Lesson Two

Methods of Philosophizing

Objectives: At the end of this module, you should be able to:

1. Distinguish opinion from truth;
2. analyze situations that show the difference;
3. realize that the methods of philosophy lead to wisdom and truth; and
4. evaluate opinions.

Introduction: Methods of Philosophizing

This section shall introduce methods or ways of looking at truth and what will be considered as
mere “opinions”. Philosophizing is to think or express oneself in a philosophical manner. It
considers or discusses a (matter from a philosophical standpoint. In phenomenology, truth is
based on the person’s consciousness, while in existentialism, truth is based in exercising
choices and persona; freedom; in postmodernism, it is accepted that truth is not absolute, (i.e.,
cultural); and in logic, truth is based on reasoning and critical thinking.
A. Phenomenology: On Consciousness
CONSCIOUSNESS IN PHENOMENOLOGY
For Edmund Husserl, the two basic features of consciousness are intentionality and
temporality.
 Intentionality means that all consciousness is directed to some object. The thesis that
consciousness is temporal means not only that all conscious states have a temporal
location but that each of them has within itself a temporal structure and that the temporal
structure of consciousness is the basis for all other determinations of consciousness and
its objects.
 Husserl's philosophical method proceeds through an analysis of conscious life. However,
because all consciousness is intentional, the analysis of the forms and structures of
various kinds of consciousness (including volitional, emotional, and evaluative, as well as
theoretical) is also the appropriate way to analyze the essential forms and structures of
various kinds of objects.
 Because Husserl also believes that consciousness involves at least implicit self-
consciousness of one's own mental states, the focus on consciousness shifts the analysis
to a sphere that is immediately and directly given in reflection and is therefore the source
of apodictic certainty, the transcendental ego.
 In later works Husserl qualifies this assertion by pointing out that self-givenness even for
ideal objects never necessarily involves absolute certainty, so that all purported givenness
requires reconfirmation. He also turns his attention to the sphere of passive synthesis,
whose results may be directly given to us, while the operations that originally generate
them are not, so that a phenomenological reconstruction or intentional analysis is
necessary to reveal sedimented or initially hidden and prepredicative elements of
consciousness.
Jean-Paul Sartre considered himself a philosopher of consciousness during the first half of his
career. He subscribed to the Cartesian ideal of the cogito as the starting point of philosophy and
placed a premium on the apodictic evidence it yielded.
But he valued consciousness as much for its freedom and spontaneity as for its epistemological
translucency. In fact, it was the relevance of translucency to moral responsibility that led him to
deny both a transcendental ego and the Freudian unconscious and to posit a
"prereflective Cogito."
In his The Imaginary Sartre describes imaging consciousness as the locus of "negativity,
possibility, and lack." Because we are able to "hold the world at bay" and "derealize" perceptual
objects imagistically, he argues, we are free. Imaging consciousness becomes paradigmatic of
consciousness in general (being-for-itself) in Being and Nothingness. Adopting Husserl's thesis
that all consciousness is intentional, he insists that this intentionality is primarily practical,
articulating a fundamental project that gives meaning/direction (sens ) to our existence.
Sartre makes much of the prereflective self-awareness that accompanies our explicit awareness
of any object, including our egos as reflective objects. Because we are always implicitly self-
aware, it is unnecessary to seek self-consciousness in an endless infinity of reflections on
reflections or to chase after a subject that cannot be an object (the transcendental ego). The
unblinking eye of prereflective consciousness makes possible both bad faith and its overcoming
through what he calls "purifying reflection," the authentic "choice" to live at a creative distance
from one's ego.
Husserl's students such as Aron Gurwitsch and Ludwig Landgrebe and most of the subsequent
figures within the phenomenological tradition such as Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-
Ponty built upon Husserl's and Sartre's insights into the importance of self-awareness,
intentionality, and temporality—often under other names—but they also stress the
prepredicative and the practical nature of this awareness as well as its limitations. Hence, they
avoid the term "consciousness" for the most part because of its association with Cartesian
aspirations to complete self-transparency and absolute autonomy in human knowledge and
action that they reject.
The phenomenological standpoint is achieved through a series of phenomenological standpoint
is achieved through a series of phenomenological “reductions” that eliminate certain aspects of
our experience from consideration. Husserl formulates several of these and their emphasis shifts
throughout his career.
1. The first and best known is the epoche or “suspension” that he describes in Ideas; General
Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, in which 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.
2. The second reduction eliminates the merely empirical contents of consciousness and focuses
instead on the essential features, the meaning 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
natural world. These are the essence of phenomenology.

Jean-Paul Sartre: Existential “Freedom”

Freedom

Philosophers have been pondering the notion of freedom for thousands of years. From
Thucydides, through to Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill and Jean Jacques
Rousseau, the concept of freedom has continually been dealt with to some degree in political
thought. This is an important concept because we must decide whether individuals are free,
whether they should be free, what this means and what kinds of institutions we are to build
around these ideas.
In political thought, the notion of freedom can be looked at through the lens of Isaiah Berlin’s
renowned essay “Two Concepts of Liberty”. He begins with stating that in political philosophy,
the dominant issue is the question of obedience and coercion. Why should an individual obey
anyone else? May individuals be coerced? Why should we all not live as we like? These are all
questions of freedom. In a long and detailed discussion, Berlin then makes the distinction
between positive and negative freedom. Carter clearly and concisely explains the distinction;
“negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints… Positive liberty is the
possibility of acting … in such a way as to take control of one’s life” (2008).

Positive freedom is ‘positive’ in the sense that individuals will want to be their own masters. In
Berlin’s words, by virtue of positive freedom, one will “wish to be a subject, not an object”
(1969, 131). Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s notion of ‘true liberty’ may be placed under this category.
Individuals should pursue an ideal of ‘true liberty’ in which they will be able to achieve their
full human potential and live virtuously. True liberty is achieved when individuals can let go
of amour propre (the love of oneself) and instead become possessed by amour de soi (the desire
for self-preservation and self-mastery) (Rousseau 1762). Positive freedom therefore is less
about what individuals are forbidden from doing, and more about what individuals can do to
reach their full human potential. Under a state of positive freedom “I wish, above all, to be
conscious of myself as a thinking, willing, active being, bearing responsibility for my choices
and able to explain them by references to my own ideas and purposes” (Berlin 1969, 131).

One’s search for truth might be based on one’s attitude or outlook. Take for instance,
existentialism. Unlike phenomenology, existentialism is not primarily a philosophical method.
Neither is exactly a set of doctrines but more of an outlook or attitude supported by diverse
doctrines centered on certain common themes.

These themes include:

 The human condition or the relation of the individual to the world;

 The human response to that condition;

 Being, especially the difference between the being of person (which is “existence”) and
the being of other kinds of things.

 Human freedom

 The significance (unavoidability) of choice and decision in the absence of certainty and;

 The concreteness and subjectivity of life as lived, against abstractions and false
objections.

C. Postmodernism: On Cultures

“Postmodernism” has come into vogue as the name for a rather diffuse family of ideas and
trends that in significant respect rejects, challenges, or aims to supersede “modernity”; the
convictions, aspirations, and pretensions of modern Western thought and culture since the
Enlightenment. Postmodernism is not a philosophy. It is at best a holding pattern, perhaps a cry
of despair. It rightly talks about world philosophy, the philosophy of many cultures, but such
talk is not a philosophy either (Shields 2012)

Postmodernists believe that humanity should come at truth beyond the rational to the non-
rational elements of human nature, including the spiritual. Postmodernists consider that to arrive
at truth, humanity should realize the limits of reason and objectivism. Beyond exalting
individual analysis of truth, postmodernists adhere to a relational, holistic approach. Moreover,
postmodernists value our existence in the world and in relation to it.
D. Analytic Tradition

“Can language objectively describe truth? For the philosophers of this tradition, language
cannot objectively describe truth. For Ludwig Wittgeinstein, an analytic philosopher, language
is socially conditioned. We understand the world solely in terms of our language games—that
is, our linguistic, social contructs. Truth, as we perceive it, is itself socially constructed.

Analytic philosophy is the conviction that to some significant degree, philosophical problems,
puzzles, and errors are rooted in language and can be solved or avoided by a sound
understanding of language and careful attention to its workings. “Analysis” refers to a method;
owing a great deal to the pioneers, Bertrand Russell, G.E Moore, Wittgeinstein, and J.L Austin.

Critics are apt to point these concerns—they might say—this fixation with language and logic
as one aspect of the trivialization of philosophy with which they charge the analytic movement.
In any case, the last two to three decades have seen, on the one hand, increased self-searching as
to the limitations of the analytic approach and more efforts to apply it to such deeper questions
(Shields 2012).

E. Critical Thinking and Logic

Critical thinking is fundamentally a process of questioning information and data. You may
question the information you read in a textbook, or you may question what a politician or a
professor or a classmate says. You can also question a commonly-held belief or a new idea.
With critical thinking, anything and everything is subject to question and examination.
Logic’s Relationship to Critical Thinking
The word logic comes from the Ancient Greek logike, referring to the science or art of
reasoning. Using logic, a person evaluates arguments and strives to distinguish between good
and bad reasoning, or between truth and falsehood. Using logic, you can evaluate ideas or
claims people make, make good decisions, and form sound beliefs about the world.
Questions of Logic in Critical Thinking
Let’s use a simple example of applying logic to a critical-thinking situation. In this hypothetical
scenario, a man has a PhD in political science, and he works as a professor at a local college.
His wife works at the college, too. They have three young children in the local school system,
and their family is well known in the community.
The man is now running for political office. Are his credentials and experience sufficient for
entering public office? Will he be effective in the political office? Some voters might believe
that his personal life and current job, on the surface, suggest he will do well in the position, and
they will vote for him.
In truth, the characteristics described don’t guarantee that the man will do a good job. The
information is somewhat irrelevant. What else might you want to know? How about whether
the man had already held a political office and done a good job? In this case, we want to ask,
How much information is adequate in order to make a decision based on logic instead
of assumptions?
Validity and Soundness
A deductive argument is said to be valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible
for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. Otherwise, a deductive
argument is said to be invalid.
A deductive argument is sound if and only if it is both valid, and all of its premises are actually
true. Otherwise, a deductive argument is unsound.

According to the definition of a deductive argument (see the Deduction and Induction), the
author of a deductive argument always intends that the premises provide the sort of justification
for the conclusion whereby if the premises are true, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true as
well. Loosely speaking, if the author’s process of reasoning is a good one, if the premises
actually do provide this sort of justification for the conclusion, then the argument is valid.
In effect, an argument is valid if the truth of the premises logically guarantees the truth of the
conclusion. The following argument is valid, because it is impossible for the premises to be true
and the conclusion nevertheless to be false:
Elizabeth owns either a Honda or a Saturn.
Elizabeth does not own a Honda.
Therefore, Elizabeth owns a Saturn.
It is important to stress that the premises of an argument do not have actually to be true in order
for the argument to be valid. An argument is valid if the premises and conclusion are related to
each other in the right way so that if the premises were true, then the conclusion would have to
be true as well. We can recognize in the above case that even if one of the premises is
actually false, that if they had been true the conclusion would have been true as well. Consider,
then an argument such as the following:
All toasters are items made of gold.
All items made of gold are time-travel devices.
Therefore, all toasters are time-travel devices.
Obviously, the premises in this argument are not true. It may be hard to imagine these premises
being true, but it is not hard to see that if they were true, their truth would logically guarantee
the conclusion’s truth.
It is easy to see that the previous example is not an example of a completely good argument. A
valid argument may still have a false conclusion. When we construct our arguments, we must
aim to construct one that is not only valid, but sound. A sound argument is one that is not only
valid, but begins with premises that are actually true. The example given about toasters is valid,
but not sound. However, the following argument is both valid and sound:
In some states, no felons are eligible voters, that is, eligible to vote.
In those states, some professional athletes are felons.
Therefore, in some states, some professional athletes are not eligible voters.
Here, not only do the premises provide the right sort of support for the conclusion, but the
premises are actually true. Therefore, so is the conclusion. Although it is not part of
the definition of a sound argument, because sound arguments both start out with true premises
and have a form that guarantees that the conclusion must be true if the premises are, sound
arguments always end with true conclusions.
F. Fallacies
A fallacy is a defect in an argument other than its having false premises. To detect fallacies, it is
required to examine the argument’s content. Here are some of the usually committed errors in
reasoning and thus, coming up with false conclusion and worse, distorting the truth.
a. Appeal to pity (Argumentum ad misericordiam)
A specific kind of appeal to emotion in which someone tries to win support for an argument or
idea by exploiting his/her opponent’s feelings of pity or guilt.

b. Appeal to ignorance (Argumentum ad ignorantiam)

Whatever has not been proved false must be true, vice versa.
c. Equivocation
This is a logical chain of reasoning of a term or word several times, but giving the particular
word a different meaning each time.
d. Composition
This infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the
whole.
e. Division
One reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some sort of its
part.
f. Against the person ( Argumentum ad hominem)
Attempts to link validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of the person advocating the
premise.
g. Appeal to force (Argumentum ad baculum)
An argument where force, coercion, or threat of force, is given as a justification for a
conclusion.
h. Appeal to the people (Argumentum ad populum)
An argument that appeals or exploits people’s vanities, desire for esteem, and anchoring on
popularity.
i. False cause (post hoc)
Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one. This fallacy is
also referred to as coincidental correlation, or correlation not causation.
j. Hasty Generalization
One commits errors if one reaches an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence.
Tha fallacy is commonly based on a broad conclusion upon the statistics of a survey of a small
group that fails to sufficiently represent the whole population.
k. Begging the question (petition principii)
This is a type of fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly
in the premise.
Lesson 2 Activity 1
1. Cite examples of how fallacies are used in daily life. For example, when you watch
advertisements based on the popularity of endorsers, do you tend to but their product? Did you
use the fallacies of ad misericordiam or ad hominem toward others? How?
2. Did you experience a stereotyped generalization? Describe your experienced and explain
why you believe that you were subjected to this kind of generalization.
3. How do you assess these words: “terrorists”, pretty, gay? Are your assessments based on
unfounded generalizations or facts?