INSIGHTS ON “THE HUMAN BEING IN WESTERN THOUGHT”

Like Philosophy in the Eastern culture, philosophy, and consequently the understanding of
human, in the Western world had their roots from nature. Their line of thinking followed what was
available to them for process at time especially during the ancient times. Philosophers heavily based
their understanding of the human on the principal elements they are most familiar of – the earth, water,
fire, and air. However, as the western thought progressed, so did their philosophy. It shifted from the
elemental thinking into religious ones and then into more scholarly thought processes like the western
philosophies we are familiar today.

However, what really reinforced my knowledge is that the philosophies that most people, if I
must specify the Gen-Z’s, are very exposed to nowadays especially through social media is the
philosophical thought on Hedonism and Utilitarianism. Hedonism revolves around the pursuit of
pleasure and happiness. In our times today, posts and thoughts about doing what makes you happy or
protecting your own happiness go viral every once in a while in any social media platform. The “love
yourself” trope is very popular on social media and that has been the greatest factor on why the youth
seem to be most of the times confident and accepting of themselves. More so, on the discussion about
utilitarianism, it talks about utility as the source of pleasure. Like hedonism, in our world today,
whatever is useful to a person, it seems to be given of high importance. For instance, technology.
Technology is very useful in our lives today and it likewise bring pleasure to us. At the touch of a button,
all the knowledge archived in the internet can be accessible. It could not be denied that our current
world culture is dominated by western ideologies and the fact that hedonism and utilitarianism have
their roots from western thoughts only reinforces the narrative that indeed our world today is western-
centric.

Lastly, the western philosopher that I share my philosophy with when it comes to teaching is
Francis Bacon. His “Knowledge is Power” speaks volume to me because for someone who teaches facts
through science and mathematics, knowledge is indeed power. As a science teacher, I believe that what
I teach my students are relevant to their everyday lives and these scientific facts cure them of their
ignorance of the world. One example from my teaching experience is when I taught about how
menstruation and pregnancy work, as well as contraceptives at a timely week as the valentine’s day
week. Students’ curiosity were filled to the brim and after teaching them about it, a lot of “aahhhs”
which signify their curiosities being satisfied were all let out. In my introspection, knowledge is power
for that situation because these pubescent students with their raging hormones were able to
understand the mechanisms and in turn, they would be more careful and be more decisive about such
matters. For mathematics, while mathematics is more or less abstract, knowledge is still power. While
mathematics generally involves numbers and problem solving, I believe that the essence of mathematics
is to make complicated things simpler and to understand problems and see that they have solutions.
Applying it to real life allows us to see problems at multiple perspectives and trains us to solve problems
in a lot of ways. While we can’t really use our x’s and y’s and algebraic equations to buy from the
grocery, mathematics trains and exercises our brains to think quickly and provide a solution to every
problem.