Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person - SHS DepED PDF

# AIRs - LM in ## Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person ### Week 2: Module 2 **SHS DepED** **Department of Education** **La Union Schools Division Office** **Region I** **Government Property** **Not For Sale** ## Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person ### Grade 11/12: Week 2:...

# AIRs - LM in ## Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person ### Week 2: Module 2 **SHS DepED** **Department of Education** **La Union Schools Division Office** **Region I** **Government Property** **Not For Sale** ## Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person ### Grade 11/12: Week 2: Module 2 ### First Edition, 2020 ## Copyright © 2020 **La Union Schools Division\ Region I** ## All rights reserved. No part of this module may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the copyright owners. ## Development Team of the Module **Author:** Polly Anne F. Rovero, T-I **Editor:** SDO La Union, Learning Resource Quality Assurance Team **Illustrator:** Ernesto F. Ramos Jr., P II ## Management Team | Name | Title | |---|---| | Atty. Donato D. Balderas, Jr. | Schools Division Superintendent | | Vivian Luz S. Pagatpatan, Ph. D | Assistant Schools Division Superintendent | | German E. Flora, Ph. D | CID Chief | | Virgilio C. Boado, Ph. D | EPS in Charge of LRMS | | Lorna O. Gaspar | EPS in Charge of Intro to Philosophy of the Human Person | | Michael Jason D. Morales | PDO II | | Claire P. Toluyen | Librarian II | # Introduction to ## Philosophy of the ### Human Person #### Week 2: Module 2 ## Target This module was designed and written with you in mind. It is here to help you master the nature of philosophizing. The scope of this module permits it to be used in many different learning situations. The language used recognizes the diverse vocabulary level of students. The lessons are arranged to follow the standard sequence of the course. But the order in which you read them can be changed to correspond with the textbook you are now using. The learning material is divided into three lessons, namely: - Lesson 1- Knowledge and Truth - Lesson 2- Methods of Philosophy that lead to Wisdom and Truth - Lesson 3- Evaluating Truth from Opinion After going through this learning material, you are expected to: 1. Distinguish opinion from truth (Ic-2.1); 2. Realize that the methods of philosophy lead to wisdom and truth (Id-2.2); 3. Evaluate truth from opinions in different situations (Id-2.3). # Lesson 1 ## Knowledge and Truth ## Jumpstart ### Activity1: Unscramble Letters (Critical Thinking) **Directions:** Unscramble the following letters to identify the concept being described. | SCRAMBLED LETTERS | DESCRIPTION | ANSWER | |---|---|---| | LWKEDNGO | It is a mental grasp of reality reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation. | KNOWLEDGE | | EGLYEIOSPTMO | This is a science devoted to the discovery of the proper method of acquiring and validating knowledge. | EPISTEMOLOGY | | NCPTEOC | It is an abstract or generic idea generalized from particular instances | CONCEPT | | RUTHT | This knowledge is validated which means that it is highly based on the facts of reality. | TRUTH | | NTGRUAEM | It is a group of statements, one or more of which (the premises) is claimed to provide support for, or reason to believe one of the others (the conclusion) | ARGUMENT | **Great Job! Later as you continue reading this learning materials we will see if your answer is correct.** ## Discover ### What is Epistemology? There is no one correct definition of epistemology. The one that I'm going to use came from the philosopher Ayn Rand: _"Epistemology is a science devoted to the discovery of the proper method of acquiring and validating knowledge”_ (Rand 1990). The purpose of epistemology therefore is two-fold: 1. To show how we can acquire knowledge. 2. To give us a method of demonstrating whether the knowledge we acquired is really knowledge (i.e., true). Since knowledge plays a central role in epistemology let us briefly described its nature. ### The Nature of Knowledge According to Ayn Rand knowledge is a “_mental grasp of reality reached either by perceptual observation or by a process of reason based on perceptual observation_” (Rand 1990). When you know something (be it the behavior of your friend, the movement of the planets, or the origin of civilizations) you understand its nature. You identify what it is. And it stays with you. Knowledge is a retained form of awareness (Binswanger 2014). So how do you acquire knowledge? Miss Rand's definition gives us two ways: First, we can acquire knowledge using our senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, and smelling. How do you know that the table is brown? Because you see it. How do you know that fire is hot? Because you feel it. This method of acquiring knowledge is called empiricism and it has many adherents in the history of philosophy such as John Locke, George Berkley, David Hume. Second, we can acquire knowledge by thinking with the use of our minds (what philosophers call the rational faculty). This is what rationalism advocates. (Some well-known rationalists in history are Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz). However thinking is just half of the story of knowing (in fact the second half). The reason is that thinking involves content. To think is to think of something. You cannot think about nothing. This is where sense perception enters the picture by feeding our minds with data coming from the outside world so that we can have something to think about. ## Explore ### Acquiring Knowledge From your previous Learning Material, you already have an idea what is knowledge. Let us now explore the first part of epistemology: the process of acquiring knowledge. In this learning material, we'll learn about Methods of acquiring knowledge or we can say different ways of knowing knowledge. Philosophers and educationists have bought out specific methods of acquiring knowledge. Thus there are different ways of knowing knowledge. Before going any further let us have a brief recap of knowledge. So what is Knowledge? 1. From the Indian point of view, knowledge is named as Vidya. It involves facts about reality as well as cognitive changes. 2. Knowledge, as defined by Oxford dictionary, is - What is known in a particular field - Awareness gained by experience of fact or situation - The theoretical and practical understanding of a subject. 3. Religious Interpretations:- Various religions have interpreted knowledge differently - Hindu Scriptures presents two kinds of knowledge - (A) Paroksh Gyan:- It is second-hand knowledge obtained from books, hearing lectures etc. - (B) Aproksha Gyan:- It is knowledge obtained by direct experiences. - According to Quran Knowledge comes from God and various habits encourage the acquisition of knowledge. - According to Christianity Knowledge is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. ### Some methods of knowledge acquisition are given below. A diagram of the "methods of knowledge acquisition" is given with the following methods: - Problem Solving - Observation and related process - Appeal to Authority - Concentration and meditation - Intution - Appeal to tradition - Appeal to Senses - Appeal to experience - Inductive and Deductive method **Figure 1: Methods of Knowledge Acquisition** Let us now have an explanation of them one by one. 1. **Appeal to authority:** - Comes from authority or specialist in a particular field of knowledge. - For example scientists, philosophers, professor, economists etc. - Teachers are accepted as an authority and great source of knowledge by learners. 2. **Appeal to Tradition:** - We depend on our traditions for the solution of many problems we might face in our life. - So, we have accepted various traditions of our forefathers or our culture. - Everything that we have accepted from our traditions might not always be valid. - Over the period of time, people have rejected those wrong traditions which were once valid. - Therefore we should always evaluate the knowledge acquired from traditions before accepting it. 3. **Appeal to Senses:** - Knowledge is drawn through five senses. - The more the senses are involved in process of acquiring knowledge, more comprehensive would be the knowledge acquired. 4. **Inductive and Deductive methods:** - The inductive method starts with particular examples. Here learner tries to arrive at a certain conclusion. This may lead to the formulation of a law, generalization or principle. - In deductive method learner starts with a generalization or rule, then he comes to particular examples. - So we can say that knowledge is gathered both by inductive and deductive methods. 5. **Appeal to experiences:** - Knowledge can also be gathered by experiences. - Our personal experiences or experiences of other people are the most familiar and fundamental sources of knowledge. - We learn many things from our day to life and what goes around us. 6. **Intuition:** - The knowledge gained out of intuition is spontaneous and sudden. - Senses and mind are not involved during intuition. - Anyone can experience it at different points of time. 7. **Concentration and meditation:** - Concentration is a mental activity where the person concentrating focuses his mental energy on aids like a candle flame, idea. breathing, mantras etc. - In meditation person meditating concentrates for a longer period of time. - Both of them are foundations of attaining knowledge. - While meditating or concentrating a person can make inferences. He can even make a link of facts of knowledge to something meaningful. 8. **Observation and related processes:** - Four sub-processes of attaining knowledge are observation, explanation, prediction and control. - Observation can be internal or external. It can even be a scientific observation. - An explanation is the elaboration of facts of knowledge in a logical manner. - Prediction is a process related to cause and effect. In this process, results are predicted. One needs to understand about causes and their effects. - Control is the process in which results are filtered out by exercising control on certain factors. 9. **Problem Solving:** - Here the solution of the problem being solved becomes the part of knowledge. - So, problem-solving is also an effective tool to acquire knowledge. ## Deepen ### The Nature of Truth Now that we know how we know, it's time to see whether the knowledge we acquired is “really” knowledge i.e., is true. This is the second part of epistemology: validating one's knowledge. The first step in validating one's knowledge is to ask oneself the following question: "How did I arrive at this belief, by what steps?" (Binswanger 2014). Thus you have to retrace the steps you took to acquire the knowledge, “reverse engineer" the process (Binswanger 2014). This is what Dr. Peikoff calls reduction (Peikoff 1990). One will therefore realize that the steps you took to acquire knowledge (perception-concept-proposition-inference) are the same steps needed to validate knowledge (but in reverse order). Thus what the ancient pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said is true when applied to epistemology: “_the way up [knowledge acquisition] is the way down [knowledge validation]_” (quoted by Dr. Binswanger 2014). If we perform the process of reduction we will realized that all true knowledge rest ultimately on sense perception. “_A belief is true if it can be justified or proven through the use of one's senses_” (Abella 2016). Consider the following statements (Abella 2016): - I am alive. - I have a body. - I can breathe. You can only validate the above statements if you observed yourself using your senses. Feel your body. Are you breathing? Feel your pulse. Observe your body. Is it moving? These and countless examples provided by your senses proved that you're alive (Abella 2016). Not all statements however can be validated directly by the senses. Some beliefs or ideas need a “multi-step process of validation called proof (Binswanger 2014). Nevertheless proof rests ultimately on sense perception. Statements based on sense perception are factual and if we based our beliefs on such facts our beliefs are true (Abella 2016). For example the belief that human beings have the right to life rests on the following claim: 1. Human beings are rational animals. 2. Animals (including human beings) are living organisms. And of course the fact that we are alive can be demonstrated perceptually as shown above. A third way to determine if the statement is true is through a consensus (Abella 2016). If the majority agrees that a statement is true then it is true. However there are certain limitations to this approach. Far too many times in history false ideas became popular which ultimately leads to disaster. For example the vast majority of Germans during the time of Adolph Hitler believed that Jews are racially inferior. This is obviously false supported by a pseudo biological science of the Nazi. The result of this false consensus is the extermination of millions of Jews in many parts of Europe. A fourth way to determine whether a statement is true is to test it by means of action (Abella 2016). For example you want to know if a person is friendly. Well the best way to find out is to approach the person. Thus the famous Nike injunction of “Just do it” is applicable in this situation. ### Truth vs Opinion Identifying truth however can sometimes be tricky. The reason is that there are times when we strongly held an idea that we feel “deep down” to be true. For example religious people strongly believed that there is life after death. Some people who embraced democracy may passionately embraced the idea that the majority is always right. Or on a more personal level you may feel strongly that your sister is "selfish". However we must not confused strongly held beliefs with truth. Truth is knowledge validated and when we say validated we mean they are based on the facts of reality. You must understand dear student that the facts of reality are independent of your thoughts, feelings or preferences (Ayn Rand calls this the primacy of existence [Rand 1982]). That is the characteristic of truth. For example the statement "Jose Rizal died in 1896" is true. You may not like that statement or deny it strongly. That does not change the fact that the statement is true because it is based on what really happened in the past. There are many sources that can validate the truth of that statement if one cared to look. However when you say that “Jose Rizal is the greatest man who ever lived” you are stating your preference and not facts. This is an opinion. Now it is true that there are many facts about Rizal but that statement is asserting something that is beyond what the facts state. That statement represents not facts but your interpretation of facts which may reveal your biases. To summarize an opinion has the following characteristics: 1. Based on emotions 2. Open to interpretation 3. Cannot be confirmed 4. Inherently biased While truth is: 1. Based on the facts of reality 2. Can be confirmed with other sources 3. Independent of one's interpretation, preferences and biases Likewise, when we critique sources, we must first understand the difference between fact and opinion. | FACT | OPINION | |---|---| | A fact is a statement that can be proven true or false. | An opinion is a statement of belief which may or may not be backed up by facts, but cannot be proven true or false. | | Is objective | Is subjective | | Is discovered | Is created | | States reality | Interprets reality | | Can be verified | Cannot be verified | # Lesson 2 ## Methods of Philosophy that lead to ### Wisdom and Truth ## Jumpstart ### Activity 2: FACT or BLUFF. **Directions:** Identify whether the following statements are FACT or BLUFF. 1. Oranges are always yellow or orange. **BLUFF** 2. The egg came first than the chicken. **BLUFF** 3. The chances of a coin landing on heads are the same chances of landing on tails. It's fifty – fifty. **FACT** 4. A person whose mother tongue is very different from English will never lose his/her accent when moving to the United States. **BLUFF** 5. A cloud weighs like 100 elephants. **BLUFF** 6. Pangea was the name of the Earth's original continent. **FACT** 7. You are taller in the morning than on the evening. **FACT** 8. By the age of eighteen, your brain stops growing. **BLUFF** 9. Muscle tissue is three times more efficient at burning calories than fat. **FACT** 10. Vatican is the smallest country. **FACT** ## Discover In knowing the truth or falsity of a statement, we generally use the following Theories of Truth. ### Three Different Theories of Truth **The Correspondence Theory of Truth:** The Correspondence Theory of Truth is probably the most common and widespread way of understanding the nature of truth and falsehood. Put quite simply, the Correspondence Theory argues that “truth” is whatever corresponds to reality. An idea which corresponds with reality is true while an idea which does not correspond with reality is false. It is important to note here that “truth” is not a property of “facts." This may seem odd at first, but a distinction is being made here between facts and beliefs. A fact is some set of circumstances in the world while a belief is an opinion about those what those facts are. A fact cannot be either true or false, it simply is because that is the way the world is. A belief, however, is capable of being true or false because it may or may not accurately describe the world. Under the Correspondence Theory of Truth, the reason why we label certain beliefs as “true” is because they correspond to those facts about the world. Thus, the belief that the sky is blue is a “true” belief because of the fact that the sky is blue. Along with beliefs, we can count statements, propositions, sentences, etc. as capable of being true or false. The idea that truth consists in whatever matches reality can be traced back at least as far as Plato and was picked up in the philosophy of Aristotle. However, it was not long before critics found a problem, perhaps best expressed in the paradox formulated by Eubulides, a student of the Megara school of philosophy which was regularly at odds with Platonic and Aristotelian ideas. According to Eubulides, the Correspondence Theory of Truth leaves us in the lurch when we are confronted with statements such as “I am lying" or "What I am saying here is false.” Those are statements, and hence capable of being true or false. However, if they are true because they correspond with reality, then they are false and if they are false because they fail to correspond with reality, then they must be true. Thus, no matter what we say about the truth or falsehood of these statements, we immediately contradict ourselves. This does not mean that the Correspondence Theory of Truth is wrong or useless and, to be perfectly honest, it is difficult to give up such an intuitively obvious idea that truth must match reality. Nevertheless, the above criticisms should indicate that it probably isn't a comprehensive explanation of the nature of truth. Arguably, it is a fair description of what truth should be, but it may not be an adequate description of how truth actually “works” in human minds and social situations. **The Coherence Theory of Truth:** The Coherence Theory of truth is probably second in popularity to the Correspondence Theory even though it often seems to be an accurate description of how our conception of truth actually works. Put simply: a belief is true when we are able to incorporate it in an orderly and logical manner into a larger and complex system of beliefs or, even more simply still, a belief is true when it fits in with the set of all our other beliefs without creating a contradiction. Sometimes this seems like an odd way to actually describe truth. After all, a belief can be an inaccurate description of reality and fit in with a larger, complex system of further inaccurate descriptions of reality, according to the Coherence Theory, that inaccurate belief would still be called “truth” even though it didn’t actually describe the way the world really was. Does that really make any sense? Well, possibly … the reason is because statements can't really be verified in isolation. Whenever you test an idea, you are also actually testing a whole set of ideas at the same time. For example, when you pick up a ball in your hand and drop it, it isn't simply our belief about gravity which is tested but also our beliefs about a host of other things, not least of which would be the accuracy of our visual perception. So, if statements are only tested as part of larger groups, then one might conclude that a statement can be classified as "true" not so much because it can be verified against reality but rather because it could be integrated into a group of complex ideas, the whole set of which could then be tested against reality. In this case Coherence Theory isn't that far from the Correspondence Theory and the reason is that while individual statements may be judged as true or false based upon their ability to cohere with a larger system, it is assumed that that system is one which accurately corresponds to reality. Because of this, the Coherence Theory does manage to capture something important about the way we actually conceive of truth in our daily lives. It isn’t that unusual to dismiss something as false precisely because it fails to cohere with a system of ideas which we are confident are true. Granted, maybe the system we assume to be true is quite a way off the mark, but so long as it continues to be successful and is capable of slight adjustments in the light of new data, our confidence is reasonable. **The Pragmatic Theory of Truth:** The Pragmatic Theory of truth determines whether or not a belief is true or not based on whether it has a useful (pragmatic) application in the world. If it does not, then it is not true. As with Coherence Theory, truth in this sense is nothing to do with the way the world ‘really is' but is just a function of whether an idea can be used as a model to make useful predictions about what is going to happen in the world. As a result pragmatic truths can only be learnt through interaction with the world: we don't discover truth by sitting alone in a room and thinking about it. There are, of course, a number of obvious objections that can be raised against the Pragmatic Theory of Truth. For one thing, the notion of “what works" is very ambiguous. What happens when a belief works in one sense, but fails in another? For example, a belief that one will succeed may give a person the psychological strength needed to accomplish a great deal but in the end, they may fail in their ultimate goal. Was their belief “true”? Furthermore, when a belief “works” in this sense, why call it “true”? Why not call it something like “useful"? A useful belief is not necessarily the same as a true belief and, what's worse, is that people don't typically use the word “true” in normal conversation to mean useful. For example, for the average person, the statement “It is useful to believe that my spouse is faithful" does not at all mean the same as “It is true that my spouse is faithful.” Granted, it may be the case that true beliefs are also usually the ones that are useful, but not always. As Nietzsche argued, sometimes untruth may be more useful than truth. Now, pragmatism may be a handy means for distinguishing truth from untruth. After all, that which is true should produce predictable consequences for us in our lives. In order to determine what is real and what is unreal, it would not be unreasonable to focus primarily upon that which works. This, however, is not quite the same as the Pragmatic Theory of Truth. ## Deepen This chapter shall demonstrate the various ways of doing philosophy. In search for wisdom, the learner must evaluate arguments and ways of expressing one's beliefs, emotions, and opinions. This section shall introduce methods or ways of looking at truth and what be considered as mere "opinions." Philosophizing is to think or express oneself in a philosophical manner. It considers or discusses a (matter) from a philosophical standpoint. In phenomenology, truth is based on the person's Consciousness; while in existentialism, truth is based in exercising choices and personal freedom; in postmodernism, it is accepted that truth is not absolute, (i.e., cultural); and-in logic, truth is based on reasoning and critical thinking. # 1. The dialectic method This method of philosophizing was conceived by the Greek philosopher Socrates, (born 470 BCE) one of the great philosophers of the ancient world. Unfortunately, he did not leave any written words and everything people know about him came from the dialogues written by his famous student, Plato. Socrates' aim was to achieve what he called the goof life which is based on the proper care of one's soul (psyche in Greek). The soul, according to Socrates, can be properly taken care of if we make it as good as possible (Stumpf 2008). Since by its very nature the soul's activity is to know, the soul can only be good if we employ it in the activity of having a clear awareness of the meaning of some words (Stumpf 2008). When we have a clear awareness of what justice is, we harm our soul if we act contrary to what we know, like harming others (which is the opposite of being just). However, how can we achieve a clear understanding of words? We can achieve this by an act of “disciplined conversation” (Stumpf 2008) which Socrates compared to an intellectual midwife. Socrates called this method dialectic. The method appears simple but anyone subjected by Socrates to this method eventually felt its intense rigor. The method starts with eliciting the definition of a certain word from a person who appears to be familiar (or “pretends” to be familiar) with its meaning. Socrates then points out the imperfections of the understanding of the person through a series of questions. What Socrates desires is for the person to realize his ignorance and contradictions, and thereby correcting his own mistakes and arriving at a complete knowledge of the true meaning of the word. The method, however, does not sit well with the ruling elites of Athens (the city where Socrates lived). They accused him of not worshiping the Greek gods and corrupting the youth. His defense (which was dramatically recorded in Plato's dialogue the Apology) was a model of “forceful argument" (Stumpf 2008) but it fell on deaf ears. In the end, he was forced to drink poison. Socrates was the first philosopher to die fighting for truth. The Socratic Method was modernized and treated in a different way by George Wilhelm Hegel, a German philosopher. Hegel was an idealist. He believed that the ideas of the human minds have access of what the world is like. People are social beings and could be completely influenced by other people's ideas. An individual's mind is influenced by means of a common language, customs of one's society, and the cultural institutions that one belongs to. Hegel refers this to "Spirit" as the collective consciousness of a society which is responsible for honing one's consciousness and ideas. Hegel also believed that the Spirit is constantly changing and evolving. According to Hegel, the spirit changes through dialectic. First, there is an idea about the world (much like a thesis), which has a natural characteristic of having errors which give rise to the antithesis. The thesis and antithesis can be eventually resolved by creating a synthesis which is a new idea comprised of the essentials of both the thesis and the antithesis. To Hegel, society and culture follow this design, and one could understand all of human history without the use of logic or empirical data simply by using logic (Klein, 2013). ### The Dialectic **Figure 2: The Dialectic** # 2. The Pragmatic Method Hundreds of years after the death of Socrates, a new philosophy emerged as inspired by the idea of change initiated by the evolutionary thoughts of Hegel and Darwin in 19th century America. This philosophy became known as pragmatism. It was started by Charles S. Pierce (1839-1914), popularized by William James (1842-1910) and institutionalized in American culture by John Dewey (1859-1952). According to the pragmatists, philosophy seems to offer a set of beliefs about human beings and his relationship to the world. Pragmatists offer no such beliefs. Rather, they seek to make philosophy relevant by solving real life problems. It is purely a philosophy of method and not of substance. What pragmatism aims is to test the dogma of science, religion and philosophy by determining their practical results. The pragmatic test is: if I practice this belief, will it bring success or failure? Will I solve problems or create problems? Successful experience is the verification process of truth for the pragmatists (Stumpf 2008). # 3. The Phenomenological Method The phenomenological method wa conceived by Edmund Husserl (born in 1859), one of the greatest intellects of the 19th century. His ideas and method influenced the thoughts of some of the 20th century philosophical giants: Martin Heidegger, Jean – Pau Satre, and Maurice Merleau – Ponty among others. What prompted Husserl to develop phenomenology? To answer this, we have to look back at Husserl's time and place: the 19th century Europe. At that time, science was on the ascendancy prompted by the great discoveries of Galileo, Newton, and Darwin among others. Husserl himself was impressed by the achievements of science. Unfortunately, according to Husserl, science brings a certain attitude which is counterproductive to the human soul: the naturalistic attitude (or simply naturalism). Naturalism in this context is the idea that everything can be explained in terms of matter or the physical. Since man is not only physical (i.e. body) but also spiritual, this naturalistic attitude brings a distorted view of man by banishing the spiritual from the world which includes the banishment of ideas, values, and cultures (Husserl, 1965). To counter the naturalistic tendency, Husserl returned to the idea of the thinking self which was given preeminence by the 17th century French philosopher, Rene Descartes. More specifically, the layman's term given to the thinking self is “one's immediate experience.” Husserl's main purpose was to build a philosophy free from any biases or preconceived ideas. One can only do this if one returns to immediate experience. Husserl said that he was only looking to “things and facts themselves, as these are given in actual experience and intuition" (quoted by Stumpf 2008). This experience is not the objective world of science separate from us, but the world as it appears to us or (borrowing the term of the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant) the phenomenal world - hence, the term phenomenology. However, our beliefs about human beings and the world prevent us from seeing clearly this immediate experience which he calls “pure subjectivity”. Thus, to know the truth, we have to put aside one by one all our limiting beliefs about the world which represents our biases. Husserl calls this process phenomenological epoche (epoche is the Greek word for bracketing). Bracketing is not ignoring. It is an act of stepping back at our biases and prejudices to make sure that they do not influence the way we think. Only facts provided by immediate experience must influence us. # 4. The Primary and Secondary reflections Another influential intellectual movement which had its roots in the 19th century ideas of Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was existentialism. Kierkegaard's ideas were in part a reaction against the overly ambitious system building the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). On the other hand, Nietzsche's ideas were a reaction against the religious and rational value system still prevalent in 19th century Europe (Stumpf 2008). While Kierkegaard was religious and Nietzsche was atheistic (atheism is the denial of the supernatural), they both grounded their philosophy on the personal choices of the individual which becomes one of the important tenets of existentialism. In the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and his partner, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) popularized atheistic existentialism while Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973) and Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) promoted religious existentialism. Religious existentialists saw certain parallels between existential ideas and religious themes like the fall of Adam and Eve which can be compared to the theme of inauthentic existence in existentialist philosophy (Stumpf 2008). After that brief overview on existentialism, let us focus our attention on one existentialist method identified by Gabriel Marcel: the primary/secondary reflection. For Marcel, reflection is not just a disinterested look at experience. It emerged when something valuable is at stake. Marcel gave an example of a watch. Suppose you try to take a watch from your pocket. To your surprise, the watch that you expect to be there is not there. A break from your ordinary routine happened. From this break, reflection appears in the form of a question: Where is my watch? Then, a host of questions, connected to the first one, followed: Where was the last time I've seen my watch? Was there a hole in my pocket? You try to retrace your steps from this moment back to the time when you last saw your watch. From this example, you will see that reflection arise when there is a disruption from your normal routine and when something valuable is at stake. Then, Marcel identified two levels of reflection: primary reflection and secondary reflection. Marcel applied these two levels of reflection to the most fundamental question: Who am I? Nowadays, we try to answer this question by filling up a form given by our school for example. The form asked us to write our name, age, gender, address, name of parents, etc. To answer this, of course we have to think to distinguish who we are (the self) against other things (the non-self or objects). This is the primary reflection. Yet, we had an uneasy feeling that all the information we put on the form (although true) do not fully capture who we really are (Marcel 1970). We view that our self is bigger and more expansive than what is there on the form. Thus, we are not merely thinking but we are thinking about thinking and about the process we perform in answering the form. This is the secondary reflection. The result of secondary reflection is a more expansive view of the self until it embraces the world. Thus, the separation of the self and the world brought about by primary reflection were united by the secondary reflection. # 5. The Analytic Method For Ludwig Wittgenstein, an analytic philosopher, language is socially conditioned. We understand the world solely in terms of our language games—that is, our linguistic, social constructs. Truth, as we perceive it, is itself socially constructed. Analytic philosophy is the conviction that to some significant degree, philosophical problems, puzzles, and errors are rooted in language and can be solved or avoided by a sound understanding of language and careful attention to its workings. " - Two basic types of reasoning: 1. Inductive reasoning is based from observations in order to make generalizations. This reasoning is often applied in prediction, forecasting, or behavior. 2. Deductive reasoning draws conclusion from usually one broad judgment or definition and one more specific assertion, often an inference. - Take for instance: - All philosophers are wise. (Major premise) - Confucius is a philosopher. (Minor premise) - Therefore, Confucius is wise. (Conclusion) - Validity and Soundness of an Argument - Based on the previous example (or syllogism), if the two premises are constructed logically, then the conclusion must follow logically, the deductive argument is valid. This does not necessarily mean that the conclusion is true or false. Validity comes from a logical conclusion based on logically constructed premises (Reed-2010). - Strength of an Argument - On the other hand, inductive arguments cannot prove if the premises are true which will also determine the truth of the conclusion. Inductive reasoning proves only probable support to the conclusion. An inductive argument that succeeds in providing such probable support is a strong argument. While an inductive argument that fails to provide such support is weak, a strong argument with true premises is said to be cogent. **For example:** - Jay: Do you think Congressman Gerry will be re-elected? - Yna: I doubt it. His district has become more conservative in recent years. Also, 63% of the registered voters in his district are in the Opposition. This argument is both a statistical argument and a predictive argument, which are two common patterns of inductive reasoning. Also, the conclusion does not follow necessarily from the premises. ## Activity 5: Let's Apply It! **Directions:** Fill in the table below with the main proponents of methods of philosophizing. For each method, answer the questions: “How can you find truth using this method?” and “On what real-life situation can you apply this method?" | Methods of Philosophizing | Main Proponent(s) | How can you find truth using this method? | On what real-life situation can you apply this method? | |---|---|---|---| | Dialectic | Socrates | Through a series