Philosophy as Love of Wisdom

The word philosophy comes from the Greek words, φιλόσ (philos)
and Σοφία (sophia). Philos means love while sophia means wisdom,
hence, φιλοσοφία (philosophia) or “love of wisdom.” However, philosophy is more than
just loving wisdom. It is also an activity in which we ask questions that are
fundamental in nature. They are called fundamental because they are
the basic questions a human being can ask. Examples of these questions are: “Is there
a God?” “Am I free?” “What is reality?” and “What is goodness?”. Here too we learn
that philosophy is not just an intellectual work but an activity that involves our
actions. Unlike any other disciplines such as mathematics or physics, philosophy is not
just something that we define and learn in classrooms; rather, it involves our whole
being because it affects our belief systems which, in turn, affects our actions.
The Nature of Philosophy
Philosophy starts with wonder. Norris Clarke calls this element the radical dynamism
of the human spirit. He tells us that it is our inherent or inborn desire “to know all that
there is to know about all that there is.” It is our nature to ask questions and be
inquisitive. Ito ang dahilan kung bakit natural sa tao ang maraming tanong. For
example, when parents buy their children toys to play with, because children are
naturally curious and inquisitive, they want to know what makes the toy as it is. So
they open the toy to see what is inside it and what makes it, perhaps, move or speak.
After seeing the “mechanism” behind it, there is a sense of satisfaction of knowing
what makes it as a toy. Like children, students of philosophy ask questions until there
are no longer questions to be asked.
Alfredo Co, a Filipino philosopher, wrote in his book The Blooming of the Hundred
Flowers that there are three major philosophical questions that were asked by the
ancient civilizations, namely: “Who am I?,” “What am I?,” and “Where am I?”. The
question of who we are (“Who am I?”) as human beings was posted by the ancient
Indians in the Indus Valley. Throughout their writings and various religions such as
Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, it is evident that they saw human beings as
subjected to a particular set of rules and laws and that the following of these precepts
is equal to having a well-lived life in one with the Absolute.
The question of who we are (“What am I?”) focuses on how a person should live in
society. For instance, much of the literary produce of the ancient Chinese civilization
revolves around the education of the young so that they may become good citizens in
the society. The religions of Confucianism and Taoism, for instance, that thrived and
continue to thrive in China focused on moral education with the purpose of living a life
that is in accordance with “nature” or the natural order of the world. What this means
for the readers of these ancient schools is that a human being reaches his or her full
potential only insofar as s/he becomes a moral person and contributor to society.
As to the question of where we are (“Where am I?”) and what is our place in this vast
and impersonal universe, it was the ancient Greeks, more than any civilizations, that
belabored this question. These ancient thinkers asked the question on the origin of all
things considering that then, it was ancient μύθος (mythos or mythology) that guided
their day to day decisions. It was therefore a revolutionary, and even irreverent, move
from this Pre-Socratics, as they had to be known, to seek answers from other than
what is already given by fate and the gods. Thinkers such as Thales, Heraclitus, and
Anaximander, just to name a few, tried to provide theories on how things came to be.
The Value of Philosophy
In a 1946 essay Philosophy for Laymen, the British philosopher Betrand Russell (1872-
1970) discusses the importance of philosophy. In it, he lists a set of questions that
philosophy inquiry asks: “Do we survive death, and if so, do we survive for a time or
forever? Can we dominate matter, or does matter completely dominate the mind, or
has each, perhaps, a certain limited independence? Does the universe have a
purpose? Or is it driven by blind necessity? Or is it a mere chaos and jumble, in which
the natural laws that we think we find are only a fantasy generated by our own love of
order?” Many would recognize these questions as broadly religious and
existential. However, being agnostic as Russell was, he confesses that he cannot
answer such questions and does not believe that they can be answered either.
Nevertheless, he believes that “human life would be impoverished if they were
forgotten”. Because these questions address aspects of our lives that are existential in
nature, one important value of philosophy, therefore, is to keep these questions alive
in our lives. Another importance of philosophy, Russell tells us, is that it enables us to
think more objectively in situations that we would otherwise be emotive. Also where
we are demanded to think clear and precise in a chaotic and emotional situation,
philosophy seems to be the best antidote to such chaos and disorder.
Branches of Philosophy
The different branches of philosophy are usually categorized as follows:

 Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies theories of knowledge such

as its methods, scope, and validity. Epistemology distinguishes truth from opinion.
 Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies with theories of reality. It
deals with principles and abstract concepts such as being, causation, identity, time,
and space.
 Logic is the branch of philosophy that studies the validity of an argument using
categorical concepts and/or symbolic and mathematical techniques. Logic is
traditionally divided into traditional or Aristotelean logic and modern or
mathematical logic.
 Ethics studies moral principles that governs a person’s behavior and distinguishes
moral correctness of an action.
 Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with a set of principles
concerned with the nature of beauty found in art.
 Social and Political Philosophy is a branch of applied philosophy that studies
political theories such as politics, liberty, justice, rights, and laws.
 Philosophy of Religion is the study of the meaning and nature of religion and
religious belief. It analyzes religious concepts, beliefs, terminologies, and
arguments of both religious and atheistic adherents.
Defining Ethics
Socrates, in the dialogue Apology, stated the famous dictum that an “unexamined life
is not worth living.” According to tradition, these words were spoken by Socrates at his
trial for introducing new gods and corrupting the youth for which he was condemned
to death by drinking the poison hemlock. We may all agree along with Socrates that a
well-lived life demands that we examine life with seriousness and depth. So we may
ask, “what does it mean to live a well-lived life?” or “what does living well mean?” All
these questions demand that we examine our day-to-day decisions and actions
and the way these actions, in turn, affect our own lives and the lives of those who
surround us. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that examines these simple yet
complex aspects of our lives in which we are called upon to make moral decisions that
define our character as human beings.
Ethics is the branch of philosophy which studies the moral of an action. It comes from
the Greek word ήθος (ethos) which means custom, usage or character. It follows that
ethics is defined or understood as the set of rules, manners, habits, and customs of a
group or community. These rules and norms define and set the parameters in which a
community judges the rightness or wrongness of a human action. In a way, an ethical
system of a given community functions as a “rule book” by which every member of
the community must follow. The quality of life of the members of the community
depends on the intensity of his or her following of this rule book faithfully and
committedly. Analogously, an altar server who follows the rules of being an altar
server is considered a “good” altar server.
Nature of Ethics
Ethics is both practical and normative science. It is practical because it involves what
the ancient Greek calls πράξη (praxis) or action. In particular, ethics involves human
actions. It is also normative because, unlike the natural sciences that purports to be
objective, ethics prescribes what is a moral act and what is not. We can break down
these two categories of praxis and normativity into different sub-categories and these
are: reason, freedom, responsibility, and human agency.

 Reason: Human beings are unique because, as far as we know, we are the only
ones in the animal kingdom that are endowed with reason or
rationality. Precisely because we are able to perform this capacity of self-
awareness and introspection, we are different (not more special) from other
creatures. We can apprehend instinctively, though we are not immune to
making a wrong judgement, what is beautiful and ugly and what is good or bad.
We are also able to examine our choices even before making those choices. In
other words, we are able to project ourselves into the future and decide what
we can be on the basis of our actions and decisions.

 Freedom and Responsibility: Throughout the history of philosophy,

philosophers are divided as to whether freedom is objective or a subjective
creation of the mind. However, what is for certain, is that it is impossible to act
without presupposing that we are free. This presupposed freedom, however, is
always accompanied by responsibility. If we are to attain the well-lived life of
Socrates, then, there must be some level of accountability for our actions.
Primarily, accountability is our ability to correct our past mistakes we made in
our past decisions. On the other hand, we are also, in more than one way,
intertwined or interconnected with our neighbors partly because we live in
societies but also because we are creatures that require interaction with one
another. We are not islands on our own and our actions affect, in one or the
other, the lives of the people around us. Hence, we need to become responsible
 in our freedom. We cannot just use freedom for our own sake. We need to use it
for the sake of others also. We need to use it the right way.

 Human Agency: Ethics involves not just actions but human actions. It involves
human agency--our capacity to make a choice and act according to that choice.
Hence, the object of ethics is human action or human agency. Like any good
science, it analyzes very carefully what makes this object of study important
and, in the case of ethics, what makes human actions good or bad, moral or
immoral.

The Value of Ethics

The importance or value of ethics may be understood in the tripartite study of
goodness, happiness, and humanity.

 Goodness: Christian thinkers have always presented that the human person is
created in the image and likeness of God. It follows, then, that we are inherently
good. Because of the human person’s nature as created in God’s image, human
beings have an innate goodness. Other thinkers affirm this such as the Chinese
philosopher Mencius and the modern political thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau.
These philosophers argue that human beings are “originally” good only that society
and the introduction of property corrupted this inherent goodness. It is only
through education that we can reclaim this primordial nature of ours. It is the task,
then, of ethics to point the human person in the right direction on how to become a
good human being.
 Happiness: Thinkers throughout history have suggested that the goal of human
beings is to be happy. Luminaries such as Aristotle, Epicurus, Saint Thomas
Aquinas and John Stuart Mill are just some of the thinkers who looked at the
happiness of the human person as a goal of our human actions. Ethicists teach us,
however, that happiness can only be attained through a good and moral life. It
follows, then, that to be happy is to live a moral and ethical life.
 Humanity: Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that living an ethical life is an
important aspect in the preservation of humanity. He tells us that only in the
ethical platform that we are able to attain virtues like faith, justice and peace. The
choices we make now will have ripple effects to the rest of the people around us. It
is imperative, then, that we make wise and ethical decisions if we want to achieve
harmony in our society.

Types of Ethics
Ethics is divided into two types, namely: Normative or prescriptive ethics and
descriptive or applied ethics.

 Normative or Prescriptive Ethics: Normative or prescriptive ethics is defined as

a type of ethics which determines what moral standards determine the rightness or
wrongness of our actions. It prescribes how a person should act in society. In this
approach, the ethical principles serve as our moral standard. Usually, prescriptive
ethics have either a religious origin such as the Bible, or a non-religious or purely
humanistic ethics.
 Descriptive or Applied Ethics: Descriptive or applied ethics involves the factual
investigation of moral behavior. In a given society, these standards are identifiable
as they are embedded in cultural and religious practices. The task of an ethicist is
to examine these existing ethical theories and identify valid or correct ethical
systems in an objective manner. For example, a student of ethics may study the
morality or the ethical validity of infanticide or child sacrifice in the ancient world
and how may look at this ancient practice from the point of view of ethics.
Ethics and Morality
Ethics and morality have always been used interchangeably for different persons.
Ethics is a moral philosophy which studies whether an action is good or bad. It also
examines and analyzes moral issues and investigates whether these issues are good
or bad. Morality, on the other hand, refers to human actions which are done with
knowledge, freedom and voluntariness. The morality of an action is usually judged by
the norm or standard of the society. To differentiate, ethics is more theoretical and
detached as it is a systematic study of the morality of human actions and behaviors
while morality is more personal and subjective as these involve personal choice and
volition from first person point of view.

In summary, we learned in this module what philosophy is and its branch called Ethics.
We learned that philosophy is a discipline which asks fundamental questions. We also
learned that it is important to keep these questions alive in our lives for a quality and
well-lived life. We also learned that philosophy is an activity because it involves our
whole being such as our beliefs and convictions in life and it is not so much what kind
of beliefs or philosophical worldview we may have but that we are able to articulate
these beliefs with precision and coherence. We also defined ethics as the branch of
philosophy that deals with human agency or action. It follows that ethics involves
study of concepts such as reason, freedom, and responsibility. Further,
we learned that ethics is more than just a personal choice that involves us; rather,
ethics and living an ethical life help in the preservation of humanity. To end, we
encourage you, dear students, to reflect on your actions every day and to strive to live
morally upright lives to attain what Socrates calls the “well-lived life.”