and observation, and this led him to touch on some difficult ideas in what would later become known as

Philosophy of Language. Hume’s reconciliation of freedom and determinism (a position known as compatibilism) involves more precise definition of Liberty (a power of acting or not acting, according
to the determination of the will) and Necessity (the uniformity, observable in the operations of nature; where similar objects are constantly conjoined together), and that argued conclusion that not only
are the two compatible, but the liberty requires necessity.
Hume’s Political Philosophy is difficult to pinpoint, as his work contains elements of both Conservatism and Liberalism, and he resisted aligning himself with either of Britain’s two political
parties, the Whigs and the Tories. Hume also developed many of ideas that are still prevalent in the fields of economics, and Adam Smith, among others, acknowledged Hume’s influence on his own
economics and Political Philosophy. Hume was also famous as a prose stylist, and pioneered as a literary genre.
Famous works of David Hume
 A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-1740)

 Essays: Moral, Political, Literary (1741-1777)
 Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals
 The History of England (1754-1762)
IMMANUEL KANT
He was born on April 22, 1724 in Kaliningrad, Russia. In 1740 Kant entered the University of Konigsberg. He published science papers, including “General Natural History and Theory of the
Heavens” in 1755. He spent 15yrs as a metaphysics lecturer. In 1781, he published the first part of Critique of Pure Reason. He died on February 12, 1804, in Konigsberg, Russia. Kant was a
German philosopher whose systematic work on epistemology and ethics influenced philosophy and several idealism and Kantianism ways of thinking. He was one of the greatest philosophers of all
time.
Modes of thinking
 Analytic Proposition - is one in which the predicate is contained in the subject.
 Synthetic Proposition - are those that cannot be arrived at by pure analysis, all common propositions that result from experience of the world are synthetic.
Two types of Proposition

 Empirical Proposition depend entirely on sense perception (derived from experience).

 Priori Proposition have a fundamental validity and are not based on such perception or precede experience.
Kant’s Theory
 Represent deontological ethics
 For him, a right action consists solely in an action that is ruled and justified by rule or principle.
 It was the rational and autonomous conformity of one’s will to see the right the universal moral law.
 Theory of Judgement: Humans can only understand what is going on at the present time. It is not possible to predict the future, where humans are not involved
 Kant’s ethical theory: Evil cannot produce happiness. Good qualities are human nature
 Phenomenalism: people are incapable of perceiving objects as they really are.
 Theory of Perception: understanding of external world comes from experience and knowledge.
 He believed to learn anything you need to have experienced it to grasp the concept.
 Need both rationalism and empiricism to truly understand the true nature of anything.
 Use our senses to gain knowledge.
GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL

He was born in Stuttgart in south-western Germany, in August 27, 1770. He has been called the “Aristotle of modern times”, and he used his system of dialectics to explain the whole of the
history of philosophy, science, art, politics and religion. Hegel is considered the summit of early 19 th century German thought and had a profound impact on many future philosophical schools. He was
an avid reader from a young age. He read Shakespeare, the Ancient Greek philosophers, the Bible and German literature. In addition to German and Latin, he learned Greek, Hebrew, French, and
English. He graduated from the Tubingen Seminary in 1793, Majoring in Theology.
In 1801, Hegel was a lecturer at the University of Jena. He lectured on Logic and Metaphysics and with Schelling gave joint lectures. In 1802, he produced his first real book on philosophy,
“The Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s Systems of Philosophy.” Hegel worked as a professor in various German universities, where he became well acquainted with Romanticism, to which
his ‘Hegelianism’ would largely be a response.

In 1805, he wrote his book Phenomenology of Mind. From 1808 until 1816, he was headmaster of a gymnasium in Nuremberg, where he adapted his “Phenomenology of Mind” for use in the
classroom. From 1816 to 1818, Hegel taught at the University of Heidelberg. And, then he took offer of the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, where he remained until his death in 1831.
Hegel’s work is normally categorized as German idealism, and he is considered specifically to be an absolute idealist. Hegel was influenced by Immanuel Kant, and Hegel’s work in the
philosophy of history would influence Karl Marx. Like the earlier philosophers, Hegel tried to keep his philosophy systematic, with a logical “starting point” (the way Descartes did with cogito, ergo
sum).
Absolute Idealism
Hegel is considered the creator of the school of thought called absolute idealism. Some background: Kant’s transcendental idealism and Berkeley’s subjective idealism state that reality is
essentially based on perception. Hegel disagreed, and published this alternate theory. Absolute idealism describes how being is an all-inclusive whole. This means that since the subject (a thinking
being) can know an object (the world), there must be some sort of identity that connects the two, or else there would be no certain way of knowing anything.
Absolute idealism means that for me to know you, there has to be some sort of identity that connects us. That identity is called the “world spirit,” which we’ll get to in a minute. Hegel made
clear that thinking and being were not the same, however, and so he came up with an entirely new system to describe this absolute idealism. This new system is called the dialectic process.
World Spirit
When Hegel defines the world spirit as reason, he also defines reason as the sum of all human utterances. What does that mean? It means reason is the sum of all human thought, culture,
and art. That equals the “world spirit” because only man has a spirit. This also means that he believed all knowledge was human knowledge, which means that there is not any absolute truth beyond
human reason. That’s very different from previous beliefs about truth. Hegel believed that the “world spirit” is continuously expanding toward knowledge of itself. The “world spirit” comes to know itself
in three stages: the subjective spirit (the individual), the objective spirit (the family, society, and state), and the absolute spirit (art, religion, and philosophy).
Dialectic Process
It is the notion that the conflict of opposites creates movement or progress. The dialectical method is often studied in terms of Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. The dialectic process is the name
Hegel gives to the historical chain of reflections that makes up the development of the awareness of the “world spirit.”
 First, someone puts forth a claim: this is called a thesis.

 Then, someone else puts forth a contradictory claim: an antithesis.

 A third party forms a synthesis, which accommodates the best of both points of view.
 Hegel’s favorite example was that the thesis of being and the antithesis of non-being, or nothing, was resolved in the synthesis of becoming.
Thesis Anti-thesis
Where:
Thesis – idea
Antithesis - nature
Synthesis - mind or spirit
Synthesis
Hegel’s Philosophy of History

His philosophy was mostly a method for understanding history. He believed that philosophers, and all thinkers, could not be considered outside their historical context. The reason he
stressed this is because his belief on truth was that since the basis of human understanding changes from one generation to the next, there is no eternal truth, but rather right and wrong relate to a
certain historical context. In fact, to Hegel, “truth” was that same process of history – in a sense.

“Truth” for Hegel

Truth is not an objective entity. It is also not subjective in the sense that it is “up to” the individual. Truth is an evolving reality that develops in the same way that the “world spirit” does,
but toward full truth rather than toward full knowledge of itself. So “truth” isn’t really a thing of the moment; rather it’s a sort of living, growing being that develops alongside history and humanity.
Hegel’s Main Philosophical Project
He was to take this contradiction and interpret them as part of a comprehensive, evolving, rational unity that he called “the absolute idea”.
“TO BE TRULY EDUCATED, AN INDIVIDUAL MUST PASS THROUGH THE VARIOUS STAGES OF THE CULTURAL EVOLUTION OF HUMANKIND” - Hegel
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
He was born in Danzig, Poland, on February 22, 1788. He was a German Philosopher and Novelist. He was also a descendant of two wealthy German families. He died of heart failure
on September 21, 1860, at the age of 72, at his home in Frankfurt.
The World as Will and Representation

It is the central work of the Schopenhauer. The first edition was published in late 1818, with the date 1819 on the title-page . Schopenhauer argues that the world we experience around
us—the world of objects in space and time and related in causal ways—exists solely as ‘representation’ dependent on a cognizing subject, not as a world that can be considered to exist in itself (i.e.
independently of how it appears to the subject’s mind). Our knowledge of objects is thus knowledge of mere phenomena rather than things-in-themselves. Schopenhauer identifies the thing-in-itself—
the inner essence of everything—as will: a blind, unconscious, aimless striving devoid of knowledge, outside of space and time, and free of all multiplicity. The world as representation is, therefore,
the ‘objectification’ of the will. Moreover, he focused his philosophy, studying the ideas of Immanuel Kant about the Empirical Knowledge and Priori Knowledge.
FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE

He was born on October 15, 1844 and a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He is known for the use of poetry
and prose in his writings. An excellent example is his iconic phrase “God Is Dead”, in German:Gott is tot. His writings are the unique case of free revolutionary thought that is revolutionary in its structure and problems
but isn’t tied to any revolutionary project at all. He begins his CAMPAIGN AGAINTS MORALITY. He calls himself an “Immoralist” and harshly criticizes the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity,
Kantianism, and Utilitarianism.

Will to power (der wille zur Macht)

A basic element in Nietzsche’s philosophical outlook which provides a basis for understanding human behavior – more so than competing explanation, such as the ones based on pressure for
adaptation or survival.
Nietzsche’s Influence
Nietzsche once wrote that some men are born posthumously, and this is certainly true in his case. The history of 20 th century philosophy, theology, and psychology are un intelligible without him. He
studies culminated in a withering critique of Socrates, and the Western philosophical tradition engendered by his method of logical analysis and argumentation or dialect. He published DE LAERTII DIOGENIS
FONTIBUS and other philological studies published in the Rheinische Museum and Litterarische Centralblatt in 1688. He was converted to Richard Wagner after a performance of the Tristan and Meistersinger.
PERSPECTIVISM
It is the view that perception, experience, and reason change according to the viewer's relative perspective and interpretation. There are many possible conceptual schemes, or
perspectives in which judgment of truth or value can be made. It is also the philosophical position that one's access to the world through perception, experience, and reason is possible only through
one's own perspective and interpretation. It rejects both the idea of a perspective-free or an interpretation-free objective reality.
It is also the philosophical view proposed by Friedrich Nietzsche. With literally infinite views and experiences for each person, all truths are subject to bias and infinite interpretations.
Each perspective is impacted by spontaneous events, meaning that no two perspectives are alike. With this and human fallacy in mind, there are no absolutes. Human truth becomes subjective, and
never objective. Represented by the different appearances of an object based on the position of the observer.
Concept of Truth
 According to Nietzsche, there is not any universal definition of truth.
 He also points that an individual triesto create ‟truth/s”.
 An individual’s perspective depends upon his or her personal/subjective experiences.
NIHILISM

A belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is the point of view that suspends belief in any or all general aspects of human life, which are
culturally accepted. It is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns
existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy.
Nihilism totally rejects society and authority, and holds that in the interest of progress all present social institutions should be destroyed. It also means that nothing can be known
because nothing exists. The earliest philosophical positions associated with what could be characterized as a nihilistic outlook are those of the Skeptics. Because they denied the possibility of
certainty, Skeptics could denounce traditional truths as unjustifiable opinions. When Demosthenes (c.371-322 BC), for example, observes that "What he wished to believe, that is what each man
believes" (Olynthiac), he posits the relational nature of knowledge. Extreme skepticism, then, is linked to epistemological nihilism which denies the possibility of knowledge and truth; this form of
nihilism is currently identified with postmodern anti-foundationalism.
God had died in Nietzsche’s world (Leslie,1990). Nietzsche did not claim responsibility for the killing, but he was enthusiastic about celebrating the wake. The modern world was
inhospitable to heroes, gods who might redeem life through their greatness. It was Nietzsche concern for nihilism the modern life was just a denial of the heroic and the denial of all greatness.
Nietzsche presented a new kind of hero for modern times, one who would prove capable of establishing a golden age of order and growth, if not within society at large then within the ranks of higher
humanity. He bears his own standards of morality and reason and attempts to vanquish the hitherto reigning traditions and values.
For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it. Penetrating the façades buttressing convictions, the nihilist discovers that all values are
baseless and that reason is impotent. " Every belief, every considering something-true.“ Nietzsche writes, "is necessarily false because there is simply no true world" (Will to Power [notes from 1883-
1888]). For him, nihilism requires a radical repudiation of all imposed values and meaning: "Nihilism is . . . not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to
the plough; one destroys" (Will to Power).
Types of Nihilism
1. Political Nihilism - It is associated with the belief that the destruction of all existing political, social, and religious order is a prerequisite for any future improvement.
2. Ethical Nihilism - is also called as moral nihilism that rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values. Instead, good and evil are nebulous, and values addressing such are the
product of nothing more than social and emotive pressures.
3. Existential Nihilism - is the notion that life has no intrinsic meaning or value, and it is, no doubt, the most commonly used and understood sense of the word today.
INDIVIDUALISM
It is a moral, political or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. It opposes most external interference with an
individual's choices, whether by society, the state or any other group or institution (collectivism or statism), and it also opposed to the view that tradition, religion or any other form of external moral

standard should be used to limit an individual's choice of actions. It makes the individual its focus and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the
struggle for liberation."
The term "individualism" was first used by French and British proto-Socialists, followers of Saint-Simon (1760 - 1825) and Robert Owen (1771 - 1858), initially as a pejorative term, and
mainly in the sense of Political Individualism. The 19th Century American Henry David Thoreau is often cited as an example of a committed Individualist. In popular usage, the connotations of
"individualism" can be positive or negative, depending on who is using the term, and how. Notable proponents of individualism throughout history include John Locke, F.A. Hayek, Adam Smith,
James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin Carl Menger, Ludwig Von Mises, J.S. Mill, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman.
Ethical Individualism
Ethical Individualism is the position that individual conscience or reason is the only moral rule, and there is no objective authority or standard which it is bound to take into account. It can
be applied to the morality of the Scottish School of Common Sense of the late 18th Century, the autonomous morality of Immanuel Kant, and even ancient Greek Hedonism and Eudaimonism.
Some Individualists are also Egoists (the ethical position that moral agents ought to do whatever is in their own self-interest), although they usually do not argue that selfishness is
inherently good. Rather, they would argue that individuals are not duty-bound to any socially-imposed morality, and that individuals should be free to choose to be selfish or not.
Existentialist ethics is also characterized by an emphasis on moral Individualism, especially given its focus on the subjective, personal lives of individual human
beings. Existentialism holds that there is no basic and given “human nature” that is common to all people, and so each person must define individually what humanity means to them and what values
or purpose will dominate in their lives.
Political Individualism
It is the theory that the state should take a merely defensive role by protecting the liberty of each individual to act as he or she wishes, just as long he or she does not infringe on the
same liberty of another (essentially the laissez-faire position at the heart of classical Liberalism, Libertarianism and modern Capitalism). It sees itself in fundamental opposition to concepts such
as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "social contract", which maintains that each individual is under implicit contract to submit his own will to the "general will", and in opposition to any collectivist ideology
such as Socialism or Communism.
Some Political Individualists hold a view known as Methodological Individualism, that society (and government, for that matter) does not have any existence or meaning above or beyond
a collection of individuals, and thus cannot be properly said to carry out actions or possess intentionality. Some even take a radicalist approach called Individualist Anarchism, which holds that the
pursuit of self-interest should not be constrained by any collective body or public authority, refusing to accept even the decisions of democratic government.
“The point is not to bear suffering but to seek it out for it offers an opportunity to test and display prowess.”

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
REFERENCE/S
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-s4JrymKM

ACTIVITY #5.1
NAME DATE
1. Who is Jean-Jacques Rousseau?

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2. What are the three major works of Rousseau?

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3. What is the social contract theory all about? Explain.

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4. In your own view, what is the meaning of the famous statement of Rousseau “Men are born free, yet everywhere are in chains?”
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5. Who is John Locke?

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6. What is Locke’s Theory of Ideas all about? Explain.

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7. What are the two distinct types of experience for Locke? Explain.
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8. What are the three degrees of knowledge for Locke? Explain.

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9. Who is David Hume?
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10. What are the two categories of human knowledge for Hume? Explain.
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11. What is Hume’s general philosophical system? Explain.
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12. What is principle of uniformity of the nature for Hume? Explain.
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ACTIVITY #5.2
NAME DATE
DIRECTION: Compare the three concepts: PERSPECTIVISM, NIHILISM, and INDIVIDUALISM using the table below. (50 points)
Proponent/s Main concept/s Example/s

Perspectivism

Nihilism
Individualism

Lesson 6
TOPIC: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES
DURATION: 2 WEEKS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Describe the overview about the contemporary philosophical issues.
2. Explain the B.F. Skinner Operant Conditioning and the work of Ayn Rand and the objectivism.
TO DO LIST
Reading

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuQvCxsa5Ns
COURSE CONTENT
Founded around the turn of this 20 th century by Edmund Husserl, phenomenology is essentially a philosophical method, one that focuses on careful inspection and description of phenomena
or appearances, defined as any object of conscious experience, that is, that which we are conscious of. Indeed, one of the main themes of Husserl's Logical Investigations was a protracted argument
against psychologism, the thesis that truth is dependent on the peculiarities of the human mind, that our philosophy is reducible to our psychology. In other words, it was an argument against the very

thesis that he himself had argued in his first book on the philosophy of arithmetic. His continuing effort was dedicated to developing a method for finding and guaranteeing the truth. That method was
phenomenology.
The word "phenomenon" comes directly from the Greek, meaning "appearance." Kant had used the same word to refer to the world of our experience. Husserl intends a similar meaning,
except for the crucial fact that, for him, it does not imply a contrast between the appearance and some underlying reality, between the phenomenon and a "noumenon" or "thing-in-itself" That,
according to Husserl, is where the trouble starts, when one supposes that what one experiences is not, or might not be, the truth.
Husserl defines phenomenology as the scientific study of the essential structures of consciousness. By describing those structures, Husserl promises us, we can find certainty, which
philosophy has always sought. To do that, Husserl describes a method-or rather, a series of continuously revised methods-for taking up a peculiarly phenomenological standpoint, "bracketing out"
everything that is not essential, thereby understanding the basic rules or constitutive processes through which consciousness does its work of knowing the world.
The central doctrine of Husserl's phenomenology is the thesis that consciousness is intentional. This means that every act of consciousness is directed at some object or other, perhaps a
material object, perhaps an "ideal" object such as mathematics. The phenomenologist can distinguish and describe the nature of the intentional acts of consciousness and the intentional objects of
consciousness, which are defined through the content of consciousness. It is important to note that one can describe the content of consciousness and, accordingly, the object of consciousness
without any particular commitment to the actuality or existence of that object. Thus, one can describe the content of a dream in much the same terms that one describes the view from a window or
scene from a novel.
The inspection and description are supposed to be effected without any presuppositions, including any as to whether such objects of consciousness are "real" or correspond to something
"external," or to what their causes or consequences may be. it is believed that by this method the essential structures of experience and its objects can be uncovered. The sorts of experiences and
phenomena that phenomenologists have sought to describe are highly varied, including, for instance, time consciousness, mathematics, and logic; perception, experience of the social world; our
experience of our own bodies; and moral, aesthetic, and religious experience.
The phenomenological standpoint is achieved through a series of phenomenological "reductions" which eliminate certain aspects of our experience from consideration. Husserl formulates
several of these and their emphasis shifts throughout his career. The first and best known is the epoche or "suspension" that he describes in Ideas: General Introduction To Pure Phenomenology, in
which the phenomenologist "brackets" all questions of truth or reality and simply describes the contents of consciousness (Husserl’s ideas were borrowed from early Skeptics and Descartes). The
second reduction eliminates the merely empirical contents of consciousness and focuses instead on the essential features, the meanings of consciousness. Thus, Husserl defends a notion of intuition
that differs from and is more specialized than the ordinary notion of "experience." Some intuitions are eidetic, that is, they reveal necessary truths, not just the contingencies of the natural world.
These are the essence of phenomenology.
In sum, what interest the phenomenologists are the contents of consciousness, not on things of the natural world as such. In ideas, Husserl distinguishes between the natural world and the
phenomenological standpoint. The former is our ordinary everyday viewpoint and the ordinary stance of the natural sciences, describing things and states of affairs. The latter is the special viewpoint
achieved by the phenomenologist, as he or she focuses not on things but our consciousness of things (Solomon and Higgins, 1996).

BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER

He is an American Psychologist, Behaviorist, Author, Inventor and Social Philosopher. He was born on March 20, 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. He married a woman named
Yvonne Blue and they have two daughters named Julie and Deborah. He invented the operant conditioning chamber also known as the Skinner box. He died on August 18,1990 because of
Leukemia.
Operant Conditioning
B.F. Skinner believed that behavior is extremely nurtured; as all behavior can be learnt and shaped by punishment and rewards. Therefore, behavior is reinforced by consequences and
sequences of event which reinforced the idea that human's free will is only an illusion to society and that human action are results of consequences. Skinner uses an operant conditioning chamber
also known as the Skinner box to test his theory.
Skinner showed how positive reinforcement worked by placing a hungry rat in the “Skinner box”. The box contained a lever in the side and as the rat moved about the box it would
accidentally knock the lever. Immediately as the rat knocked the lever a food pellet would drop into a container next to the lever. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of
being put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they would repeat the action again and again.
B.F Skinner believed that the best way to understand behavior was to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. Skinner called this approach operant conditioning. The
theory of operant conditioning was based on the work of Thorndike (1905). The theory known as the “Law Of Effect” was created by Edward Thorndike. Edward Thorndike studied learning in animals
using a puzzle box which is the theory “Law of Effect”.
Skinner is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning, however his work was based on Thorndike's law of effect. A new term was introduced into the law of effect by Skinner. The
new term was called reinforcement. Behavior that is reinforced usually is repeated meaning it is strengthen but behavior which is not reinforced tends to die out meaning it is weakened. Skinner
(1948) studied operant conditioning by conducting experiments using animals which he placed in a “Skinner Box”.
Thus, operant conditioning is the learning of voluntary behavior through the effects of pleasant and unpleasant consequences to responses.
• Thorndike’s law of effect
– if a response is followed by a pleasurable consequence, it will tend to be repeated
– if a response is followed by an unpleasant consequence, it will tend not to be repeated
• Skinner was a behaviorist; he wanted to study only observable, measurable behavior. He gave “operant conditioning” its name. Operant means any behavior that is voluntary. Learning
depends on what happens after the response also known as the consequence.

Reinforcement
It is any event or stimulus, that when following a response, increases the probability that the response will occur again:
primary reinforcer: any reinforcer that is naturally reinforcing by meeting a basic biological need, such as hunger, thirst, or touch
secondary reinforcer: any reinforcer that becomes reinforcing after being paired with a primary reinforcer, such as praise, tokens, or gold stars
Types of reinforcement
1. Positive reinforcement - the reinforcement of a response by the addition or experience of a pleasurable stimulus
2. Negative reinforcement - the reinforcement of a response by the removal, escape from, or avoidance of an unpleasant stimulus
–
example: taking aspirin for a headache is negatively reinforced: removal of headache!
Schedules of reinforcement
• Partial reinforcement effect: a response that is reinforced after some—but not all—correct responses tends to be very resistant to extinction
• Continuous reinforcement: reinforcement of each and every correct response
1. Fixed interval schedule of reinforcement - interval of time that must pass before reinforcement becomes possible is always the same.
2. Variable interval schedule of reinforcement - the interval of time that must pass before reinforcement becomes possible is different for each trial or event.
3. Fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement - number of responses required for reinforcement is always the same.
4. Variable ratio schedule of reinforcement - schedule of reinforcement in which the number of responses required for reinforcement is different for each trial or event.
Punishment
Punishment is any event or object that, when following a response, makes that response less likely to happen again.
1. Punishment by application: the punishment of a response by the addition or experiencing of an unpleasant stimulus
2. Punishment by removal: the punishment of a response by the removal of a pleasurable stimulus

Problems with Punishment

• Severe punishment
– may cause avoidance of the punisher instead of the behavior being punished
– may encourage lying to avoid punishment
– creates fear and anxiety
How to Make Punishment More Effective

1. Punishment should immediately follow the behavior it is meant to punish.
2. Punishment should be consistent.
3. Punishment of the wrong behavior should be paired, whenever possible, with reinforcement of the right behavior.
AYN RAND
She was born in St. Petersburg in Russia on February 2, 1905 as Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum. She opposed communists ideals from childhood. She moved to the United States in her
twenties in1926 less than a decade after the 1917 Russian Revolution. She graduated from University of Petrograd with history and philosophy degree. She studied at State Institute of Cinema Arts.
She opposed the communist government that had taken over her country and which was beginning to spread around the world. This revolution established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(U.S.S.R. or Soviet Union) a communist government. Actually, Rand opposed all forms of Collectivism. She is famous for several novels including Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged,
which voiced this opposition through literature.
She was a Russian-born American writer whose commercially successful novels promoting individualism and laissez-faire capitalism were influential among conservatives and
libertarians and popular among generations of young people in the United States from the mid-20th century. Ayn Rand moved to the United States in 1926 and tried to establish herself in Hollywood.
Her first novel, We the Living (1936), championed her rejection of collectivist values in favor of individual self-interest, a belief that became more explicit with her subsequent novels The
Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Following the immense success of the latter, Rand promoted her philosophy of Objectivism through courses, lectures and literature. She died in New
York City on March 6, 1982.

Objectivism
Objectivism is the philosophy of rational individualism founded by Ayn Rand (1905-1982). In novels such as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged , Rand dramatized her ideal man, the
producer who lives by his own effort and does not give or receive the undeserved, who honors achievement and rejects envy. Rand laid out the details of her world-view in nonfiction books such
as The Virtue of Selfishness and Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
Objectivism holds that there is no greater moral goal than achieving happiness. But one cannot achieve happiness by wish or whim. Fundamentally, it requires rational respect for the
facts of reality, including the facts about our human nature and needs. Happiness requires that one live by objective principles, including moral integrity and respect for the rights of others. Politically,
Objectivists advocate laissez-faire capitalism.
Under capitalism, a strictly limited government protects each person's rights to life, liberty, and property and forbids that anyone initiate force against anyone else. The heroes
of Objectivism are achievers who build businesses, invent technologies, and create art and ideas, depending on their own talents and on trade with other independent people to reach their goal.
Objectivism is optimistic, holding that the universe is open to human achievement and happiness and that each person has within him the ability to live a rich, fulfilling, independent life.
This idealistic message suffuses Rand's novels, which continue to sell by the hundreds of thousands every year to people attracted to their inspirational storylines and distinctive ideas.
First, in studying Rand, one is better equipped to deal with her ideas by the following introduction. Readers should be acquainted with the diversity of plausible points of view of Rand that
have been advanced and defended in philosophy. And from this sense of the difficulty of the following philosophic issues, there are plausible arguments for and against almost any philosophic thesis,
and the glib or impassioned answer almost certainly disregards the plausibility of contrary views. Thus, in reading this very brief sub-chapter, readers are asked to keep in mind David Hume's view:
good philosophy should be grounded in a skepticism tempered by common sense that serves to "diminish their fond opinion of themselves, and their prejudice against antagonists (Hume, 2000)."
The following highlight the foundations of Rand's thoughts:
1. ARISTOTLE. Objectivist flowed with Aristotelian mainstream. Aristotle, whom they looked up as the first intellectual, believed that the mind is the only tool of knowledge, that A is A.
Objectivism claimed its philosophy an atheist. It accepted reality that reason is the sole means of knowledge. Objectivism denied any supernatural dimension that is a contradiction of nature
of existence. The moral purpose of life is the achievement of happiness (Rand, 1996).
2. EXISTENCE EXISTS. The objectivist stressed " To exist is to be something. The statement, "Existence exists," implied two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and
that one exists possessing consciousness, unconsciousness being the faculty of perceiving, that which exists.
3. HAPPINESS. Happiness is earned through one's achievement. Productiveness is a process by which a person's mind sustains his life, gives him the power to adjust his background to
himself rather than the other way around.

4. INDIVIDUALISM. Individualism can be a virtuous quality of one's character. Individualism regarded every person as an independent sovereign entity who possessed inalienable right to one's
own life, a right derived from being rational. Individualism held that a civilized society or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among people, could be achieved only
on the basis of the recognition of individual rights other than the individual rights of its members (Rand, 1996).
5. INDIVIDUALIST. An individualist does not run anybody's life nor lets others run his. One is not ruled nor ruled at. He does not sacrifice himself to anyone nor sacrifice anyone to himself.
6. MORAL ISSUE. There is no compromise on moral issue. No compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational convictions as well. Concern with one's interest is the essence of a
moral existence. A person must be the beneficiary of his own action.
7. OBJECTIVISM. Rand (1990) called her philosophy Objectivism. In essence, Objectivism is the concept of a person as a heroic being, with happiness as the moral purpose of life, with the
productive achievement as the noblest activity and reason as the only absolute.
8. SELFISHNESS. By selfishness, Rand (1990) did not refer to the conventional definition. For Rand, the highest form of selfishness is the independent mind that recognized no authority higher
than its own or value higher than its judgment of truth. Objectivist upheld rational selfishness. The human good does not require sacrifices and cannot be achieved by the sacrifice of anyone
to anyone. It held that the rational interests of people do not clash. Ideally, there is no conflict of interest among human beings who deal with another, giving value for value.
9. REASON AND EMOTION. Rand (1990) rejected dichotomy. between reason and emotion. To grow intellectually is a responsibility of an individual. Emotion is an automatic response, an
automatic effort of value premises. Emotion is an effect, not a cause. One does not act on emotions one cannot account to. One understands the meaning of emotions, but the mind is
supreme and guides emotions. Mind and emotion are integral. Rand (1999) rejects body-soul dichotomy, matter and consciousness are indivisible entities.
10. VOLITION. Thinking is one's choice. It is volitional. A person has to initiate thinking, sustain it and to bear responsibility for its result. In a political sense, Rand (1996) promoted the absence of
physical coercion that is symbolized by the coercive power of the state. Rationality is demanded in capitalism. Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom and vice versa. Free
mind and free market are corollaries.
REFERENCE/S

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuQvCxsa5Ns

Lesson 7
TOPIC: FILIPINO INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY
DURATION: 1 WEEK
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Enumerate the different Filipino Indigenous Philosophy.
2. Recognize the importance of Indigenous Philosophy as part of our identity as Filipinos.
TO DO LIST
Reading
Take Activity #7
FILIPINO INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY

Who is a Filipino? Do we have a philosophy that we can call our own? These questions when posed to students are often met with a silence and when an inevitable answer comes, it is
usually with an undecided tone. Of course we do! We do have our own philosophy. It may sound presumptuous to speak of "Filipino Thought" for the reason that the Philippines could not very well
speak of a tradition such as that of China, India, or Greco-Roman. Yet, for the Filipino. there has to be "Filipino Thought" or none at all. Like any other people, the Filipino must eventually take
consciousness of his own particular life and his world, his society and his gods in the light of Truth, and thereby realize his proper being (Reyes, 1990). However, the pioneering attempts to formulate

a Filipino philosophy shares the fate of most pioneering works: the lack of refined tools and the lack of predecessors upon whom to stand (Mercado, 1992). This section will attempt to draw out
elements or draw sketches of the general lines of Filipino philosophy.
The consciousness that developed among the people, according to Constantino, during the Spanish and American colonial eras was captive, in the sense that it was shaped and tailored to
the needs of the colonizers. The Spanish friars saw to it that the natives, through religious conversion, became docile and illiterate, obedient and fanatical. The Americans, on the other hand, by using
education with English as the medium of instruction, saw to it that the natives developed Western preferences, thereby imbibing a Western consumerist orientation. Captive consciousness is
therefore colonial Consciousness. There is a need for a counter consciousness to it, and that is the nationalist consciousness (Gripaldo, 2000).
A nationalist consciousness is necessary as an antidote to colonial consciousness. Constantino distinguished four types or people who claim themselves to be nationalists. First, those, who
only pay lip service to nationalism: they are the faddists or fair weather nationalists who are quite dangerous since they are reliable and can betray or misrepresent nationalism. Second, the emotional
nationalists who are most often loyal to the cause but who emotional hardly understand it and so sometimes they also misrepresent nationalism. Third, the purely intellectual nationalists who
understand the cause but are not willing to sacrifice their comfort or position and so they accommodate the status quo. Finally, the genuine nationalists who comprehend the cause and whose
dedication is unswerving, The last group attempts to transform a Pluralistic grouping of activist movements, including rightists and leftists, into a united and active front of protest and dissent
(Gripaldo, 2000). Constantino said that a nationalist choice is not a personal choice since a nationalist must be selfless: it is a choice for the people or the nation.
This section is but the skeleton of Filipino philosophy that requires interdisciplinary cooperation of linguists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, theologians, and philosophers. The
over-all impression is not to put Filipino philosophy as inferior with that of say, the Western philosophy because Filipino philosophy is worthy of respect. It is thus the task of the students to be
concerned with Filipino legacy, study it deeper, and be proud of being Filipinos.
1. Loob and the Filipino Philosophy

Loob can be characterized as 1) holistic and 2) interior. The holistic view of the world extends to the Filipinos' nondualistic worldview. Life is not seen as compartmentalized. For instance, the
Western man has expressions such as "not letting emotions influence reason" or "the heart having reasons which the head does not know." The Filipino does not distinguish between the object and
subject. For instance, when a supervisor reprimands an employee, the employee would find it hard to separate his work from his own person being castigated. Thus, when Filipinos say, "masama
ang loob'", it pertains to the pain of one's whole being. Thus, one cannot be too blunt in dealing with others. One has to take into consideration the sensitivity or the Filipinos. From this holistic loob will
spring shame (hiya), pride or amor propio (self-esteem). Interiority, on the other, hand shows how love, mercy, charity, clemency, and leniency can be summed up in the expression: human
heartedness.
Kagandahang-loob, kabutihang-loob, kalooban are terms that show sharing of one's self to others. For Mercado (1992), interiority manifests itself in freedom. Loob puts one in touch with his
fellow beings. Great Philippine values in fact are essentially interpersonal. The use of intermediaries or go-betweens, the values of loyalty, hospitality, pakikisama (camaraderie, conformism), and

respect to authority are such values that relate to persons. In short, the Filipino generally believes in the innate goodness of the human being. Filipino ethics has an internal code and sanction that
flows from within himself. This ethics is more constant than other legalistic moral philosophies that are rather negative. The Filipino, who stresses duties over rights, has plenty in common with his
Oriental neighbors such as the Chinese and the Indian.
In short, the Filipino as individual looks at himself as holistic from the interior dimension under the principle of harmony. The Filipino looks at himself as a self, as one who feels, as one who
wills, as one who thinks, as one who acts; as a total whole - as a 'person, conscious of his freedom, proud of his human dignity, and sensitive to the violation of these two.
2. Filipino Philosophy of Time

While the earth's movement around the sun can mathematically calculate the cosmic time, human time is not subject to mathematical calculations. Human time is not oriented to space but to
humanity's consciousness. Music for instance, though played in time, is perceived as the whole piece because of consciousness. Filipinos remember the past not in linear terms but in terms of
consciousness. Linear terms will mean there is a definite beginning and end. Filipinos have the penchant not to stick in clock time because we relate time with meaningful association (Mercado,
1992). Old members of the family will relate stories that happened in the past not strictly on historical dates but based on the significant events that are attached during that time.
Unlike the Westerners who are conscious of their history and sticking on time, Filipinos will usually compromise appointments for the sake of time. Westerners would always beat the
deadline. Nonetheless, Filipinos are becoming realistic especially in these hard times. Due to the effects in business and work performance, most establishments nowadays are strict in observing
coming on time. Nevertheless, since his culture sticks to his mind, the Filipino instinctively follows his Philosophy of time without even being conscious of it.
Moreover, the Filipino, whether Ilokano (Ti tao kasla kulintaba, no agtayab, ngumato, bumaba), or Kapampangan, (Bie keti ang yatu, mengari yang ruweda, mibabo, milalim, ing Dios nung
buri na tall, 1718 D1os nung buri na), (A human being is like a bird who ties up and goes down) proves that he believes in the gulong ng palad (literally, "wheel of fortune") and hence looks at life as a
series of ups and downs (Timbreza, 1992). This philosophy of life makes the Filipino an unmitigated optimist. When the so-called wheel of life is on the downtrend, he looks to the future with hope
because life's wheel cannot stay down forever. When one weeps, one will surely smile. The Filipino looks upon every event, fortunate or unfortunate, as fleeting or transitory. Life may be sorrowful,
but precisely because suffering is ultimately salutary, there is hope beyond suffering (Timbreza, 1996). Floods, earthquakes, Edsa Revolutions, continuous poverty, all these were seen to be
transcended hoping that one day, the sun would shine and nature would heal itself. As a saying goes, "If one has reached the lowest ebb, there is no way to go but up. Time is considered cyclic.
Gulong ng palad nonetheless blends well with foreign philosophical ideas in the Asian region. It approaches karma of the Indians and yang and yin thought of the Chinese while pakikisama on the
other hand, is close to the Chinese and Japanese philosophy of "living in harmony with nature."
It is nevertheless a dire prediction when one newspaper bannered: "The rich gets richer and the poor gets nowhere." Because of hardship, some are fed up that they end up committing
crimes. However, there are still many who prove otherwise: from the lowly janitor of local airport who returns a bagful of money to its rightful Owner, to an employee in government postal office who
arrives on time for his work and believes that he can make a contribution to improve life. There is the belief in the Filipino that inevitably, the good shall prevail.

Poverty, however, is not just the result of misinterpreting Filipino values but is largely due to a corrupt government. Filipinos nowadays are disenfranchised with the government and think that
whomever one puts in a high government position would still end up corrupt. This, is a sad realization. Traditional politicians still rely on political patronage. Their constituents will be used for the next
election in exchange of some favors. It is more saddening however, if their constituents will allow themselves to be used by the exploitative government officials.
EDSA ll and its counterpart, Edsa III in 2001, are just but a continuous reminder to each and every Filipino that the good shall prevail. Abusive government officials will and shall not be
tolerated. On the other hand, the voice of the majority of the Filipinos resonated in these two events. Regardless of the differences of outlook of participants of Edsa II and Edsa III, Filipinos, are
saying: Enough! Let us get down to business and let each and everyone be heard. Understanding and listening to the voices of the participants present in these two Edsa Revolutions, remain a
challenge and a reality.
3. Bahala Na
The pre-Spanish Filipino people believed in a Supreme Being, Batula or Bathala. However, again, in this regard the originality of Filipino thought will probably be precisely in his personalistic
view of the universe (Timbreza, 1996). In his personalistic view of the world, the Filipino seems to signify that ultimately in life we have to reckon not only with nature and human nature, but also with
cosmic presences or spirits, seen to be ultimate origin to the problem of evil.
Bathala is not an impersonal entity but rather a personal being that keeps the balance in the universe. Unlike the Indian and the Chinese, a human being can forge some personal
relationships with this deity because Bathala is endowed with personality. The Filipino puts his entire trust in this Bathala who has evolved into the Christian God (Mercado, 1992).
The Filipino subconsciously accepts the bahala na attitude as a part of life. Bahala na literally means to leave everything to God who is Bathala in the vernacular. The bahala na philosophy
puts complete trust in the Divine Providence; it contains the element of resignation. Thus, the Filipino accepts beforehand whatever the outcome of his problem might be (Mercado, 1994).
Bahala na (come what may) nonetheless, is one of the most outstanding Filipino virtues. It is in one aspect perceived as courage to take risks. For instance, it could be accounted that not
only poverty but also because of bahala na as to why millions of Filipinos are working abroad in complicated and high-risk environment and places. From war-torn to besieged countries, Filipinos will
risk their lives just to be able to support their families back home. Bahala na, on the other hand, is seen as fatalistic; sort of leaving everything to God or to chance such is the uncertainty of life. On
the other hand, fatalism is universal. The will of God/Allah, Tao to the Chinese, Rta to the Indians and Fate in Buddhism -all signify, in one way or another, fatalism.
It is believed however, that the Philippine values and system, in line with Filipino philosophy, are in dire need to be used as positive motivation. Beyond his family group, the Filipino sees
himself belonging to a small, primary group in a dyadic, pyramidal fashion. In other words, he does not identify horizontally with his class that cuts across the whole community but vertically with its
authority figures distinguished by their wealth, power, and age. He receives protection and other favors from above and should be ready to do the same towards his ties below. Reciprocating debts of
gratitude between coordinates and subordinates holds the whole group together-superordinate and subordinate (utang na loob) (Reyes, 1990).

However, as we consider our duty, it should not be bounded by utang na loob (indebtedness to patrons) but to help to uplift the life not only of one's own family (micro perspective) but of
others as well (macro perspective). The Filipino gives great value to endurance and hard work as means to economic self-sufficiency. This self-sufficiency refers not to individual self, but to the family
to which one owes a special debt of gratitude for having brought him life and nurtured him.
In this vein, we should stress another positive Filipino values such as bayanihan or helping others in times of need. Bayanihan is another moving spirit of the Filipino people. Deep down in the
Filipino psyche, there exists the belief that whatever good one has done will redound to one's benefit because a Supreme Judge will dispense just compensation whether in this life or in the next
(Mercado, 1994). In short, despite the Western imposition of dualism, Filipino philosophy should continue to strive for harmony with nature and the Absolute.
These attitudes and values constitute the hidden springs of the Filipino Mind. The elements of Filipino philosophy have clarified the reasons for the Filipinos' way of thinking and of behavior.
Despite the imposition of Western methods in education or media that had resulted to many biases in Filipino spirit such as stress in personal gain and modern comforts, the Filipino need not be a
victim of scientific slavery.
REFERENCE/S

ACTIVITY #7
NAME DATE
1. What Filipino Indigenous Philosophy guides you most in your daily life? How does it guide you? Cite your personal experience.
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2. What Filipino Indigenous Philosophy pose obstacles to your value formation? How do they block your value formation? Cite your personal experience.
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Lesson 8
TOPIC: SOCIAL SCIENCES AND ITS BRANCHES
DURATION: 1 WEEK
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this module, students will have completed the following objective:
1. Explain the meaning of social sciences and its related fields and its importance in the society.
2. Enumerate the different branches of social sciences.
TO DO LIST
Reading

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR2s8gcBNwk
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKw8vscbeX0

COURSE CONTENT
SOCIAL SCIENCE
It is a branch of science that deals with society and the relationships among individuals within a society.
Branches of Social Science

1. Anthropology - is the study of human beings. It is derived from two Greek words, anthropos meaning human and logos meaning study. It is the study of humans and human
behavior and societies in the past and present Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. Anthropologists take a broad approach to understanding the many different aspects of the
human experience, which we call holism. They consider the past, through archaeology, to see how human groups lived hundreds or thousands of years ago and what was important to them.
2. Geography - is the study of natural environment and physical features of the earth and its atmosphere.
3. Economics - is concerned with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It can be defined in a few different ways. It's the study of scarcity, the study of how people
use resources and respond to incentives, or the study of decision-making. It often involves topics like wealth and finance, but it's not all about money.
4. History - is the study of the past as it is described in written documents. It is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization,
presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. It is the discipline that studies the chronological record of events (as affecting a nation or people), based on a critical
examination of source materials and usually presenting an explanation of their causes.
5. Political Science – is the systematic study of governance by the application of empirical and generally scientific methods of analysis. It is a social science which deals with systems of
governance, and the analysis of political activities, political thoughts, and political behavior. As traditionally defined and studied, political science examines the state and its organs and
institutions.
6. Psychology - is a scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. It comes from the Latin word “psyche” which means “mind or soul”, and “logos” meaning “study.”
7. Sociology - is the scientific study of society, including patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture. A social science that studies human societies, their interactions, and the
processes that preserve and change them. It does this by examining the dynamics of constituent parts of societies such as institutions, communities, populations, and gender, racial, or age

groups. Sociology also studies social status or stratification, social movements, and social change, as well as societal disorder in the form of crime, deviance, and revolution. The
term sociology was first used by Frenchman Auguste Compte in the 1830s when he proposed a synthetic science uniting all knowledge about human activity. [1] In the academic world,
sociology is considered one of the social sciences.
8. Law - is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. It has been defined both as "the Science of Justice" and "the Art of
Justice". Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community adhere to the will of the state.
REFERENCE/S
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR2s8gcBNwk
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKw8vscbeX0

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Lemery Colleges, Inc.

A. Bonifacio St., Brgy. Bagong Sikat, Lemery, Batangas

Academic Year 2020-2021

An Instructional Module and

Course Code : GE 105

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 1

L- Love of God and Country

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 2

2 ANCIENT GREEK AND SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS 19

4 INTRODUCTION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT 40

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 3

6 INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES

B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning

Loob and the Filipino Philosophy

8 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCES AND ITS BRANCHES

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 4

FLEXIBLE LEARNING DESIGN WORKSHEET

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 5

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 6

Understand the empiricism and ▪ Jean-Jacques

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 7

15 SEMI FINAL EXAMINATIONS

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 8

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Watch Lecture Video

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 10

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A principle is that from which something proceeds in any manner whatsoever.

a. Material Cause - is that out of which something is made.

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 12

Four main branches of Philosophy

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REFERENCE/S (minimum of 5 references)

 Ramos, C. C. (2004). Introduction to Philosophy. Manila: Rex Book Store, Inc.

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 18

1. Why is it important to study philosophy?

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 19

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 20

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Watch Lecture Video

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY ▪ PAGE 22

THE ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHERS

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THALES OF MILETUS (CIRCA 585 B.C.E)

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