Philosophy: Core Concepts, Methods, and Metaphysical Foundations

Philosophy: Definition and Core Concepts

• Philosophy (Φ) is defined as “Science of all things in their ultimate reason, cause, and principle acquired in the aid of human reason alone.”

• Three important aspects in the definition:

  • Science: systematic, orderly, and disciplined

  • Meaning: aims to uncover ultimate reasons, causes, and principles

  • Acquired in the aid of human reason alone

• Overview and attribution:

  • Presented by Br. Jan Dave Panlican (jdpanlican@gmail.com)

Key Concepts: Reason, Cause, and Principle; Human Reason

• When philosophizing, one must know the objectives to attain Truth: Reason, Cause, and Principle

• Human Reason alone: humans are rational animals; reason distinguishes humans from irrational beings

• Etymology of Philosophy:

  • From Greek: Philo = love, Sophia = wisdom

  • Philosophy = Love of Wisdom

• Abstraction is the method of philosophy, beginning from:

  • Observation, sensation, concepts or ideas, judgments, and syllogisms

• Object types in philosophy:

  • Material Object (M.O.): the subject matter

  • Formal Object Quod (F.O. quod): the aspect of the subject matter under which it studies

  • Formal Object Quo (F.O. quo): the tool used in studying the Material Object

• Relationships:

  • M.O + all things

  • Formal Object Quod + study of all things

  • Formal Object Quo – Human reason

Goals and Methods: Attaining Truth

• The goal of Philosophy is Truth

• How to gain truth: various methods as used by different philosophers

  • Method of Doubting: a systematic process of being skeptical about or doubting the truth of one’s belief

  • Argument: provides one or more arguments supporting the solution

  • Dialectic: presents the solution and arguments for criticism by others to judge their own

Branches of Philosophy

• Logic: study of correct reasoning

• Epistemology: study of knowledge

• Metaphysics: first philosophy; deals with beings

• Aesthetics: study of art, beauty, and taste

• Ethics: study of right and wrong, good and evil, morality (introduced later as a key domain closely related to logical reasoning and arguments)

Logic and Reasoning: Types and Roles

• Logic as an art: the power to direct the reasoning process to acquire knowledge of truth in an orderly way, enabling access to reality

• Kinds of correct reasoning:

  • Inductive Reasoning

  • Deductive Reasoning

  • Abductive Reasoning (Abduction)

Inductive Reasoning

• Definition: from specific observations to general conclusions (may be true)

• Proponents: Scientists and empiricists

• Structure: use statements as evidence to support the truth of the conclusion; if the statements are true, the conclusion is likely true but not guaranteed (50/50)

• Characteristics: strength varies; does not guarantee 100% truth

Deductive Reasoning

• Definition: from general premises to specific conclusions (always true if premises are true and the argument is valid)

• Proponents: Mathematicians and rationalists

• Key idea: conclusions are guaranteed to be true provided the premises are true and the argument form is valid

Abductive Reasoning

• Also known as Abduction

• Characterized by incomplete observations leading to best possible predictions or explanations

• Note: conclusions of abduction are probable, not guaranteed

Fallacies in Logic (15 fallacies listed)

• Ad Hominem: attacks the person rather than the argument

• Strawman: attacks a distorted or exaggerated version of the argument

• Appeal to Ignorance: claims something is true because it has not been proven false

• False Dilemma: presents only two options when more exist (e.g., "America: Love it or leave it")

• Slippery Slope: assumes a course of action will lead to extreme chain of events without evidence

• Circular Argument: repeats the premise as the conclusion

• Hasty Generalization: broad claim based on insufficient evidence

• Red Herring: distraction to shift attention away from the real issue

• Appeal to Hypocrisy (tu quoque): deflects criticism by accusing the other of the same problem

• Casual Fallacy (causal fallacy): incorrectly concludes a cause-effect relationship

• Fallacy of Sunk Costs: continues a course of action due to prior investments, regardless of future benefit

• Appeal to Authority: defers to an authority’s opinion as evidence when not warranted

• Equivocation: uses a word with multiple meanings to mislead

• Appeal to Pity: manipulates emotions rather than presenting evidence

• Bandwagon: argues something is true because many believe it

The Building Blocks of Knowledge: Ideas and Knowing

• Ideas are building blocks of knowledge; judgments may express truth or error

• Idea: an intellectual representation or image of a thing

• All knowledge begins with the senses; humans produce sensible images (phantasm) as the first step in forming ideas

• Three essential mental operations in knowing:

  • Simple Apprehension: awareness of presence and perception of reality; leads to formation of ideas expressed through terms

  • Judgment: recognizing the relation or non-relation between ideas, terms, or realities; results in a proposition

  • Reasoning: deriving a new judgment (conclusion) from the relation of two judgments (premises)

• Epistemology: study and understanding of knowledge; question: how do we know that we know?

• Modes of knowledge: reason (rational/rationalists) vs sense experience (empirical/empiricists)

Metaphysics: The Science of Being

• Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy dealing with beings; first philosophy

• Notion: defined as “the study of the ultimate cause and of the first and most universal principles of reality”

• Proximate vs Ultimate causes:

  • Proximate cause: produces immediate effects (e.g., the material input for a process)

  • Ultimate (supreme) causes: extend to all effects within a sphere; often associated with God as the Ultimate Cause

• Metaphysics also concerns the first and most universal principles constituting all things

• Metaphysics as the Science of Being (ontology): being as being

• Core notions in metaphysics include the material and formal object of metaphysics

The Notion of Being and Essence

• Being (ens): that which is; existence and its act; being is not simply a universal term but a complex concept

• Being is the act of existing; variable per thing; acting through esse

• Essence (essentia): the manner or mode of being that constitutes what a thing is; explains its identity

• Two constituent principles in every reality: the act of being (esse) and the manner of being (essentia)

The Act of Being (Esse) and its Properties

• Esse expresses everything is; no reality can be simply “not being”

• Esse is universal, total, constituent, and prior to other acts; it actualizes the potency of essence

• In Thomas Aquinas: esse is the most formal of all acts; the actuality of all acts; acts are in supposits

The Essence and Its Relation to Existence

• Essence: that which makes a thing to be what it is; the quiddity of the thing

• For beings other than God, essence and existence are distinct but inseparable in reality

• Existence (esse) provides the actualization that makes essences real; existence is the actualizing form of essence

• The relationship is analogous to form and matter in cosmology: form actualizes matter; esse actualizes the potency of essence

The Notion of Being: Further Details

• Being (ens) signifies principally the thing which is; being is the act of existing

• Essence denotes what something is; the manner in which it is

• The distinction between essence and existence is essential for understanding change and being

Substance and Accidents

• Substance: the substratum of accidents; the underlying reality that persists through change

• Accidents: properties that inhere in a thing but do not define its ultimate identity

• Aristotle’s insight: change requires understanding both substance and accidents

• The Difference of Substance and Essence:

  • Essence determines the manner of being (what it is)

  • Substance stresses the substratum of accidents (the underlying thing that bears accidents)

Accidents: Kinds and Origins

• Accidents according to their origin:

  1. Accidents belonging to the species: common properties across all individuals of a species (e.g., shape of a horse, powers of understanding and willing in a man)

  2. Accidents inseparable from each individual: permanent traits (e.g., height, skin color, gender)

  3. Accidents separable from each individual: transient states (e.g., seated, standing, walking, studying)

  4. Accidents from external agents: may be violent (e.g., disease) or beneficial (e.g., instruction)

• Accidents according to essences:

  1. Quality: arranges essence; e.g., color, temperature, humidity; operative and entitative properties

  2. Quantity: pertains to size/extension

  3. Relations: how a thing relates to others (e.g., Brotherhood, Sonship)

  4. Where: localization of the substance

  5. Position: internal arrangement in a place (e.g., seated vs. standing)

  6. Possession: ownership or use of something contiguous (e.g., wearing a watch)

  7. When: temporal state of a bodily substance

  8. Action: act arising from the agent principle of motion or change

  9. Passion: passive experiences caused by external agents

Act and Potency (Potency) and their Relation to Being

• Act (Actuality): the realized perfection of a subject

• Potency (Potentiality): the capacity to have a perfection; potential to become

• Relationship: Act and Potency are not separate full realities but aspects in things; potency is to act as the imperfect is to the perfect

• Potency is not merely privation but a real capacity for perfection

Essence, Existence, and the Human View of Reality

• The distinction between essence and existence is foundational for understanding creation, causality, and ontology

• God, as the Absolute Esse, is often treated as the ultimate ground of existence beyond creaturely essences

Matter and Form: Substantial Composition

• Matter and Form: parts of substances that together constitute a thing

• Matter: what a thing is made of; the substrate that underlies the form

• Form: the organizing principle that defines the nature and properties of a thing

• Change occurs by altering form while matter endures; matter endures through change, form changes

• The concept of causality in being:

  • Matter and Form interplay explains how substances come to be and change

Causality: Aristotle’s Four Causes

• Aristotle’s four causes explain why something is as it is, addressing the question “why something is”

  1. Material Cause: the stuff from which something comes (e.g., bronze for a statue)

  2. Formal Cause: the essential nature or model (the definition or logos; the artist’s idea of the statue)

  3. Efficient Cause: the agent that brings about change or motion (the sculptor)

  4. Final Cause: the end or purpose for which a thing is done (the statue’s audience’s admiration)

Metaphysics and Knowledge: The Role in Science

• Metaphysics guides respect to particular sciences; it is the summit of human knowledge in the natural order

• This guiding role is called sapiential: wisdom guiding knowledge and activity in light of first principles and the last end of man

Being, Essence, and Existence Revisited

• The Notion of Being (further):

  • Being is the general category for what exists; it is the act of existing (esse) and the way things exist

  • The essence of a thing is its defining nature that makes it what it is

• The Order of Being: substance, essence, existence, and the interdependence among these concepts

Summary: Interconnections Across the Big Themes

• Philosophy seeks ultimate causes, reasons, and principles to ground knowledge in reasoned inquiry

• It integrates logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics to build a coherent account of reality and how we know it

• The interplay between essence and existence, form and matter, and the four causes provides a framework to analyze beings, change, and knowledge

• Ethics connects reasoning to action through norms (laws) and moral evaluation; ontology and metaphysics underpin those norms by clarifying what exists and what it means to be a thing

Ethics and Morality: Norms, Laws, and Fonts of Morality

• Aesthetics: study of art, beauty, and taste

• Ethics: practical science of morality; studies the rectitude of human acts and how those acts relate to moral norms

• Morality is the relation of human acts to their norm; the norm is ultimately the Eternal Law, proximately Conscience

• Types of acts:

  • Human Acts: deliberate free will (e.g., walking, talking)

  • Acts of Man: not deliberate (e.g., blinking, breathing)

• Four kinds of laws (St. Thomas Aquinas):

  • Eternal Law: plan of God for all beings

  • Divine Law: Old and New Testament precepts

  • Human Law: precepts of the state for the common good

  • Natural Law: innate moral order in humans; do good and avoid evil

• Three Fonts of Morality (criteria for legitimacy):

  • Intention

  • Moral Object

  • Circumstance