Introduction to Philosophy and Wisdom

• Philosophy comes from the Greek words "philos" (love) and "sophia" (wisdom), signifying the love of wisdom.
• Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.
• It also involves studying humans and the world through thinking and questioning.

Two Kinds of Wisdom

• Divine wisdom is a gift from God, differing from human wisdom.

Characteristics of Divine Wisdom

• From Above: A gift from above.
• Pure: Free from stains and evil thoughts.
• Peaceable: Free from strife or disorder.
• Gentle: Considerate, kindly, amiable, and tender.
• Open to Reason: Willing to listen to logical or sensible thinking.
• Full of Mercy: Treating people with kindness and forgiveness.
• Impartial: Treating everybody equally.
• Full of Good Fruits: Meant to be the produce of our lives.
• Human wisdom is the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgement; it is the quality of being wise.
• Knowledge is something gained from experience.
• Wisdom is deeper than knowledge, requiring a correct and right application of knowledge, and is considered the mother of morality.

Origin of Philosophy

• Greece (Miletus) is regarded as the birthplace of philosophy in the West.
• Thales (624-546 BCE) is recognized as the Father of Philosophy in Western civilization.
• Thales was a contemporary of the Lydian king Croesus.
• He believed that despite the different things, there is one underlying substance in which everything is composed.

Other Notable Ancient Greek Philosophers:

• Pythagoras (570 BCE to 495 BCE): A mathematician and scientist credited with formulating the Pythagorean theorem.
• Heraclitus (535 BCE to 475 BCE): Proposed that everything existing is based on a higher order or plan called logos.
• Democritus (460 BCE to 370 BCE): Devoted himself to studying the causes of natural phenomena.
• Diogenes of Sinope (412 BCE to 323 BCE): Known advocate for living a simple and virtuous life.
• Epicurus (341 BCE to 270 BCE): Believed philosophy could enable man to live a life of happiness.
• Socrates (470 BCE to 399 BCE): Considered one of the foremost philosophers of ancient times.
  • Socratic method: Examining a topic by devising questions for learners to analyze their knowledge and views.
• Plato (427 BCE to 347 BCE): Student of Socrates who incorporated his mentor's teachings.
  • Theory of Forms: Proposes everything existing is based on an idea or template perceived only in the mind.
  • Dialectic: A method of inquiry involving two opposing ideas.
• Aristotle (384 BCE to 322 BCE): Prominent student of Plato affirming all ideas and views based on perception, and our reality based on what we can sense and perceive.
  • Deductive reasoning: Analyzing specific statements to reach a conclusion or generalization.

Holistic Thinking

• Refers to a perspective considering large-scale patterns in systems.
• Requires having an open mindset.
• Involves the ability to get the general sense or impression regarding a situation.
• Involves big picture mentality.
• Gives rise to a more appreciative perspective about life.

Partial Thinking

• Focuses on specific aspects of a situation.
• Is an important component of analytical thinking.
• An individual focuses on certain areas or aspects of a problem in order to understand it.

Branches of Philosophy

• Logic: From "logos," is the science of correct reasoning.
• Philosophy of Human Person: From "prosopon," is the study of man in relation to his destiny, God.
• Cosmology: From "kosmos" and "logia," is the science of inanimate objects. Lifeless beings contribute to man's search for meaning.
• Metaphysics: From "meta" and "physika," is the science of being.
• Ethics: From "ethikos," is the science of morality of human act. Morality means the quality of an action whether right or wrong.
• Aesthetics: From "aisthetikos," is the science of art and beauty, pertaining to sense perception.
• Epistemology: From "episteme," is the science of the theory of knowledge.
• Psychology: From "psyche" and "logos," is the science of human behavior.
• Social Philosophy: From "koino~nikós,” is a science of principles governing human relations.
• Theodicy: From "theos" and "dike," is the science of the study of God proving God's existence through human reason.

Truth vs. Opinion

Opinion

• Based on emotions.
• Open to interpretation.
• Cannot be confirmed.
• Inherently biased.

Truth

• Based on the facts of reality.
• Can be confirmed with other sources.
• Independent of one's interpretation, preferences, and biases.
• Fact cannot be either true or false because it simply the way the world is.
• Belief capable of being true or false because it may or may not accurately describe the world.

Theories of Truth

• The Correspondence Theory of Truth asserts that a belief is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are based on the facts.
• The Coherence Theory of Truth suggests that to know the truth of a statement, it must be tested as part of a larger set of ideas.
• The Pragmatist Theory of Truth states that a belief/statement is true if it has a useful (pragmatic) application in the world.

Methods of Philosophy Lead to Wisdom and Truth

• Methods of philosophy help to systematically learn the process of philosophizing.
• Philosophizing involves thinking or expressing oneself in a philosophical manner.

Three Major Characteristics of Philosophical Questions

• Have answers, but the answers remain in dispute.
• Cannot be settled by science, common sense, or faith.
• Are of perennial intellectual interest to human beings.

Methods of Philosophizing

• Dialectic Method: "Dialectic" from dialektike, is an art of conversation arriving at a conclusion from an exchange of contradicting logical arguments.
  • Personal and shared conceptions should be considered and corrected.
• The Pragmatic Method: Started by Charles S. Pierce; popularized by William James; and institutionalized in American culture by John Dewey.
  • Seems to offer beliefs about human beings and his relationship to the world.
  • Involves making philosophy relevant by solving real life problems.
• The Phenomenological Method: Conceived by Edmund Husserl.
  • Science brings a counterproductive naturalistic attitude to the human soul.
  • A naturalistic attitude brings a distorted view of man by banishing the spiritual from the world including the banishment of ideas, values, and cultures.
• "Things and facts themselves, as these are given in actual experience and intuition."

The Primary and Secondary Reflections

• Invented by Gabriel Marcel.
  • Primary: Thinking to distinguish who we are (the self) against other things (the non-self or objects).
  • Secondary: Thinking about thinking and the process we undertake.

The Analytic Method

• Initiated by philosophers at Cambridge University (England): George Edward Moore, Bertrand Russell & Ludwig Wittgenstein.
  • Clarifying how philosophers used words through an analysis of language
  • Linguistic analysis

Different Fallacies and Biases

Fallacies

• Argumentum ad Hominem (Appeal the Person): Attacking the person presenting the argument instead of the argument itself.
• Argumentum ad Baculum (Appeal to force): Using the threat of force or an undesirable event to advance an argument.
• Argumentum ad Misecordian (Appeal to emotion): Using emotions such as pity or sympathy.
• Argumentum ad Populum (Appeal to the popular): The idea is presented as acceptable because a lot of people accept it.
• Argumentum ad Tradition (Appeal to tradition): The idea is acceptable because it has been true for a long time.
• Argumentum ad Ignorantiam (Appeal to ignorance): Whatever has been proven false must be true and vice versa.
• Petitio Principii (Begging the question): Assuming the thing or idea to be proven is true, also known as circular argument.
• Hasty Generalization: One reaches a generalization based on insufficient evidence.
• Cause-and-Effect: Assuming "cause-and-effect" relationship between unrelated events.
• Fallacy of Composition: Assuming that what is true of a part is true for the whole.
• Fallacy of Division: Assuming that what is true for the whole is true for its parts.
• Fallacy of Equivocation: Using the same term in a different situation with different meaning.

Bias

• Correspondence bias or attribution effect judging a person's personality by actions, without regard for external factors or influence.
• Confirmation bias looking for and readily accepting information fitting one's own beliefs and rejecting ideas or views against it.
• Framing focusing on a certain aspect of a problem while ignoring other aspects.
• Hindsight seeing past events as predictable, or ascribing a pattern to historical events.
• Conflict of interest a person or group is connected to or has a vested interest in the issue being discussed.
• Cultural bias analyzing an event or issue based on one's cultural standards.

Types of Reasoning

Deductive Reasoning (Top-Down Logic)

• Conclusion comes first, followed by main points, and lastly, the supporting data, facts, examples, and evidences.
• General idea comes first before the specific or particular idea.

Inductive Reasoning (Bottom-Up Logic)

• Supporting data, facts, examples, and evidences come first followed by the main points and conclusion.
• Particular idea comes first before the general idea.

Human Person as an Embodied Spirit

• Man represents the entire human race.
• Human various classifications and species, human is under the classification of Mammalia.
• Human Being separate man from other Human Classifications like animals.
• Person an individual with self-awareness, self determination, rational mind, and the capacity to interact with other and with himself/herself.
• Personhood the state of being a person with unique, sacred and ethical status within him/herself.
• Human Nature deepest and natural behavior of a person that distinguishes humans from animals.
• Three Components of Human Person: SOUL, MIND and SPIRIT

Two Kinds to Distinguish a Human Person

• Cognitive Self

The What of a Person

• Something within and cannot be physically seen.
• Human persons' belief, desire, dreams, and intentions.

Physical Self

• "THE WHO OF A PERSON"
• Something can be seen in his/her physical appearance.
• His/her body type, strength and appearances.
• Man has:
  • Self-awareness the person having a clear perception of oneself including his thoughts, emotions, identity and actions.
  • Self-determination capability of persons to make choices and decisions based on their own preferences, monitor, and regulate their actions.
  • Consequence result or effect of an action or condition.
  • Externality capability of a person to reach out and interact with others and the world.
  • Dignity the innate right to be valued and respected.

What is Embodied Spirit?

• Animating core living within each of us.
• Spirit becoming flesh.
• Christian philosophy: "Inseparable union of human body and soul."
• As an embodied spirit, human beings demonstrate these following qualities:
  • Self-awareness.
  • A human person is able to connect and interact.
  • We are not determined by others.
  • Human person has an inherent value and importance (dignity).

Limitations and Possibilities for Transcendence

• Human Transcendence
  • St. Thomas Aquinas: "Of all creatures, human beings have the unique power to change themselves and things for the better".
  • Power is your ability to surpass your limits.
  • You are able to transcend your limit through your physical and mental abilities.
• Buddha's four noble truths:
  • Life has inevitable suffering.
  • There is a cause to our suffering.
  • There is an end to our suffering.
  • The end to suffering is contained in the eightfold path.
• The Eightfold Path
  • Right view a correct understanding of the nature of things.
  • Right intention eliminating thoughts of attachment, detestation, and harmful intent.
  • Right speech abstaining from verbal offenses.
  • Right action refraining from physical offenses.
  • Right livelihood evading trades that directly or indirectly damage others.
  • Right effort forsaking undesirable states of mind that have already arisen and sustaining positive states.
  • Right concentration single-mindedness.
  • Right mindfulness consciousness of body, feelings, thought, and phenomena.

The Human Body in Imposing Limits and Possibilities

Bodily Limitations

• Mental and emotional disorders (e.g. anxiety, intellectual disability).
• Disabilities (e.g. amputated leg, deafness).
• Disease and illnesses (e.g. hypertension, cough).
• Failures and experiences (e.g. failing a subject).

Social and Environmental Limitations

• Socioeconomic status.
• Location of neighborhood (e.g. armed, disorganized, or violent neighborhood).
• Abusive relationships (e.g. emotional abuse).
• Negative influences (e.g. drug use).

Environmental Ethics & Attribution of Moral Consideration

• Environmental Ethics studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents.

Attribution of Moral Consideration

• Anthropocentrism human beings are the central or most significant entities in the world.
• Pathocentrism Moral consideration should be extended to intelligent animals.
• Biocentrism A life centered theory humans, animals and also plants should be morally considerate.
• Ecocentrism Ecosystem-centered ethics regards ecosystems as holistic entities.
• Aesthetics the idea of what is beautiful.
• Theories in Radical Ecological Philosophy
  • Deep Ecology (Arne Naess): Assumes all living things possess equal value.
  • Social Ecology (Murray Bookchin): Ecological problems can be traced to social problems.
  • Ecofeminism: Male-centered view of nature is the root cause of ecological problems.

Causes of Environmental Crisis

Physical Causes

• Observable and quantifiable.
  • Natural: Brought about solely by the processes of nature.
  • Human-Induced: Brought about by human intervention in the processes of nature.
• Chernobyl power plant explosion. The explosion of the power plant considered as the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.
• Union Carbide pesticide plant accident resulted in tons of poisonous methyl isocyanate escaping from the facility.
• Kuwaiti oil fires resulted in poisonous smoke, soot and ash, black rain, and lakes of oil.
• The Love Canal tragedy the contamination of Love Canal, a village with hundreds of houses and a school located near Niagara Falls.
• Exxon Valdez oil spill killed hundreds of birds, fish, seals, otters, and other animals.

Legal Causes

• Include existing laws of the land that have something to do with the environment.
• Include the absence of laws that would effectively prohibit illegal practices.

Socioeconomic Causes

• Factors brought about by social arrangements and the economic status of human persons.
• Ex. poverty, overpopulation.

Attitudinal Causes

• Beliefs and values held by humans about nature that allow them or make it permissible for them to cause damages to the natural environment.
  • Homo Economicus: Economic well-being is primary and will bring about well-being in all other areas.
  • Progressivism: Human condition will gradually improve through abundance. Included with this belief is an unquestioned trust that technology will solve all human problems.
  • Industrialism: Mass-production and rationally designed institutions and programs are the best way to sustain human consumption.
  • Consumerism: Well-being is achieved through abundance and consumption.
• Frugality and Prudence Role of Philosophy in Solving Environmental Crisis.
  • Frugality quality of being thrifty. It is the careful supervision of one's resources.
  • Prudence capacity to direct and discipline one's activities and behavior using reason. It is the behavior that is cautious and keeps away from any risks.