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HAND-OUT 001: Philosophy 01/Humanities 02

What Philosophy is, Really?

Human life follows a certain universal pattern, regardless of any cultural, social or intellectual background.
We are born as babies, and then we grow into young adolescents, reach adulthood and finally retire into
old age.

Along the way, we acquire certain particular beliefs. However, as we enter into our formal education years
our educational system is systematized to give us knowledge of the so-called sciences, and sciences are
geared in giving us facts and data which give tangible results. These important bits of knowledge are of
course important as we continue to live in our rapidly changing world. However, because of such
emphasis, our core beliefs are eventually taken aside.

No one is born a communist, a capitalist, or a vegetarian. No one is born with his first words consisting of
little conversations with God. These particular stances have been initiated to us by the environment where
we find ourselves belonging. And while the sciences that we were thought in our early years are busy
giving us objective knowledge, no one has taught us to ever critically analyze these core beliefs. The aim
of philosophy is to perform such an important and yet often neglected task. But before we go into the
nature of philosophy, let us first examine the nature of science, and how it differs from what we call
philosophy.

A healthy, scientific skepticism is compatible with a fundamental openness of mind. – Sam Harris

Philosophy and Science

We define science as a systematized body of knowledge. It may be mathematics, biology, chaos theory
or quantum physics, but regardless of their differences in their subject matters, they are consonant in their
approach: they all seek objective knowledge. Objectivity is thus one important characteristic of science.
Something is objective when its nature is not based on personal whims or hunches but follows a certain
universal principle. As such, a scientific question is always approached objectively, and the answers to
them are always the same, whether you are asking a fifth grade student or a foreign scientist in some
foreign land. The answer is thus described as universal. It doesn’t change unless some scientific laws are
discovered, so that the whole perspective of science would also have to change. Lastly, and most
importantly, the subject matter of science is always empirical. That is the reason why the method of
science is sometimes called the empirical method, emphasizing the nature of science as grounded on
things we can perceive. We may not be able to observe atoms and particles but the use of scientific
equipments like microscopes enable us to properly study them. We may not have been there when the
Big Bang happened, but a great majority of astronomers and scientists have found remnants of this Big
Bang that gave further evidence for this theory.

In philosophy, there are only a few things that may uncontroversially be considered as absolute truth.
There are only approximations to the truth. Of course, the first sentence pertains to common
philosophical beliefs not universal logical principles, like the Principle of Non-Contradiction and Principle
of Identity. There is no such thing as a universal philosophy, unlike in science where there are principles
and laws that are believed by all of the scientists. There is no belief that is universally held by all the
people. One side may have good reasons while the others may also have the same. The task of
philosophy is not to leady you from one belief to another. You are the one to bring yourself to that. What
philosophy will do is to make you familiar with both sides of the argument so that you may end up
believing in something because you have good reasons for that, not just because others have led you to
that belief.

That of which science seeks knowledge is nature. It attempts to describe and measure the facts of nature,
to discover the causal and statistical laws according to which these facts are related, and to explain and
infer other natural facts by means of these laws. And, for science, man himself is only bit of nature among
others, whose physical and psychical constitution is to be described and measured, and the laws of whose
behavior are to be discovered and stated.
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But each man, to himself, is no mere part of nature. He is rather an evaluator and critic of nature, the course
of which he can come to know, and can more or less change or avoid, if he judges it hostile to his
interests. For him, the whole of science is but an efficient tool, wherewith to transform what is into that
which he decides ought to be. Science knows nothing of values. It puts into the hands of man, means; but
never any ends. And therefore it remains for man to judge of values and to decide on ends.

Science is also tasked to provide man with technological possibilities. The sciences have given people the
chance to physically change their sexuality, design DNA of potential babies, and create safe
contraceptives as well as effective nuclear weapons. However, it falls beyond the reach of science to
decide whether we ought to allow them. The possibility is offered by science but the normativity falls to
philosophy, specifically ethics which studies the morality of human actions. A thorough training in
philosophy provides the most adequate sort of preparation for the evaluative interpretation of the results
of scientific research.

As such, while science exists to serve as an instrument to provide man with objective answers to his
questions of scientific nature, philosophy exists to serve as a rational tool in examining man’s beliefs, or a
rational guide concerning questions that falls beyond the domain of science. Here are some questions any
of us might ask ourselves: What am I? What is consciousness? Could I survive my bodily death? Do we
always act out of self-interest? Might I be a kind of puppet, programmed to do the things that I believe I
do out of my own free will?

Here are some questions about the world: Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the
difference between past and future? Why does nature keep on in a regular way? Does the world
presuppose a Creator?

Finally, here are some questions about ourselves and the world: How can we be sure that the world is
really like we take it to be? What is knowledge, and how much do we have? What makes a field of inquiry
a science? (Is psychoanalysis a science? Is economics?) How do we know about abstract objects, like
numbers? How do we know about values and duties? How are we to tell whether our opinions are
objective, or just subjective?

The queer thing about these questions is that not only are they baffling at first sight, but they also defy
simple processes of solution. If someone asks me when it is high tide, I know how to set about getting an
answer. There are authoritative tide table I can consult. I may know roughly how they are produced. And if
all else fails, I could go and measure the rise and fall of the sea myself. A question like this is a matter of
experience: an empirical question. It can be settled by means of agreed procedures, involving looking and
seeing, making measurements, or applying rules that have been tested against experience and found to
work. The questions of the last paragraphs are not like this. They seem to require more reflection. We
don’t immediately know where to look. Perhaps we feel we don’t quite know what we mean when we ask
them, or what would count as getting a solution. What would show me, for instance, that there is really
God who watches over human beings? Should we ask the scientists who are spending whole days in their
laboratories? How would they know when they had found God? Imagine the headline: “A group of
Filipino scientists finally found God.” What?! Are you kidding me?

Philosophy is the branch of human inquiry which has for its peculiar task the investigation of questions of
this sort in the careful and systematic manner which, here as in the fields of the sciences, will alone yield
genuine knowledge as distinguished from mere guesses, or dogmatic opinions. Questions of this sort
mentioned do not fall within the scope of the sciences. Philosophy alone studies them methodically and it
is to philosophy only that we can turn for considered answers to them.

As we can see, philosophy is a very broad subject. It is comprehensive in its approach. If we trace the
etymology of the word, we know that philosophy came from the two Greek words, which are philo
meaning love and sophia meaning wisdom, which when integrated together we have the meaning of
philosophy as love of wisdom. In these modern times, this etymological definition is too general to
explain what the subject now is. But if we go back to the first seeds of philosophy, we will discover that
the Greek definition is actually an apt definition of philosophy during their time. Because there is no
considered “science” in their time, and the word science not yet existing, the definition is utilized in order
to accommodate all fields of inquiry during that time, some of which now we consider as full-fledged
sciences.
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Ancient Term Scientific Study

Philosophy of Nature - Biology

Philosophy of Mind/Self - Psychology

Socio-Political Philosophy - Sociology/Political Science

Then, through the efforts of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton and others, science started to get a distinct taste
of its own. Gradually, it became more and more separated from the so-called philosophy. It came up with
its own reliable method for seeking knowledge and another method/s of utilizing these bits of knowledge
to produce reliable results (technology).

So what is left of philosophy? Well, after this separation, philosophy is now tasked to examine beliefs,
ideas and questions which fall beyond the domain of science.

Philosophy then has two central tasks:

a) Critical task – the critical examination of beliefs: is it reasonable or not? Are the arguments in
favor of it valid or invalid? Are their reliable evidences for such beliefs?

b) Constructive task – the modification, change and deconstruction of beliefs in favor of more
reasonable beliefs. Philosophy, in this approach, orients us of different worldviews so that we can
choose what is the most reasonable to us.

Philosophy and Religion

Here are some other philosophical questions aside from what is given above:

 What is the meaning of life?

 Does God exist and if so, what are His/Her attributes?
 How can God co-exist with evil?
 What makes an act right or wrong?
 If there is such thing as right and wrong, what is their origin?
 What is the nature of man?
o Is his nature good, bad or open-ended (which means that it depends on contingent
factors like environment, upbringing and the like)?

Although these are philosophical questions, there is another field of inquiry which tries to answer them,
and it is no other than religion. Philosophy and religion may reach the same conclusions, but they have
different ways of getting at them. Religion relies heavily on revelation in answering these questions while
philosophy relies primarily on reason. And there are lots of issues within religion, especially the most
dominant ones, which are generally taken as basic truths. Philosophy is the intellectual inquiry set to
analyze and critically examine these issues, without resort to revelation. Some of them are:

Religious Dogmas/Doctrines1 Philosophical Question regarding it

Scripture as the Word of God Is it?

The concept of Original Sin Does the concept make sense?

*The Idea of Eternal Hell Is the concept morally justified?

Would an all-good God permit its existence?

Atonement Is the concept rationally acceptable?

1
Proceed to page eight (8) for the supplementary reading.
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Miracles Are there good arguments to grant their existence?

Religious Faith What does it mean to have one?

As we discuss some of these issues, many of you will surely will very, very uncomfortable. These are core
beliefs, and they are held strongly in every believer’s heart. However, to get the most out of this subject,
we have to be open-minded regarding issues such as these because, in one way or another, these are
questions that every believer must eventually confront. Making you feel uncomfortable should not stop us
in seeking good reasons for every belief that we have. After all, a lot of people has been misled, taken
advantage of, tortured and even died for beliefs which are wrong. Our religion has a great control over
our lives and thus, thinking about it and critically examining its doctrines are one of the greatest and
noble things we can do for ourselves.

There are a lot of religious moral prescriptions which create guilt when it is unnecessary or even
unhealthy. For instance, sexual attraction is considered by many great religions to be a grave sin. But such
feelings are natural and to deny our capacity to feel sexual attraction is to deny our very own humanity.

As such, it is one of our important tasks as humans to use our mind to critically examine our beliefs.
Indeed, we have a few courageous individuals who used their reason to fight lies and to enlighten people
into the truth. Jose Rizal, our national hero, falls in this category.

Philosophy and Common Sense

Another important thing we should see is the relation of philosophy to common sense. When we normally
talk about common sense, we are pertaining to an instinctual way of looking at and responding to the
world. We have a lot of commonsensical beliefs regarding ourselves and the world. For instance, we
normally think that we are free, that we can know the thoughts of another person, that there is God, and
proceeding from the last thought, that we continue to live after our death. In this sense, what is common
sense is what is commonly believed by the average person. However, in philosophy, all these
commonsensical beliefs are highly controversial and a careful examination of them will lead one to re-
assess and even modify his/her beliefs. Determinism is the view that human beings are not free, solipsism
is the philosophical view that we can only know our thoughts, and our mind is the one mind that exists,
atheism is the view that denies the existence of God, and proceeding from the last one, it is not hard to
abandon a belief in the afterlife.

However, studying philosophy does not mean we have to abandon all our initial beliefs. This is not the
aim of philosophy. What philosophy aims to do is to give us the tools to be able to assess our
commonsensical beliefs so that after a formal philosophical study, whatever beliefs one may end up
believing, one is already on guard of arguments against such beliefs so that the student is already ready
whenever such arguments come.

This is a very noble task since many fields of inquiry, especially in science, have experienced great
progresses by just questioning ideas that are commonly believed but proven later on to have no scientific
basis. It is common sense before to believe that the earth is flat but if this commonsensical idea was never
questioned, the world’s greatest explorers would never have discovered the great continents.

Thomas Kuhn has called this phenomenon paradigm shift. It happens when a common belief, idea or way
of thinking is questioned in order to see things in a fresh perspective, thus creating new avenues for
thinkers in looking at the world. And studying philosophy arms us with the tool of questioning
presuppositions, critically examining common-sense to be able to see the world more clearly and
truthfully.

Philosophy and Popular Culture

The generation of today depends so much on popular culture to provide them with value-systems. From
popular personalities seen on popular TV shows, to Facebook accounts and celebrity twits, popular culture
has indeed pervaded so much the life of an average young person. Indeed, from the young to the old, no
one today is fully immune to the influence of popular culture in shaping the minds of the average
individual. Who doesn’t know of Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus? Who doesn’t know the common verbal
expressions of Vice Ganda or the condescending humor of Jose Manalo? As such, it is during these
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turbulent times that a critical thinking is very needed to free us from confusing value-systems, false
ideologies and disrespectful sub-cultures.

Philosophy is very needed in order to equip us with an alert mind against values that are superficial and
inhuman. When we observe the culture of today, we see that most people are trapped in the ‘crowd
mindset’, following the latest trends without ever thinking about them. It should be noted that it is not
wrong to follow the trend but we should always have a good reason why we are following it, not just
because it is the trend. Some other people follow famous personalities for cheap shot laughter that
threaten our natural respect for the human person. Teleseryes may sometimes be entertaining but without
a critical mind it is easy to be swayed by the values that are detrimental to the human person. There are
lots of themes in Filipino teleserye that every Filipino should be on guard:

 Being good to get a reward, instead of doing it because you value the person/s to whom you’re
doing it
 Obeying persons who are morally repugnant instead of fighting against them
 Culture of Fear (The focus of news)
 The World is divided between the Purely Good Characters versus the Purely Bad Ones (In real life,
no one is purely good or purely bad. We all have a tinge of both. If we will not be critical to this
wrong idea, we would develop a “We vs. Us Mentality” which is not only wrong but also
dangerous.

 Doing something to prove to everyone how good you are, as opposed to doing it because you
enjoy it.

Philosophy and Law

When we think of laws, we are pertaining to a set of rules or principles that man must obey. For instance,
we have laws against murder, theft, perjury and many others. There are laws of prohibitions, created so
that people will not commit these things. However, not all are prohibitive laws. Others are created to
maintain peace and order, like traffic laws, business transaction laws and many civil laws. The branch of
philosophy which has the most parallel to the science of laws (other than, of course, the philosophy of
law) is ethics. Ethics seeks to find the origin of the authority of laws. Indeed, we need laws against murder
or theft or arson but they don’t become happen to be wrong just because of the laws that were created to
prohibit them. With or without laws, they are wrong; the laws only serve to confirm their derogatory
nature. As such, the authority of laws is lower in hierarchy to the inquiry of ethics. We can only pass laws if
they serve to confirm our basic moral convictions.

What’s the Point?

People sometimes ask what philosophy has to do with everyday life. Perhaps more than they think.
Philosophy matters because it is the critical examination of beliefs, and beliefs are continuous with
practice. How you think about what you are doing affects how you do it, or whether you do it at all. It may
direct your research, or your attitude to people who do things differently, or indeed your whole life. To
take a simple example, if your reflections lead you to believe in a life after death, you may be prepared to
face persecutions that you would not face if you became convinced―as many philosophers are―that the
notion makes no sense. Fatalism, or the belief that the future is fixed whatever we do (‘que sera, sera’), is a
purely philosophical belief, but it is one that can paralyze action. Putting it more politically, it can express
an acquiescence with the low status accorded to some segments of society, and this may be a pay-off for
people of higher status who encourage it.

Most of us live out our lives within a very narrow envelope of concerns. We worry about how to pay the
mortgage, whether to buy a new car, what to cook for dinner. When we start to think philosophically, we
take a step back and look at the wider picture. We start to examine what we have previously taken for
granted.

I believe that those who have never taken a step back – who have lived wholly unexamined lives – are not
only rather shallow, they’re potentially dangerous. One great lesson of the twentieth century is that
human beings, no matter how ‘civilized’, tend to be moral sheep. We are disastrously prone to follow
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without question the moral lead provided by those around us. From Nazi Germany to Rwanda, we find
people blindly going with the flow.

An advantage of a little philosophical training is that it can provide the skills needed to think
independently and question what others might take for granted. It can also help fortify our courage in
making a moral stand. As the philosopher Professor Jonathan Glover points out in an interview in the
Guardian:

If you look at the people who sheltered Jews under the Nazis, you find a number of things about them.
One is that they tended to have a different kind of upbringing from the average person: they tended to
be brought up in a non-authoritarian way, brought up to have sympathy with other people and to discuss
things rather than just do what they were told. 2

Glover adds, ‘teaching people to think rationally and critically actually can make a difference to people’s
susceptibility to false ideologies.’ Admittedly, there’s no guarantee that someone who has been
encouraged to think critically will avoid such pitfalls. But, like Glover, I believe the greatest risk comes, not
from a society of autonomous critical thinkers, but from a society of unreflective moral sheep.

You will also discover that the skills fostered by little rigorous thinking about the big questions are highly
transferable. Whether you are deciding whether to buy that second-hand car or to tile the bathroom, or
wondering for whom you should vote, the ability to formulate a concise argument, follow a complex line
of reasoning or spot a logical howler is always useful. At the very least, such skills can provide a lifetime’s
immunization against the wiles of dodgy car dealers, religious cults, medical quacks and other purveyors
of snake oil.

Far from being irrelevant to everyday life, the reflective attitude and skills that philosophy develops are
profoundly life-enhancing.

The following are some effects of philosophy on the philosopher and the larger society.

(a) BROADMINDEDNESS.
Philosophy broadens our minds by enlarging our perception and knowledge of reality. Broadmindedness
helps us to overcome the problems associated with dogmatism and fanaticism. Fanaticism does not give
room for a rational input into religion and culture. This has led to religious intolerance in many countries
of the world, especially in Nigeria. Many issues we argue about are relative to cultures, religions and
continents. Philosophy helps us to be aware of that and thus prevent us from unnecessary arguments,
quarrels and fighting. By enlarging our thoughts and horizons, philosophy “frees them from the tyranny of
custom.” (Russell, 1998: 91)

(b) CONVICTION.
Some persons today make choices based on what they see others do. They do things because other
people are doing them. Their locus of control is external. Unless we reflect on the way we live we are likely
to follow the crowd. Socrates says we should know ourselves and examine our lives because ‘the
unexamined life is not worth living’. Philosophy challenges us to reflect deeply on the things we do and
consequently act out of conviction. We are all unique in some way, but his uniqueness cannot come out if
we keep following the crowd. You have a right to be you. Philosophy helps us to act out of conviction and
to have the courage to be ourselves.

However, one should note that any conviction held on to at any given time should not be dogmatized.
Philosophy teaches us to remain open to new ideas, arguments, scientific findings, and approaches to
things so that, if need be, we should change or modify our convictions. This is true of some professional
philosophers who change their views about reality later on in life. Kant, for instance, was woken up from
his dogmatic slumber by Hume who was a meticulous empiricist and agnostic.

(c) WONDER
Philosophy preserves our sense of wonder. All children have it. We too have it but as we grow older we
suppress it with habit. Philosophy strives to preserve our sense of wonder by urging us to keep searching
for the cause or reason of things by asking the questions, “Why?”, “When?”, “What?”, and “How?”. By so
doing we are prevented from taking reality for granted, that is, we are prevented from accepted things
the way they appear to us; we are prevented from accepting beliefs without questions (be they religious
or cultural). Philosophy preserves our right to know.
2
Guardian supplement, 13 October 1999, p. 4.
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(d) VERSATILE
The questions philosophy asks and seeks to answer cut across all disciplines. Although the method of
enquiry of philosophy differs from that of other disciplines, philosophy demands some basic knowledge
of these disciplines especially when it acts as a second order discipline. So philosophy equips the
philosopher with some basic knowledge of other disciplines. Although this does not make the
philosopher an expert in these disciplines, however, the philosopher is adequately equipped to
philosophize and participate actively in discussing or moderating general issues. We are therefore
encouraged by philosophy to read wide and expand the horizon of our knowledge.

(e) LOGICAL AND COHERENT

Philosophy teaches us to be logical and coherent in our thinking, discussions and arguments. Fallacies
abound in the arguments we read (in newspapers, magazines, books etc) or listen to (in the news,
discussions etc) everyday. One cannot be a professional philosopher without been coherent
and grounded in logic. Philosophy equips us with the skills of sound reasoning and argument. We are,
therefore, able to argue logically, detect and avoid fallacies.

(f) HUMBLE
Philosophy teaches the philosopher many things the philosopher hitherto did not know and exposes the
philosopher to many puzzles yet to be unravelled. This kind of experience breeds the virtue of humility in
the philosopher so that like Socrates, the philosopher can say he or she does not know anything. Better
put, in the words of Gaarder (1997: 53), “a philosopher knows that in reality he knows very little.” As far as
knowledge is concerned, therefore, the philosopher is a humble person.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dewey, John, Reconstruction In Philosophy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957

Frost, S.E., Basic Teachings of the Great Philosophers: A Survey of their Basic Ideas. New York: Doubleday, A
Dolphin Book, 1962.

Gaarder, Jostein, Sophie’s World. trans. by Paulette Moller. Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 1997.

Other values anyone can get from studying philosophy:

*It allows you to wonder, instead of memorize.

*It allows you to be open-ended with possible answers, rather than trapped in one set of rigid
solutions.

*It brings back the attitude of natural wonder you once had when you were a kid, but is eventually
suppressed by society’s demands and values.

*It is not that hard to study (aside from the fact that it does not take too much number
calculations) because the questions that philosophy tries to answer are questions that are natural
for a thinking human being to ask.