Philosophical Reflection PDF

III. Philosophical Reflection When we venture into philosophizing we see the greater perspective of all things and see the ultimate purpose or reasons for our existence. Most of us are so engross with individual trees and we miss the whole forest as the saying goes. We are always predispose to atten...

III. Philosophical Reflection When we venture into philosophizing we see the greater perspective of all things and see the ultimate purpose or reasons for our existence. Most of us are so engross with individual trees and we miss the whole forest as the saying goes. We are always predispose to attend to the details of the problem rather than look at the situation as a whole. This is true in our understanding of the objects, events, realities and situations around us. Reflection is the process that would aide in understanding the holistic point of view of what is going on around us. Reflection is an activity that requires a person to examine his or her thoughts, feelings and actions and learn from experience. (Abella, 2016). Philosophers always search for the essence of things and the ultimate reasons for our existence. Its trajectory is to see the bigger picture about everything. This process is called philosophical reflection. According to Gabriel Marcel, philosophical reflection is the act of giving time to think about the meaning and purpose of life. He mentioned two types, namely: Primary Reflection- which is the ability to think logically. The ability of the mind to construct and evaluate arguments. It examines its object by abstraction, by analytically breaking it down into its constituent parts. It is concerned with definitions, essences and technical solutions to problems. The second type is Secondary reflection. According to Marcel this type of reflection enables us to look deeper into our experiences and see the bigger picture of reality. It integrates the fragmented and compartmentalized experience into a whole. It is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts..In effect we see the broader perspective of life. In order to reflect philosophically we need to use a framework. A framework is a conceptual map consisting of our views and beliefs which affects the way we view the world (Abella 2016). The framework were going to used is called AQAL. It is an acronym that stands for All Quadrants All Levels first formulated by an American philosopher/psychologist Ken Wilber. Wilber first introduced AQAL to the world in his book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. According to Wilber everything can be analysed using a vertical line. The line above divides space into two sides: left and right. The left side represents the interior, subjective, aspect of everything. The right side represents the exterior, objective, aspect of everything. The interior (or “loob” in Filipino) if applied to human beings, includes one’s values, dreams, ideas, emotions, beliefs. It basically consists of one’s inner life. It cannot be seen or measured but can be experienced directly. The exterior side of everything are the things that we can see, measure and touch. They include the physical objects around us including our own bodies. A simple example of this inside/outside distinction is when a person smiles at you. You see the big smile so it is the exterior aspect of an event. But at the same time there is a subjective meaning behind that smile: let’s say the person is happy. This is the interior, subjective, aspect of the event. So you see two strands are interwoven behind any human event: the objective and the subjective, the interior and the exterior. Another basic distinction was introduced by Ken Wilber using a horizontal line that divides space into above and below: Above the line represents what is singular, individual, one. The space below represents what is plural, collective, many. For example you are an individual but you belong in a family, community, class (all instances of the collective). An interesting thing happen when we combine the two lines. We created what Wilber calls the quadrants. According to Wilber quadrants are “the inside and outside of the individual and collective (Wilber 2006).” There are many ways to describe the quadrants. We can use the simple location of each of the quadrant. So the interior of the individual is the upper left quadrant (UL), the exterior of the individual is the upper right quadrant (UR), the interior of the collective is the lower left quadrant (LL) and the exterior of the collective is the lower right quadrant (LR). We can also use pronouns to label the quadrants. But what we are interested is when we apply this to human beings. The inside of the individual becomes the mind, the outside of the individual becomes the body, the inside of the collective becomes culture and the outside of the collective becomes society. MIND BODY CULTURE SOCIETY Now when we reflect on the nature of any concrete issue like poverty, corruption, prostitution, global warming we can just put the issue at the center of the quadrant and analyzed its mental, physical, cultural and social components. This is looking at an issue from an all quadrant, multiple and holistic perspective. Let’s take for example the issue of poverty. How do we reflect on the issue using the AQAL framework? Well we know that poverty has a psychological aspect (UL quadrant) to it. It affects the way we think, feel and even what we value. But it does not stop there. Poverty also affects bodies (UR quadrant). It affects our nutrition, our medication and immune system. Some children have stunted growth due to poverty. And who could deny that poverty also affects the culture such as arts, religion and even the way we dress. Religious feast such as the procession of the Black Nazarene is in part motivated by poverty. And of course it is obvious that poverty has an economic, political and even technological components (all parts of the social LR quadrant). Self-pity Malnutrition POVERTY Collective aspiration Inflation for a better life