QUARTERLY EXAMINATION

REVIEWER IN PHILOSOPHY

Lesson 1

Introduction to Philosophy of Human Person

What virtues do you value most?

 Wisdom
 Honesty
 Open – mindedness

LOVE OF WISDOM

PHILO = LOVE

SOPHIA = WISDOM

- Philosophy has been defined by Bittle as the science of the science of beings in their ultimate reasons,
causes, and principles acquired by the aid of human reason.

- Philosophy is the attitude of the mind that by natural light of reason studies the first causes or the
highest principles of all things.

 THE MEANING OF PHILOSOPHY

- Scientific Approach
- systematic investigation
- Employs certain procedures
- Organized body of Knowledge

Natural Light of Reason

Philosophers employ natural capacity to think or observe the world and people.

Study of All things

Philosophers studies Human beings, society, religion, language, God, and plants. Not one-dimensional
or Partial, but multidimensional or holistic.

First cause or the highest Principle

- The first cause of existence
- Principle of identity- whatever is, whatever is not is not.
- A thing, idea, or person always has a name, a concept, and characteristics for that thing to exist.

Principle of Non-contradiction
It is impossible for a thing to be and not to be at the same time, and at the respect.

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.
Principle of Sufficient Reason
Nothing exists without a sufficient reason for its being and existence.

- Attaining wisdom requires emptying

- Suspending one’s judgment and conclusion
- Biases and stereotypes

Emptying can be:

- Intellectual
- Spiritual
- Physical

Without the virtue of emptying, students will only learn partial philosophy that is knowledge-based
without becoming holistic.

Branches Of Philosophy
Metaphysics
- The concept of thought, idea, existence, reality, being and other abstract ideas of life are understood
and analyzed using what is physically seen in the world and vice versa.
- The reality we see with our eyes are just a temporary cover of the true reality that exists beyond what
our senses could perceive.
- Plato substantiated the realm of metaphysics by contrasting reality and appearance. Nothing we
experience in the physical world with our five senses is real, according to Plato.

 Reality
- Invisible
- Unchanging
- Eternal
- Immaterial
- Ideas of Forms

Ethics
A branch of Philosophy that explores and evaluates the morality and virtue of human actions.

 Five main frameworks

- Divine Command: what does God ordain us to do?
- Consequentialism or Utilitarianism: what has the most desirable outcome.
- Deontological Ethics: whatever is my moral duty.
- Virtue Ethics: What kind person I ought to be.
- Relativism: what does my culture or society think I ought to do.

For Socrates, to be happy, a person has to live a virtuous life. Virtue is knowledge.
Epistemology
A branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, sources, limitations, and validity of knowledge.
How we know what we know?
How we can find out that we wish to know?
How can we differentiate truth from falsehood?

Empiricism
Knowledge can be attained through use of senses.
Rationalism
Knowledge can be attained through the use of reason.
Pragmatist
The value in use is the real test of truth and meaning.

Logic
Not interested in what we know regarding certain subjects. Its concern is the truth or the validity of our
arguments regarding such objects.

Aristotle was the first philosopher who employed logical method. He claimed that truth exists when
there is agreement between knowledge and reality.

Aesthetics
The science of the beautiful in its various manifestation.

Hans-George Gadamer
Our taste and judgment regarding beauty work in connection with one’s personal experience and
culture.

Lesson 2

Eastern and Western Thinking

Attaining a Comprehensive outlook Western and Eastern Tradition

Three attitudinal imperatives to appreciate western and Eastern thought, for Quito.

1. Western thinkers-linear manner (beginning and ending)

Eastern Thinker-circular manner (the end conjoins the beginning)

Attitudinal Imperative
East has no rigorous division between religion and philosophy.

2. Eastern Thinkers - Life is a translation of thought, philosophy in action.

Life is the extension of thought.
- Theory and practice
- Philosophy and religion
- Thinking and living

3. Eastern Thinkers
- accept the validity of intuition and mysticism. Transcending the human limitations of the human
intellect.

Western
- Theory and speculation
- No necessary life application

Filipino Thinking: From Local to Global

 Three dimensions of Filipino thought:
- LOOB
- FILIPINO CONCEPT OF TIME
- BAHALA NA

1. Loob: Holistic Orientation

- Kagandahang Loob
- Kabutihang loob
- Kalooban
- SHARING OF ONESELF TO OTHER-INTERPERSONAL

- Filipino believes the innate goodness of the human person

- Filipino looks at himself as holistic from the interior under the principle of harmony.

2. Filipino Concept of time

- Life is like a wheel, sometimes you are up, sometimes you are down
- A human being is like a bird who flies up and goes down

- Life is a series of ups and downs

- Fortunate or unfortunate
- Fleeting or transitory

3. Bahala na
- Pre-Spanish Filipino
- Supreme being-Batula or Bathala
- Humans live with cosmic spirits or presence.
- Not an Impersonal entity but personal being that keeps the balance of the earth

- Bahala na attitude
Leave everything to God who is Bathala in vernacular.
Bahala na Philosophy puts complete trust in the Divine presence.
Filipino thought and Values: Positive and Negative aspects.
Utang na loob +
Bayanihan +
Colonial and crab mentality -

Lesson 3

DETERMINING TRUTH

- Justified true belief is necessary and sufficient for knowledge.

- Knowledge is kind of relationship with the truth-to know something is to have a certain kind of access
to have a certain kind of access to a fact.

I know that…
I know why…
I know how…

- How do we know if something true?

- Methodic Doubt
- is a systematic process of withholding assent regarding the truth or falsehood of all one’s beliefs until
they have been demonstrated or rationally proven to be true or false.
- Doubt everything that can be doubted.

- A belief can be true it is justified or proven through the use of senses.

- A belief or statement is true it is based on facts.
- Getting a consensus or having people agree on a common belief.
- A statement should be proven through an action to determine its truth.
- Claims and beliefs should be subjected to tests to determine truth.

Distinguish Opinion from Truth

- Fact is a piece of information having objective reality which is acknowledged by the greater whole.
- an opinion is a personal claim, a belief, or a personal stance on a particular subject matter.

- John Corvino (2015) offers a philosophical distinction between an opinion and a fact. For him, a
statement of fact has objective content and is well-supported by the available evidence.

- A statement of opinion is one whose content is either subjective or not well supported by the available
evidence.

- Truth is neither an opinion nor a fact. It is universal, undisputed, verified through facts, and even
transcendent, beyond a reasonable doubt.
  The Ultimate Truth
- The goal of thinking is to know the ultimate truth

 Four characteristics of the ultimate truth:

- Resides in the intellect
- It is immutable
- It is absolute
- It is eternal

Fact is a piece of information having objective reality, acknowledged by the greater whole.
Opinion is a judgment based on a personal conviction, which may or may not be factual, truthful or
false.
Conclusion is a judgment based on facts.
Biases are the personal views of the person presenting it.
Beliefs are statement that express convictions that are not easily and clearly explained by facts.
Explanations are statements that assume the claim to be true and provides reasons.
Arguments are a series of statement that provides reason to convince the reader or listener that a claim
or opinion is true.
Fallacies are arguments based on faulty reasoning. Some of them are intentional, as the person making
the claim is desperate to convince you to.

Lesson 4

METHODS OF PHILOSOPHIZING

Content Standard
The learner demonstrates various ways of doing philosophy.
Performance standard
The learner evaluates opinions.

Knowledge
- JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF

 How do we acquire knowledge

- Reality
- Perception
- Concept
- Proposition
- Inference

 How do we validate knowledge

- Senses
- facts
 - Consensus
- Action
OPINION
- Cannot be confirmed
- Open to interpretation
- Based on emotion
- Inherently biased

Truth
- Confirmed with other sources
- Based on facts and reality

 Theories of truth
- Coherence theory
- Correspondence theory
- Pragmatic theory

Method
- Means or procedure followed in achieving an end.
- The study of the methods (procedures, principles) employed in an organized discipline is called
methodology.

Philosophical Method
- Basically, and primarily made up of reflection, or reflective thinking.

Philosophizing is to think or express oneself in a rational and logical manner.

According to Blandshard, “Philosophical reflection is not something that only rare men called
philosophers engage in”

Gabriel Marcel
- Philosophical reflection is the act of giving time to think about the meaning and purpose of life.
- As a tool in doing Philosophy.

Primary Reflection
- Fragmented and Compartmentalized Thinking
- Instrumental Thinking
- “Means-end” kind of thinking

Secondary Reflection
- Integrates the fragmented and compartmentalized experience into a coherent whole.
Methods of Philosophizing
- Phenomenology
- Phainomenon - appearance
- Logos - study
- Study of phenomenon

Phenomenon
- Anything that exists of which the mind is conscious

Phenomenology
- The investigation of the essence or the nature of the material things that appear to us

Edmund Husserl
- Phenomenology attempts to describe what is given to us in experience without obscuring
preconceptions or hypothetical speculations.
- “Back to the thing themselves”

Phenomenological standpoint is achieved through a series of phenomenological reductions.

- Phenomenological reduction
- Epoche
- Suspending or bracketing of preconceived notions and prejudice about a particular phenomenon.

- Enables us to assume phenomenological attitude

- We know and understand the essence or meaning of things as they appear to us.

Eidetic Reduction
- Movement from facts to essence
- Objects are no longer conceived as material things, but as essences.

Phenomenology concludes that people cannot fully and directly experience the physical world but can
only see and analyze the consciousness of our minds that perceive the physical world.

Existentialism
- One’s search from truth is based on one’s attitude or outlook
- Jean-Paul Sartre-It emphasizes the importance of free individual choice, regardless of the power of
other people to influence and coerce our desires, beliefs and decisions.
- existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will,
choice, and personal responsibility.
Soren Kierkegaard
The authentic self was the personally chosen self, as opposed to the public or herd identity which is the
tendency of the people to blindly follow the crowd because it is familiar, easy, and less stressful.
Analytic Method
- Language cannot objectively describe truth.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that language is socially conditioned which means the meaning of the
word is created by what people have agreed upon.

Truth is itself socially constructed. Truth can change depending on what people have decided it to be.

Alfred Tarski believed that the natural languages and their everyday use are infected with various
deficiencies which fail in possessing consistency which is essential value for truth seeking.

POSTMODERNISM
- Not a philosophy
- It is more of an attitude and reaction to modernism which is a world view of order, logic, and authority
based on knowledge.

Analytic Tradition
- Language cannot objectively describe truth.

Truth is socially constructed

Truth can change depending on what people have decided it to be

Langgam sa tagalog ay gumagapang pa

Langam sa bisaya ay lumilipad na.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Language is socially conditioned
- The meaning of the words is created by what people have agreed upon.

Alfred Tarski
- Truth is not only formally correct but materially adequate as well.

Natural languages are infected with various deficiency

- As a result,
- No consistency of definition or idea.
- Consistency is necessary for truth seeking.

Analytic approach
- Sound understanding of language and careful attention to its working.
- The role of language in truth and logic
LOGIC AND CRITICAL THINKING
- Logic is centered on the analysis and construction of arguments
- Logic and critical thinking serve as paths to freedom from half-truths and deceptions.
- Critical thinking is distinguishing facts and opinions or personal feeling.

Critical thinking
- Uncovering of biases and prejudices, Open to new ideas.

- Suspension of beliefs and judgments.

- Cultural systems, values, and beliefs

If an opinion or belief has no evidence or reason that supports some conclusion, there is no argument. A
factual claim must present evidence and reason.

TYPES OF REASONING

Inductive Reasoning is based from observations in order to make generalization.

- It is a method drawing general conclusions from many different particular or individual experiences.
- This reasoning is often applied in prediction, forecasting, or behavior.
- The philosophy teacher used Google Class room last week classes. Therefore, the philosophy teacher
will use the same platform this week.

Deductive reasoning draws conclusion from usually one broad judgment of definition and one more
specific assertion, often an inference.
- Every animal will eventually die; but every dog is an animal; therefore, every dog will eventually die.

Critical Thinking is the careful, reflective, rational, and systematic approach to questions of very general
interest.

Critical thinking means finding out the reason behind things and understanding the impact of that
realization to one’s life.

Lesson 5

The Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

- Human persons have material needs, but they also have non-material aspects (Bernados, 2017)
- In doing philosophy, the material and non-material aspects are given attention.
- The Human person is an embodied spirit.
Embodied spirit
-Inseparable union of the Body and soul
-the body is inseparable from, just as the soul is inseparable from the body.

- Understanding the human person

- Ancient period
- Plato
- Dichotomy of body and soul
- Body is material and subject to changes and destructions
- The soul is immaterial and unchanging.

The body’s existence is dependent on the soul, while the soul is independent of the body.

Aristotle
-The Soul and body are substantially united.
-The soul is the source of life.

 Three kinds of soul

- Vegetative souls
- Sensitive
- Rational

Medieval period
- Augustine
-God created the world and immortal soul.
-A human being is not only material and rational but, most importantly, a soul embodied in a material
substance.

The authentic person of man is the soul within him. The fact the human body moves means that it is
animated by the soul to perform its functions.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas believed that the soul is dependent on the body, in the same way as the body is dependent on
the soul.

Modern period
- Rene Descartes
-Supremacy of the human mind over the human body
-” I think, therefore, I am”
-the human mind is different from the human body and can exist without the other's presence

John Locke
the human mind is a tabula rasa or blank slates. Knowledge is acquired only through sensory
experiences. This means that the soul begins to know only when the senses begin to perceive.

- the soul is always in contact with the body.

- human nature necessarily includes the capacities for thinking, feeling, and acting. These features
distinguish us from other creatures, and make us human.

 Human person as an embodied Spirit

- Hinduism
- Buddhism
- Christianity

Hinduism
- Human beings have dual nature
- Spiritual and immortal essence (soul)
- Empirical life and its traits

Body
- Illusion and obstacle to an individual’s realization of one’s real self

Soul
-The true reality and free to return to Atman
-Eternal but is bound to by the law of karma to the world of matter.
-Humanities basic goal is liberation of spirit.
-Samsara: life is a continuous cycle

Transmigration or metempsychosis
- A belief that a person’s soul passes into other creatures, human or animal.
Transmigration of soul
- Person’s soul moves from animal to human or human to animal.

Ultimate liberation
-freedom from rebirth
-Attain the stage of emancipation
-Series of good acts
Moksha: enlightened state
One attains true selfhood and finds oneself one with the One: Brahman.

Buddhism
Dharma - way to salvation
- right spiritual attitude
- Self-imposed discipline
-Channeling desires into right direction

Cause of suffering
- Bodily desires
- Earthly desires
Four Noble Truths
a. Life is full of suffering
b. Suffering is caused by passionate desire
c. only as these are obliterated will suffering cease.
d. Eradication of desires may be accomplished on by following the Eightfold Path.

Eightfold Path
- Right Belief in and acceptance of the fourfold truth.
- Right aspiration for one’s self and for others.
- Right speech that harms no one.
- Right conduct, motivated by goodwill toward all human beings
- Right means of livelihood or earning one’s living by honorable means.
- Right endeavor or effort to direct one’s energies toward wise ends.
- Right mindfulness in choosing topics for thought.
- Right meditation or concentration to the point of complete absorption in mystic ecstasy

Christianity
- Rational belief in God’s existence
- The physical world provides evidence of God’s existence

Rational belief in God

For Augustine,
-philosophy is the love of wisdom.
-Philosophy is the love of God.
-Love means faith in His existence.

Our Knowledge with God begins with faith and made perfect by understanding.

- All Knowledge leads to God

- The more we know the physical world and history of people, the more we can know God’s
characteristics and nature.

Limitations and possibilities for Transcendence

- The human body
- Being embodied means human beings have certain limitations.

Anything that is material is subject to corruption or destruction.

TRANSCENDENCE
Latin- “climbing or going beyond “
“The act of surpassing limitations “

To transcend is to go beyond the ordinary

To transcend one’s own limitation is to exert enough time and perseverance.
The human Body Imposes limits and possibilities for transcendence

 Limitations
- Physical Limitations
- Sickness

 Emotional Limitations
- Extreme Limitations
- Constant desire to pleasure

 Intellectual Limitations

HINDUISM: limitation imposed by the body

- The existence of the body is an illusion

- It is an obstacle to an individual’s realization of one’s real self.

- Humanity’s life is a continuous cycle

- The human body undergoes transmigratory series of births and deaths.
- Thus, the human body has become the source of suffering.

Hinduism: possibilities for transcendence

- The main purpose of life is the quest truth and reach the Brahman or atman (absolute soul)

To liberate oneself from the cycle of death and rebirth and arrive at state of enlightenment:
- Exertion of efforts
- Series of good acts

BUDDHISM: limitation of the body

- Life undergoes a cycle of reincarnation or samsara that is governed by karma

Possibility for transcendence

- To escape from the cycle of suffering is to transform one’s mind and to detach oneself from any earthly
desires

Human Beings should seek enlightenment

The ticket to enter nirvana is following the principles of the “four noble truths” leading to the “Eight-
Fold Paths”
Augustine: Limitations of the will
Thomas Aquinas: Limitations of Human
Evaluating one’s own limitations and the possibilities for their transcendence