Philosophy Reviewer 2nd Edition PDF

UNIT 2 – AN EMBODIED SPIRIT COEXISTING life, but is, within that life, endowed with WITH THE ENVIRONMENT possibilities through the freedom he possesses to make of himself what he w...

UNIT 2 – AN EMBODIED SPIRIT COEXISTING life, but is, within that life, endowed with WITH THE ENVIRONMENT possibilities through the freedom he possesses to make of himself what he will by L1: DISCOVERING THE SELF: WHO AM I? the activities on which he decides. 1. SOCRATES – An unexamined life is not JOSE RIZAL worth living. o He claimed that disharmony among persons 2. PLATO – The soul is immortal. occur when one does not recognize the light of reason of the other person. 3. ARISTOTLE – The soul is the essence of the IMMANUEL KANT self. o He claimed that human person has the 4. SAINT AUGUSTINE – I am doubting, responsibility of respecting other people in therefore I am. the same way he/she respects himself/herself. 5. RENE DESCARTES – I think, therefore I am. Though for Rizal and Kant human being is 6. IMMANUEL KANT – We construct the self. endowed with reason, and that he/she is autonomous with self-regulating will, he/she 7. JOHN LOCKE – The self is consciousness. has the difficulty to deal with the simple question, WHO AM I? with certainty. 8. DAVID HUME – There is no self. And JASPERS asserts that human being “is more than what he/she knows about 9. GILBERT RYLE – The self is the way people himself/herself.” behave. o To answer the question "Who am I?" Is no 10. PAUL CHURCHLAND – The self is the brain. longer an important question to deal with. Possible answers may seem obvious. 11. MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY – The self is o The following are example questions: embodied subjectivity. ✓ Why do I have to live, if I die soon? ✓ Why do I have to follow a boss who A. HUMAN BEING’S UNDERSTANDING OF does not even know his/her HIMSELF/HERSELF responsibilities? HUMAN BEING ✓ Why do I have to fear losing things which I do not have yet? o The source of many questions about the ✓ What is true love? existence of the world and everything that ✓ How do I know my perception is real? exists in it. o He/she is capable of discovering all the o Human beings seem to have SIMPLE and answers of all his/her own questions. ACCEPTABLE ANSWERS. For this reason, o When confronted with the question, "Who am it seems that it is no longer necessary to deal I," which directly unveils his/her existence, with and answer questions he/she is pushed to the limit of silence. o Dr. Jose Rizal believes that because human o It seems that such ordinary and obvious beings is endowed with reason, he/she questions do not need critical and logical wonders and questions everything including analysis. Life goes on; the way human being his/her existence. directs it without dealing with such questions. o However, as human being stops from various ✓ The question does not only deal with a activities and things he/she has been doing, general concept or information about and seriously deal with the question "WHO himself/herself. AM I?' he/she would discover that such ✓ The question deals with his/her specific question is very difficult for his/her to historicity, a question that encompasses establish a unified and conventional his/her self-being. The source of questions is answers. now in question. ✓ The question that he/she considers obvious o Human being cannot just put his/her answers and ordinary becomes the center of his/her in a schema or formula, for his/her being mental and physical activity. goes beyond schemas and formulas. Karl ✓ What is seen and considered as obvious and jaspers believe that the being of a human ordinary question is certainly, can be very person is lost in a context of total difficult to answer. determination. KARL JASPERS o Thus, what seems to be obvious and ordinary question “WHO AM I?” leads o Man is always more than what he knows him/her into the depth of his/her being. This about himself. task summons him/her to leave the o He is not what he is simply once and for all, ordinariness of the given time and context in but is a process; he is not merely an extant his/her existence. B. HUMAN BEING’S ENCOUNTER WITH o Our BODY shows our corporeality but we are EXISTENTIAL LIMIT SITUATIONS more than our body because we have a soul or a spirit. o These boundary situations break the conventional pattern or ordinariness of life. ✓ The soul or spirit is philosophically discussed o They cause pauses and give opportunity to as MIND since mental capacities and look into the question, "WHO AM I?" abilities are attributed to it. Seriously and even question the usual ✓ Bear in mind that the soul is better answers or discourse about the question. understood as the mind. ✓ For dualists, the mind (mental) is not to be o For JASPERS, these situations lead human mistaken for the brain (physical) since the being to a deeper consciousness and mental is a unique phenomenon that cannot experience of his/her limitations and finitude. be reduced to the non-mental or physical. Human reflection is no longer in the peripheral level of existence but a grater o PLATO is one of those who argued for the horizon of human realities. dualism of body and soul. The human soul, he theorized, exists prior to the body and o These boundary situations lead human being even after the body is long gone. into a deeper reflection on his/her own self- o This doctrine is connected to his theory of being. He/she begins to question about Forms where the material realm (the world himself/herself: we know) is separated from the eternal realm of forms or essences (the world of ideas). ✓ Why am I experiencing guilt, o The physical world is made up of mere death or pain? appearances or copies of what is real. Such ✓ Why am I suffering this kind of things are destructible and illusory, hence illness or suffering? unreliable. ✓ What is the meaning of all of these? ✓ KNOWLEDGE is to be found in the realm of ✓ I don't want this thing to happen ideas or essences which are eternal and but why is this happening to me? true. The soul that humans possess ✓ How do I deal with these things? preexisted in the world of forms and ideas. ✓ This is why the SOUL is immortal and o These questions are fundamental bases for LEARNING is mere remembering or succeeding the questions of "WHO AM I?" recollecting what the soul once knew when it was in the realm of forms or ideas. o Moreover, the one who is formulating o Have you experienced the feeling of questions is now the main content of the familiarity as you learn something? question. Human being is not the only one o When correctly solving a questioning, but at the same time, he/she is mathematical problem, have you felt now the question. like the activity is so natural that it o Every answer of his/her question about cannot be the first time you have himself/herself becomes a basis of new done it? Some students thought so questions about his/her being. and this made Plato's theory o He/she becomes aware that his/her answers attractive to many students of to his/her own questions do not suffice Philosophy his/her longing to know more about himself/herself. RENE DESCARTES o Thus, in this context of limit situations, o He also recognized dualism and expressed human beings begin to formulate critical and this in his MEDITATIONS. perennial questions and search for deeper o In employing the method of doubt at the start and existential answers of his/her of his meditations, he arrived at the fundamental questions concerning his/her conclusion (second meditation) that he exists self-being. because doubt requires a doubter. L2: VARIOUS WAYS IN DEALING WITH THE o That he doubts is proof that he is existing. QUESTION “WHO AM I?” IN THE COURSE OF o He that exists is clearly a thing that thinks. HISTORY o He acknowledges that he is a body that is bounded by some figure and can be located “I am something real and really existing, but what am in some place and occupy space. I? A thing which thinks.” - RENE DESCARTES A. DUALITY OF BODY AND SOUL ✓ However, unlike other bodies, he has the power to move himself, to feel and to think. o The duality of body and soul is the view held ✓ Such capacities and power are not present by those who believe that our body is to all bodies and so must be attributed to his separate and distinct from our soul. spirit or soul. o The SOUL, though conceived in many ways, ✓ He that think is a thing that thinks – a mind or is that aspect of our being that is not material. a reasoning being. ✓ By 'thinking being', DESCARTES claims are that which doubts, which understands, which  conceives, which affirms, which denies, DUALISM which wills, which rejects, which imagines o Mind and body are distinct and non-identical also, and which perceives. entities. o When we ask the question, "Who am I?" MONISM ✓ We are involved in thinking about o Mind and body are manifestations of a single ourselves. substance. ✓ We reflect or introspect. ✓ In doing so, we are looking within Body and Soul or deep inside ourselves (at our Dualist approach soul or mind). Made distinction between the two SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS o Being a teenager is a difficult time because that is when one intensely feels that he/she o Among those who did not subscribe to is not the person other people think them to dualism. be. o Following Aristotle’s notion of form and o We know that there is more to who we are matter, claimed that the body and soul are than what we appear to be. not two entities that interact with each other o Our selves are not just who we are on the but are ONE BEING MADE UP OF MATTER outside but is much more about who we are AND FORM. inside. o Although the body is the Matter and the soul is the Form, a being cannot remain a being if o The mind/soul is simply difficult to reduce to matter and form are not united something physical. o The mental capacities and abilities we have o A being is one even though it consists of seemed too powerful to attribute to a brain. many parts. o But distinguishing the mind from the brain o It ceases to exist in death because the matter leads to many difficult questions which and form that make up that being is no longer remain unresolved to this day. complete. o The distinction of the mental and the bodily, o This kind of thinking is like saying that the for one, raises the question of how whole is the sum total of its parts. interaction takes place between the mind o Remove a part and it is no longer a whole. and the body. o Not to mention the problem of causal linkage o Christians believe that human is created between brain and mind. body and soul by God. o To this time, philosophers are still grappling o Human is an embodied soul. We have a body over the problem of the place of mental but we are more than our body. phenomena in nature. o Through the body we express what is within ourselves. BOTTOM LINE o In the same way, Christians speak of the o Despite numerous problems, perhaps one salvation of souls and at the same time look useful insight to be drawn out from dualism forward to Judgment Day when souls will be of body and mind is, that the qualities of our united again with their bodies body are separate and distinct from the C. HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND EXISTENCE qualities of our soul, so that what happens to our body in life and in death does not o The "I" or the self is consciousness and this translate to the exact same occurrence to our is found even in Descartes when he soul. observed that the self is a thinking thing. o People who are not born physically complete o IMMANUEL KANT is also interpreted by do not necessarily have broken souls, so to philosophers of mind as providing the basis speak. for a rationalist approach. o Whatever tragedy happens to you in life, your o The self is a rational agent who can know soul and your body will have their responses their own thoughts and attitudes, and be and you can count on either of the two to help responsible for them. you endure and survive. o What a gift it is to be HUMAN! o The first-person being or the "I" is so obvious and yet extremely difficult to explain. This B. UNITY OF BODY AND SOUL intrigued phenomenologists and o In contrast to dualism, monism is much existentialists, too. simpler and avoids many unresolved o The phenomenologists expound on questions. intentionality of consciousness while the o To say that the body and soul together make existentialists explore the feelings that are one entity does not require much proof as awakened by consciousness. opposed to offering a dualist view. o The phenomenologists see man as embodied subjectivity that exists and gives meaning, with his body making incarnate or alive the meaning he gives.  o Phenomenologists philosophize guided by beings who are much more influenced by the idea that consciousness is thought (of a things other than rationality. subject) that is directed toward an object. o The existentialists confront the possibility o The important point, however, is that human that the “I” might have been someone else or being possesses a faculty that enables might not have been at all. him/her to survive and endure life. o He/She is unlike other subjects or other o Realizing that we are contingent beings beings (plants and animals) in this world make us think deeply and more emotionally because of his/her faculty of reason. about our existence. o His/Her reason is a function of his/her mind o Contemplating about our existence can or his/her soul. sometimes bring terror and despair among o The more that human being uses his/her other things. reason to reflect and to deliberate things; the o We are born and we will die. The world will more his/her life becomes fruitful, satisfying go on without us. and meaningful. o Confronted with such, our consciousness of our place in the world can trigger complex and deep emotions of anxiety and distress. o Thus, it is clear that our mind presents phenomena that are distinct from those experienced by our body. o We can visualize pain and experience despair for instance, without a physical cause. o WE have reasons to believe that who we are cannot simply be reduced to our corporeality and yet we do not fully know or even understand the workings of our mind/soul. D. HUMAN FACULTY OF REASON o One does not have to be a philosopher to relate with or understand these things. o Humans have a mental faculty or capacity that enables them to think, to reason, to understand and, to compare, to analyze, to associate ideas and so on. o Philosophers are in agreement that human beings have this HUMAN FACULTY OF REASON. o But as to what reason can do and what it really is, there are differing views. o The scope and power of reason remain problematic because entire philosophies have been created and built depending on how reason is defined or characterized by different philosophers. o The rationalists and the empiricists both agree that there is a human faculty called REASON. o However, the rationalists discover truths by sitting and thinking while the empiricists discover truth using their senses by observing the world. o The rationalists seek knowledge by grasping necessary truths and necessary connections – truths that do not depend on man. o The empiricists also seek for truths outside of man by looking at sense data. ✓ There are also skeptics in between. ✓ Reason is contrasted by some from faith; while others would claim that reason includes the heart. ✓ Some narrow the scope of reason, others widen it. ✓ There are also some who reveal that we are less rational than we think, since we are