INTRODUCTION TO THE

PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN

PERSON
DIRECTION: CHOOSE THE LETTER THAT CORRESPONDS TO
YOUR ANSWER FROM THE GIVEN STATEMENT.

1.It is an activity that requires a person to examine his or her

thoughts, feelings and actions and learn from experience.
A. reflection C. wondering
B. questioning D. reasoning

2. What is the science and art of correct thinking?

A. Ethics C. Metaphysics
B. Aesthetics D. Logic
3. The type of philosophical reflection which trains the
mind to think logically. It is also the ability of the mind to
construct and evaluate arguments
A. Secondary reflection C. Primary reflection
B. Tertiary reflection D. all of the above

4. One of the triumvirate Greek philosophers who

pioneered a method of argument called dialectic.
A. Plato C. Pythagoras
B Socrates D. Aristotle
5. This is the process of thinking about something in a
logical way in order to form a conclusion or judgement.
A. reasoning C. intuition
B. proposition D. reflection

6. It is a term used to describe a method of philosophical

argument that involves some sort of contradictory process
between opposing sides.
A. deductive C. Inductive
B. dialectic D. reflective
7. It is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical,
biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely
as a collection of parts.
A. holism C. existentialism
B. idealism D. rationalism

8. According to Gabriel Marcel this type of reflection

enables us to look deeper into our experiences and see the
bigger picture of reality.
A. Secondary reflection C. Primary reflection
B. Tertiary reflection D. all of the above
9. The western philosophical tradition originated in______.
A. Greece C. India
B. China D. Egypt

10. What is the branch of Philosophy that studies the nature

and means of human knowledge?
A. Metaphysics C. Politics
B. Ethics D. Epistemology
What is Philosophy?
More than 2500 years ago a sage in South Asia named
Gautama Buddha declared that “Life is suffering.” This is
the first of his Four Noble Truths. And indeed, if you look at
your life you will see that it is a series of challenges that you
have to overcome if you want to survive. It feels like you
are competing in a race in which you are required to
successfully jump hurdles in order to win. And each
challenge in life is really a question or a bunch of questions
that you have to answer. If you are not feeling well for
example you might ask, Why am I feeling this way (cause)?
How can I overcome it (process)? How it will affect my life
and the people around me (consequence)?
Philosophy, is all about questions
and answers.
Blind Men and the Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe
(1816-1887)

It was six men of Indostan, The First approached the Elephant,

To learning much inclined, And happening to fall
Who went to see the Elephant Against his broad and sturdy side,
(Though all of them were blind), At once began to bawl:
That each by observation “God bless me! but the Elephant
Might satisfy his mind. Is very like a wall!”
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approach’d the animal,

And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quote he, “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quote he,
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,

Said— “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quote he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”

And so these men of Indostan

Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
1. What do you notice from the picture?

2. Did anyone get the correct answer? Why or

why not?

3. What does this picture imply about our effort to

understand the realities of life or answer our perennial
problems?
You might not realize this but you are already doing
philosophy when you are answering these three questions:

-Where am I?
-How do I know it?
-What should I do?

The reason is that these three questions are the primary

questions of philosophy.
 I. The Nature and Functions of Philosophy

A. DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY

philos
love of Greek words
(love)

wisdom Sophia
(wisdom)

philosophers = lovers of wisdom

 B. ORIGIN OF PHILOSOPHY

Greece is the birthplace of philosophy in the West.

To be more precise it is the ancient Greek city of
Miletus in the Western coast of what is now Turkey
that gave birth to philosophy. It is in this city that the
first philosopher in the West, Thales, lived. Thales is
the Father of Philosophy in the Western civilization.
He lived between 624 and 546 BCE a contemporary
of the Lydian king Croesus and the statesman Solon
(Stumpf and Fieser,2008).
What made Thales a philosopher is his desire to know
the ultimate stuff that makes up the different things
we perceived. You see when we look at the world
we encounter different things: people, trees, clouds,
mountains, rivers, etc. Now Thales believed that
despite the different things we encounter there is
one underlying stuff or substance in which
everything is composed. He believes that there is
One in the Many. Thales was the first individual who
tried to reduce the multiplicity in to a unity
(Jones,1969).
But his explanation of natural phenomena is
devoid of gods and goddesses of the old
religion of Greece. It is completely rational. It
represents a departure from the mythological
religion of Greece. Thales approach highlights
the difference between religion and
philosophy. Religion rests on faith while
philosophy rests on reason.
Thales greatest contribution to philosophy
is not his identification of water as the
ultimate stuff of the universe. His greatest
contribution is the problem he posed
“What is the ultimate stuff of the universe?”
and his approach in solving that problem.
Studying Thales makes us realize that
philosophical activity is characterized by
three things:
First in terms of scope philosophy involves the widest
generalizations (Rand, 1982). While people concern
themselves with shoes and clothes, the latest gossip about
their favorite celebrities, their crushes, philosophers
concern themselves with big issues pertaining to the truth, ,
the good, the just, the beautiful, and the existence of
practically all things. While scientists concern themselves
with scientific knowledge, historians with knowledge of the
past, economists with knowledge of supply and demand,
philosophers concern themselves with the nature of
knowledge as such (which embraces all types of
knowledge previously mentioned and more).
Second philosophy is all about fundamentals. A
fundamental is the root cause that explains almost
everything in a given context. To understand this imagine
that knowledge is like a building with levels. Now the higher
level depends on the lower levels (Peikoff, 1991). If
somehow the lower level crumbles then all the higher
levels that rest upon it will collapse. A fundamental is like
the lower floor that supports everything above it. That kind
of support is exactly what philosophy provides. If somehow
philosophical ideas like consciousness and existence
disappear then knowledge of any kind will not make any
sense because there will be nothing to know (existence)
and no one to know (consciousness).
Third philosophy is driven by the desire to
integrate things in to a one coherent whole. As
the celebrated philosopher Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel said “The true is the Whole
(Peikoff, 1991).” If you notice Thales wants to
reduce the multiplicity of things into a single
stuff. He desires to find the One in the many.
BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
 Where am I?
The study of the universe as a whole is the
province of metaphysics. Metaphysics is further
subdivided into ontology which studies
existence as such and philosophical
anthropology which deals with the
fundamental and essential characteristics of
human nature (Gotthelf and Salmieri, 2015).
 How do I know it?
concerns the nature of human knowledge and the way to
obtain it. How do we obtain knowledge? Do we obtain
knowledge by revelation, intuition, instinct or reason? Can
we achieve certainty or are we doomed to suffer
perpetual doubt? Is knowledge based on the things we
perceive or from something else? This is the concern of
epistemology which can be defined as the “branch of
philosophy that studies the nature and means of human
knowledge.”
 We need epistemology to guide us in knowing
since we make mistakes from time to time.

The first two branches of philosophy, metaphysics

and epistemology, are called cognitive branches.
These branches provide a description of being
(existence) and knowing. They are the foundations
of understanding any philosophical system.
The next three branches of philosophy
(ethics, politics and aesthetics) can be
classified as the normative branches of
philosophy because they are concerned
with the standard of the good. If the
cognitive branches are concerned with
what “is” the normative branches are
concerned with what “ought” to be.
The most basic normative branch of philosophy
is ethics or morality (I used this two concepts
interchangeably). It is concerned with the last
of the three questions central to philosophy:
What should I do? Ethics can be regarded as
the technology of philosophy (I owe this
analogy to the philosopher Ayn Rand) because
it tells us how human beings ought to function
as a human being.
But in order to describe how human beings
ought to act we must first know what a human
being is. These last is provided by metaphysics
and epistemology. (This is especially true of
philosophical anthropology a sub-branch of
metaphysics which studies the metaphysical
nature of man. Metaphysics and epistemology
are the foundations of ethics.
What then is ethics or morality? According to
Ayn Rand ethics or morality is a branch of
philosophy that provides a human being with a
“code of values to guide man’s choices and
actions - the choices and actions that
determine the course of his life (Rand, 1964).” It
is concerned with the values man ought to
pursue, the interrelationships of those values
and the means to obtain them (virtue).
The last two normative branches of philosophy,
politics and aesthetics, are derived from ethics.
Ethics is concerned with the good for human being
as a human being. If we apply ethics in a social
context then it becomes politics. The concern
therefore of ethics is broader than politics. It studies
the “good” for human beings in any setting
(whether society is present or not). An individual
who is alone in an island still has to follow ethical
principles if he wishes to survive (Peikoff, 1991).
So what then is politics? Again following Rand’s
definition politics is a branch of philosophy
“which defines the principles of a proper social
system.” According to Rand “proper” means
proper for human beings which presupposes
that one knows what a human being is. Since
knowledge about human being is provided by
the cognitive branches of philosophy, the
foundation of politics ultimately rests on
metaphysics and epistemology.
The last of the normative branch,
aesthetics studies the nature of
art. It is concerned with the nature
and the objective judgement of
beauty.
 Philosophical Tools and Processes
1. Philosophical Questions

The Socratic Method, also known as method of elenchus,

elenctic method, or Socratic debate, is a form of
cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals,
based on asking and answering questions to stimulate
critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying
presuppositions.
Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher
Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which the
dialogues of Plato are the examples of the Socratic
dialectical method.
Dialectics is a term used to describe a method of
philosophical argument that involves some sort of
contradictory process between opposing sides. As a
dialectical method, it is a discourse between two or
more people holding different points of view about
a subject but wishing to establish the truth through
reasoned arguments.
18th century philosopher Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel expounded dialectics which
later influenced Karl Marx, the father of
communism.

2. Logical Reasoning

Reasoning is the process of thinking

about something in a logical way in
order to form a conclusion or judgement.
 Reasoning is the
method we use in
Reasoning is the domain of doing philosophy.
one branch of philosophy
which is Epistemology.

a. Deductive reasoning

Premise 1: All human beings are mortal

Premise 2: But the President of the Philippines is a human being
Conclusion: Therefore, the President of the Philippines is mortal.
 b. Inductive reasoning

Premise: Student A, B, C, D, E, F….. are wearing School ID.

Conclusion: Therefore, All students are wearing ID
The logical process wherein by reasoning one arrives at a
certain truth or knowledge. Logic starts with the origin of
ideas, terms, propositions or premises, syllogism, etc. These
terms are the basic structure of argument. Unfortunately,
this branch of philosophy is equivalent to one-subject
requirement in any course in the tertiary level.
 c. 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.

1) 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.
 2) 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.
Reflection is not exclusive for philosophy in fact it is employed in
any endeavour, research or disciplines. In research it is called
methodological approach. Moral theology employs the STOP sign
as guidepost of moral decision making.

S= Search out the facts. It is necessary that all means

should be exhausted to better understand the issue.

T=Think, reflect and analyse the facts, its negative or

positive effects, advantages or disadvantages.
O= How it affects Others. We should always consider
others in every decision that we make. Every action that
we take has always a social dimension. It affects
ourselves, others and community where we belong.

P= stands for Pray. We are human beings with limitations. If

our best effort are not enough, then there is no way but
look up for divine or God for enlightenment and guidance.
Praying is a unique tool of theology which is in the realm of
faith but philosophy’s reasoning helps in undergoing a
theological reflection as St. Anselm said, “its faith seeking
understanding.”
St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the great theologian of
the church quoted in latin the relationship between
philosophy and theology; ‘philosophia ancilla
theologiae’ or philosophy is the handmaid of
theology the former is there to serve theology.
Reason is also important in theology not just faith.
Whether in philosophy, sociology or other sciences,
reflection is very useful in understanding our daily
experiences to broaden our 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).

All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL) was 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 right side represents

The left side represents
the exterior, objective,
the interior, subjective,
aspect of everything.
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.
Another basic distinction was introduced by Ken
Wilber using a horizontal line that divides space into
above and below:

singular, individual, one For example you are an

individual but you belong
in a family, community,
class (all instances of the
plural, collective, many collective).
An interesting thing happen when we combine
the two lines.

the interior of the the exterior of the

individual is the upper individual is the upper
left quadrant (UL) right quadrant (UR)

the interior of the the exterior of the

collective is the lower collective is the lower
left quadrant (LL) right quadrant (LR)

QUADRANTS – Simple Location

We can also use pronouns to label the quadrants
as shown below:

I IT

WE ITS
QUADRANTS expressed in language
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

QUADRANTS as applied to human beings

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).
Chapter Quiz