Lesson 1: PHILOSOPHY

Introducing the reason of Doing Philosophy

What are the main branches of Philosophy?

Metaphysics Questions on the nature of things

Epistemology concerns how we know and in what extent we can know.
Ethics Evaluates right and wrong

Is Philosophy Useful?
*WORLD VIEW!
To see things differently!
*Hates or detests
 narrowmindedness 
It encourages us to think outside the box!!!
*Anti-partial point of view
Rather it inspires us to look at a HOLISTIC POINT OF VIEW. 

Just a food for thought:    The General Uses of Philosophy

*General Problem Solving.
*Writing Skills. 
*Communication Skills. 
*Understanding of other disciplines
*Persuasive Powers.

Important features of Philosophy:

*Philosophy deals with the matters of the heart- Fr. Liberato Ortega 
*It is also directed towards offering reasonable guidelines for responsible action. 

 Lesson 2: Tracing the Origins of Philosophy and its Challenge

Why do we study the History of things?

 It is about understanding who we are and where we came from, and learning from other people
about who they were and what they care about and what they have thought about.
 Without understanding how we got where we are today, there would be no way to resolve the
current issues in a satisfactory way.
 you can’t understand the present without understanding history.
 Therefore, there is Value in HISTORY.

The outline of the History of Philosophy

 ANCIENT PERIOD- the focus is to search for the first and ultimate substance and the
inquiry of the beginnings of the universe and where it came from.
 MEDIEVAL PERIOD - Concerned with proving God's existence and understanding what is
man in relation with God.
 MODERN PERIOD -concerned about problems or issues on knowledge.
 CONTEMPORARY PERIOD/ POSTMODERN PERIOD - Liberal era.
PRE-PHILOSOPHICAL PERIOD
• people had already attempted to explain the origin of things and the events or occurrences
in nature.
• Such attempts are evident in the folklores, myths, and legends that the ancient peoples
the ancient Babylonians, Chinese, Hindus, Egyptians, and the Greeks most notably
believed in.
• these stories are characterized by religious elements or supernatural powers and not by
natural or rational explanation.

Ancient Period (Pre-Socratic Period)

• Philosophy is said to have begun in the Ionic colonies of Asia Minor around 6th century
BC through Thales of Miletus
• the focus is to search for the first and ultimate substance and the inquiry of the
beginnings of the universe and where it came from.

Ancient period (Miletians)

Thales of Miletus
• first Greek philosopher
• the father of philosophy, is regarded as the first to engage in the inquiry of
searching for causes and principles of the natural world and various phenomena
without relying on supernatural explanation and divine components
• Earth floats on water
• water= first substance/ultimate substance

ANAXIMANDER
• claimed that the universe was formed from the boundless (Greek apeiron) which is both
the first principle (arche) and the substance (stoicheion) of the universe.
• argued that air was the fundamental element. Through the process of rarefaction or
compression, the air surrounds Earth in a more or less compressed state.

Heraclitus of Ephesus and Xenophanes of Colophon

• continued the Miletian claim of a single, proper substance. They also offered a
cosmological account, but they expanded their focus on the human subject and
investigated the nature of inquiry itself in the physical explanations they provided.

Heraclitus
• claimed the "unity of opposites (winter and summer)" in characterizing the cosmos and
went further as to express that to understand these characterizations is to inquire of the
logos (an objective law-like principle) and be able to speak the language of the logos.

Xenophanes
• claimed that there is a single god. He did not subscribe to the idea of an anthropomorphic
god.

Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans

• This group believes that the cosmos is a structured system ordered by numbers.
• they believe that nature can be quantified.

Socrates and Socratic schools

• considered the most flourishing in the History of Greek Philosophy.
• dominated by three famous philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
ANCIENT PERIOD
• SOCRATES left no writings at all
• Socrates is best known for the Socratic method (question and answer)
• "the unexamined life is not worth living.”

MEDIEVAL PERIOD
• described as the convergence of faith and reason.
• Philosophers in this period used philosophy as a handmaid of theology.
• Concerned with proving God's existence and understanding what is man in relation with God.
scholasticism directed its inquiry on how reason can be used to provide proofs that God exists.

Notable Philosophers in Medieval ERA

• ST. ANSELM - is known for his ontological argument for the existence of God in Proslogion
• ST. AUGUSTIN - promoted "the argument by analogy against solipsism or the philosophical idea
that only one's own existence is the only thing that is real
• ST. THOMAS AQUINAS -famous for his influential work Summa Theologica which explains his
views on the creation and government of the universe, the origin and nature of man, and human
destiny, among others, through Catholic theology.
MODERN PERIOD
• is recognized to be concerned about problems or issues on knowledge.
• . It is often described as dominated by two schools of thought -rationalism and empiricism
• nature of knowledge and the verification and types of knowledge claims to be known by humans.
Rationalism
• The rationalists René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz believe that
reason is the sole source of knowledge.
EMPIRICISM
• Empiricists believe that aside from reason, experience is also a source of knowledge.
• The five senses connected to the world can be used to determine what can be known; hence,
truth is based on what corresponds to reality, and empirical claims about the world are also
accepted as knowledge.
Immanuel Kant and Synthetic a Priori Knowledge
• In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant examined the extent to which human reason is capable of a
priori (formed beforehand) knowledge.
• His goal is to criticize reason by reason itself to establish a secure and consistent basis for
science, religion, and morality.
The rationalists, empiricists, and Immanuel Kant
• provided different perspectives on one specific concern the nature of knowledge and knowledge
claims
• Each school of thought espouses a conception of knowledge based on its origin which gives
knowledge seekers a wider perspective and increased understanding of an important area in the
life of humans.
CONTEMPORARY PERIOD/POST-MODERN
• In the contemporary period, you are not limiting one school of thought in this particular era, but it
includes all the school of thoughts that was tackled throughout time.
• we have become more liberal, we do not exclude other beliefs or other line of thoughts but we
accept them, we investigate and we study them
ANALYTIC TRADITION
• is concentrated on logical analysis of language to solve the problems which beset philosophy.
• The philosophers under this tradition espouse a method of verification which only accepts as
meaningful and true those which can be investigated by science.
CONTINENTAL TRADITION
• German idealism, phenomenology and existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-
structuralism, and French feminism are some of the movements within this tradition.
 • What is common among these movements is their belief that the scientific method is insufficient
to provide an explanation of the world.
TRUTHS TO REMEMBER!
concerned with proving God's
the focus is to search for the first existence and understanding
and ultimate substance and the ANCIENT MEDIEVAL what is man in relation with
inquiry of the beginnings of the PERIOD PERIOD God.
universe and where it came from.
we have become more liberal,
Concerned about problems or CONTEMPORAR we do not exclude other beliefs
issues on knowledge. It is often MODERN Y PERIOD
described as dominated by two PERIOD
school of thought rationalism or other line of thoughts but we
and empiricism. accept them, we
rat
LESSON 3:
The Methods of Philosophy

The different methods of philosophy .

1. Philosophy as Reflective Inquiry 
2. Philosophy as speculation (Speculative thinking)
3. Philosophy as Critical Thinking (Analysis)
 Philosophy as speculation (speculative thinking
derived from the Latin word specula which means “watch tower”. 

Philosophy as Critical Thinking (analysis To criticize means to “judge” and/or to “analyze.”  

Philosophy, as critical thinking or analysis, questions, judges, and evaluates any and all principles and
premises that may be gained through speculation.

Two modes of Critical thinking

Logical
philosophical problems are solved through a careful analysis of the logical structure of the
philosophical assertions
Linguistic 
meanings of the words are analyzed for their clarity and consistency.
Logical
• Elementary sentence
• Verified through observation 
 Example:
1. All Paulinians are good-looking.
2. Peter Shane is a Paulinian.
3. Therefore, Peter Shane is good-looking
Linguistic
 Meanings of the words are analyzed for their clarity and consistency.

Philosophy as reflective inquiry

  This kind of reflection is seen as a “meaning-making” process…

Six phases of Reflective inquiry

1. The experience
2. Spontaneous interpretation of experience 
3. Naming the problems or questions which arise
4. Generating possible explanations
5. Branching the explanations into full blown hypotheses 
6. Experimenting hypotheses

The role of community in the activity of reflective inquiry.

• The community serves as a support group which validates 
a personal experience as valuable,
• an opportunity to see things in a “new” way which again broadens one’s field of understanding
and support to engage in the process of inquiry.

As a SUMMARY:
Speculation allows you to expand your perspective by encouraging you to see the bigger picture
by participating in the world and using your experience as source of ideas.

Critical thinking is the careful, reflective, rational, and systematic approach to questions of very
general interest. It means understanding of philosophy and refraining from merely giving claims
but through careful thought, one reasons through argumentations.

Reflective inquiry has to happen in a community where each member serves as a support to
one another in validation personal experiences a valuable, in seeing things in a “new” way and
in engaging in the process of inquiry.