Doing Philosophy

Lesson Objectives

  Recognize human activities that

emanated from deliberate reflection
Realize the value of doing philosophy in
obtaining a broad perspective on life
Do a philosophical reflection on a
concrete situation
 Key Questions

• What is the importance of Philosophy?

• How does philosophy work in our daily life?

 Meaning of Philosophy
• “Philosophy” came from two Greek words:
 Philo which means “to love”
 Sophia which means “wisdom”
• Philosophy originally meant “love of wisdom.”
• Philosophy is also defined as the science that by
natural light of reason studies the first causes or
highest principles of all things.
 Science
 It is an organized body of knowledge.
 It is systematic.
 It follows certain steps or employs certain
procedures.
 Meaning of Philosophy
 Natural Light of Reason
 It uses a philosopher’s natural capacity to
think or human reason or the so-called
unaided reason.
 Study of All Things
 It makes philosophy distinct from other
sciences because it is not one dimensional or
partial.
 A philosopher does not limit himself to a
particular object of inquiry.
 Philosophy is multidimensional or holistic.
 Meaning of Philosophy
 First Cause or Highest Principle
 Principle of Identity – whatever is is; whatever
is not is not. Everything is its own being, and
not being is not being.
 Principle of Non-Contradiction – it is
impossible for a thing to be and not to be at
the same time.
 Principle of Excluded Middle – a thing is either
is or is not; between being and not-being,
there is no middle ground possible.
 Principle of Sufficient Reason – nothing exists
without sufficient reason for its being and
existence.
 Meaning of Philosophy
• Early Greek philosophers studied aspects of the
natural and human world that later became separate
sciences—astronomy, physics, psychology, and
sociology.
• Basic problems like 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 basic problems are the subject matter of the
branches of philosophy.
 Branches of Philosophy
Metaphysics
• It is an extension of a fundamental and necessary
drive in every human being to know what is real.
• A metaphysician’s task is to explain that part of our
experience which we call unreal in terms of what we
call real.
• We try to make things comprehensible by simplifying
or reducing the mass of things we call appearance to
a relatively fewer number of things we call reality.
• Thales
 He claims that everything we experience is water
(“reality”) and everything else is “appearance.”
 Branches of Philosophy
 We try to explain everything else (appearance) in
terms of water (reality).
• Idealist and Materialist
 Their theories are based on unobservable entities:
mind and matter.
 They explain the observable in terms of the
unobservable.
• Plato
 Nothing we experience in the physical world with
our five senses is real.
 Reality is unchanging, eternal, immaterial, and
can be detected only by the intellect.
 Plato calls these realities as ideas of forms.
 Branches of Philosophy
Ethics
• It explores the nature of moral virtue and evaluates
human actions.
• It is a study of the nature of moral judgments.
• Philosophical ethics attempts to provide an account
of our fundamental ethical ideas.
• It insists that obedience to moral law be given a
rational foundation.
• Socrates
 To be happy is to live a virtuous life.
 Virtue is an awakening of the seeds of good deeds
that lay dormant in the mind and heart of a person
which can be achieved through self-knowledge.
 Branches of Philosophy
 True knowledge = Wisdom = Virtue
 Courage as virtue is also knowledge.
• William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
 An African-American who wanted equal rights
for the blacks.
 His philosophy uses the same process as Hegel’s
dialectic (Thesis > Antithesis > Synthesis).
 Branches of Philosophy
Epistemology
• It deals with nature, sources, limitations, and
validity of knowledge.
• It explains: (1) how we know what we claim to
know; (2) how we can find out what we wish to
know; and (3) how we can differentiate truth from
falsehood.
• It addresses varied problems: the reliability, extent,
and kinds of knowledge; truth; language; and
science and scientific knowledge.
 Branches of Philosophy
• Sources of knowledge
 Induction
 gives importance to particular things seen,
heard, and touched
 forms general ideas through the examination
of particular facts
 Empiricist – advocates of induction method
 Empiricism is the view that knowledge can be
attained only through sense experience.
 Deduction
 gives importance to general law from which
particular facts are understood or judged
 Branches of Philosophy
 Rationalist – advocates of deduction method
 For a rationalist, real knowledge is based on
the logic, the laws, and the methods that
reason develops.
 Pragmatism – the meaning and truth of an idea
are tested by its practical consequences.
 Branches of Philosophy
Logic
• Reasoning is the concern of the logician.
• It comes from the Greek word logike, coined by Zeno,
the Stoic (c.340–265BC), which means a treatise on
matters pertaining to the human thought.
• It does not provide us knowledge of the world
directly and does not contribute directly to the
content of our thoughts.
• It is not interested in what we know regarding certain
subjects but in the truth or the validity of our
arguments regarding such objects.
 Branches of Philosophy
• Aristotle
 First philosopher to devise a logical method
 Truth means the agreement of knowledge with
reality.
 Logical reasoning makes us certain that our
conclusions are true.
• Zeno of Citium
 One of the successors of Aristotle and founder of
Stoicism
• Other influential authors of logic
 Cicero, Porphyry, and Boethius
 Philoponus and Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes
 Branches of Philosophy
Aesthetics
• It is the science of the beautiful in its various
manifestations – including the sublime, comic, tragic,
pathetic, and ugly.
• It is important because of the following:
 It vitalizes our knowledge. It makes our
knowledge of the world alive and useful.
 It helps us to live more deeply and richly. A work
of art helps us to rise from purely physical
existence into the realm of intellect and the spirit.
 It brings us in touch with our culture. The answers
of great minds in the past to the great problems
of human life are part of our culture.
 Branches of Philosophy
• Hans-Georg Gadamer
 A German philosopher who argues that our tastes
and judgments regarding beauty work in
connection with one’s own personal experience
and culture.
 Our culture consists of the values and beliefs of
our time and our society.
 Activities
1. Share your concepts about the importance of
philosophy. Give examples of these in politics,
sports, law, and daily life.
2. How do you define “happiness”? Do you support the
view of Socrates: “To become happy, a person must
live a virtuous life”? Explain
3. Share in class your views about what is “right” or
“wrong.” Share your own experience in class.