IPHP SEM1 Exam Reviewer LESSON 1-7

UNIT 1 – WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY

THE MEANING OF PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy comes from the Greek words Philo which means love and Sophia which means wisdom.

It means love of wisdom or the love of knowledge

Socrates

  • The father of western philosophy.
  • Claims that philosophy is the endless quest for truth.
  • Advocated the knowledge of the self as the foundation of knowing
  • The human soul should be nurtured properly through its acquisition of knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.

Aristotle

  • Defines philosophy as the science of all things and their ultimate causes known by the light of natural reason alone.
  • Emphasized good reasoning as the foundation of knowledge
  • Man's body and soul are substantially united. In this unity, the soul is the perfect realization of the body while the body is a material entity which has the potentiality of life

Plato

  • Man is an embodied soul.
  • The true part of man is really the soul and the body is the prison cell of the soul

THE BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY

Metaphysics – seeks to answer the nature of reality.

Epistemology – is science of the human knowledge.

Ethics or Moral Philosophy – deals with the morality of human action.

Theodicy or Natural Theology – studies the existence and nature of God through human reason alone without aid of faith and sacred scriptures.

Cosmology – is the study of the nature of matter/corporeal entities.

Aesthetics or the Philosophy of Beauty and Art – studies the nature of beauty and art.

Rational Psychology or Philosophical Psychology – studies the origin of life.

Logic – is the science and art of correct thinking.

Axiology – is the study of human values.

Deontology – is the study of duty.

Semantics – is the study of meaning of words and sentence.

Philosophy of the human person – is the study of the nature of human person.

Political Philosophy – is the study of how society should be organized and governed.

Philosophy of Science – is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the foundation of science.

Philosophy of Religion – is the study of a religion or religions and its concepts and beliefs through philosophical enquiry or criticism.

Philosophy of Technology – is a branch of philosophy that is dedicated to the influences of technology to human lives and social effects.

Philosophy of the Environment – Concerned with the implications of man’s exploitation of natural resources and the methods of its exploitation.

FOUR FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS

What is there? (metaphysics) – it seeks to answer what constitutes a thing, its causes and effects.

What is known? (epistemology) – the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature ground of knowledge.

How should life be lived? (ethics) – area of philosophy that defines the principle of goodness of an act.

What is good reasoning? (logic) – a branch oh philosophy, deals with the principle validating our reasoning.

CLASSIFICATION OF DEFINITION

Nominal

  • With reference on the term.
  • Examining the root word or origin of the term.

Real

  • With reference to reality.
  • Definition is made on the thing itself.
  • Either intrinsic or extrinsic.

PARTS OF A DEFINITION

Definiendum – is the word to be defined.

Definiens – is the definition.

A. HUMAN NATURE ON THE WESTERN THOUGHTS.

Human Nature according to the Ancient Greek.

- The early Greeks conceived man as part of nature. Water, (Thales 624-546 BC), air (Anaximenes 585-525 BC), fire (change) (Heraclitus 540-475 B.C.), the boundless (Anaximander - 610-547 B.C), and as a composite of body and soul (Pythagoras-582-507 B.C) were the first principles concerning human nature of the human person.

Centrality – is the requirement which strengthens human person’s existence.

Human Nature according to the Medieval Era

  • With the dominance of Medieval Christianity in Europe (12th-18th century), philosophy per se was regarded as the handmaid of theology- ancilla theologiae.

Rationalism and the Human Nature

  • Rene Descartes' (1596-1650) "Cogito, Ergo Sum"-I Think, Therefore I Exist-demands for a rigorous method for the secure and accurate attainment of truth
  • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), man's existence is defined by the ability of the intellect to know a priori. In his "Critique of Pure Reason.

Existentialism and Human Nature

  • Existentialism is not so much of any system.
  • The question on what is the meaning of life is more important than the answers to those questions.

Heidegger and meaning of life

  • It is claimed that the essence of a human being (Dasein) lies in its "to be"- his possibilities and opportunities

Jaspers and meaning of life

  • One cannot leave a situation without entering another.

Marcel and meaning of life

  • Perception about the world is the result of the different factors that are formed by ideals, concepts, and theories about yourself and your significant others

Sartre and meaning of life

  • The essence of something is its meaning and its intended purpose.

B. HUMAN NATURE IN THE EASTERN THOUGHTS

  • Eastern philosophy, unlike Western philosophy, is characterized as a way of living. It evolves from thoughts to religion.

Confucianism

  • Founded by Confucius (6th 5th B.C). Confucianism promoted ancestor worship, strong filial bonds, and moderate living."
  • Confucian teaching rests on three essential values namely, filial piety, humaneness, and ritual.

Filial piety, represented by the Chinese character Xiao shows an old man supported by a young man

Ren, the second Confucian virtue, is humaneness. He states: "I prefer to translate it as humaneness or humanity because the character is made up of two parts. On the left is the element that means a person or a human being.

The third Confucian virtue is the Li or ritual. The Li is the bond of people being sacralized. Being a ritual, it also means to say of doing things appropriately.

Buddhism

According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha lived sometime between 6th and 4th centuries B.C. He is considered as the Enlightened One who helped mankind attain balance through meditation and elimination of desire. For the Buddhist, there is no inherent meaning to life. Life exists in itself.

Taoism

Also called Daoism, is based on the teachings of the Tao Te Ching, a short tract written in the 6th BC in China.

Taoism emphasizes spiritual harmony within the individual, complementing Confucianism's focus on social duty. In the Taoist philosophy, the Tao is the principle where everything flow from it. This philosophy believes in the two forces of nature; the yin and yang.

Islam

A monotheistic religious tradition that developed in the middle East in the 7th century C.E. Islam, which literally means "surrender" or "submission," was founded on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as an expression of surrender to the will of Allah, the creator and sustainer of the world.

Hinduism

Known as the "oldest living religion in the world," Hinduism was thought of to be brought by the Aryans (c. 1500 BC). By about 300 BC, when Indian myth and folk tale began coalesce in the Mahabharata, Vishnu and Shiva became the main Hindu gods. In most ways they are direct opposite of each other. Vishnu is associated with creation while Shiva is with destruction although in the eternal cycle of event destruction must precede the next act of creation.

UNIT 2 – THE PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD

THE MATERIAL ARGUMENTATION

Fallacies of Language

Known as the errors in argumentation due to the errors in then use of linguistic

Fallacy of Equivocation. - an argument has committed this error when one of its terms is used in more than one context.

The Fallacy of Ambiguity - This fallacy arises when sentences can be interpreted in multiple ways with equal justification.

Fallacy of Accent - refers to the stress placed upon a word in a sentence or a syllable.

Fallacy of Composition - This fallacy occurs when a truth of any part is also attributed as the truth of a whole which such part is a member of.

Fallacy of Division – The fallacy is caused when an attribute of a whole is attributed to the member of its parts.

Fallacy of Specific Accidents - This fallacy is also called ambiguous extension of term emphasizing the nonessential quality or property of an entity.

The Fallacies of Relevance

The fallacies of relevance arise when an arguer fails to address directly the issues to be resolved, instead he / she used other means to answer issues.

Appeal to Force/Threat (Ad baculum) - This fallacy makes an implicit or explicit use of physical or psychological violence against others if they refuse to accept the conclusions offered.

Argument Against the Person (Argumentum Ab Hominem Abusive) - This argument resorts to the use of personal attacks due to the lack of argument.

The Fallacy of Tu Quoque (You Did it Too!) - This form of argument means "you too" because it often occurs when a person is attacked for doing what they are arguing against.

Appeal to Authority (Ad verecundiam). - This fallacy is committed when an argument relies heavily upon testimony of a non-expert.

Appeal to the Majority/People (Ad Populum). - This fallacy is committed when the argument is directed towards the majority of the populace rather than the validity and strength of the argument itself

Appeal to Ignorance - This appeal takes its force when an argument is proven to be true since nobody can prove that the contrary is false.

Dicto Simpliciter - This fallacy is committed when the conclusion offered is an oversimplification of a very complex issue.

Hasty Generalization - This fallacy is committed when the conclusion offered is derived from few instances.

Inferential fallacies

Are committed when the rules on inferential argumentation are violated

The principle of contradiction - It is the outright denial of an opposing proposition For example, the proposition, "All soldiers are trained professionals," will have its contradictory proposition "Some soldiers are not trained."."

The principle of subalternation - The truth of a general instance subsumes the truth of a particular instance. Thus, "If all presidentiables are citizens of a country," is true it follows that "some presidentiables are citizens of a country," is also true.

The principle of contrariety - This principle clearly states that the truth of a general instance will make an opposing general instance false. If the proposition, "Presidents are citizens of a country," is true, necessarily it follows that "Presidents are not citizens of a country" is false

The principle of subcontrariety - The principle states that there is plurality of things. The plurality of things implies variations indicating plurality of truths. Hence, in the real world, there is plurality of truth, and it is in this instance the deduction as true-false continuum cannot be immediately ascertained.

Eductive Inference

The four types of simple categorical propositions (A, E, I, O) that we study also implied an equivalent relation or an immediate inference

Obversion (L., Ob, before, towards, and vertere, to turn) is a process of immediate inference in which the inferred judgment, while retaining the original subject, has for its predicate the complementary class of the original predicate (Copi, 1978). By complementary class, we mean the excluded members or assertions of the predicate class. For the sake of illustration, in the proposition, "All men are mortal beings," the predicate term "mortal beings" has a complementary class of "non-mortal beings." In the same way, the proposition, "Some scholars are genius," has a complementary class of any "non-genius." To simplify the procedure, the complementary class of any term is done through affixing of the term "non" to any term in question.

Conversion (L., Convertere, to turn) is a process of immediate inference, in which the inferred judgment takes the subject of the original proposition (convertend) for its predicate of the convertend as its subject (Bittle, 1950: 158). The derived proposition is called converse. In simple terms, conversion is a simple switching of the subject and predicate terms. Thus, the proposition "Some new graduates are employed professionals" becames "Some new employed professionals are new graduates."

Contraposition - is the process of eduction which combines conversion and obversion.

1. Application of the conversion process. 2. Substitution of the subject and predicate terms of the converse with the It is formed by two steps:

The original proposition is referred to as contraponend while the equivale proposition is called the contrapositive. Example:

Contraponend: All men are mortal beings.

Contrapositive: All non-mortal beings are non-men.

Syllogistic fallacies

Are brought about by the violation of the rules of reasoning as enumerated in the classic rules of syllogism by Aristotle as adopted by the scholastics, and perpetuated by the universities.

Fallacy of four terms - Known as quadruped syllogism. this fallacy used four terms in its argumentation which is a gross violation of the syllogistic which states the a syllogism must have only three terms, namely, the major term, minor term, and the middle term.

Fallacy of Excluded Third - This fallacy arises when the quantity of the middle terms are both particular. The rule states that at least once, the middle term should be universal.

Fallacy of illicit process - When the quantity of either the major or the min terms are particular in the premises, and in the conclusion the quantity of either of the terms becomes universal, the fallacy of illicit process is committed.

Fallacy of Illicit Major - If the error is with the major term.

Fallacy of Illicit Minor - If the error is with the minor term.

UNIT 3 – THE HUMAN PERSON AS AN EMBODIED SPIRIT: GOING BEYOND THE CARNAL

According to ancient thoughts – the understanding about human person is based on their knowledge and interest of the world.

According to the medieval thoughts - The core of this historical timeline is theodicy, it studies God based on rational account or rational methods.

St. Augustine

  • Early Christian theologian and philosopher, influenced the development of western Christianity and philosophy
  • God is the creator of the world and the immortal human soul.

St. Thomas Aquinas

  • A priest, doctor of the Church and a patron of all universities and of students.
  • Left behind the unfinished masterpiece, the Summa Theologica.

According to modern thoughts - This period centers on the nature of the mind and its relation to the body.

Rene Descartes

  • He extoled supremacy of the human mind over that of the human body.
  • He claims that the decay of the body does not logically or metaphysically imply the destruction of the mind.

John Locke

  • An empiricist, who claimed that knowledge is founded on experience and no knowledge can go beyond experience.

George Berkeley

  • An Anglo-Irish philosopher and a bishop of Cloyne was one of the British empiricists.
  • He is most notably known for his notion on thus existence of things through being perceived.

According to the Christian Perspectives -The Christian perspective on the union of the body and soul in the human person is anchored on the truth established in the Bible.

The gospel of Mark - is a reminder for all Christians about the primacy of the soul over that of the body and the care for the soul.

King James – Basta may bible verse.