Privado, Kalid Aaron R.

Philo 1

16 January 2023

Final Reflection Paper- The Value of Philosophy

I entered this class with grand questions that I pondered for a while which I was not sure

if I’d even have the answer to: like the meaning of living or the existence of an omniscient and

omniscient transcendental being that overlooks everything. These, however, were not answered

during our Philosophical excursions in class but in turn, I’ve gained a much clearer

understanding of the mundane and the often unnoticed.

These could be just as simple as the sun rising or the weather changing and just like how

unnoticed they are, they are often assumed to be fixed or constant. However, in class, I’ve

learned that there are things that could often destroy our notions of certainty and concreteness. I

assume that the sun will rise tomorrow and the day after. I expect that the sky will be blue after I

wake up. I used the terms “assume” and “expect” because I’ve learned that there might not be a

sun or a sky to wake up to, albeit the chance being infinitely small, but still therefore then proves

the lack of concrete certainty in the preconceived notions of concepts that we otherwise would

believe to be true.

Another significant lesson I’ve picked up along our lessons would be the concepts that

would help me or anyone else in analyzing and rationalizing certain situations, which in short, is

logic. The absence of logic could be unthinkable. Things as simple as derivations from simple

observations or something as complex as solving a murder mystery would be rendered

unexcogitable. Philosophy is necessary in branching things out piece by piece in order to arrive
at a sense of truth that is also subject to examination. Perhaps this endless journey for the truth is

what makes Philosophy so intriguing. Perhaps the layered stacks of questions of contemplations

stemmed from the very existence of the universe that strives to derive a certain unattainable truth

is what gives Philosophy its mystique. A food for thought, to say the least.

This then leaves us with Philosophy as a subject for thinking, and what less can a human

accomplish if rendered without the chance to think, therefore Philosophy, given that it is

something that exercises the mind, enables me to arrive at endless possibilities and a plethora of

knowledge. And the idea that I mentioned about the lack of certainty, although this might sound

cynical, makes living the presence with a sense of security that there is a current existence of me

that is thinking and existing, although it is unsure if there will be tomorrow or the next day. But

this just makes living more appreciative of the things we are currently enjoying and the things

we’ve already endured.