Philo Manual PDF

Introduction to the
Philosophy of the
Human Person
(K+12 Curriculum)
*This reading material is compiled and edited

by Nico Diwa B. Ocampo
as supplementary material in the subject
Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person
credits and rights are all still reserved to the authors and publishers
sighted in the bibliography.
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OUTLINE OF OUTLINE
Introduction
For the Student
Module One : What is Philosophy?

Lesson 1: What is Philosophy?
Lesson 2: Approaches and Branches of Philosophy
Lesson 3: Philosophy, Science and Religion
Module Two: Man as Knowing

Lesson 1: Knowledge and Human Knowing
Lesson 2: Theories of Knowledge
Lesson 3: Acquisition of Knowledge
Lesson 4: Validity of Knowledge
Module Three: Man as Embodied Subject

Lesson 1: Man as a Subject
Lesson 2: Man and His Body
Lesson 3: Man in Existentialism
Module Four: The human person in their environment

Lesson 1:
Lesson 2:
Module Five : Man and Freedom

Lesson 1: The Will: Nature and Existence
Lesson 2: Attributes of God (Part I and II)
Lesson 3: Freedom of the Will (Part II)
Lesson 4: A Defense of Determinism
Module Six : Man and God

Lesson 1: The Study of Man
Lesson 2: Philosophy of Religion: Basic concepts
Lesson 3: Attributes of God (Part I and II)
Lesson 4: Arguments for God’s Existence
Module Seven: Man as oriented towards their Impending death

Lesson 1: Man and His Work with readings on Karl Marx’s
“Alienated Labor” and Ayn Rand’s “Individualism” theory
Lesson 2: Man and His quest for Meaning, with readings on
Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”,
and Erich Fromm’s “Having and Being.”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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INTRODUCTION
PHILOSOPHY OF MAN
Protagoras, a contemporary of Socrates,

once said, “Man is the measure of all things”
and thus emphasized the importance of
human existence and its attendant age-old
existential issues and philosophical
problems as the foremost problem of
philosophy. In the same vein much later,
Alexander Pope, an English poet, expressed
his opinion: “The proper object of
philosophical inquiry is man and it is by
undertaking the analysis of the human
situations and problems that philosophy
may be able to address.”
While philosophers, in general, differ
in their points of view and set forth different
aims of philosophy yet they are one in
asserting that man and his problems should
be the only object of philosophical inquiry. If
philosophy cannot help man in evolving a
better life-situation, in solving day-to-day
problems which result in conflict, confusion
and confrontation, it is an exercise in futility. Hence, philosophers reject any
subject matter of philosophy which has no relation with life, either directly or
indirectly.
In our study of Philosophy of Man, we cannot help but become personal
about this endeavor, for when we study man, we are, in effect, studying
ourselves: what we are and who we are!
Philosophy of Man is a holistic philosophical approach to understand the
human person better by considering all the important and significant aspects
related to him. We shall be treating each aspect one at a time so that,
ultimately, we can see MAN—totally and comprehensively.
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FOR THE STUDENT
Too often Philosophy tends to be regarded as a remote and abstruse

subject which can only be profitably studied by the brilliant few. It seems that
this is unfortunate and that philosophical matters are often less difficult and
more than is generally supposed.
In order to benefit greatly in our philosophical studies, one must always

approach the subject with an open, critical and inquisitive mind. It is also
important to realize that philosophy, unlike the sciences, does not offer definite
answers. The activity of philosophizing is not going to produce a set of cut-and-
dried answers to clearly stated problems. We shall be moving in the world
where “one cannot tell,” “I don’t know’” “it all depends,” and “it’s a matter of
opinion” will be essential and frequently recurring phrases. We shall hope to
sort out and tidy up some problems and discover the kind of question that it
makes sense to ask and the kind of answer that we can expect to get; we shall
hope to end up with more knowledge, more wisdom and a clearer
understanding.
But if the ardent seeker of the truth is not content with that, if he is only
interested in answers that are right and wrong, if he wants final, conclusive
certainty he must go elsewhere--to the study, for example of pure mathematics.
As he does so, he will be shutting with a clang the door that leads to the world
of “it all depends.” And this will be a pity for it is the world in which we live.
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MODULE 1: WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
This Module serves to introduce and orient the students about

Philosophy. It will present the nature, approaches, branches and functions of
Philosophy, in general. It will also try to explain the basic differences between
philosophy, science and religion.
This module contains the following:
Lesson 1: What is Philosophy?

Lesson 2: Approaches and Branches of Philosophy
Lesson 3: Philosophy, Science and Religion
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LESSON 1
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy is the love of wisdom (etymologically from the Greek philos

meaning “love,” and sophia, meaning “wisdom”). In the beginning, the term
philosophy was loosely used by Greek thinkers and it conveyed many things. It
was Pythagoras of Samos, a sage and a mystic during the 6th century BC, who
invented the word “philosophy.” “Philosophia” therefore, is the love of wisdom
and philosophers are lovers of wisdom.
The story goes that while Pythagoras was watching the Olympic games
inside an amphitheater, he notices three groups of people. The first group were
there to play games, to win, to compete, to fight in order to win honor, prestige
and fame. Pythagoras called them the “lovers of fame.” The second group of
people went to the Olympic games to make money and gain profit by selling
their goods and wares inside. They were the “lovers of gain.” The third group
went there to watch the games and be thrilled by the events unfolding.
Pythagoras called them the “lovers of spectacle.”
The story does not end here, for after leaving the Olympics, Pythagoras
observed, just as well, that there were still three groups of people in real life.
There were those whose lives were lived solely for the purpose of becoming
famous: LOVERS OF FAME. There were those who live life with one aim, to
become rich and wealthy: LOVERS OF GAIN. But there were also those people
who are just in a minority, who live life not to become rich or famous, but who
live life with one purpose in mind: to understand what life is really all about.
Hence, philosophy is used to denote love of thinking, thinking attitude,
reflective attitude towards life. Philosophers reflect on knowledge, on God, on
life, on death, on what man is and who man is, on right and wrong, on society,
and other questions. Pythagoras called these people, including himself, of
course: LOVERS OF WISDOM.
Pythagoras coined the term “philosophos” in order to differentiate them
from the “sophos.” The sophos during their time were men of great intelligence
but they were so proud as to admit that they alone possess wisdom. The
sophos were traveling teachers, as well. They went to various places teaching
the young rhetoric’s and the skill to debate and argue. Of course, for a pay.
However, they are more interested, not in the Truth, but how to win every
argument they are involved in. So Pythagoras claimed himself not a sophos, not
wise, but only a philosophos a lover of wisdom.
Using a standard dictionary, Philosophy will have to be defined as
something like this: “Philosophy is the study of the ultimate reality, causes and
principles underlying being acquired through the use of human reason alone.”
Plato gave a specific and technical meaning to the term. He defined philosopher
as one whose attention is fixed on reality rather than on appearances. A
philosopher is interested in grasping the essential nature of things. For
instance, a philosopher was leisurely walking inside the university campus. He
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passed by an untilled garden. He saw a small flower, plucked it out and then
made a philosophical reflection. He said, “Little flower, I plucked you out from
an obscure garden. Little flower, I am holding you in my hand. Little flower, if I
can understand your roots, your stem, your leaves, your petals—and all in all—
then I can understand life and if I can understand life then I can understand
God.”
Thus, philosophy is defined as a reflective and reasoned attempt to infer
the character and content of the universe taken in its totality. We may say,
then, that philosophy is, “a resolute and persistent attempt to understand and
appreciate the universe as a whole.”
Philosophy is basically an attitude and activity of the human mind. To
have a guiding attitude towards life is to have a philosophy, since the principles
which a man consciously or unconsciously adopts determines his thinking and
actions in dealing with the practical issues of human existence. The impulse to
philosophize is motivated by the desire to adopt for oneself and for others a
creed to live by. The aim of such an attempt is to make our lives coherent and
purposive. There is no sense in philosophizing unless it affects our attitude to
life and its attendant problems. G.K. Chesterton, the noted English writer, said
that the most important and practical thing about man is his attitude towards
life and his view of the universe. Thus, it matters whether a man is a pessimist
or an optimist, an empiricist, or a rationalist, a skeptic, or a believer. More
than just a subject, philosophy is an activity. There is nothing new about the
idea that the activity of philosophizing is more important than the subject,
philosophy. Some two hundred years ago, the great German philosopher,
Immanuel Kant, told his pupils:
You will not learn from me philosophy, but how to

philosophize, not thoughts to repeat, but how to think.
Think for yourselves, enquire for yourselves, stand on
your own feet. Dare to think, no matter where it might
lead you. Just dare to think.
Philosophy refers to a way of living and thinking. In this sense, every

man has a philosophy. A man’s way of thinking, his attitude, beliefs and
opinions constitute his philosophy. Our happiness, peace of mind and style of
living depends upon our way of thinking or the philosophy of our life. In a
general sense, when we speak of a man’s philosophy, we simply mean the sum
of his beliefs. His beliefs refer to those all viewpoints which guide his thinking
and actions about life and the world. Different men have different kinds of
philosophies. In the words of Fichte, the 19th century German idealist, “the
kind of philosophy a man adopts depends on the kind of man he is.”
In India, we are told, that philosophy is traditionally called Darshana
implying thereby insight into the real nature and essence of things. In Platonic
sense, a philosopher is a man of wisdom. A wise man has a clear
understanding of the distinction between reality and appearances. Man is not
like other animals. He is a rational being and lives in the organized life of
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society. He has ideals and purposes besides responsibilities towards others.
Therefore, it is essential for him to know the distinction between real and
unreal, between right and wrong, between knowledge and opinion. A
philosopher is a guide to humanity. He is one who apprehends the essence or
reality of the world; the one who is able to grasp the eternal and immutable.
At this point, it is necessary to spell out the subject matter of philosophy.
What is philosophy constituted of? The history of philosophy shows that
philosophers have discussed a great variety of questions. It is very difficult to
provide a general description which includes all these questions. However, we
can roughly indicate the main questions with which philosophers have been
concerned with. Generally, philosophers are interested in questions like:
1. Is there a God? What reasons are there to believe in God? Can we prove
or disprove God’s existence? (Philosophy of Religion or Philosophical
Theology)
2. What is knowledge? Can we know? What is it to know? How can we
know? (Epistemology or Theory of Knowledge)
3. What is man? Who is man? Is man only his body or is man his soul?
(Philosophical Psychology)
4. Are we free? Are our actions already determined? Do we have a free will?
(Metaphysics and Ethics)
5. What is right? What is wrong? (Ethics or Moral Philosophy)
6. What is beauty? (Aesthetics or Philosophy of Art)
7. What is the good life? What is happiness?
8. Does life make sense? What is the meaning of life?
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LESSON 2
PHILOSOPHY: Its Approaches, Major Branches and Functions
APPROACHES
There are three ways to approach the study of philosophy. And these are:
1. Historical Approach – This is done by dividing philosophy into four

major periods, namely:
Ancient Classical Philosophy – The philosophical period emphasized a

concern with the ultimate nature of reality and the problem of virtue in a
political context. This period was the era of the Greek philosophers who
ventured and dealt on cosmological problems in their philosophical endeavor.
This cosmological problem paved the way to ensue philosophical answer of
what basically constitutes the world. Thales is of the Greek philosophers who
gave us the philosophical perspective that all is water or water is what
constitutes the cosmos (world). The concern later gradually shifted into political
discussion. Socrates, however, transformed the Greek philosophy which was
later infiltrated by the Sophists who claimed to know the truth which could
uplift man’s condition but merely argued to convince people just for a pay.
Medieval Philosophy – This philosophical period used philosophy to

rationalize Christian beliefs. This was also known as the limelight of Christian
philosophy which was geared in a theocentric perspective. It focused on
asserting the reality of God and the proofs or arguments that proves his
existence. St. Thomas Aquinas is one of the leading proponents of this
philosophical period who argued that everything that exists has its cause and
the first cause that could explain everything is God, the first cause.
Modern Philosophy – This period in philosophy is characterized by a

separation of reason from faith and which eventually led to the development of
science. This was the starting point already where philosophers imbibed a
systematic and empirical perspective in their philosophical discourse.
Contemporary Philosophy – This concerns the late 19th And 20th century
philosophy which generally focused with man and linguistic analysis. The 20th
century philosophy was set for a series of attempts to reform and preserve, and
to alter or abolish, older knowledge systems. It deals with the upheavals
produced by a series of conflicts within philosophical discourse over the basis
of knowledge, with classical certainties overthrown, and new social, economic,
scientific and logical problems.
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2. Through a study of individual philosophers – In this approach, one
has to study the ideas and thoughts of these philosophers by going
through their major works and writings. Their ideas and opinions are all
expressed in the books that they have written. However, to understand
clearly the major writings of our philosophers, it is advisable to consult
and read some commentaries or secondary materials. For example, to
understand Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is an exercise in futility if you
do not supplement it with Fr. Copleton’s History of Philosophy, Vol. 6,
Part II. Philosophy is the main subject of Plato; or Aristotle’s Metaphysics
and Niconachean Ethics; of large parts of the works of St. Thomas
Aquinas, Duns Scotus and William of Ockham; of the Meditations of Rene
Descartes; of the Ethics of Spinoza; of the Monadology of Leibniz; of
Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding; of Berkeley’s Three
Dialogues and Principles of Human Knowledge; of Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason; and finally, in the present century, of Moore’s own Principia
Ethica; of Russel’s Our Knowledge of the External World; of Heidegger’s
Being and Time; of Sartre’s Beings and Nothingness; and of Wittgenstein’s
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. These are some of the major writings of
some major philosophers.
Below is a list of some philosophers and the major period they belong.
Ancient Classical Philosophy

Socrates (c. 470-399 BC)
Plato (c. 428-348)
Aristotle (c. 384-322 BC)
Medieval Philosophy
St. Augustine (354-430)
Boethius (480-524)
St. Anselm (1033-1109)
St. Abelard (1079-1142)
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Modern Philosophy Contemporary Philosophy

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) G.E. Moore (1873-1958)
Rene Descartes (1591-1650) Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Edmund Husserl (1859-1938)
Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) Martin Heidegger (1889-1976)
John Locke (1632-1704) Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973)
George Berkeley (1685-1753) Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
David Hume (1711-1776) MauriceMerleau-Ponty(1908-1961)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
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George Hegel (1770-1831)
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Friedrich Nietzeche (1844-1900)
3. Approach through philosophical problems – Philosophers are

philosophers because a great deal of life was spent on philosophizing on
major philosophical problems. The questions listed in the last part of
Lesson 1 are just some of the philosophical questions in which
philosophers have concerned themselves with. Some philosophers
devoted much on just one or two questions while others tried to provide
answers on almost all questions and thus creating a whole system of
philosophy. Each particular problem or question corresponds to a
particular branch in philosophy. These are the approaches to a study of
philosophy. And in this course, we will combine the three approaches in
order to get a clear picture of the subject.
Needless to say, in our study of philosophy we cannot but become
philosophers ourselves. For we all are philosophers as long as we are
open to every possible idea, questioning and inquisitive and ever full of
wonder.
“To be a philosopher,” said Henry David Theoreau, “is not merely to
have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom
as to live, according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence,
magnanimity, and trust.” Francis Bacon admonishes us, “Seek ye first
the good things of the mind and the rest will either be supplied or its loss
will not be felt. ”Truth will not make us rich, but it will make us free!
MAJOR BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
These are some of the major branches of philosophy and their

description:
Metaphysics
Aristotle, who first studied it systematiclly, called it "first philosophy" and
it is the subject that deals with "first causes and the principles of things." It is
the branch of philosophy concerned with the ultimate nature of existence. It
attemtps tp characterize existence or reality as a whole. It is the study of the
ultimate reality of all things.The modern meaning of the term is any inquiry
dealing with the ultimate nature of what exists. Within metaphysics, Ontology
is the inquiry into the meaning of existence itself, sometimes seeking to specify
what general types of things exist (though sometimes the term is taken to be
equivalent to metaphysics.) Under Metaphysics includes: Cosmology (the the
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study of the of the world or universe) and Philosophical Theology (Philosophy
of Religion).
Epistemology
In our ordinary life, we consistently assume there are only a limited
number of ways in which it is possible to acquire real knowledge. Philosophers
have tried to classify all the different ways in which we can know things. The
problems concerning knowledge belong to the department of philosophy known
epistemology.
Ethics
Another important branch of philosophy is that of ethics or “moral
philosophy.” Philosophers have discussed such problems as the ideal or
purpose of life, the norms of right actions and the theories of good and evil. It is
concerned with questions of how agents ought to act.
Logic
Logic is a branch of philosophy which deals with principles of valid
reasoning. It also includes scientific methodology and the fundamental laws
which regulate human thinking and reasoning. Philosophical inquiry is
directed to the discovery of truth, the knowledge of distinction between true or
false. This is not possible if our thinking and reasoning is invalid or full of
errors. Thus, logic is an indispensable department of philosophy, as important
as metaphysics and epistemology.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics or Philosophy of Arts consists of problems regarding beauty
and sublimity. Why is an object called beautiful? To what extent does the sense
of appreciation of beauty contribute to the enrichment of human life. These
and similar questions constitute the subject matter of aesthetics.
Psychology
Psychology started as an inseparable branch of philosophy. The scientific
study of the mind and its impact on human behavior contributes to a great
extent in better understanding of human nature. Psychology is particularly
related with ethics.
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Religion takes up basic problems like the concept and
existence of God, conventional and rational religion, the nature of religious
faith, doubt and belief and the role of religion in the evolution of human
civilization.
Thus, we see that the subject matter of philosophy covers a wide range of
problems related to different aspects of man.
We may say that there is theoretical philosophy as well as practical
philosophy. Theoretical philosophy includes departments of metaphysics,
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epistemology and logic. Practical part of philosophy covers philosophy of
values, or ethics, aesthetics, psychology and the study of religion.
Philosophy of Man
Philosophy of Man attempts to understand, man as an individual, as a

knower, as a free being, as loving, as a being-towards-death, as a being-before-
God, in other words, as a BEING-IN-THE-WORLD.
FUNCTIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy undertakes a critical examination of the grounds on which

beliefs are held. A large part of the business of philosophy is to inquire
what reason can do, what it cannot do, by way of supporting a particular
belief. As human beings, endowed with reason, we cannot prevent
ourselves from thinking about the frame and principles, the destiny of
our lives. The right use of reason brings us nearer to the truth.
Philosophy itself is founded upon a belief expressed long ago by Socrates
that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
Another function of philosophy is to frame a picture of the whole

universe, to establish a complete worldview. This function distinguishes
it from the sciences which concentrate on a particular aspect of Nature.
According to the British evolutionary philosopher, Herbert Spencer,
science is partially unified knowledge while philosophy is completely
unified knowledge. Philosophy is defined as the effort to comprehend the
universe as a whole, not a special department of it. To know only a part
is to have incomplete and distorted view of things.
The function of philosophy is not to change the world but to
understand it. In the context of the contemporary world and its
problems, philosophy is very relevant because it helps us to realize that
there are very important questions which science cannot answer, and
that scientific knowledge is not sufficient. Further, philosophy keeps
people intellectually modest and aware that there are no shortcuts to
knowledge, what we believe to be indisputably true may turn out to be
untrue.
In discussing the aim of philosophy, it is quite relevant to quote
the great British philosopher Bertrand Russell, “I think philosophy has
two uses. One of them is to keep alive speculations about things that are
not yet amenable to scientific knowledge, after all, scientific knowledge
covers a very small part of the things that interest mankind and ought to
interest them. There are a great many things of immense interest about
which science, at present rate, knows little and I don’t want people’s
people imaginations to be limited and enclosed within what can be now
known. I think I enlarge your imaginative view of the world in the
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hypothetical real and it is one of the uses of philosophy. Another use of
philosophy is to use that there are things which we thought we knew and
don’t know. Philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may
come to know, and to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems
like knowledge is not knowledge.”
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LESSON 3
PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Summative Overview
It is quite useful to discuss science, religion and philosophy under one

heading in order to articulate their similarities and differences. These topics are
directly related with life. Science is generally held to be opposed to religion
because of its distinct aim and method. Its aim is cognitive and its method is
empirical. It aims to increase our knowledge of nature. This knowledge enables
us to exploit nature for our purposes. The method adopted by science for
acquiring this knowledge is empirical; that is, it is based on human experience.
Experience in science means observation, experimentation and verification.
Religion, on the other hand, is largely a matter of personal faith and belief. It
aims at liberating man from bondage to materialistic life. Thus, science and
religion seem to tread different paths for reaching different goals.
Philosophy is distinct from both science and religion since it does not
entirely rely on observation and analysis for the discovery of truth and neither
is it personal faith. It aims to develop right understanding of life and the world
by critical reflection. Science and philosophy are similar since they are both
cognitive disciplines, while religion and philosophy are similar in concerning
themselves with the nature of man and his destiny.
Further, philosophers act as guide both to scientists and men of religion
so that these contribute to the enrichment of human life. Philosophers have
always been gifted men who looked at things in a detached manner. When
Plato said, “Until philosophers are kings or kings and princes have power and
spirit of philosophy, human society will not cease from evil and sufferings,” he
stressed the importance of philosophy. Philosophy is not opposed to any
branch of knowledge, much less to science and religion. It refers to a way of
thinking, an attitude to life, hence, no aspect of human experience is without
philosophy. Philosophy is mother of all sciences, it is science of sciences, since
the earliest human inquiries were related to philosophical problems. Thus, we
can say that philosophy deals with the fundamentals of life and, hence, is
intimately related with all areas of human existence.
Now we can discuss these topics separately.
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Philosophy and Science
Most human beings are curious. Not, I mean, in the sense that they are
odd, but in the sense that want to find out the world around them and about
their own part in this world. They, therefore, ask questions, they wonder, they
speculate. What they want to find out may be quite simple things: What lies
beyond the range of mountains? How many legs has a fly? Or they may be
rather complicated inquiries: How does grass grow? What is coal made of? Why
do some liquids extinguish flames while others stimulate them? Or they may be
more puzzling inquiries still: What is the purpose of life? What are we here for?
What is the ultimate nature of truth? In what sense, if any, are our wills free?
To the first two questions, the answers may be obtained by going and
seeing, and catching one and counting, respectively. The answers to the next
set of questions will be so easy, but the method will be essentially the same. It
is the method of the scientist, investigating, measuring, and experimenting. A
method that may be reasonably summed up in two words: “going and seeing.”
The last set of questions would normally be thought of as philosophical, and it
would not be easy to find answers to them that would commend general
agreement. Some people would say that they are unanswerable. But those who
have tried to answer them in the past have on the whole used the method of
speculation rather than investigation, “sitting and thinking” rather than going
and seeing.
“Leisure,” as Thomas Hobbes remarked, is the mother of philosophy.”
The same relationship, it will be noted as that which proverbially exists
between necessity and invention. (Remember the proverb: Necessity is the
mother of invention.) This should not be taken to imply that philosophers are
not busy people, but that their activity is likely to mental rather than physical.
It would be a misleading oversimplification, however, to identify science
with investigating or “going and seeing” and philosophy with speculation or
“sitting and thinking.” The scientist who is investigating the world around him
will certainly do some sitting and thinking about the results of his inquiries.
The philosopher who is speculating about the nature of truth, though he may
not do much going, is likely to do a certain amount of seeing. He must have
some data for reflection.
Nevertheless, it is on the whole true that for science the emphasis has
been on investigation, and for philosophers on speculation, and philosophers
have often been criticized for this reason.
Science is analytical description, philosophy is synthetic interpretation.
Science resolves the whole into parts, the organism into organs, the obscure
into the known. It does not inquire into the values and ideal possibilities of
things, nor into their total final significance. It concerns itself into the nature
and processes of things as they are. But the philosopher is not content to
describe the fact; he/she wishes to ascertain its relation to experience in
general, and thus to get at its meaning and is worth; he combines things in
interpretive synthesis; he/she ties to put together things which the inquisitive
scientist has analytically taken apart. To observe processes and to construct
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means is science; to critique and coordinate ends in philosophy. Science gives
us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
Science is very important. The fruits of scientific research have in many
cases turned out to be applicable to the solution of concrete practical problems;
and in civilized countries these practical applications have immeasurably
improved the material conditions of human life. That science has put into the
hands of man power undreamed of before over the processes of nature, and
enabled him to utilize her forces for attainment of his purposes, so today
evident to everybody, and accounts for the enormous prestige science now
enjoys.
On the other hand, the fact is now becoming all too evident that the
ledger of scientific progress has a debit as well as a credit side. The power that
scientific knowledge brings has, indeed, made possible the cure or prevention
of many diseases; it has provided new and highly efficient means of production,
communication, and transportation; and it has given man all the convenient
gadgets on which he is today so dependent. But at the same time it has
complicated his life, robbed it in large measure of the joy of craftsmanship,
multiplied its needs, and brought it new diseases and perils. The natural
sciences and the might they have brought to man are in themselves wholly
neutral as regards values; they lend themselves equally to the efficient
implementation of good and evil purposes.
Philosophical reflection is not an activity indulged only by specialists
called philosophers who allegedly live in architectural monstrosities known as
ivory towers. Just each of us at times engages casually all of us on certain
occasions spontaneously occupy ourselves with philosophical questions.
We may, for example, read in the newspapers of a child born hopelessly
malformed and defective, but who, if operated upon at once, might nonetheless
be kept alive. And we may read further that the physician in charge realizing
that the child’s life could not be other than a grievous burden to himself, to his
parents, and to society, refrained from operating and allowed the child to die.
Then, in letters from readers to the editors of newspapers all over the country,
controversy rages about whether the physician’s action was morally right or
morally wrong. And even if we do not ourselves take active part in them, we too
form opinions of the question.
In such a controversy the participants do not merely state their moral
appraisal of the physician’s course. They also give reasons of one kind or
another to support the validity of their judgment. And if these reasons are in
turn challenged, each participant brings forth considerations he believes
adequate to vindicate the validity of his reasons.
The reasons, and the reasons for the reasons that are thus appealed to
as grounds for endorsing or condemning the physician’s action, constitute a
moral philosophy, or at least a fragment of one. And the mental activity of
searching for those reasons, so editing them as to purge them of the
inconsistencies or exaggerating errors that opponents were able to point out,
constitute philosophizing, or philosophical reflections.
19
In the main, science and philosophy differ in various respects, namely:
object, scope and method.
1. Object - science’s object of inquiry are tangible, material,
observable and verifiable realities whereas
philosophy’s formal object are all intangible realities
such as God, right and wrong, knowledge, etc.
2. Scope - because science’s object are material things, its
scope, too, is limited by its object of study. Whereas
philosophy seeks to understand the “ultimate reality,
causes and principles of beings.” Philosophy is, thus,
boundless, without limit.
3. Method - science has its own method of inquiry to find
knowledge. It uses data gathering, observation,
hypothesis formulation, test and measurement, etc.
While philosophy is more bent on just speculation.
Religion
We don’t have to dwell on this aspect lengthily considering that a

separate topic about “Man and God” will be discussed in the latter part of this
manual. We have to touch on religion in general terms.
Coming to religion, it is generally identified rituals, with practices of one
kind or another, with taboos and inhibitions and restraints of various kinds.
Mostly religion implies belief in God. Perhaps religion started with fear but the
idea of God came from wonder and awe. Religion also means worship in one
way or another, and in such acts of worship the believer humbles himself,
surrenders to the God of his belief. In religion there is something that cannot
be explained. It can also be interpreted as understanding based on perception
with oneself. Religion proclaims that behind all this phenomena, the world of
nature and man, there is the reality called God. Thus, religion is not just based
on faith, it is based on the fact that men who have discovered God come and
tell us that they have discovered so. There are men who claim to have
experienced God—become conscious of something within themselves. They do
not pride with their religion but rather on their personal relationship with the
knowable God.
Ten Commandments of Philosophy
1. Allow the spirit of wonder to flourish in your breast. Philosophy begins

with deep wonder about the universe and questions about who we are,
where we came from, and where we are going. What is this life all about?
Speculate and explore different points of view and worldviews. Do not
stifle childlike curiosity.
20
2. Doubt everything unsupported by evidence until the evidence convinces
you of its truth. Be reasonably cautious, a moderate skeptic, suspicious
of those who claim to have the truth. Doubt is the soul’s purgative
process. Do not fear intellectual inquiry. As Johann Goethe (1749-1832)
said, “The masses fear the intellectuals, but it is stupidity that they
should fear, if they only realized how dangerous it really is.”
3. Love the truth. “Philosophy is the eternal search for truth, a search which
inevitably fails and yet is never defeated; which continually eludes us,
but which always guides us. This free intellectual life of the mind is the
noblest inheritance of the Western world; it is also the hope of our
future” (W.T. Jones).
4. Divide and conquer. Divide each problem and theory into its smallest
essential components in order to analyze each unit carefully. This is the
analytic method.
5. Collect and construct. Build a coherent argument or theory from
component parts. One should move from the simple, secure foundations
to the complex and comprehensive. As mentioned previously, Russell
once said that the aim of philosophical argument was to move from
simple propositions so obvious that no one would think of doubting them
via a method of valid argument to conclusions so preposterous that no
one could help but doubt them. The important thing is to have a
coherent, well-founded, tightly reasoned set of beliefs that can withstand
the opposition.
6. Conjecture and refute. Make a complete survey of possible objections to
your position, looking for counterexamples and subtle mistakes.
Following a suggestion of Karl Popper, philosophy is a system of
conjecture and refutation. Seek bold hypotheses and seek
disconfirmations of your favorite positions. In this way, by a process of
elimination, you will negatively and indirectly and gradually approach
the Truth. In this regard, seek to understand your opponent’s position,
for as John Stuart Mill wrote, “He who knows only his own side of the
case knows little of that. If he is equally unable to refute the reasons on
the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has
no ground for preferring either opinion.” Mill further urges us to face
squarely the best arguments our opponent can muster, for until we have
met those arguments we can never be sure that our position is superior.
The truth seeker “must know (the opponent’s arguments) in their most
plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the
difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose
of, else he will never really possess himself of the portion of the truth
which meets and removes that difficulty.”
21
7. Revise and rebuild. Be willing to revise, reject, and modify your beliefs
and the degree with which you hold any belief. Acknowledge that you
probably have many false beliefs and be grateful to those who correct
you. This is the principle of fallibilism, the thesis that we are very likely
incorrect in many of our beliefs and have a tendency toward self-
deception when considering objections to our position.
8. Seek simplicity. This is the principle of parsimony, sometimes known as
Occam’s Razor. Prefer the simple explanation to the more complex, all
things being equal.
9. Live the Truth. Appropriate your ideas in a personal way, so that even as
the objective truth is a correspondence of the thought of the world, this
lived truth will be a correspondence of the life of the thought. As
Kierkegaard said, “Here is a definition of (subjective) truth: holding fast
to an objective uncertainty in a appropriation process of the most
passionate inwardness is the truth, the highest available for an existing
individual.”
10. Live the Good. Let the practical conclusions of a philosophical
reflection on the moral life inspire and motivate you to action. Let moral
Truth transform your life so that you shine like a jewel glowing in its own
light amidst the darkness of ignorance.
Selected Reading
WISDOM by Alfred North Whitehead
The fading of ideals is sad evidence of the defeat of

human endeavor. In the schools of antiquity philosophers
aspired to impart wisdom, in modern colleges our humbler aim
is to teach subjects. The drop from the divine wisdom, which
was the goal of the ancients, to textbook knowledge of subjects,
Alfred North
which is achieved by the moderns, marks an educational
Whitehead failure, sustained through the ages. I am not maintaining that
through the practice of education the ancients were more
successful than ourselves. You have only to read Lucian, and to note his satiric
dramatizations of the pretentions of philosophers, to see that in this respect
the ancients can boast over us no superiority. My point is that, at the dawn of
our European civilization, men started with the full ideals which should inspire
education, and that gradually our ideal has sunk to square with our patience.
Thought knowledge is one chief aim of intellectual education, there is
another ingredient, vaguer but greater, and more dominating in its importance.
The ancients called it “wisdom.” You cannot be wise without some basis of
knowledge; but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.
22
Now wisdom is the way in which knowledge is held. It concerns the
handling of knowledge, its selection for the determination of relevant issues, its
employment to add value to our immediate experience. This mastery of
knowledge, which is wisdom, is the most intimate freedom obtainable. The
ancients saw clearly—more clearly than we do—the necessity for dominating
knowledge by wisdom. But, in the pursuit of wisdom in the region of practical
education, they erred sadly. To put the matter simply, their popular practice
assumed that wisdom could be imparted to the young by procuring
philosophers to spout at them. Hence, the drop of shady philosophers in the
schools of ancient Greece. The only avenue towards wisdom is by freedom in
the presence of knowledge. But the only avenue towards knowledge is by
discipline in the acquirement of ordered fact.
The importance of knowledge lies in its use, in our active mastery of it,
that is to say, it lies in wisdom. It is a convention to speak of mere knowledge
apart from wisdom, as of itself imparting a peculiar dignity to its possessor. I
do not share in this reverence for knowledge as such. It all depends on who has
the knowledge and what he does with it. That knowledge which adds greatness
to character is knowledge so handled to transform every phase of immediate
experience.
In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows; for details are
swallowed up in principles. The details of knowledge which are important will
be picked up ad hoc in each avocation of life, but the habit of the active
utilization of well-understood principles is the final possession of wisdom.
23
Exercise No. ________
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Course/Year/Section__________________________ Date_________________
1. What is the etymology of the word “philosophy”?
2. In what way that philosophy is an attitude and activity of the mind?
3. What are the philosophical queries philosophers are concerned with?
4. What are the general functions of philosophy?
5. What are the major branches and their corresponding description of

philosophy?
6. How does philosophy differ from science and religion?
24
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Identify the Branch of Philosophy that can answer the following questions or
that discusses the corresponding concept.
1. _____________________ What is the essence of my life?

2. _____________________ What constitutes the world I live in?
3. _____________________ People experienced suffering, where is God?
4. _____________________ My parents forced me to take up Nursing, Do I
have a choice?
5. ____________________ Who created the wonderful things around us?
6. _____________________ I have an idea of things, where does it come
from?
7. _____________________ Who is man?
8. _____________________ Is it wrong to tell a lie for the sake of avoiding
greater harm?
9. _____________________ Is there a soul?
10. _____________________ Who created me?
11. _____________________ beauty
12. _____________________ ultimate nature of reality
13. _____________________ knowledge
14. _____________________ soul
15. _____________________ happiness
16. _____________________ beauty lies on the eyes of the beholder
17. _____________________ To see is to believe
18. _____________________ Common sense is not enough
19. _____________________ What you see is what you get
20. _____________________ I am the Alpha and the Omega
25
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Write an essay about the significance of studying Philosophy in your life as

student.
26
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Reflect and discuss the importance of Science, Philosophy and Religion in your
life, especially in your quest to find the truths in life and the meaning of your
own life.
27
Name _________________________________ Score ___________________

Course/Year/Section_______________________ Date____________________
Matching Type : Write the letter only!

A. Science
B. Philosophy
C. Both A and B
D. Religion
5_________1. Speculative in nature

_________2. It transcends beyond what is physical and temporal
9_________3. Sitting and thinking
1_________4. We can see God through the eyes of faith!
3_________5. Dwells on something which is tangible
2_________6. Dwells on intangible realities
_________7. What is the meaning of the meaning of life?
4_________8. Worshipping God in one form of another
8_________9. Analytical description
_________10. Synthetic interpretation
_________11. It delves into the essence, being, meaning, and
significance of things.
6_________12. Relationship with the knowable God
_________13. Truth? What is truth? Faith? What is faith?
7_________14. Observation and hypothesis formulation
_________15. No parameters
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Name _________________________________ Score _______________

Course/Year/Section_______________________ Date_______________
A. Study of the ultimate reality through the

use of human reason alone
_____1. Philea B. Philosophy of Religion
_____2. Metaphysics C. Coined the word “philosophy”
_____3. What is man? D. Concerns with the study of man and
linguistic analysis
_____4. Ancient Classical E. Motivated by fame and gain
_____5. Pythagoras F. Attempts to understand man as an
_____6. Modern Philosophy individual
G. Moral Philosophy
_____7. Epistemology H. We derive knowledge and wisdom from
_____8. Contemporary books. Philosophy
I. A branch of philosophy which deals with
_____9. Does God exist? the ultimate nature of human
_____10. Is human cloning existence ethical?
_____11. Philosophy of Art J. A period whose emphasis concerns with
the ultimate nature of reality
_____12. Philosophy K. Seek the good things of the mind
_____13. Logic L. A period characterized by a separation of
_____14. Philosophers reason from faith
M. Aesthetic
_____15. Philosophy of Man N. People who want to understand what life is
_____16. Henry David really all about Thoreau
_____17. Francis Bacon O. Love of Wisdom
P. Philosophical Psychology
_____18. Sophos Q. Don’t bank on the thoughts of others.
_____19. G.E. Moore Think for yourselves!
_____20. Immanuel Kant R. The nature of knowledge and process of
knowing
S. Correct and sound reasoning
T. To love wisdom as to live according to its
dictates.
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Name _________________________________ Score ___________________

Course/Year/Section_______________________ Date____________________

E. Science
F. Philosophy
G. Both A and B
H. Religion
_________1. Speculative in nature

_________2. It transcends beyond what is physical and temporal
_________3. Sitting and thinking
_________4. We can see God through the eyes of faith!
_________5. Dwells on something which is tangible
_________6. Dwells on intangible realities
_________7. What is the meaning of the meaning of life?
_________8. Worshipping God in one form of another
_________9. Analytical description
_________10. Synthetic interpretation
_________11. It delves into the essence, being, meaning, and significance
of things.
_________12. Relationship with the knowable God
_________13. Truth? What is truth? Faith? What is faith?
_________14. Observation and hypothesis formulation
_________15. No parameters
30
MODULE TWO: MAN AS KNOWING BEING
The
philosophical discussions will revolve around the following questions:
 What is it to know?
 What can we know?
 How can we know?
Emphasis has been given on some very important ways to acquire
knowledge as provided for by some major philosophers of knowledge.
This Module comes in four lessons:
Lesson 1: Knowledge and Human Knowing

Lesson 2: Theories of Knowledge
Lesson 3: Acquisition of Knowledge
Lesson 4: Validity of Knowledge
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LESSON 1
KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN KNOWING
After studying this lesson, you should be able to:
1. Understand what knowledge is;

2. know the various theories of knowledge; and
3. formulate a theory of truth
Lesson 1 – What is Knowledge?
He who knows not and knows not he knows not; he is a fool,

shun him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not; he is ignorant,
teach him.
He who knows and knows not he knows; he is asleep, wake him.
He who knows and knows he knows; he is wise, follow him.
Arabian proverb attributed to King Darius,
The Persian.
What can we know? This is one of the philosophical questions and quest
we need to understand. When we perceive an object the mysterious process of
human knowing takes place and we end up having an idea about that object.
What is definite with the process is the interplay between the knower (the
subject or the person) and the known (that object which is perceived or the
object of knowing). This would lead us to different notions that the knower is
the one simply giving the idea towards that object or the object itself creating
an impression to the mind.
The term "epistemology" is based on the Greek words "επιστήμη or

episteme" (knowledge or science) and "λόγος or logos" (account/explanation).
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that focuses on the study of knowledge
and seeks to answer the questions and problems concerning human knowing.
It inquires into the very nature of knowledge, the questions of what and how
can we know, and the justification or truth of the knowledge that we have.
Thus, this philosophical venture does not only require us to understand what
we know but likewise to establish the truth or validity of such knowledge we
assert.
To assert that we know something is at the same time to claim that such
idea is true. Thus, a formula that is widely accepted as a general philosophical
32
definition of knowledge: A JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF”. A claim to knowledge is
successful if: (1) it is believed by someone; (2) that person can produce
concrete evidence to validate his belief; and (3) this justification supports a
claim that actually corresponds with the facts. So a person who correctly
believes a thing to be true without being able to justify his belief cannot be said
to know that thing, since he still will not have sufficient reason to believe
himself to be correct.
We can have beliefs and still lack knowledge if our beliefs are false.
Unfortunately, we can also have true beliefs and still lack knowledge because
we fail to understand how and why a belief is true. Justification involves
finding such an understanding.
The questions concerning knowledge and human knowing have been

perennial problems of philosophy. Different philosophers have provided
different answers to these questions. Needless to say, we cannot hope to
comprehend these difficult questions in a few paragraphs.
The following reading from Bernard Lonergan’s Cognitional Structure

tries to pinpoint important elements involved in human knowing. I think this
reading can be a springboard for a better comprehension of what knowledge is
and what it is not.
Cognitional Structure
Bernard Lonergan
Human knowing involves many district and irreducible activities: seeing

hearing, smelling, touching, tasting, inquiring, imagining, understanding,
conceiving, reflecting, weighing the evidence and judging.
No one of these activities, alone by itself, may be named human knowing.

An act of ocular vision may be perfect as ocular vision; yet if it occurs without
any accompanying glimmer of understanding, it is mere gaping; and mere
gaping is just stupidity. As merely seeing is not human knowing, so for the
same reason, is just stupidity. As merely seeing is not human knowing, so for
the same reason, merely hearing, merely smelling, merely touching, merely
tasting may be parts, potential components of human knowing, but they are
not human knowing itself.
What is true sense is no less true of understanding. Without the prior

presentations of sense, there is nothing for a man to understand; and when
there is nothing to understand, there is no occurrence of understanding.
Moreover, the combination of the operations of sense and understanding does
not suffice for human knowing. There must be added judging. To omit
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judgment is quite literally silly; it is only by judgment that there emerges a
distinction between fact and fiction.
Nor can one place human knowing in judging to the exclusion of

experience and understanding. To pass judgment on what one does not
understand is not human understanding, but human arrogance. To pass
judgment independently of all experience is to set fact aside.
Human knowing, then, is not experience alone, not understanding alone;

not judgment alone; it is not a combination of only experience and judgment,
or of only understanding and judgment; finally, it is not something totally apart
from experience, understanding and judgment. One has to regard an instance
of human knowing not as this or that operation, but as a whole whose parts
are operations. It is a structure and indeed, a materially dynamic structure.
But human knowing is also formally dynamic. It is self-assembling. Self-

constituting. It puts itself together, one part summoning fort the next, till the
whole is reached. And this occurs not with blindness of natural process, but
consciously, intelligently, and rationally. Experience stimulates inquiry, and
inquiry is intelligence bringing itself to act; it leads from experience through
imagination to insight; and from insight to the concepts that combine in single
objects both what has been gasped by insight and what in experience and
imagination is relevant to insight. In turn, concepts stimulate reflection, and
reflection is the conscious experience of rationality; it marshals the evidence
and weighs it either to judge or else to doubt or to renew inquiry.
Such in briefest outline is what is meant by saying that human knowing

is a dynamic structure.
34
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. What is human knowing according to Lonergan?
2. Why is human knowing dynamic?
3. Cite a situation that will clearly manifest the philosophy of Lonergan

about human knowing as a cognitional structure.
35
LESSON 2
THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE

1. learn the major theories of knowledge
2. differentiate the emphasis of each theories
3. appreciate the value of this theories in understanding how we
acquire knowledge
Theories of Knowledge
Empiricism
A philosophical doctrine advocating that true knowledge comes from

experience, that is a posterioi, or postexperential. Empiricists are assured only
by their own experience, which agrees with the saying, “to see is to believe.”
Experience in this sense may come from our personal encounter with the
external world be it personal or vicarious or may come from internal sensations
such feeling and thinking or external sensations which gives importance on the
senses. This gives us the notion that whatever knowledge we acquire and we
have is simply based from one’s own experience. This concept has
its objective reference from which knowledge is acquired as we see,
hear, taste, smell and touch it.
John Locke, an English empiricist, is one of the leading proponents
of empiricism. He asserts that the mind at birth is a “tabula rasa”,
an empty slate or blank paper that is devoid of anything on it. It is
through experience that we begin to fill up the ideas in the mind and therefore
acquire knowledge about things. The concept of empiricism clearly negates the
Rationalist’s belief on innate or inborn ideas. Thus, experience is the very
source of our knowledge
Rationalism
An epistemological view claiming that true knowledge is acquired

through reason and not experience. Rationalists believe that knowledge is
primarily acquired by a priori or preexperience processes or is innate—e.g., in
the form of concepts not derived from experience. The relevant theoretical
processes often go by the name "intuition”. Rationalists claim that, we know
what we have thought and the mind has the ability to discover truth by itself.
We do not learn things but simply remember what they already know. It
36
attempts to account for all objects in nature and experiences as
representations of the mind. Knowledge then is intellectual rather that sensory.
Rationalism upholds the doctrine that knowledge is

inborn and ideas are innate which is totally against empiricism.
The prominent philosopher who advocated innate idea was
Plato, an ancient Greek philosopher. At the moment of birth,
the mind is already furnished with a range of ideas and
concepts that accordingly owes nothing to experience. Inborn
knowledge, however, is initially dormant but with discussions,
PLATO
intellectual dispute, critical thinking and argument will unfold
or unveil the innate ideas that we have.
Skepticism
The theory of knowledge upholding that knowledge is limited and that we

can not be completely certain of what we know. Skepticism
questions the limitations of the mind to process the things
that we perceive, thus, giving us uncertain knowledge. There
is likewise the inaccessibility of object that our senses perceive
because our senses can be deceived and therefore unreliable.
Though this theory asserts the limitation of knowledge, it does
not preclude us to seek for knowledge but rather motivates us
to further seek for the certainty of the knowledge we acquire,
be it from the senses or the mind. Descartes and Hume are DESCARTES
some of the philosophers who adhere to this kind of
philosophy.
37
LESSON 3
ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN KNOWING
1. Learn some philosophical methods of acquiring knowledge; and

2. Differentiate the various methods and compare their worth and
value.
As we have learned earlier. Various philosophers have offers what for

them is a good method to acquire knowledge. We can benefit from them by
studying some of these important methods that have some practical value.
1. DIALECTICAL METHOD – also known

as the dialogical method” or the
“Socratic Method”. The term
“dialectic” is derived from a Socrates himself
who would usually converse or argue with
others, questioning them and their SOCRATES
assumptions Specifically in this method, two interlocutors took turns
in questioning and answering. Truth is arrived at by means of this
dialectical method of asking and responding, gradually elimination
the doubtful or questionable.
Socrates was known to have argued a great deal with men of his
time, uncovering assumptions and questioning certainties. In men
discoursed too readily of justice, he asked them – “What is it?” he
demanded from them accurate definitions, clear thinking and exact
analysis.
2. SYLLOGISTIC OR LOGICAL
METHOD – this method is
attributed to Aristotle, the founder of
Logic. By a combination of
agreement and disagreement
between three terms, a conclusion is
reached. If two terms or parties ARISTOTLE
separately agree with a third term or party, then the two terms agree
with each other. Aristotle exhausted all the possible combinations and
formulated laws to govern these combinations. This method clarified
and dispelled all doubt regarding the relationship of any three terms.
38
3. THOMISTIC METHOD – used by St. Thomas Aquinas. The method
neatly presents the problem to be solved in
the form of a question, then proceeds to put
its objections, seemingly to support the
positive or negative answer, and then goes to
the body of the argument always introduced
by “I answer that…” and caps the whole
ST. THOMAS
method by answering the objections it had
put up, thus demolishing all doubt and all
opposition.
4. THE METHODIC DOUBT – this method that Rene Descartes

advocates is an analytical one, which emphasizes the necessity of
trying to isolate the simple, and then, but
only then, trying to build the complex on its
basis. The aim is to arrive at certainly.
Moreover, this is put forward not just as a
method for philosophy but as a quite general
DESCARTES
method which all pursuit of knowledge
should follow. In his First Meditation he states
that we should doubt all that we know because, first, they come from
our senses which can be mistaken or can deceive us, and second,
these can be just the result of a dream or mere hallucination.
Descartes sets out four important rules to clear thinking:

To accept nothing as true which I did not clearly recognize it to be so.
To divide each of the difficulties under examination into as many parts as
possible.
To carry on reflection in an order beginning with objects that are the most
simple and easiest to understand, in order to rise little by little, or by degrees,
to knowledge of the most complex.
To be thorough and general as to certain of having omitted nothing.
5. FRANCIS BACON’S RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT –

“Go to the facts themselves for everything” – that was
Bacon’s way to acquire knowledge. To proceed to a
systematic empirical study, Bacon launched his
reconstruction project by enumerating “Four Classes
of Idols” which be set man’s mind and which must be
debunked. These idols of the mind are
FRANCIS BACON
counterproductive habits of thought that deserve to be
swept away if we are to acquire knowledge. An idol, as Bacon uses the
word, is a picture taken for a reality, a thought mistaken for a thing.
These idols are the cause of human error. They are, namely:
39
Idols of the Tribe – fallacies or errors natural to humanity in general. We
tend to think, for example, that sense perception gives is direct and truthful
access to reality. Bacon stressed that this assumption must be criticized
because we too easily overlook the fact that out “seeing” does not necessarily
show us things as they really are. Human sense experience, essential though it
is, does not so institute the measure of all things. We must learn to see
objectively, a task that requires us to be alert for occasions when emotion,
feelings and inference are self-deceptive.
Idols of the Cave – if the “idols of the tribe” deceive humankind, each
individual must reckon with his peculiar prejudices, which Bacon called “idols
of the cave”. Here Bacon recalls Plato’s allegory in which people imprisoned in a
cave mistake appearance for reality. Each of us has criticized blind spots.
Bacon recommends that we treat with special suspicion any outlook that gives
us special satisfaction. We tend to believe what we like to believe, but that path
does not lead to knowledge.
Idols of the Marketplace – these are errors that emerge from the words we
use in everyday business, from the association of men with one another. Their
meanings are often vague and ambiguous, but they solidify our impressions
and beliefs nonetheless. “Men converse by means of language; but words are
imposed according t the understanding of the crowd; and there arises from a
had and inept formation of words, a wonderful obstruction to the mind”. Bacon
stresses that, “unless we guard against the ill and unfit choice of words, their
impact cam force and overrule the understanding and throw all into confusion.
Idols of the Theater – these are idols, which have migrated into men’s kind
from the various dogmas of philosophers and also from wrong laws of
demonstration. Many philosophical speculations claim to be true accounts of
reality, but in fact, they are closer to stage plays depicting unreal worlds of
human creation. Specifically, Bacon faults three types of false philosophy.
Exemplified by Aristotle, the first trusts non-empirical inference too much; its
result is sophistry. Although experimental, the second draws from sweeping
conclusions from too little data; its result is psuedoscience. The third mixes
philosophy and religion indiscriminately; its result superstition.
40
LESSON 4
VALIDITY OF KNOWLEDGE
After
studying this lesson, you should be able to:
1. Learn philosophical theories to validate our knowledge

3. Differentiate the various approaches and compare their worth
and value.
Lesson 4 – Display
The previous discussions has given us enough idea that man indeed can
know something as exemplified by the different theories of knowledge and the
philosophical ways in acquiring knowledge. As we have defined earlier,
knowledge is a justified true belief. This clearly states that it is not enough to
claim that we have knowledge of certain matters. It further obliges us to
establish justification of those claims we assert. This points out the need for
criteria by which our knowledge can be judged as true or false. Different
criteria such as customs, traditions, consensus of majority can be cited but the
following discussion will deal more on the philosophical criteria in validating
knowledge.
Correspondence theory
This theory holds that true or valid knowledge is what
conforms or corresponds to facts or agrees which objective
reality. This criteria of knowledge recognizes the interplay
between the idea or belief that we claim to know and the facts
themselves. The facts are neither true nor false but it is the
knowledge or claim asserted about them. If I claim and say that BELTRAND
Pedro is tall and it correspond to the objective and factual reality RUSSEL
of Pedro, then it is true; otherwise, it is false. Thus, a valid knowledge is that
which corresponds to reality.
One of the defenders of this theory is Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) and
he philosophized that true knowledge is the fact corresponding to the belief.
Mind does not create truth or falsehood. They create beliefs, but when once the
beliefs are created, the mind cannot make them true or false, except in the
special case where they concern future things which are within the power of
person believing, such as catching trains. What makes a belief true is a fact.
41
Coherence theory
This theory asserts the validity of knowledge if there is consistency. The
knowledge that we claim is counted to be true when it finds harmony or
consistency with other claims or ideas. If it fails to do so, then such claim finds
no truth but falsity. To establish that knowledge is true does not give emphasis
on the interplay between the facts or objective reality, as correspondence
theory would put it. Truth or falsity of the ideas or the judgment we assert
depends on its consistency with other judgments. So far as I make the
judgment that Pedro is a good man is consistent with other judgments that he
is indeed good, such judgments finds it meaning and truth. This coherence
theory is substantiated with the use of Logic for validity of judgments can be
evaluated from the logical relations or consistency of those judgments. Thus,
truth or falsity of the knowledge that we claim to believe is established along
with its coherence or consistency with other claims.
Pragmatic Theory
Pragmatic theory of knowledge claims that true and valid knowledge is
one which is practical or useful. No matter how great an idea is, what concerns
for the pragmatists is how our ideas, beliefs, or knowledge is useful and
beneficial in its own way. Pragmatism considers the relativity of knowledge for
what works in one instance may not be to all. Once knowledge does not lead to
good consequences, knowledge is deemed worthless, hence, false and
unacceptable. True and valid knowledge then is what works. Among the
philosophers with pragmatic views include: William James, John Dewey and
Charles Pierce.
Additional Reading:
Epistemological Skepticism by C.E.M. Joad (1891-1953)
. . . . . Let us suppose that I am looking at a star, Sirius say, on a dark night. If

physics is to be believed, light waves which started to travel from Sirius many
years ago reach (after a specified time which astronomers calculate) the earth,
impinge upon my retina and cause me to say that I am seeing Sirius. Now the
Sirius about which they convey information to me is the Sirius, which existed
at the time when they started. This Sirius, may, however, no longer exist; it
may have disappeared in the interim. To say that one can see what no longer
exists is absurd. It follows that, whatever it is that I am seeing, it is not Sirius.
What, in fact, I do see is yellow patch of a particular size, shape and intensity. I
infer that this yellow patch had am origin (with which it is connected by a
continuous chain of physical events) several years ago and many million miles
away. But this inference may be mistaken; the origin of the yellow patch, which
I call a star, may be a blow on the nose, or a lamp hanging on the mast of a
ship.
42
Nor is this the only inference involved. It is true I think I am seeing a
yellow patch, but am I really justified in holding this belief? So far as physics
and physiology are concerned, all that we are entitled to say is that the optic
nerve is being stimulated in a certain way, as a result of which certain events
are being caused in the brain. Are we really justified in saying any more than
this? Possibly we are… but it is important to realize that once again an
inference is involved, and once again the inference may be mistaken. Directly
we go beyond the bare statement “the optic nerve is being stimulated in such
and such a way” and conclude from this fact “therefore I am seeing an object of
such and such character”, we are drawing an inference and are liable to fall
into error. What, then, if the physicist and physiologist are right, we in fact
know that certain events are taking is merely an inference due to the fact that
we think these events must have a cause…
If we accept the teaching of physics and physiology, what we know in
perception are not the movements of matter, but certain events in ourselves
connected with those movements; not objects external to ourselves, but the
effects of the impact of light-rays and other form of energy proceeding from
these objects upon our bodies…
What, then, is left in the world outside us? We cannot tell
43
Name _______________________________ Score _________________

Course/Year/Section____________________ Date_________________
GROUP ACTIVITY: Theories of Knowledge
Group discussion and sharing

1. As future healthcare providers, how can you see the relevance of
empiricism? Cite particular cases or instances were empiricism is clearly
manifested.
2. Do you agree that there is such an “innate idea”? What will be the
implications to you as a student if you believe that there is innate idea?
3. As future nurses/healthcare providers, cite instances wherein skepticism

is relevant and applicable.
4. Which of the theories of knowledge is more acceptable and applicable to

you as future healthcare providers? Explain.
44
Name ________________________________ Score _________________

Course/Year/Section_____________________ Date_________________
GROUP/INDIVIDUAL ACTIVITY: Validity of Knowledge
Mr. Juan Dela Cruz is a patient has been suffering from heart ailments
but he has the determination to seek and undergo certain medical procedures
or interventions that will cure him. One of his friends knew a specialist who
can help him and assured him that he is indeed a good one because this
Doctor had performed several procedures and was successful. In one occasion,
Mr. Dela Cruz’ relative related to him that there is a new medicine in the
market that could possibly help him and this was affirmed by another relative
saying that a lot of patients believed that it can be an effective medicine.
Wanting to know what’s best for him, he shared this to his grandmother but
expressed her uncertainties regarding doctors and formulated medicines. At
her age, she has her incessant belief and use of traditional and herbal
medicines which has been effective and beneficial through her ages.
Guide questions for group discussion and sharing.
Which do you think is the best option you are going to take? And how
can you be assured that such option is the valid? Substantiate your answer by
using a particular philosophical theory to validate your option.
45
Name ________________________________ Score _________________

INDIVIDUAL REFLECTIONS
“When can you say that you have already achieved knowledge?”
46
Name ________________________________ Score _________________

Theories of Knowledge. Identify if the given concept is related to:
A. EMPERICISM
B. RATIONALISM
C. SKEPTICISM
________1. knowledge is from reason

________2. doubt is needed to make things certain
________3. The mind is a tabula rasa
________4. Sense are important in acquiring knowledge
________5. John Locke
________6. the idea on Platonism
________7. David Hume
________8. the mind has innate knowledge
________9. knowledge are representation of the mind.
________10. Francis Bacon
________11. knowledge is limited
________12. knowledge from the senses
________13. the mind is a blank sheet
________14. the mind is limited
________15. experience is necessary for philosophy .
47
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Determine the method to which the given idea or method is related. Choose
and write the letter on the space provided.
A. Dialectic Method
B. Syllogistic Method
C. Thomistic Method
D. Methodic Doubt
E. Reconstruction Method
1. ___Also known as Socratic Method
2. ___Advocated by Aquinas
3. ___Aristotle is the main proponent
4. ___the approach advocated by Descartes
5. ___conversational approach
6. ___The concept of Francis Bacon
7. ___ “go to the facts themselves for everything.”
8. ___ “accept nothing as true which was not recognized to be so”
9. ___reconstruction of the “idols” that beset man’s mind
10. ___question and answer approach

48
Name ________________________________ Score _________________
Francis Bacon’s Reconstruction Project. Cite specific situations wherein the

four idols (tribe, cave, marketplace and theater) are manifested.
1. Idols of the Tribe

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
2. Idols of the Cave
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
3. Idols of the Marketplace

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
4. Idols of the Theater

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
49
GLOSSARY
Abstract – a quality of the type of thinking that works with concepts that are
entirely general, excluding the consideration of the particular instances to
which these general concepts might be applied.
Analytical – referring to the method of inquiring that divides things or ideas

into the simplest parts and studies the relations that hold among these parts.
A posterior – a term for the type of proposition that can be verified only “after
the facts”; a proposition about the contingent, that is, that which is necessarily
dependent on experience.
A priori – a term for the type of proposition or statement that can be verified
independently of, and prior to, experience, which cannot be disconfirmed by
any particular experience because its contents is “relation of ideas” rather than
“matter of facts”.
Assumption – a principles that is accepted uncritically, taken for granted,

without the support of proof or argument. Often an assumption is employed as
the major premise of an argument.
Cause – a hidden, or underlying entity, process or principles that is taken to

determine or explain the nature of the phenomenon that are present to the
senses.
Coherence theory of truth – the theory that truth is not a property of

individual, isolated judgments or statement, but that truth must involves a
judgment’s being consistent with a large body of other judgment, forming a
part of an interconnected, rational system.
Correspondence theory of truth – the theory that regards individual

statements as true if they simply agree with the facts to which they refer, and
as false if they simply do not.
Deduction – a form of the method of reasoning called inference, in which

necessary conclusions are reached by applying analytic definitions and laws of
logical derivation to some original premise to derive its logical consequences.
Dialectic – the use of questions and answer as a method of philosophical

inquiry, weighing the strengths and weaknesses of differing and opposing
viewpoints with the aim of reaching a new, more complete, and more balanced
understanding of the issue at hand.
50
Epistemology – the division of philosophy the is connected with theories about
the origin, structure, and possible scope of human knowledge; often, this goes
hand in hand with an attempt to formulate and clarify the procedures by which
reliable knowledge can be attained and by which claims to knowledge can be
evaluated.
Experience – the product of the contact between the date originating in the
world and the faculties of sense, memory and conceptual understanding
possessed by sensitive beings; often described as a relationship between a
mind that appropriate these data and “the given”, the objective features of the
world that serve as grist to its mill.
Induction – the form of reasoning that begins with a substantial body of

proportions about observable phenomena and concludes with a generalization
or a prediction.
Necessary connection – the idea Hume believed we infer rather arbitrary,

without sound reasons based on experience itself, from the experience of two
events that are “constantly conjoined” in space and time.
Premise – in a philosophical argument, a primary assumption on which

subsequent claims of the argument rely and form which these claims may be
logically derived.
Syllogism – the type of deductive inference forming the core of Aristotelian

logic, composed of a major premise stating a categorical facts (“All men are
mortal”), and a minor premise stating a particular matter of fact (“Socrates is a
man”), and concluding with an inference derived from combining the two
premises (“Socrates is mortal”).
Tabula rasa – literally “blank slate”, used by Locke to refer to the quality of the
unexperienced mind, in which he believed there exist no “innate ideas”.
Truth – agreement between concepts and reality between the world as

represented through language and the world as it really is.
World – the subject matter of experience, the totality of things that can
possibly engage the attention and interest of sentient beings.
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MODULE THREE: MAN AS EMBODIED SUBJECT
This module will explicate the idea of man as a subject, as an I, as a self

who is the source of all his actions and decisions. Furthermore, this module
will establish the very intimate relationship of man as a subject and his body,
thus emphasizing the important idea of “man as an embodied subject.”
This Module comes in three lessons:
Lesson 1: Man as a Subject

Lesson 2: Man and His Body
52
LESSON 1
MAN AS A SUBJECT
1. comprehend the answer to the metaphysical question on what

is man?
2. understand the meaning of "subject";
3. differentiate "subject" from "object"; and
4. appreciate man as the subject.
53
What is Man?
According to classical definition, man is a rational animal. Man is

defined as an integral organism comprising within his being – vegetative,
sensory and rational life. Man is, at one and the same time, a material and
spiritual being. Man is a corporeal reality, endowed with life of the soul, whose
superior activity has as its formal object transcendental value, being and the
good. Man is a creature made by God (efficient cause) according to His image
and likeness; to know, love and serve Him and to share His everlasting glory
(final cause). Man is primarily a person, harmonizing all his faculties into a
unified whole, created to the image and likeness of God, has an immortal soul
and destined for everlasting life with God.
Man is a vegetative, sentient and rational organism.
a) As a vegetative organism, man, like the plants, is subject to nutrition,
growth and reproduction.
b) As a sentient being, man, like the animals, has sense – knowledge
and appetency.
c) As a rational being, man, unlike any other creature on earth, has
rationality which implies cognitive and appetitive powers.
Man is also an animal but unlike them, he, alone, possesses these
characteristic features: the ability to think and reason, to organize things in
order to accomplish ends such as the whole world of arts and crafts,
manufacturing and industry. Only man has oral and written language which
enables him to communicate and preserve ideas. He, alone, establishes
permanent institutions corresponding to his own nature, such as family, civil
society, law, etc. Man is open to the world, not limited to any particular
environment for his experience and behavior. Lastly, he is endowed with the
most universal human phenomenon religion or the worship of God.
Man is a vegetant soul. As a vegetant soul, man is a vegetant organism.
As a vegetant organism, man is like plants. Plants have soul because they
have life. Because they have life, plants feed, grow, and propagate themselves.
Feeding, growing, and progating arte basic activities of life. That is why plants
have soul which is vegetative. Like plants, man also is a vegetative organism.
The animals are the possessors of a sensient soul. A sensient soul is higher
than a vegetative soul. Being higher than vegetative does not mean that the
sensient soul enables also a body to feed itself. Grow, and reproduce. However,
it develops a nervous system that allows the senses in the body to function.
So, what makes a sensient soul higher than vegetative soul is that the latter is
incapable of sensation, because it does not have a nervous system, while the
former has nervous system. Through its nervous system, a sensient soul
allows its beholder to experience pain and pleasure because it has feelings.
This is true to animals and brutes. Any brutes is a possessor of a sensient
soul. In this context . man is like brutes. Man is also a sensient organism.
Man shares his sensient soul in common with the brutes. The only difference is
54
that whereas the brutes are only capable of feelings (i.e. feeling of pain and
pleasure). Man is capable, not only of feelings, but also of emotions – because
man is also a possessor of the highest grade of soul called rational.
A person is an individual being. An individual being is a being which is
one in itself and distinct from all other beings. All real beings are individuals;
general entities exist only in the mind. A person is an individual possessing a
spiritual nature. What do we mean by a spiritual nature? Spiritual means
immaterial. A spirit exists not only in itself (it is a substance), and for itself (it
is self-conscious), but also by itself (it posits itself). Spirit is essentially self-
knowledge, self-volition, self-consciousness, self-position. It is EGO, or I.
The “I” is open to the whole of reality. It opens up into the infinite. Its
capacity is unlimited. The human intellect is capable of knowing reality. The
human will too strives towards the good. The human will is free because it
strives towards the good. The "I" is essentially self-conscious. Consciousnesses
the core of being. Every being is conscious, each according to its degree.
Consciousness men as active self-identity. The "I" is essentially active self-
identity. This takes the forms of self-affirmation. I am I. This is the most
fundamental affirmation, to which all other affirmations owe their servitude.
When we speak of man as object, we do not simply mean man as an
object of knowledge or study. That he is such an object is self-evident;
otherwise nothing whatsoever could be said concerning him. By man as an
object is meant, more precisely, man considered from the outside (objectum -
to throw in front), as an individual belonging to a certain species. Man as an
object has a definition which contains a genus (animal) and a specific
difference (rational. Likewise the person as an object can be defined; it is an
individual possessing a spiritual nature. We know man and the person
objectively by means of universal concepts. When we consider them in that
way, we disregard the fact that man speaks of himself as "I", Man or the person
considered as an object is never "I", but only "He" (the person) or "It" (the
human nature).
Man as a subject is not "He" or "It", but "I". Here man is no longer
considered as a thing or as an object, but as a Self. "I" is not a universal
concept, it cannot be defined. "I" is a singular; yet, although it involves a
material component, it is, unlike the other material singulars, an intelligible
singular. The purely material singulars of our everyday experience can be
known only though sense perception, they can only be denoted, pointed to,
"this table here, that chair there." I know myself in a much more intimate way,
not merely by a sense perception, by a concept or a judgment, but as the
subject of all my perceptions, my concepts, and my Judgments, as the source
of all my conscious activities. The fact that I know myself as the subject or the
source of all my conscious activities explains why although I know myself very
intimately, this knowledge can never be exhausted.
55
To further reinforce this concept of man as a subject, let us turn to
Jonathan Glover's article entitled "Persons and Consciousness" which is found
in his book, I: The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity.
Persons and Self-Consciousness

Jonathan Glover
The word "person" is one of the most controversial in the language.

Consider some of the different views expressed about what a person is.
One common thought is that a human being is a person, while members
of other species are not. The reason usually given for this is that our
psychology is more complex than that of animals. But the kind of psychological
complexities thought to qualify someone for being a person vary. Harry
Frankfurt, for instance, has said that matters is having second-order desires.
Animal want things, but people also want to have some desires rather than
others. Daniel Dennett has suggested that having a sense of Justice is
necessary for being a person, “to the extent that justice does not reveal itself in
the dealings and interactions of creatures, to that extent they are not person."
This exclusion of anyone completely unjust may seem to draw the
boundary rather narrowly. At the other extreme, the view has been expressed
in the abortion debate that a newly fertilized human egg is a person. That
debate illustrates the way the concept is often shaped to fit people's values. A
widely held view of the abortion issue is that whether or not a fetus has a right
to life depends on whether it's a person. It is hard to avoid the impression that
participant on both sides of the debate start with an attitude to abortion and
then decide the question of personhood accordingly One philosopher, Michael
Tooley, is open about this. He gives an account of personhood in terms of moral
considerations, which he takes to be prior to the issue of whether or not the
fetus is a person,
Perhaps we should expect these disputes over what a person is. Marcel
Mauss suggested that it is an illusion to see our conception of a person as
static. He thought it originated with tribal social roles, mentioning that
"persona" was the Latin word for a mask. He sketched out an account of how
the conception evolved, through the Roman idea of a person as the bearer of
legal rights (so that slaves were not persons), and through Stoic and Christian
ideas of the person having moral value, to the modem way of thinking of a
person mainly as someone with states of consciousness. Mauss thought our
conception was likely to go on changing. I do not know how far Mauss gives
correct account of these changes. But, like the abortion debate, a story of this
56
kind illustrates how what people take to be the special features of a person
may vary with other aspect of their outlook.
Being "person" is a concept with boundaries that are blurred or disputed;
there may be no satisfactory single answer to the question, "What is a person?"
I want to suggest that a prime feature of personhood is self-consciousness. A
person is someone who can have thoughts, whose natural expression uses the
word "I". This seems to capture one central strand in our idea of a person. But,
since the concept is disputed, this is a suggested way of using the word, rather
than a claim that it is somehow the "correct" account of it.
On this account, Hume's oyster is not a person. It has not thought "I am
being touched" that rises above an impersonal awareness of a sensation. On
the other hand, being a person does not require any moment of illumination of
the kind Jean Paul Richter had. (Perhaps Richter know that he was standing in
the front door before the flash came to him.) Self-consciousness does require
consciousness and some primitive power of thought. But, provided I-thoughts
can be had, it does not matter whether their acquisition was in a sudden
conscious moment or through slow, unconscious conceptual growth,
You and I both have I thoughts, but those thoughts belong to two
different people because they are not located in the same stream of
consciousness. A certain unity of consciousness is required for being a single
person. This is why it maybe less misleading to think of a split brain patient as
two people. But perhaps we should not be too rigid here. In the case of
temporary brief divisions, it may raise fewer problems to think of one person
than two. It is suggested, then, that to be a person is to have a single stream of
I-thoughts.
57
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. Why is it that some of us find reason to give special treatment to the

dogs (or any other animals) rather than man? Explain your answer
thoroughly.
2. What is the philosophical stand to those people who opted to marry the
dead?
3. When people mourned for their dead, does that mean they mourned
because the dead is no longer a subject? What is your view? Why?
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LESSON 2
MAN AND HIS BODY

1. Understand the relationship that exist between self and its body; and
2. know the role played by the body in a person's existence.
I refer to myself in a variety of contexts- I say, for instance: "I wash

myself, I weigh myself, I examine myself in the mirror, I try to improve myself, I
know myself.” In each of these expressions the subject is the same. The object
also seems to remain the same throughout; however, when our references
become more specific, we note that the objects are different, "I wash my face, I
weigh my body, I examine my appearance, I try to improve my character, I
know myself." Nevertheless, although the subject uses different organs or
faculties in performing these actions, we do not say, "My hands wash my face,
my eyes examine my appearance," though we might say, "I wash my face with
my hands, I examine my appearance with my eyes," I am a unity insofar as 1
perform an act.
Although all these objects of my actions are different, they all belong to
me; they all are, to a certain extent, I. I refer to my face- my body, my
appearance. All these actions originate in me and terminate in me. Yet, they
are not entirely in me; they involve something which is not strictly I.
I perform these actions upon myself; yet the performing I and the I on
which these actions are performed are not quite the same reality; otherwise
there would be no resistance and no difficulty. There is in me, besides the
performing, originating I, besides the I as subject, something which is not
entirely I; some not-I. But every material not-I belongs to the world, is part of
the world. Hence part of me is both I and the world. That is my body. Through
my body I am part of the material world, and the material world is a part of me.
There are certain things which I am, other which I have, others still
which in a certain sense I am, and in another sense I have. I am a person, I
have a dog. But what about my body? Shall I say, "I have my body" or "I am
my body"? I must say both, I must correct one Statement by means of the
other.
59
At first glance it seems as if I could say, "I have a
body." But, as Gabriel Marcels explains, if we are to be
exact, we should say, "I have whatever I have because of
my body." Having a body is the prerequisite, the
indispensable condition, of all having. Since my body
itself is for me a condition of all "having," I cannot
truthfully say that "I have my body."
Why then should I not say that I am my body? This
assertion is incorrect if the intention is to identify my
GABRIEL whole being with my body. It is correct if it is taken as
MARCEL meaning that I am also my body.
There is a difference between what I merely have
and Gabriel what I merely am. Some objects lie on the surface of my
being. I have them more than I am they — for instance, my hair, my
fingernails. Others are very near the core of my being; I am they more than I
have them — for instance, my feelings, my imagination, and my memory.
Between these extremes lie my heart, my eyes, my face, my body.
As Marcel would put it:

"My body is the reality which I have and am. Better,
it is the totality of all realities which I do not have
in the absolute sense, because I am they, and
those, which I am not absolutely because I have
them."My body is the extension of my 'originating'
ego in the direction of the "world". It is the bridge
which connects the ego with the "worldly" things
and beings. It is the continuation of my subjectivity
in the realm of objects."
The body is intermediary between me and the other, between the other
and me, between his world and me, and between my world and him. From all
of these, we can gather several points:
1. The body is an intermediary.
2. The other is accessible to me through my body.
3. I encounter the other as other through my body.
4. "My" body is not "a" body.
5. My body is not a mere instrument
6. My body is not isolated from me.
7. My body is not the object of "having."
8. The "I" first and foremost is a bodily "I".
All of these imply that there is m me something absolutely central, which

I do not have, which I only am. It is that which has all the rest and is not itself
60
had; which knows everything in me but is not itself known. For if it were had,
by what would it be had? If known, by what would it be known. IT IS MY EGO,
MY SOUL WITH ITS INTELLECT AND WILL, MY SPIRITUAL SELF, MY
CONSCIOUSNESS, MY ORIGINATING I.
MAN: A BODY/ HIS BODY
It is impossible to talk of human existence which is detached from a

bodily existence, for human existence always implies a bodily existence. Man’s
body is basically man’s expression of his presence to his fellowman in the
world. Man’s body, therefore, is the immediate datum which gives man a
primary consciousness of his own existence. In this case, not just have a body,
but man is a body. In fact, man is his body.
As previously mentioned, human nature has inseparable levels which are

somatic, behavioral, and attitudinal. In view of the inseparability of these
levels, the discussion on man as a body should not be misunderstood as an
inquiry which is exclusive only in the somatic level of human nature, for if this
were the case, the purpose of investigating man as a whole will be defeated.
Besides, this inquiry should not also be misunderstood as a mere inquiry of the
human body for the same will happen, i.e.-, a fragmented and a dichotomized
understanding of man as body and soul. In virtue of the Christian view that
man is holistically body and soul, a discussion on man as a body cannot be
dissociated from the acceptance of the view that man is body only in reference
to the soul. In other words, the purpose here in studying man as a body is to
discuss the whole human person with an emphasis on the body.
Now, this book shall try to present this inquiry of the human body in
three perspectives, viz.; Finitude, subjectivity, and encounter.
The Human Body as Finitude
Human existence as a bodily existence is a finite existence. Man’s bodily

existence is finite since man’s thrownness in a body explains the limitation of
man. Man, obviously, has many limitations; one of them can primarily be
located in the human body. This, man’s existence in the body proves the
finitude of man since man’s presence in the world is primarily a physical
presence. Through his body, man is thrown in the world. And this thrownness
limits man in terms of time, space, and eternal (bodily) existence since man is a
being towards death.
In the context of its limitation, man’s bodily existence is an existence in

time in a two-fold dimension. First, man’s bodily existence is confined to a
61
particular beginning (birth) and an inevitable end (death). Second, man’s
bodily existence cannot occur in two places at the same time. At a particular
time, man is situated in a concrete place and not simultaneously in another
place. Thus, once man is “here,” man cannot be “there” at the same time. In a
word, through his body, man’s existence is limited and incomplete.
Further, aside from positing the idea on the finitude of the human body
in the context of time, space, and death, the human body is also finite in the
context of its accidental constituents like shape, size, height, weight, color,
among others. These accidental constituents of the human body, however, can
be easily summed up in terms of race, culture, and civilization. It is obviously
true that the Easterner’s bodies are distinctively different from the Westerners’.
In fact the Eastern setting, the “bodies” of the Japanese are “different” from the
“bodies” of the Taiwanese; the “bodies” of the Indonesians are “different” from
the Singaporeans. At any rate, the point that we are trying to drive here is that
man’s shape, height, weight, and color also manifest the limitation of man’s
existence form the standpoint of his body. Thus, it is absurd for a Filipino to
dream of transforming his body to become a German’s body and vice-versa.
Man and His Condition
Today, in the advent of the advancement of science and technology, the

human body suffers s lot of manipulation. There is what is called the
scientific transformation of the human body. We heard a lot about cloning,
about different fomrs of “lifts” like “face lift”, bust lift”, nose lifts”, etc. about
surgeries like surgical virginity, vaginal repair, bust reduction, bust
expantion, sex transplant, cloning, penis enlarger, penis extender, likewise so
much has been heard about exercises that would magically add an inch or so
to one’s height, and do on and so forth. To consider the goodness of badness
of these bodily manipulations, however, annot be drawn in Philosohy of Man
or Philosophy of the human person since such an undertaking falls undr
Ethics or Moral Philosophy. Despite saying this, one can still insist that all
these bodily transformations are good in the sense that they mean progress
and development of man’s consciousnes. However, all these scientific bodily
manipulations remain man’s incapability to accept the truth of the finitude of
his body.
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The Human Body as Subjectivity
The human body cannot be dissociated form man as a subject. Man’s

body is not anyone else’s body, because it is embedded in man’s personhood or
subjectivity. Man’s body is, therefore, infused in the subjectivity of
man; man is his body. In other words, I am my body; my body is
inseparably identified to me. And my body permeates the whole
being in me. Since man is a subject and since man’s body is
infused in his subjectivity, it necessarily follows that man’s body is
MERLEAU- not reducible to become an object body but a subject body. This is
PONTY clearly emphasized by Merleau-Ponty.
In the line with the contention of Merleau-Ponty, Marcel says that the
human body cannot be considered as the object of having. For Marcel, having
a body is totally different form having a house, a table, a chair, a pair of shoes,
etc. these “having”, for Marcel, show the exteriority of their being objects; while
man’s having a body shows the interiority of man himself. This interiority can
be seen in virtue of the fact that man’s body cannot be dislodged from man’s
self-consciousness. Whereas the objects of man’s external having are
disposables, the “object” of man’s “internal having” is not. Marcel, in the end,
is telling that the human body is not disposable as one disposes a house, a
table, a chair, or a pair of shoes, among others.
Further, since the human body is not a thing in the world, it is not
proper that it must be studied as an object of experimentation in physiology
and biology. All these sciences treat of the human body not as a subject-body
but as an object-body. In these sciences, man’s body becomes an object of
observation and experimentation. Besides, these sciences treat the human
body as a mere instrument of their investigations.
Because the human body is not an instrument but an expression of

human existence, then, the human body as subjectivity refers to the wholeness
of man. Thus, the embodied subjectivity includes the rational, affective, and
emotional dimensions of a human person.
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The Human Body as a Gesture of Encounter
The human body is not an instrument of man's encounter of others—
both entities and persons—but as an expression of man as a conscious self.
Thus, man's body is not a medium of his encounter of other beings in the
world, but the way whereby man makes himself accessible to others. The
human encounter is vested in the embodiment of man's subjectivity.
Since the human encounter cannot occur without the body, the one
embodied subject enters into the other embodied subject. This encounter of
two subjects enable them to unconceal each other's worlds. One's encounter of
another person makes him part of the meaning of the world of this person and
vice-versa. So in a professor's encounter of the world of the students, He
becomes open to their world just as the students are to me.
This can only happen, however, when such an encounter is really an

authentic one.
In the discussion of the human person's relatedness, an I-It, an I-

He/she, and an I-Thou relationships were discussed. Of these degrees of
relationship, it is the 1-Thou that fits in an authentic human encounter. The
reason behind this is that in the I-Thou relationship, there is a personal
encounter between two embodied subjects in virtue of their mutual openness
and unconcealment of each other's embodied subjectivity. Yes, it is true that in
the concrete human encounter, a person may not conceal himself or may
inhibit himself to be transparent to the other; or still, a person may hide his
true self to the other. But all these encounters can only happen when the
encounter is cursory, the one which normally occur in the I-It and I-He/she
relationships. However, it must be reiterated that it is in the I-Thou
relationship where the authentic human encounter happens.
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SUMMARY
1. It is impossible to talk of human existence apart from the human
body.
2. He human body is man's expression of his presence in himself, in the
world, and in his fellow human person.
3. The inquiry of the human body is not intended to revive the Platonic
dispute on the dichotomy of soul and body. The inquiry, instead, is
undertaken in order to take the whole man as the substantial unity of
body and soul with emphasis on the body.
4. The human body refers to the finitude of man in the sense that
human bodily existence is limited by space, time, and death. Besides,
the human body is also limited in terms of its accidental constituents.
5. The human body refers to man's embodied subjectivity; man's body is
infused in his subjectivity- Thus, the human body is not a thing to be
used on exploited because it is a subject-body. As a subject-body, it
cannot be the object of “having”, since the human body cannot and
can never be disposed, unless when it is treated as an object. The
embodied subjectivity of man refers to the whole man as rational,
affective, and emotional.
6. The human body is not an instrument of man’s encounter of things
and person in the world; it is man’s expression of himself as an
embodied subjectivity. The authentic human encounter, however, is
possible, only in the I Thou relatedness.
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AM I MY BODY?
Jonathan Glover
My frontiers are those of my body. I may be unconscious for periods, but

I still exist: my body has a continuous path through space and time. It is what
is perceived by others when they perceive me. And the special ways in which I
am aware of my body are at least a large part of my own self-consciousness.
Should I then stop thinking of my body as mine and think of it as me?
My corpse is not me. The view worth considering is that I am my living
body. Perhaps a further modification is needed to allow for the case where a
body is alive, but where the brain will never again function in the way needed
for consciousness. If irreversible loss of consciousness is the end of me, the
view that I am my body will have to stipulate that my body must be both alive
and capable of consciousness.
The two issues this raises turned out to be related: The first is whether
all parts of my body are essential to my existence. The second is whether
saying that lam my body allows an adequate role for my mental life.
Is my whole body essential to me?
There is a complication raised by transplant. If my kidney or heart fails, I
shall be glad to have a transplant. My only worry will be whether it will work.
But if the neurologist says my brain is functioning poorly, I shall be far less
reassured by the offer of a brain transplant. I may feel, not that I am being
given someone else's brain, but that someone else is being given my body. My
brain seems more essential to me than is the rest of my body.
This has led some philosophers to view that I am my brain. But, once
frontiers are narrowed to the brain, it is hard to stop there. Are all parts of the
brain essential to me? It is hard to see why the mechanisms in the cerebellum
which controls breathing are so different from the heart or the lungs. Some
strong arguments would be needed to show that, while I survive a heart
transplant, I could not survive the replacement of the cerebellar breathing
mechanisms. The brain is singled out because of its contribution to mental life.
It is hard to see why its other functions are more relevant than those of the rest
of the body.
The flexible reference of the word "I" can be invoked. Just as "here" can
be refer to this room or to this country, so the limits of'T1 are usually set by the
bodily frontier, but, in rare cases, such as brain transplants, they can be set
more narrowly- It is open to someone to say that I am my body, while allowing
that I may survive the destruction of some bits of it and not of others. But, on
this approach, there are essential and unessential bodily parts of me, and the
essential parts are those most closely bound up with my mind.
My mental life.
The special role of the brain brings out a deeper problem for the view
that I am my body. The brain is special because of its role in my mental life,
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particularly my conscious life. This is crucial to me: it is very dubious that I am
still there when in irreversible coma. So it is only plausible that I am my body if
my mental life is reducible to the functioning of my brain. Many deny that it is.
They say that there is more to people than can be described in physical or in
functional terms.
The background to this is the way an old dualist model of the mind has
been replaced in the neuroscience.
The traditional dualist picture of human beings assumed interaction
between mind and body. On this picture, what goes on when 1 see a ball and
catch it involves the interaction between the physical and non-physical
processes. Light strikes my retina, which causes nerve impulses to be sent up
the optic nerve and eventually to the visual cortex. This causes me to have a
visual experience (itself a mental event, not physically located in the brain or
anywhere else). The visual experience causes me to decide to catch the ball-
This decision is another purely mental event, which, in turn, causes physical
events in the brain, which sent nerve impulses causing muscles to move.
Ever since Descartes championed this model, people have felt puzzled
'about it. What can be said about the nature of these mental events? How is
the interaction with the brain supposed to work?
My identity is obviously rooted in the continuous existence of my body.
And my mental life is identified as mine because of its dependence on my
brain. But perhaps we should be cautious about going further and saying that
I am reducible to any set of my physical features.
67
Name ________________________________ Score _________________

1. Do you consider the human body as an instrument? Explain how and

why?
2. Do you consider the human body as a representative? Explain how and

why?
68
Name _______________________________ Score _________________

Am I my body? Yes or No. Discuss and philosophize your own stand.
69
MODULE FIVE: MAN AND FREEDOM
This module explains the perennial debate on freedom versus

determinism among philosophers and psychologists. Arguments in favor of
the existence of free will are substantial, but the arguments advocated by
determinism are likewise presented to for to better understand both
philosophies.
This Module includes:
Lesson 1: The will: Its Existence and Nature

Lesson 2: Freedom of the Will (Part I)
Lesson 3: Freedom of the Will (Part II)
Lesson 4: Arguments for Determinism
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LESSON 1
THE WILL: ITS EXISTENCE AND NATURE

1. understand that the will really exist,
2. comprehend the nature of the will, and
3. know the object of the will.
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The will, in philosophy and psychology, is a term used to describe the

faculty of mind that is alleged to stimulate motivation of purposeful
activity. The concept has been variously interpreted by philosophers, some
accepting the will as a personal faculty or function (for example, Plato,
Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes and Kant) and other seeing it as the externalized
result of the interaction of conflicting elements (for example, Spinoza, Leibniz,
and Hume). Still others describe the will as the manifestation of personality (for
example, Hobbes, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer). The reality of individual will
is denied altogether by the doctrine of determinism. Modern psychology
considers the concept of the will as unscientific (as in Skinner) and has looked
to other factors such as unconscious motivation or psychological influence to
explain human actions.
However, the existence of the will can be demonstrated philosophically

and confirmed by data derived from everyday experience. For example, every
act of real self-control is an implicit manifestation of the will. In such an act we
are conscious of the fact that some tendency in us is held in check by a higher
tendency. That higher tendency is the will.
Against this argument the following objection can be raised. Animals

also exercise self-control. Thus a hungry but well-trained dog will not take the
meat he sees on the table.
This, however, is not real self-control. The sight of the meat has aroused
in the dog two conflicting tendencies; hunger and fear. The fear is the product
of his experience. Maybe on previous occasion, his grabbing the meat has been
followed by some very disagreeable sensation, like a spank, a whip or any
punishment. The memory of these painful sensations is now associated with
the perception of “meat-on-the-table”.
Another empirical confirmation of the existence of the will derives from

the fact that we sometimes will an object which is repulsive to our body and
sense tendencies; for instance, when we swallow a bitter medicine, or submit to
a painful operation or tooth extraction. In all these cases we are not attracted
by a material, sensible good but some good presented by our intellect.
Another proof for the existence of the will is the phenomenon of

voluntary attention. Voluntary attention is distinct from spontaneous attention.
Spontaneous attention is present in animals; it is the concentration of the
senses and of the mind on some object which appeals to one of the lower
drives. In voluntary attention we concentrate our senses and our mind on some
object which does not spontaneously interest us. We concentrate because we
want to concentrate, and we want to concentrate because our intellect tells us
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that it is good to concentrate. Compare the attention you pay to an interesting
movie with that given to a dull but important lecture.
So the existence of the will cannot be denied. But what is the very nature
of the will? If a will exists, then what is it? What is its object? Let us now turn
to a particular excerpt in John Kavanaugh’s article entitled Human Freedom
for a clearer understanding of what the will really is.
Human Freedom
Free choices: A Metaphysical Analysis of the Will
The Will is an intellectual tendency, or a tendency toward an

intellectually known good. It is different from sense an appetite in that it is not
“chained down” by the immediacy of the sensed object. I know not only this
object as good, but I know all objects, all subjects, all that is, us good in some
respect—at least insofar as it exists. Anything then, because it can be seen as
good, might be the object of my will—whether it is a good steak, a good person,
a good feeling, or a good action. It is precisely because a thing or action can be
seen as having good aspects that my will goes to it or ends toward it. The very
reason that I find myself having a tendency toward an object in the first place
is because I sense it or know it as having good things about it. It is the “good”
quality of the thing by which the will is drawn or moved.
We might say, the, that the will is naturally determined to seek the good;
and if I were presented with an unmitigated, simple, unqualified good, my will
would certainly be necessitated toward it. With this in mind—that all things are
good in some way and that my will tends spontaneously toward them because
they are somehow good—I recognize nevertheless that my ‘tending’ is always
concerned with an existential, real world in which good are precisely limited,
finite, conditioned, interrelated, and ordered to other goods. If I am about to
undertake a course of action, it is often evident that a number of possibilities—
all of which have good and bad points to recommend and discredit them—are
presented to me as alternatives. Since none of these alternatives ‘goods’ can be
called unconditional or simple goods, and since none of them can exhaust the
total meaning of good in which they all participate, none of them can force my
will to a necessary choice, This is our reasoning:
a. the will is a tendency toward an intellectually known good; thus it is

precisely the ‘good’ aspect of the object which attracts my will,
b. the only object which could necessitate my will would be a good that
is unconditionally good in an unqualified sense;
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c. in many of my choices, however, the goods from which I select as the
“the good for me in this decision” are all conditioned, limited and
qualified;
d. therefore freedom of choice can be operative in my behavior.
We might note that if there should be a case in which a particular good

appeared to be absolute—due to lack of knowledge or an excess of fear and
emotion- then freedom of choice would be inoperable, Similarly we might ask
ourselves: if the will tends toward the known good all the time, does that mean
we never choose evil? If we reflect upon moments of deliberation and choice, it
becomes rather clear that this is not the case. It is precisely in deliberation
upon and selection of a particular good among many-in relation to our
knowledge of who we are and what our potentialities may be—that moral
failure occurs. I can freely choose a particular good-for-me-now which I
consciously know is not in continuity with my identity and potentialities.
Amid these reflections, however, we must not forget that we also

experience our freedom as being severely limited and modified at times. As we
have seen, knowledge is of primary importance. We cannot have self-
possession if we never arrive at an understanding of the self and its meaning.
We cannot choose if we are not aware of option of different possibilities, of
various alternatives. We could neither choose nor love that which we do not in
some way know. We might even have experienced people who seemingly never
have known goodness, nobility, kindness or sympathy and consequently were
never able to exercise their freedom with respect to these values. Moreover,
there are ample data that point to the importance of the environment,
conditioning, deprivation, habit, emotion, natural preferences, and one’s own
history in the formation of the projects and choices. All these factors are
undeniable, and they must be weighed with the factors that point to man’s
freedom.
Consequently, reflection upon my experience leads me to conclude at

least initially the there are forces which can shape and influence my present
and future behavior. Nonetheless, there are also data that cannot be ignored
which point to the conclusion that determining ‘forces’ do not totally destroy
my ability to take possession of myself. As long as I can question, as long as I
can achieve a distance from my environment and from immediate needs, and
as long as I can know various values and goods as limited and conditional, I
can take hold of my life and my situation and I can say something about it.
In conclusion I might say, first, that I feel free. This is an important

consideration. But feeling free does not necessarily make it so. The feeling of
freedom does not indicate, however, that such an experience is quite primary
and fundamental to our behavior. Second and more important is that there are
levels of human behavior which, upon reflection and analysis, indicate freedom
as self possession and freedom of choice. These levels of behavior, moreover,
74
are not just feelings. They are the incontrovertible evidence of questioning, self-
reflection, distance, and the awareness of goods-precisely as conditional. If
these actions did not exist, I could not be doing what I am doing right now.
LESSON 2
FREEDOM OF THE WILL (PART 1)

1. Differentiate the various kinds of freedom,
2. Understand some important arguments for the freedom of the Will.
Freedom in general means the absence of resistant. There are different

kinds of restraint and freedom. Physical freedom is the absence of physical
restraint. When a prisoner is released from prison, he is physically free, since
he is no longer restrained by the prison walls. Moral freedom is the absence of
moral restraint, of an obligation, of a law. Thus in this country we are morally
free to criticize the government.
Psychological freedom is the absence of psychological restraint.

Psychological restraint consist in drives which force a subject to perform them.
Thus a hungry, untrained dog is forced by its hunger to eat the food, which is
set before it, a scared cat cannot help running away. These animals are not
forced into their actions by any external power or moral obligation; they
possess no psychological freedom. A hungry man, on the contrary, can still
refrain from taking food, and a soldier frightened by heavy bombardment can
choose to stay at his post. Men possess psychological freedom.
Psychological freedom is also called freedom of choice, since it allows the

free subject to choose between different courses of action. It has been defined
as that attribute of the will whereby it can act or not act (freedom of exercise),
can act in this way or in that way (freedom of specification).
In the whole history of philosophy, a great deal of debate has been done
on whether or not our will is free. In this lesson, we will consider two
arguments demonstrating the freedom of the will.
1. ARGUMENT FROM COMMON CONSENT – the great majority of men

believe that their will is free. This conviction is of the utmost practical
importance for the whole of human life. Therefore, if there is order in the
world, the majority of mankind cannot be wrong in this belief. Hence, the
will is free.
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The judgment of common sense is that there is freedom of the will.
That man on the street is sure that he is free and that his neighbor is free.
Only among the sophisticated does determinism (the doctrine that there is
no freedom of the will) find acceptance, and even among them only in
theory, not in practice. Besides this, we can make a number of
observations.
a. If all those studied the question theoretically arrived at deterministic

positions, we should indeed have to follow them, But even among
professional philosophers the majority uphold that the will is free.
b. Whether one professes determinism or the freedom of the will ha a
great practical influence on life. Why should a man try to control
himself if he is convinced that cannot do it anyway?
c. Far from shunning moral effort, great numbers of determinists make
a consistent effort to be decent and honest persons. It is difficult to
see how there is no contradiction between the doctrines they profess
and the kind of life they try to lead.
2. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT – we have said that most people

naturally hold that the will is free. Why do they cling to that conviction?
Because they are directly and indirectly aware of their freedom in the very
act of making a free decision; they are indirectly aware of its because of the
many instances of the behavior which can only be explained by admitting
the freedom of the will.
Direct awareness of the freedom of our decisions: In this argument we claim

that at the very moment in which we are exercising our freedom we are
aware of it. We do not claim, on the other hand, that we are directly
aware of being able to choose freely before the choices is made or after
it has been made.
The point is that we are not aware of our power of choosing freely except
in the very act of exercising that power. We are aware of the possible courses of
action; we may know from past experience that when no great difficulties lie in
the way we are capable of choosing any of these courses. But we are not
conscious of our power of free choice as such, except while we are exercising it.
Once we have reached a decision, we continue to have the impression

that, although we have chosen A, we could as well have selected B or C.
Therefore, we do not claim that we have an awareness of our freedom of choice
before exercising it or after having exercised it. But we possess that awareness
while we are choosing, while we are deciding to take A rather than B. At that
moment we are conscious that we are selecting A without coercion, without
constant; we feel that we are not being impelled by blind impulses that we are
not being manipulated like a puppet.
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2.2. Indirect Awareness of the freedom of will – Many facts of our daily life,
of which we are clearly aware, can be explained only if are free. We
deliberated before taking a decision, we weigh the reasons for or against it,
and we regret some of our past choices. This surely implies that we should,
and by inference could, have acted differently. We admire, praise and
reward virtuous actions and manifest through our attitude the implicit belief
that the person who performed them was not forced to do so. If Hitler was
not acting freely, when he decreed the wholesale extermination of the Jews,
his actions were just one more natural disaster, and there was no reason for
any indignation about it.
In most countries, the administration of justice is based on a belief in the

freedom of at least some human actions. Most courts try to find out the
degree of deliberation (that is, of freedom) with which a crime was
committed. And the punishment is generally proportional to the degree of
freedom. If man is not free, there is no reason for punishing a “first degree
murder” more severely than the killing of a pedestrian in an automobile
accident.
If I were determined, I would know nothing about it. Animals are unfree,
and totally unaware of it. In order to be aware of space, I must, in some
way, stand outside space. I can know time only because something in me is
above time. I can speak of determinism only because I am not totally in its
grip.
1. THE ETHICAL ARGUMENT – If there is no freedom, there is no moral

responsibility no virtue, no merit, no moral obligation, no duty, no morality.
The necessary connection between freedom and the spiritual realities is
quite obvious and is demonstrated in Ethics.
This is a strong argument because the sense of duty and the belief in
morality and moral obligation come naturally to man and even those who deny
their existence in theory live in practice as if they admitted it.
Kant, a major German Philosopher, who claimed that the existence of

freedom was not demonstrated by theoretical reason, nevertheless was
conviction from the fact of duty, which he considered to be immediately evident
to the practical reason.
Among the first principles, which are virtually inborn to the human intellect,
there is at least one that refers to the moral order. “The good must be done and
evil avoided.” This fundamental dictate of conscience, this moral ‘ought’, is
virtually inborn every human mind. It is the basis of all moral obligation and it
implies freedom of the will since obligation is nothing but the necessary of
doing something freely.
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No social life is possible without obligations and duties. In our relations with
other people we are aware of certain obligations we have in regard to them, and
we are even aware of their obligations toward us. Therefore we are continually
taking it for granted that man is free.
2. THE PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT – This argument can be presented in a

philosophical context. It presupposes the two following philosophical
statements:
Every kind of knowledge evokes a corresponding kind of striving. This

follows from the fact that knowledge and striving are the two
fundamental functions or aspects of being.
Immaterial striving is free at least in this sense that it is not

determined from outside. Determinism derives from matter.
If these two principles are admitted, the argument from the freedom of
the will it easy to set up:
There is in man an immaterial kind of knowledge. Hence, there must also

be him an immaterial kind if striving. And since immaterial striving is free,
there is in man a free kind of activity, which is called the will. Still the
question remains. “Why the human will is free?”
Why the human will is free?
Man’s freedom does not consist merely in being able to do what he wants
to do. Many Animals can do what they want to do. But is not within their
power to decide what they want to do. Man, on the other hand, is able not
only to do what he ants to do also decide that he wants to do one thing or
another.
We must show, therefore, the fact that and the reason why the human
person does not will the things he wills out of necessary; the fact that and
the reason why he will then freely. To explain clearly, we have to proceed in
a number of stages:
1. Man wills a thing necessarily as soon as he decided:“This is good.”
The will is a faculty whose object is the good. But the will does not
know its own object, it is not a cognitive faculty; it meets its object
through the intellect. Hence, as soon as the intellect judges: “This is
good,” the will is presented with its object and must necessarily
embrace it.
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2. Man decides necessarily that a thing is good when it conforms to his
standard of goodness.
The person judges the goodness of things not arbitrarily about

according to a certain norm or standard. When an object fulfills the
requirements of that standard, it is necessarily called good.
3. Man’s standard of goodness is “goodness as such.”
The will is guided by the intellect. The intellect knows being as

such, desires truth as such. The object of the will has the same
extension as that of the intellect which guides it’ it is good as such.
The good as such means the perfect good, without any restriction,
imperfection or limitation.
4. No object on earth comes up to man’s standard of goodness.
On earth we never meet the perfect good. Many things are good,
but they are not absolutely good, they all have their limitations, their
defects.
5. Hence, there is not a single object on earth with regard to which man
is forced to decide. “This is good.” There is not a single object in
relation to which we are not free.
In other words: We are free to will or not will, because we always

say: “this is good but not perfectly good.” Our intellect provides us
with the idea of the perfect good because it is the guide, which our will
follows. The relation of the will to the intellect is analogous to the
relation between the engine and the steering wheel of a car. Movement
is initiated by the engine (will) but the direction of the movement
derives from the action of the wheel (intellect).
It follows that our freedom is ultimately based on the immateriality

of our will and our intellect. We are free because we are spirits.
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LESSON 4
ARGUMENTS FOR DETERMINISM
After
1. Understand the various forms of determinism,
2. Learn the various factors that affect and influence our actions,
and
3. Know the arguments for determinism
Though some philosophers have argued their own position about

freedom, the other side, which is a contradictory argument, should also be
presented, that e. i. DETERMINISM. Many modern philosophers and
psychologists who deny the freedom of the will are called “determinists” and
their system is known as “determinism.” They claim that in spite of some
contrary appearances, man is forced or “determined” in all his actions.
Determinism is the philosophical concept that every event, including

human cognition and behavior, decision and action, is causally determined by
an unbroken chain of prior occurrences or by number of forces which compel
us to act as we do. Like the some of the natural laws of science which have the
form: If X occurs then Y occurs. If a patient is sick, there must be a reason for
such condition to happen which certainly explains everything. Thus, if we
know the initial condition (X occurs) and the law (If X then Y) we can
explain/predict the occurrence of Y. Determinism is the contention that all
physical (and mental) events and experiences of man in the universe can be
incorporated under such laws. This is NOT the view that we can actually
predict everything. Our ignorance of facts is enormous and we certainly do not
know all the laws and statistical regularities which describe such events and
experiences that we have. Thus if something occurred, there must be a reason
for it and such reason itself is the argument being emphasized and highlighted
by the determinism.
In its toughest argument, Hard Determinism is the theory that because
Determinism is true, no one is free; no one has free will (or choice) and no one
truly acts freely. Determinism, as a philosophical doctrine, is absolutely
contradictory to the belief that there is such a thing as freedom of the will.
Determinism asserts that “there is no free will, that we do things, not because
we decide to do these, but because these were determined to us by a number of
forces which compelled us to act as we do.” We could not have done otherwise.
We cannot do these things we did.
In an argumentative or syllogistic form, philosophers who advocate
determinism would put it this way:
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1. Determinism is true: all events are caused.
2. Therefore, all human desires and choices are caused.
3. For an action to be free it would have to be the result of a choice,
desire or act of will which had no cause. That is, free WILL means that
the Will or choosing "mechanism" initiates the action.
4. Therefore there can be no free choices or free will.
According to the Hard Determinists, freedom is present when a free act
or choice would be one which is uncaused, or happened independent of causes,
or completely disconnected from preceding events. The "Will" or person doing
the choosing and acting would have to be a primum mobile (first mover), a new
beginning, or an original creative source of activity. But, this cannot be, it is
argued, since surely actions are caused by wants and desires, wants and
desires flow from our character, and our character is formed by environment
and heredity. Thus, every actions or events have sources which are external to
us and are not within our control; a proof itself for determinism and not of
freedom.
All materialists and sensists are necessarily determinists. For them man
is a purely material being. But matters is perfectly determined and possess no
freedom. When we know a material system perfectly, we can foresee and
predict all further activities. Thus an astronomer predicts with great accuracy
all future eclipses. The volcanologist can predict with a certain degree of
accuracy when and where an earthquake will happen. The materialist claim
that if we knew the material system called “MAN” perfectly, and if we are aware
of all the influences working on him, we should be able to predict all his future
activities; we could write his biography on the day of his birth.
Determinism can be seen in different forms or arguments. The following
arguments will portray the general perspectives whithin a deterministic view of
life.
1. The Argument from Biology
Biological determinism maintains that physiological factors exert a

compelling influence in man’s life. We do what we do because of the kind of
body we have inherited from our parents, because we are born that way. The
biological determinists emphasize especially the role of the endocrine glands
and the genes in determining our conduct. We may sometimes wonder that we
act in a certain manner but we end up realizing that hereditary factors have
something to do with it. Thus, we do act not because it is an act of free will but
because of the biological factors that make us and determine us to do so.
2. The Law of Causation

The arguments from of determinism make it evident that it is anchored
with the law of causation. The law of causation is one which no man would
care to deny; it simply and undeniably asserts that every effect has its cause.
No one indeed can think otherwise. Causation, in fact, as Kant showed, is one
of the ways in which we must think; it is, as he says, an a priori form of
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thought; we did not learn from experience to think causally, but rather by
thinking causally we help to constitute experience. Man’s decision or actions
then do have their causal explanation but such cause is of physical or material
aspect and not of non-physical or immaterial, the free will, which the concept
of freedom asserts
3. The Argument from Science's Philosophy of Nature
A philosophy of nature is a general theory explanatory of all the
occurrences of nature. Now the ideal of scientific explanation in physics,
chemistry, biology, physiology, and everywhere is mechanical. Events do not
happen because anybody or any will wants them to happen; they happen
because they have to happen; they happen because they must. And it is the
business of science to find this necessary connection between the occurrences
of nature. The universe, by this hypothesis, whole and part, is governed by the
action of mechanical law. The reign of law is universal. Man is a very small
creature upon a small earth, which is itself a comparatively small planet in one
of the smaller solar systems of an indefinitely large number of solar systems
which partially fill infinite space. The universe is a physical mechanism in
which law rules, and man is but a least part of this universal machine. How
then can he do otherwise than he does do? A single free-will act would
introduce caprice, whim, chance, into a universe whose actions are so
mechanically determined that an omniscient observer of the present could
predict infallibly all futurity. Thus, man is so called bound and determined to
act by his own nature to act and is not free.
4. The Argument from Ethics
The interests of ethics, of such matters as duty, obligation, conscience,
reward, and blame, are peculiarly bound up with the doctrine of freedom, in
the eyes of many. Yet there is also an argument from ethics for determinism. It
runs as follows: a man's character determines his acts, he is responsible, for
the act is his own; he committed it because, being the man he could not have
done otherwise. If his act were an effect of free will, no one could count upon
him, he would be an irresponsible agent. Just because he is bound by his
character, he is dependable. If his acts are good, he is to be congratulated on
his character, not praised overmuch; if his acts are bad, he is to be pitied for
his character, not blamed overmuch. He is rewarded, not because he could
have done otherwise, but as a tribute to the stability of his character and as a
stimulus to continued right action. He is punished, again not because he need
not have done wrong, but to help him do right next time. All our instruction,
reproof, and correction of others presupposes they may be determined by such
influences. Thus, the whole outfit of ethical categories may be read in
deterministic terms, and indeed are so read by many ethical thinkers and
writers, beginning with Socrates, who held that right ideas determine right
conduct.
5. The Argument from Theology
The argument from theology for determinism runs somewhat as follows:
God is omniscient, He therefore knows what I am going to do, there is therefore
nothing for me to do except what He knows I am going to do, there is
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consequently but one reality, not two possibilities awaiting me in the future;
therefore I am not free to do otherwise than I must do when the time comes.
Thus the doctrine of the foreknowledge of God is held to exclude the freedom of
man's choice. But to deny that God has foreknowledge would be derogatory to
His dignity.
6. The Argument from Psycho-social
Psycho-social determinists emphasize a combination of psychological and

social factors as explaining human conduct. On the psychological side, they
point to the different drives and tendencies which impel the individual; on the
social side, to the continual pressure of the environment – words, customs,
fashions, propaganda, but most of all in education, in particular, education
during the first few years of life “. Man as part of the social group is not freely
deciding but merely following.
The psychologist determinists insist upon the compulsive influence of the

motives and presented to our mind, asserting that when two motives are
opposed to each other, the stronger necessarily prevails. In this view, the will is
like a balance, which necessarily tips toward the heavier weight. Thus, our will
necessarily chooses the greater good and follows the stronger motive.
Let us expand our discussion on the psycho-social type of determinism
for this is the popular kind of determinism today. We assume that the actions
of people will be explicable in terms of the circumstances or context in which
they are performed, and in terms of the character or nature of the actors and
the purposes that they have in mind. Their actions we should certainly sat are
determined by them, but their characters, their purposes, their circumstances,
are the products of their heredity, their education, their environment, the
whole of their HISTORY.
The philosophical doctrine has been given scientific evidential support by
the famous Harvard psychologist, B.F. Skinner. In his book, Walden Two, he
stresses:
“The causes for human action all lie outside the man and that these
causes are necessitating. Man’s behavior is shaped and determined by
external forces and stimuli whether they are familiar or cultural
sanction, verbal or non-verbal reinforcement, or complex system of
reward and punishment. I have nothing to say about the course of action
which I will take.”
In another part of Walden Two, he says

“Give me the specifications and I’ll give you the man. Let us control the
lives of our children and see what can make of them.”
Skinner did not these pronouncements without any scientific support.

The power of conditioning has been recognized. The stimulus-response model
of Pavlov is generally regarded among scientist as very convincing.
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Reinforcements, both positive and negative, can shape an individual or group
reaction. Forms of reward and punishments have already been adapted for
their utility. In other words, this phenomenon of behavior control is occurring
right now in our society by means of governmental, educational and
propagandistic control techniques, through in a less systematic manner.
To summarize, it would be good touch on John Kavanaugh’s reflection of

his own experience, which correspond to Skinner’s position in Walden Two and
Science and Human Behavior. Kavanaugh enumerates:
a. I have genetic, biological and physical structures, which influence my

behavior. They are part of the total me which is involved in choosing.
b. I have environmental structures, which are part of me – my early life

and psychological development, the culture, national and
ecclesiastical framework that I find myself situated in.
c. I am keenly aware of external forces and demands, which impinge

upon me, sometimes-creating needs even valves.
Before we and our discussion of determinism, it would be best to study a

particular except in B.F. Skinner’s book entitled Beyond Freedom and
Dignity. Let us take a look at the last chapter of this book:
WHAT IS MAN?
As a science of behavior adopts the strategy of physics and biology the

autonomous agent to the environment—the environment in which the species
evolved and in which the behavior of the individual is shaped and maintained,
replaces which behavior has traditionally been an attribute. That a man’s
behavior owes something to antecedent events and that the environment is a
more promising point of attack then mans himself has long been recognized. It
was Robert Owen, according to Trevelyan, who first clearly grasped and taught
that environment makes character and that environment is under human
control or, as Gilbert Saldea wrote, “that man is a creature of circumstance,
that if you changed the environments of thirty little Hottentots and thirty little
aristocratic English children. The aristocratic would become Hottentots, for all
practical purposes, and the Hottentots little conservatives.”
………Autonomous man is a devise used to explain what we cannot explain in

any other way. He has been constructed from our ignorance, and as our
understanding increases, the very stuff of which he is composed vanishes.
Science does not dehumanize man, and it must do so if it is to prevent the
abolition of the human species. To man as man we readily say good riddance.
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Only be dispossessing him can we turn from the inferred to the observed, from
the miraculous to the natural, from the inaccessible to the manipulable.
It is often said that in doing so we must treat that man who survives as a
mere animal. “Animal” is a pejorative term, but only because “man” has been
made spuriously honorific. Krutch has argued that whereas the traditional view
supports Hamlet’s exclamation, “How like a god!,” Pavlov, the behavioral
scientist, emphasized “How like a dog!” But that was a step forward. A god is
the archetypal pattern of an explanatory fiction, of a miracle-working mind, of
the metaphysical. Man is such more than a dog, but like a dog he is within
range of a scientific analysis.
……….Man is not made into a machine by analyzing his behavior in

mechanical terms. Early theories of behavior, as we have seen, represented
man as a push-pull automation, close to the nineteenth century notion of a
machine, but progress has been made. Man is a machine in the sense that he
is a complex system behaving, in lawful ways, but the complexity is
extraordinary. His capacities to adjust to contingencies of reinforcement will
perhaps be eventually simulated by machines, but this has not yet been done,
and the living system thus simulated will remain unique in other ways.
………Is man then “abolished”? Certainly not as a species or as an individual

achiever. It is the autonomous inner man who is abolished, and that is a step
forward. But does not man then become merely a victim or passive observer of
what is happening to him? He is indeed controlled by his environment, but we
must remember hat it is an environment largely of his own making. The
evolution of a culture is a gigantic exercise in self-control. It is often said that a
scientific view of man leads to wounded vanity, a sense of hopelessness, and
nostalgia. But no theory changes what is a theory about; man remains what he
has always been. And a new theory may change what can be done with its
subject matter. A scientific view of man offers exciting possibilities. We have
not yet seen what can make of man.
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Group Activity
1. As a group, come up with your own concept about Freedom and

Determinism based from its letters.
F -
R -
E -
E -
D -
O -
M -
D -
E -
T -
E -
R -
M -
I -
N -
I -
S -
M -
2. Cite current instances or scenarios in our society wherein Freedom and

Determinism is being experienced.
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Write a philosophical reflection based on the given title.
Am I Free or Determined?
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Evaluate if the following statements below is an expression of DETERMINISM

OR INDETERMINISM
1. ______________Man is a creature of circumstance
2. ______________The cause for human action all lie outside man
3. ______________Give me the specifications and I’ll give you the man.
4. ______________Every act of real self-control is an implicit manifestation of
the freedom of the will
5. ______________I can take hold of my life and I can say something about it
6. ______________a hungry man can still say no to food which is offered to
him
7. ______________we have not yet seen what man can make of man
8. ______________If there is no freedom, there is no moral obligation, no duty
and no morality.
9. ______________no social life is possible without obligations and duties
10. ______________change the environment and it will change the person
11. ______________reinforcement can shape the individual or group
12. ______________I have nothing to say about the course of action which I will
take
13. ______________I am an autonomous creature
14. ______________a act as dictated by other
15. ______________I am what I am because of my past, my history that I
cannot escape
16. ______________I have my pat but I have my future that is open to me, and
my future projects which I alone can shape
17. ______________once we have decided, we continue to have the impression
that, although we have chosen A, we could as well have
selected B
18. ______________Why should man control himself when in fact he believes
he cannot
19. ______________We could write a person’s biography on the day of his birth
20. ______________it could not be other than what it is
21. ______________ultimately, it is the person’s decision to act or not to act
22. ______________I am the master of others’ actions
23. ______________I am not a machine or robot whose motions or activities can
be predicted or controlled. I am a person
24. ______________This is my life and I am what I am because of my
immaterial striving
25. ______________I am taking up nursing because I was financially enticed by
my parents
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MODULE SIX : MAN AND GOD
Introduction
In the previous modules we studied “Man as an Embodied Subject,”

“Man as Knowing” and “Man and Freedom.” This module we have to study “Man
and God”—the essence of man in relations to his Maker. A philosopher was
strolling inside a university campus. He passed by an untilled garden and picked
up a flower. He said, “Little flower, I plucked you out from an obscure garden.
Little flower, I am holding you in my hand. Little flower, if I can understand your
roots, your stem, your petals—and all in all—then I can understand man and if I
can understand man . . . then I can understand God.”
The study of man in relations to God is important because man is the highest
of God’s earthly creatures. And we learn something about the Creator by seeing
what he has created. For only man is said to have been made by God in his own
image and likeness. Thus, a direct clue to the nature of God ought to emerge from
a study of man. To the extent that the copy resembles the original, we will
understand God more completely as a result of our study of the highest creature.
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LESSON 1
THE STUDY OF MAN
Images of Man
Man as Machine
One prevalent perspective on the human is in terms of what he is able to

do. The employer, for example, is interested in the human being’s strength and
energy, the skills and capabilities possessed. On this basis, the employer
“rents” the employee for a certain number of hours. That humans are
sometimes regarded as machines is particularly evident when automation
results in a worker being displaced from a job.
In this approach, persons are basically regarded as things, as means to
ends rather than ends in themselves. They are of value as long as they are
useful.
Man as an Animal
Another view sees man primarily as a member of the animal kingdom as

a derivation from some of the higher forms. He has come into being through
the same sort of process as all have other animals, an will have similar end.
This view of man is perhaps most fully developed in behavioristic

psychology. Here human motivation is understood primarily in terms of
biological drives. Knowledge of man is gained not though introspection, but
experimentation upon animals.
Man as a Sexual Being
Sigmund Freud regarded sexuality as the basic framework of man. In a

world in which sex was not openly discussed or even mentioned in polite
circles, Freud developed a whole theory of personality around human sexuality.
Man as an Economic Being
Another view is that economic forces are what really affect and
motivate the human being. In a sense, this view is an extension of the view that
man is an extension of the view that man is primarily a member of the animal
kingdom. It focuses upon the material dimension of life and its needs.
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Man as a Pawn of the Universe
Among certain existentialists, particularly, but also in a broader segment

of society, we find the idea that man is at the mercy of forces in the world
which control his destiny but have no real concern for him. These are seen as
blind forces, forces of chance in many cases. Sometimes they personal forces,
but even then they are forces over which man has no control, and upon which
he has no influence, such as political superpowers.
Man as a Free Being
The approach which emphasizes the freedom of man, his ability to

choose, sees the human will as the essence of the personality. This basic
approach is often evident in conservative political and social views. Here
freedom from restraint is the most important issue, for it permits man to
realize his essential nature. The role of government is simply to ensure a stable
environment in which such freedom can be exercised.
The Christian View of Man
The Christian view of man dwells on the fact that man is a creature of
God. This means, first, that is to be understood as having originated not
through a chance process of evolution, but through a conscious purposeful act
of God. Thus, there is a reason for man’s existence, a reason which lies in the
intention of the Supreme Being.
Further, the image of God is intrinsic to man. Man would not be human
without it.Hence, man puts his faith in the God who created him. In the words
of St. Augustine, “Lord, you have created us for yourself, oh God, and our soul
is restless until it rests in you!”
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LESSON 2
PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION: BASIC CONCEPTS
In Lesson One we discussed that man originated from God. This explains
that human experiences cannot ignore questions about God. Thus,
philosophers have also tried to answer questions related to God. That branch
of philosophy specifically concerned with this aspect is known as philosophy of
religion.
What is philosophy of religion? Until recently it was generally

understood to mean religious philosophizing in the sense of the philosophical
defense of religious convictions. Its program is to demonstrate rationally the
existence of God,. Thus preparing the way for the claims of revelation. In short,
it is philosophical thinking about religion.
Philosophy of religion is not an organ of religious teaching. It need not be

undertaken from a religious standpoint at all. It studies the concept and
propositions of theology and reasoning of theologians and analyzes concepts
such as God, holy, salvation, worship, creation, eternal life, miracle, etc. It also
tries to determine the nature of religious utterances in comparison with those
of everyday life.
Our primary task at this point, however, is to clarify the Jewish-

Christian concept of God, seeking a philosophical understanding of its various
aspects.
The term used for the main ways of thinking about God are formed
around either from the Greek word theos or its Latin equivalent, deus.
1. Atheism (Greek a – without or no; theos - God) a belief that there is

no God of any kind.
2. Agnosticism (Greek a – without or no; gnostic – knowledge) – the
belief that we do not have sufficient reasons or knowledge either to
affirm or deny the existence of God.
3. Skepticism (Greek skepto – to doubt) simply means to doubt the
existence of God.
4. Daism – refers to the idea of an “absentee” God who long ago set the
universe into motion and has hereafter left it alone.
5. Theism – belief in God
6. Polytheism (Greek poly – many; theos – God) the belief among
primitive people and reaching its classic expression n Ancient Greence
and Rome, that there are multitude of personal gods, each holding
sway a different department of life.
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7. Pantheism – Greek pan – all; theos – God) is the belief, perhaps, most
impressively expounded by some of the poets, that God is identical
with nature or with the world as a whole.
8. Monotheism – (Greek mono – one; theos – God) – the belief that there
is but one God, who is personal and moral and who seeks a total and
unqualified response from his human creatures.
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LESSON 3
ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (PART 1)
The doctrine of God is the central point for much of Philosophical

Theology. There’s a need for a correct understanding of God. Some people think
of God as a kind of celestial policeman who looks for opportunities to pounce
upon erring and straying persons. The opposite view, that God, is
grandfatherly, is also prevalent. Here God is conceived of as an indulgent,
kindly, old gentleman who would never want to detract from humans
enjoyment of life. These and many other conceptions of God need to be
corrected, of our spiritual lives are to have any real meaning and depth.
The study of God’s nature should be seen as a means to a more

accurate understanding of him and hence a closer personal relationship with
God. When we speak of the attributes of God we are referring to those qualities
of God which constitute what he is. They are the very characteristics of his
nature. The attributes are permanent qualities. They are essentials and
inherent dimensions of his very nature. Divine attributes, according to
Aristotelian conception, are inseparable from the being and essence of God.
Classifications of Attributes
1. Communicable attributes. They are those qualities of God of which at least

a partial counterpart can be found in his human creations. Example, love,
which, while infinite in God, can be found in man. The incommunicable
attributes, on the other hand, are those unique qualities for which no
counterpart can be found in humans. One example of this is omnipresence
of God. God is everywhere simultaneously. Even with jet and rocket travel,
man is incapable of being everywhere simultaneously.
2. A second pair of categories is the immanent or intransitive and the
emanant and transitive qualities. The former are those which remain
within God’s own nature. His spirituality is an example. Emanant or
transitive attributes are those which go out from and operate outside the
nature of God, affecting the creation. God’s mercy is a transitive attribute. It
makes no sense to think or speak of God’s mercy apart from the created
beings to whom he shows mercy.
3. Closely related to the immediately preceding classification and sometimes
combined with it is the distinction between absolute and relative qualities.
The absolute attributes of God are those which he has in himself. He has
always possessed these qualities independently of the objects of his
creation. The relative attributes on the other hand are those which are
manifested through his relationship to other subjects and inanimate
objects. Infinity is an absolute attribute; eternity and omnipresence are
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relative attributes representing the relationship of his unlimited nature to
the finite objects of his creation.
4. Our final classification is that of natural and moral attributes. The moral
attributes are those which in the human context would relate to the concept
of rightness (as opposed to wrongness). Holiness, love, mercy, and
faithfulness are examples. Natural attributes are the non-moral
superlatives of God, such his knowledge and power.
The last system with some modifications will be used in this study.
Instead of natural and moral, however, we use the terms attributes of
greatness and attributes of goodness.
Attributes of Greatness
Spirituality
God is spirit; that is, he is not composed of matter and does not possess
physical nature. One consequence of God’s spirituality is that she does not
have the limitations involved with a physical body. For one thing, he is not
limited to a particular or spatial location. Furthermore, he is not destructible,
as is material nature.
In biblical times, the doctrine of God’s spirituality was a counter to the
practice of idolatry and of nature worship. God, being spirit, could not be
presented by any physical object or likeness.
Personality
Philosophical Theology perceives God as personal. He is an individual
being, with self-consciousness and will, capable of feeling, choosing, and
having a reciprocal relationship with other personal and social beings. Another
dimension of God’s personality is the fact that God has a name. God identifies
himself with Moses as “I Am” or “I Will be.” By this he demonstrates that he is
not an abstract, unknowable being, nor a nameless force but rather it refers to
him as a personal God. Further, an indication of the nature of God is the
activity in which he engages. He is depicted as knowing and communicating
with human persons.
A Living God
God is alive. He is characterized by life. His name “I am” indicates that he
is a living God. Not only does this God have life, but he has a kind of life
different from that of every other living being.. While other beings have their
own life in God, he does not derive his life from any external source. He is
never depicted as having been brought into being. The adjective “eternal” is
applied to him frequently, implying that there never was a time when he did
not exist.
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Infinity
God is infinite. This means not only that God is unlimited, but that he is
unlimitable. In this respect, God is unlike anything we experience. Even those
things that common sense once told us are infinite or boundless are now seen
to have limits. The ocean once seemed to be an endless source of good, and a
dumping place so vast that it could not be contaminated. Yet we are becoming
aware that its resources and its ability to absorb pollution are both finite. The
infinity of God, however, speaks of a limitless being.
The infinity of God may be thought of from several angles. We think first
in terms of space. Here we have what has traditionally been referred to as
immensity and omnipresence. God is not subject to limitations of space. All
finite objects have a location. They are somewhere. With God, however, the
question of whereness or location is not applicable. God is the one who brought
space (and time) into being. He was before there was space. He cannot be
localized at a particular point.
God is also infinite in relation to time. Time does not apply to God. He
was before time began. The question, How old is God? Is simply inappropriate.
He is no older now than a year ago. He is simply not restricted by the
dimension of time.
God is timeless. He does not grow or develop. There are no variations in

his nature at different points within his existence. He has always been what he
is.
Further, the infinity of God may also be considered with respect to

objects of knowledge. His understanding is immeasurable. A further factor, in
the light of this knowledge, is the wisdom of God. Bu this is meant, that God
acts in the light of the facts and in light of correct values. Knowing all things,
God knows what is good.
Finally, God’s infinity may also be considered in relationship to what is

traditionally referred to as the omnipotence of God. By this we mean, God is
powerful. God is able to do all things which are proper objects of his power.
What he chooses to do, he accomplishes, for he has the ability to do it.
There are, however, certain qualifications of this all-powerful character of

God. He cannot arbitrarily do anything whatsoever that we may conceive of. He
can do only those things which are objects of his power. Thus, he cannot do
the logically absurd or contradictory. He cannot make square circles or
triangles with four corners.
Constancy
God is described as unchanging. He does not change. The divine
constancy involves several aspects. There is first no quantitative change. God
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cannot increase in anything, because he is already perfection. Nor can he
decrease, for if he were too, he would cease to be God. There is no qualitative
change. The nature of God does not undergo modification.
ATTRIBUTES OF GOD (PART II)
Attributes of Goodness
Moral Qualities
If the Attributes of Greatness we studied in the preceding lesson were

God’s only attributes, he might be conceivably be an immoral or amoral being,
exercising his power and knowledge in a capricious even cruel fashion. But
what we are dealing is a good God, one who can be trusted and loved. He has
attributes of goodness as well as greatness. In this lesson, we will consider his
moral qualities, that is, the characteristics of God as a moral being. For
convenient study, we will classify his basic moral attributes as purity, integrity
and love.
1. Holiness
There are wo basic aspects of God’s holiness. The first is his uniqueness.
He is totally separate from all creation. It speaks of “the otherness of God.”
This is what Louis Berhof called the “majesty-holiness” of God. The other
aspect of God’s holiness is his absolute purity and goodness. This means
that he is untouched and unstained by the evil in this world. God’s moral
perfection is the standard for our moral character and the motivation for
religious practice. The whole moral code follows from his holiness.
2. Righteousness
The second dimension of God’s moral purity is his righteousness. This,

as it were, the holiness of God applied to his relationships to other beings.
The righteousness of God means, first of all, that the law of God, being a
true expression of his nature, is as perfect and righteous as he is.
3. Justice
God administers his kingdom in accordance with his law. That is, he
requires that others conform to it. God’s righteousness is his personal or
individual righteousness. His justice is his official righteousness, his
requirement that other moral agents adhere to the standards as well. God
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is, in other words, like a judge who as a private person adheres to the law of
society, and in his official capacity administers that same law, applying
others.
The justice of God means he is fair in the administration of his law. He
does show favoritism or partiality.
Integrity
The cluster of attributes which we are here classifying as integrity

relates to the matter of truth. There are three dimensions of truthfulness; 1)
genuineness—being true; 2) veracity—telling the truth; and faithfulness—
proving true.
1. Genuineness
In a world in which so much is artificial, our God is real. He is
what he appears to be. God is real; he is not fabricated or constructed or
imitation, as are
all other claimants to deity.
2. Veracity
Veracity is the second dimension of God’s faithfulness. God

represents things as they really are. Whether he is speaking of himself or
part of his creation, what God is says is the way things really are.
God has appealed to his to his people to be honest in all situations.

They are to be truthful both in what they formally assert and in what
they imply.
3. Faithfulness
If God’s genuineness is a matter of his being true and veracity is

his telling of the truth, then his faithfulness mans that he proves true.
God keeps all his promises. This is a function of his unlimited power.
Love
When we think in terms of God’s moral attributes, perhaps what comes

first to mind is the cluster of attributes we are here classifying as love. Many
regard it as the basic attribute, the very nature or definition of God: God is
love! The basic dimension of God’s love to us are: 1) benevolence 2) grace 3)
mercy.
1. Benevolence
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Benevolence is a basic dimension of God’s his we mean the concern of
God for the welfare of those whom he loves. He unselfishly seeks our
ultimate welfare. It is agape, not eros type of love.
2. Grace
Grace is another attribute which is part of the manifold of God’s love.

By this we mean that God deals with his people on the basis of their
merit or worthiness, what they deserve, but simply according to their
need; in other words, he deals with them on the basis of his goodness
and generosity.
3. Mercy
God’s mercy is his tender-hearted, loving compassion for his people. It

is his tenderness of heart toward the needy. If grace contemplates
man as sinful;, guilty and condemned; mercy sees him as miserable
and needy.
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LESSON 4
ARGUMENTS FOR GOD’S EXISTENCE
The various arguments for the existence of God can be divided into two
types: the ontological arguments and the cosmological arguments for God’s
existence. In the ontological arguments, they focus attention upon the idea of
God and proceeds to unfold its inner implications. However, in the
cosmological arguments, they start from some general nature of the world
around us and argue that there could not be a world with these particular
characteristics unless there were also the ultimate reality which we call “God”.
Let us now turn to these.
ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT – the ontological argument for the existence

of God was first developed by St. Anselm, one of the Christian Church’s most
original thinker and the greatest theologian ever to have been Archbishop of
Canterbury.
Anselm begins by concentrating the Christian concept of God into the

formula” “a being that which nothing greater can be conceived.” It is clear
that by “greater” Anselm means more perfect, rather than spatially bigger.
His argument can be found in the second chapter of his Proslogion. It runs:
Therefore, if that than which a greater cannot be thought is in the

understanding alone, this same thing than which a greater cannot be thought
is that than which a greater can be thought. But obviously this is
impossible.Without doubt, therefore, there exists, Both in the understanding
and in reality, something than which greater cannot be thought.” Anselm
distinguishes between something, x, existing in the mind only and its existing
in reality as well. If the most perfect conceivable being existed only in the
mind, we should then have the contradiction that is possible to conceive of a
yet more perfect being namely, the same being existing in reality, as
well as in the mind. Therefore, the most perfect conceivable being must exist
in reality, as well as in the mind.
The argument has also several other notable forms, in particular, Rene
Descartes has a similar argument which can be found in his fifth Mediations.
According to Descartes, just as one can have a clear and distinct idea of God.
And as Descartes sees it, the idea of God is the idea of a supremely perfect
being. Furthermore, this being can be seen to have “an actual and eternal
existence” just as some number of figures can be seen to have some kind of
character or attribute. His argument run as follows:
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“Existence can no more be separated from the essence of God than can
its having its three angles equal to two right angles be separated from the
essence of a rectilinear triangle, or the idea of a mountain from the idea of a
valley, and so there is not any les repugnance to our conceiving a God (tat is, a
Being supremely perfect) to whom existence is lacking (that is to say, to whom
a certain perfection is lacking), than to conceive of a mountain which has not
valley.”
The idea of Rene Descartes here seems to be that from the notion of God
one can deduce his existence. God is supremely perfect and must therefore
exist.
COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
St. Thomas Aquinas is well known to have offered five ways to proving
divine existence using the cosmological arguments. The First Way argues from
the fact of motion to a Prime Mover. The Second Way argues form the
contingent being to a First Cause. The Third Way argues form the contingent
beings to Necessary Being. The Fourth Way argues degrees of value to
Absolute Value and the Fifth Way argues form the evidences of purposiveness
in nature to a Divine Designer.
Argument from Motion – the key term in the First Way is “change or in the
Latin of Aquinas, “motus”. The word motus is sometimes translated as
“movement” or “motion” but “change” is perhaps the best English equivalent.
For motus covers what we should normally call change of quality, change of
quantity, change of location or place.
Argument from Cause – the Second Way turns on the notion of causation and
existence. “We never observe, nor ever could,” says Aquinas, “something
causing itself for this would mean that preceded itself, and this is not possible.”
According to the Second Way, then, the mere existence of something requires of
cause. And in that case, says Aquinas, the existence of everything requires a
cause that is not itself caused to exist by anything other than itself. Why?
Because if there is no such cause, then nothing could exist at all, while
obviously some things do exist. He argues:
“Now if you eliminate a cause you also eliminate its effects, so that you
cannot have a last cause nor an intermediate one; unless you have a first
cause. Given therefore no stop in the series of causes, and hence no first
cause, there would be no intermediate causes either, and no last effect, and
this would be an open mistake. One is therefore forces to suppose some first
cause, to which everyone gives a name which is God”.
Argument from Contingency of Beings – According to the Second Way, God

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exists because the present existence of things depends on the present existence
of an uncaused cause. The Third Way includes this suggestion, but it begins
differently from the Second Way. According to the Third Way, some things
come into existence and pass out of it. Some things, in other words, are
generated and corruptible. In Aquinas’ view, however, if everything were like
this, then would now have come a time when nothing existed at all, not all
things are generated and corruptible. Some are therefore ungenerated and
incorruptible, in Aquinas’ terminology, there are necessary beings.
In other words, everything in the world about us is

contingent – that is to say, it is true of each item that is
might not have existed at all or might have existed
differently. The proof of this is that there was a time
when it did not exist at all. The existence of this page is
contingent upon the prior activities of lumberjacks,
transport workers, paper manufacturers, printer, author,
and others. Everything points beyond itself to other
things. Argues Aquinas, “If everything were contingent,
there must have been a time when nothing existed. In
this case, nothing could ever have come to exist for there
would have been no casual agency. Since there are
things in existence, there must be something which is not
contingent, which is necessary, which cannot exist, and
this being we call God.”
Argument from the Degrees of Value to Absolute Value – the Fourth

Way recognizes that certain realities can be identified of their own value.
But this concept of value is hierarchical in the sense that one’s degree of
value can be transcended by another. Such as the concept that if there is
something or someone that is good, then there must be better or best.
Thus, if there exists a man who is imperfect, then there must be a higher
being that transcends man who is perfect and recognized with the
Highest Value or Absolute Value. This is only acknowledged to God who
is the Absolute Value or the Summum Bonum (Ultimate Goodness.)
ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN (OR TELEOLOGICAL)– This argument which is

the Fifth Way of St. Thomas Aquinas has always been the most popular of the
theistic arguments. Perhaps the most famous exposition of the argument from
the design is that of William Paley (1743 – 1805).
Paley’s analogy of the watch conveys the essence of the argument.

Suppose that while walking in a desert place I see a rock lying on the ground
and ask myself how this object came to exist.
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I can properly attribute its presence to chance, meaning to say in this
case the operation of such natural forces as wind, rain, heat, frost and volcanic
action. However, if I see a watch lying on the ground I cannot reasonably
account for it in a similar way. A watch consist of a complex arrangement of
wheels, cogs, axles, springs and balances, all operating of time. It would be
illogical to attribute the formation and assembling of these metal parts into a
functioning machine to the chance operation of such factors as wind and rain.
We are, therefore, obliged to postulate an intelligent mind which is responsible
for all the phenomenon.
Paley argues that the natural world is a complex a mechanism, and as
manifestly designed, a super intelligent Designer responsible for it. This great
Designer or architect is what we call “God”.
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LESSON 5
FAITH AND REASON
LESSON 1 – Display
We have gone through some arguments for the existence of God and
possibly seen some merits or flaws in these arguments. But the questions we
will try to raise now are: are these arguments really important on the personal
level? Are these essential to our faith-life? In trying to answer these questions,
we cannot but take into the fore the question of what really faith is and its
apparent opposition with reason.
The opinion that religious faith as the acceptance of certain beliefs by a

deliberate act of will are those of 17th century French thinkers Blaise Pascal
and Teminetennent,
1. Pascal’s Wager – Pascal’s best known contribution to philosophy is called

“Pascal’s Wager.” In this section of his Pennees, he speaks about the search for
God. For Pascal, that search is the quest for the meaning of life, because God
provides the hope that we can be redeemed from misery and death. According
to him, this search for God revolves around the idea of a wager, a bet. Thus he
said:
“Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wearing that God exists. Let us
estimate these chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose nothing. Wager,
then, without hesitation that he exists.”
Here, Pascal argues that we ought to be God exists. If we wager our lives
that God exists, we stand to gain eternal salvation if we are right and lose little
if we are wrong. If on the other hand, we wager our lives that there is no God,
we stand to gain little if we are right, but to lose eternal happiness if we are
wrong.
In other words, Pascal does not give so much thought in logical

demonstration concerning God’s existence. We only need to bet, to believe that
there is a God, to have faith. We ought to wager that God exists and live
accordingly. To do so, he concords, is not irrational but exactly opposite. In our
human situation, it is not given to us to demonstrate that God exists, and yet
an analysis of our predicament suggests that faith in God is sensible. He
believes that, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” He goes
on to say, “It is the heart which experiences God not the reason. This is faith:
God is felt by the heart, not by the reason.”
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2. James’ Will to Believe – William James argues in his famous essay The Will
to Believe (1897) that the existence or non – existence of God, of which there
can be no conclusive evidence either way, is a matter of great importance that
anyone who so desires has to stake his life upon the God – hypothesis. We are
obliged to bet our lives upon either this or the contrary possibility. He says:
“We cannot escape the issue by remaining skeptical and waiting for more light,
because, although we do avoid error in that way if religion be untrue, we lose
the good, if it is true, just as certainly as if positively choose to disbelieve
“If there is a personal God, our unwillingness to proceed on the supposition

that he is real may make it impossible for us to be accepted by him.”
3. Tennent’s View – A more recent philosophical theologian, F.R. Tennent

identifies faith with he element of willing venture in all discovery. Tennent
freely allows that there can be no general guarantee hat faith will be justified.
He says, “Hopeful experimenting has not produced the machine capable of
perpetual motion, and Columbus steered with confidence for Utopia, he would
not have found it. “ Faith always involves risks, but it is only by such risks that
human knowledge. He continued:
“The fruitfulness of a belief or of faith for the moral or religious life

is one thing, and the reality or existence of what is ideated and
assumed is another. There are instances in which a belief that is not
true, in the sense of corresponding with fact, may inspire one with
lofty ideals and stimulate one to strive to be a more worthy person.”
4. Tillich’s “Ultimate Concern” – Another philosopher, Paul Tillich, offered

his ideas on the subject. He contrasts two types of philosophy of religion, which
he describes as ontological and cosmological. The latter ( which is associated
with Aquinas ) thinks of God as being “ out there,” to be reached only at the
end of a long and hazardous process of reasoning; to find it him is to meet a
Stranger. For the ontological approach, which Tillich associated with Augustine
and Anselm, God is already present to us as the Ground of our own being. He
is identical with us; yet at the same time he infinitely transcends us. God is not
an other, an object which we may know or fail to know, but Being- itself, by
which we participate by the very fact of existing. To be ultimately concerned
about God is to express our true relationship to Being.
Tillich teaches that “Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.”

Our ultimate concern is that which determines our being or not-being, not in
the sense of physical existence, but in the sense of”…the reality, the
structure, the meaning, and aim of existence.”
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People are, in fact, ultimately concerned about many different things, for
example, their nation, their personal success and status; but these are only
primary concerns, and the elevation of a preliminary concern to the status of
ultimacy is idolatry. Tillich describes ultimate concerns as follows:
“Ultimate concern is the abstract translation of the great commandment:
‘The Lord, our God is one; and shall love your God with all your heart, and
with all your soul, and with all you mind, and with all your strength.’ The
religious concern is ultimate; it exclude all other concerns from ultimate
significance; it makes them preliminary. The ultimate concern is
unconditional, independent of any conditions of character, desire or
circumstances.”
5. Tolstoy’s Power of Life – Count Leo Tolstoy, at one point in his life almost
committed suicide as a result of the senselessness and meaninglessness he
finds in life. In his efforts to find the real meaning of life, he found out that
life can only become meaningful through faith in God. He argues that faith is
an irrational knowledge. But it gives and provides the meaning to life.
It would be best to note that in his search for the meaningfulness of life,
he tried to solicit the help of science and philosophy, for he thought, rational
knowledge might provide the answer for his question concerning life’s
meaning. But in all these efforts, he never succeeded. Let us take a look at an
excerpt from his Confessions.
MY CONFESSION
Leo Tolstoy
Life is a meaningless evil – that was incontestable, I said to myself. But I

still lived, still live, and all humanity has lived. How is that possible? Why does
it live, since it can refuse to live? Is it possible Schopenhauer and I alone are so
wise as to have comprehended the meaninglessness and evil of life?
The discussion of the vanity of life is not so cunning, and it has been
brought forward long ago, even by the simplest of men, and yet they have lived
and still live. Why do they continue living and never think of doubting the
reasonable of life? …
Thus, outside the rational knowledge, which had to me appeared as the

only one, I was inevitably led to recognize that all living humanity had a certain
other irrational knowledge, faith, which made it possible to live?
All irrationality of faith remained the same for me, but I could not help
recognizing that it alone gave to humanity answers to the questions of life, and,
in consequences of them, the possibility of living.
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The rational knowledge brought me to the recognition that life was
meaningless – my life stopped, and I wanted to destroy myself. When I looked
around at people, at all humanity. I saw that people lived and asserted that
they knew the meaning of life. I looked back at myself: I lived so long as I knew
the meaning of life. As to other people, so even to me, did faith give the
meaning of life and the possibility of living.
Looking again at the people of other countries, contemporaries of mine

and those passed away, i saw again the same. Where life had been, there faith,
ever since humanity existed, had given the possibility of living and the chief
features of faith were everywhere one and the same.
…Consequently, in faith alone we find the meaning and possibility of life.

What, the, was faith? I UNDERSTAND THAT FAITH WAS NOT MERELY AN
EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOY SEEN, AND SO FORTH, NOT REVELATION (that
is only the description of one of the symptoms of faith), NOT THE RELATION
OF MAN TO MAN, NOT MERELY AB\N AGREEMENT WITH WHAT A MAN WAS
TOLD, AS FAITH WAS GENERALLY UNDERSTOOD – THAT FAITH WAS THE
KNOWLEDGE OF THE MEANING OF HUMAN LIFE. IN CONSEQUENCE OF
WHICH MAN DID NOT DESTROY HIMSELF, BUT LIVED. FAITH IS THE
POWER OF LIFE. IF A MAN LIVES, HE BELIEVES IN SOMETHING.IF HE DID
NOT BELIEVE THAT HE OUGHT TO LIVE FOR SOME PURPOSES, HE WOULD
NOT LIVE IF HE DOES NOT SEE AND UNDERSTAND THE PHANTASM OF
THE FINITE. IF HE BELIEVES IN THAT FINITE, HE MUST BELIEVE IN THE
INFINITE. WITHOUT FAITH ONE CANNOT LIVE.
EVIL IN GOD’S WORLD: A SPECIAL PROBLEM
Epicurus unanswered questions; “Is God willing to prevent evil,

but not able? then is he impotent. Is God able but not willing? then is he
malevolent. Is God both able and willing, whence then is evil!”
The Nature of the Problem
We have spoken of the nature of God’s providence and have noted that it
is universal. God is in control of all that occurs. He has a plan for the entire
universe and all of time, and is at work bringing about that good plan. But a
shadow falls across this comforting doctrine: the problem of evil. We are
dealing here with a problem that has occupied the attention of some of the
greatest minds of the Christian church, intellects of such stature as St.
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Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Contemporary philosophers and
theologians as well admit that the problem of evil is one of the most vexing
problems humans face.
The evil that precipitates this dilemma is of two general types: On one
hand, there is what is usually called . . “natural evil.” This is evil that does not
involve human will and acting, but is merely an aspect of nature which seems
to work against man’s welfare. There are destructive forces of nature: storms,
floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, and the like.
These catastrophic occurrences produce large losses of life as well as property.
And much suffering and loss of human lives are caused by diseases such as
cancer, multiple sclerosis, and a host of illnesses.
The other type of evil is termed “moral evil.” These are evils which can be
traced to the choice and action of free moral agents. Here we find war, crime,
cruelty, corruption, class struggles, discrimination, slavery, injustices too
numerable to mention.
Themes for Dealing With the Problem of Evil
Admittedly, a total solution to the problem of evil is beyond human

ability. So what we will do here it to present several themes which in
combination will help us deal with the problem. These themes will be
consistent with the basic tenets of philosophical theology.
Evil as a Necessary Accompaniment of the Creation of Man. Archbishop

Desmond Tutu of South Africa used to say: “God created us for freedom. God
insists that we have to be human and to be human is to be free!” Man would
not be man if he did not have free will. This has given rise to the argument that
God cannot create a genuinely free being and at the same time guarantee that
this being will always do exactly what God desires of him. If man is to be truly
human, he must have the ability to desire to have and do things some of which
will not be what God wants man to have and to do. Apparently, God felt that,
for reasons which were evident to him but which we can only partly
understand, it was better to make human beings than androids. And evil was a
necessary accompaniment of God’s good plan to make man fully human and
free.
A Reevaluation of What Constitutes Good and Evil. Some of what we

term good and evil may not be that. It is, therefore, necessary to take a hard
look at what constitutes good and evil. We are inclined to identify good with
whatever is pleasant to us at the present and evil, with what is personally
unpleasant, uncomfortable or disturbing. Yet, Philosophical Theology seems to
see things somewhat differently.
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First, we will briefly consider the divine dimension. Good is not to be
defined in terms of what brings personal pleasure to man in a direct fashion.
Good is to be defined in relationship to the will and being of God. Good is that
glorifies him, fulfills his will, and conforms to his nature.
In considering the divine dimension, we must also take note of the

superior knowledge and wisdom of God. Even in regard to my own welfare, I
may not be the best judge of what is good and what is evil. My judgment is
often fallible. It may seem good to me to eat sweet, sticky candy. But to my
dentist, it may seem quite different. It may seem good and thrilling to a child to
use a match as his/her plaything, but to his/her parents using a match as a
playing is entirely different and dangerous matter.
Second, we must consider the dimension of time or duration. Some of

the evils which we experience are actually very disturbing on a short-term
basis, but in the long term work a much larger good. The pain of the dentist’s
drill and the suffering of post-surgical recovery may seem quite severe evils,
but they are in actuality rather small in light of the long-range effects that flow
from them. Philosophical Theology encourages us to evaluate our present and
temporary sufferings and the seeming evils that befall us sub specie aeternitatis
(in the light of eternity).
Third, there is the question of the extent of the evil. We tend to be very
individualistic in our assessment of good and evil. But this is a large and
complex world, and God has many persons to care for. The Saturday downpour
that spoils a family picnic may seem like an evil to me, but be a much greater
good to the farmers whose parched fields need the rains, and ultimately to a
much greater number of people who depend upon the farmers’ crops for food.
What is evil from a narrow perspective may, therefore, be only an
inconvenience and, from a larger frame of reference, a much greater good to a
much larger number.
Evil in General as the Result of Sin in General. One cardinal doctrine of

philosophical theology is the fact of racial sin. By this we do not mean the sin
of race against race but rather the fact that the entire human race has sinned
and is now sinful. Philosophical Theology terms this as “The Fall”—man’s first
sin, a radical change took place in the whole universe. In its head, Adam, the
entire human race violated God’s will and fell from the state of innocence in
which God had created mankind.
Thus, it appears likely that a whole host of natural and moral evils may
have
resulted from the sin of mankind. We live in the world which God created, but
it is not quite as it was when God finished it, it is now a fallen and broken
world. And part of the evils which we now experience as a result of the curse of
God upon creation.
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More serious and more obvious, however, is the effect of the fall in the
promotion of moral evil, that is, evil which is related to human willing and
acting. There is no question that much of the pain and unhappiness of human
beings is the result of moral and natural evils.
Additional reading:
EVIL by David Hume (1711 – 1776)
The whole earth, believe me, Philo, is cursed and polluted (said Demea).
A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger,
want, stimulates the strong and courageous: fear, anxiety, terror, agitate the
weak and infirm. The first entrance into life gives anguish to the newborn
infant and to its wretched parent: weakness, impotence, distress, attend such
stage of life and ‘tis at last finished in agony and horror.
Observe too, says Philo, curious artifices of nature, in order to embitter
the life of every living being. The stronger prey upon the weaker, and keep them
in perpetual terror and anxiety. The weaker too, in their turn, often prey upon
the stronger… and molest them without relaxation. Consider that innumerable
race of insects, which either are bred on the body of each animal, or flying
about infix their stings in him. These insects have others still than themselves,
which torment them. And thus on each hand, before and behind, above and
below, every animal is surrounded with enemies, which incessantly seek
misery and destruction.
Man alone, said Demea, assume to be, in part, an exception to this rule.
For by combination in society, he can easily master lions, tigers, and bears and
whose greater strength and agility naturally enable these to prey upon him.
On the contrary, it is here chiefly, cried Philo, hat the uniform and equal
maxims of nature are most apparent. Man, it is true, can, by combinations
surmount all his real enemies, and become master of the whole animal
creations, but does he not immediately raise up to himself imaginary enemies,
the demons of his fancy, who haunt him with superstitious terrors, and blast
every enjoyment in life? His pleasure, as he imagines, becomes, in their eyes, a
crime; his food and repose give them rage and offense; his very sleep and
dreams furnish new materials to anxious fear; and even death, his refuge from
every other ill, presents only the dread of endless and immeasurable woes. Nor
does the wolf molest: more the timid flock, than superstition does the anxious
breast of wretched mortals.
Besides, consider, Demea, this very society, by which we surmount those
wild beats, our natural enemies; what new enemies does it not raise to is?
What woe and misery does it not occasion? Man is the greatest enemy of man.
Oppression, injustices, contempt, violence, sedition, war, treachery, fraud: by
these they mutually torment each other; and they would soon dissolve that
society which they had formed, were it not for the dread of still greater ills,
which must attend their separation?
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But though those external insults, said Demea, from animals, from men,
from all the elements, which assault is, from a frightful catalogues of woes,
they are nothing in comparison of these which arise within ourselves, from
distempered condition of our mind and body. How many lie under the lingering
torment of diseases?... the disorders of the mind…though more secret, are not
perhaps less dismal and vexatious. Remorse, shame, anguish, rage,
disappointment, anxiety, fear, dejection, despair; who has ever passed through
life without cruel inroads from these tormentors? How many have scarcely
every felt better sensations? Labor and poverty, so abhorred by everyone, are
the certain lot of the far greater number; and those few privileged persons, who
enjoy ease and opulence, never reach contempt or true felicity. All the goods in
life united would not make a very happy man: but all the ills united would
make a wretch indeed; and anyone of them almost (and who can possess all), is
sufficient to render life ineligible.
Were a stranger to drop, on a sudden, into this world, I would show him,
as a specimen of its ill, a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with
malefactors and debtors, a field of battle, strewed with carcasses, a fleet
floundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine, or
pestilence. To turn the gay side of life to him, and give him a notion of its
pleasures, whither should I conduct him? To a ball, to an opera, to court? He
might justly think that I was just showing him a diversity of distress and
sorrow…
Ask yourself, ask any of your acquaintances, whether they would live
over again the last ten or twenty years of their lives. No! but the next twenty,
they say, will be better:
And from the drags of life, hope to receive

What the first sprightly running could not give.
Thus at last they find (such is the greatest of human misery: it reconciles
even contradictions) that they complain, at once, of the shortness of life, and of
its vanity and sorrow.
And is it possible, Cleanthes, said Philo, that after all these reflections,
and infinitely more, which might be suggested, you can still persevere in you
anthropomorphism, and assert the moral attributes of the Deity, his justice,
benevolence, mercy, and rectitude, to be of the same nature with these virtues
in human creatures? His power we allow infinite; whatever he wills is executed:
but neither man nor any other animal is happy: therefore he does not will their
happiness. His wisdom is infinite: he is never mistaken in choosing the means
to any end: but the course of nature tends not to human or animal felicity:
therefore it is not established for that purpose. Through the whole compose of
human knowledge, there are no inferences more certain and infallible than
these. In what respect, then do his benevolence and mercy resemble the
benevolence and mercy of men?
Epicurus’s old questions are yet unanswered.
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Is he willing to prevent evil, but notable? Then is he impotent? Is he able
but not willing, then he is malevolent. Is he both able willing? Whence then is
evil?...
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. Explain the Argument from MOTION.
2. Explain the Argument from CAUSE.
3. Explain the Argument from CONTIGENCY OF BEINGS
4. Explain the Argument from DEGREES OF VALUES.
5. Explain the Argument from DESIGN.
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

ESSAY. Are all these arguments for God’s existence convincing? Do they hold
water? Can atheist be persuaded by these?
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. Explain Blaise Pascal’s Faith in God.
2. Do you think Pascal’s way of believing in God is right? Comment on

the kind of faith he suggests.
3. Why is life meaningless for Leo Tolstoy?
4. Why does man, for Tolstoy, continue to live even if he has more
reasons not to live?
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MODULE SEVEN: MAN AND HIS CONDITION
This
Module deals with the meaning of human condition and the quest of man for
meaning in life. In this chapter, we shall attempt to view man’s quest for
meaning through the theory of Logotherapy by Viktor Frankl, Individualism by
Ayn Rand, Alienated Labor by Karl Marx, and Having and Being by Erich
Fromm.
It focused also on man’s relationship into the world especially on His
work and to his society.
This module contains the following:
Lesson 1: Man and His Work with readings on Karl Marx’s

“Alienated Labor” and Ayn Rand’s “Individualism” theory.
Lesson 2: Man and His quest for Meaning, with readings on

Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”, and Erich Fromm’s
“Having and Being.”
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LESSON 1
MAN IN RELATION TO HIS WORK
After
1. Know Man’s human nature and how to find meaning into it.
2. Understand man’s view of work and how through it, man will
find meaningful life.
An individual’s innate desire to know prompts him to search for truth

and meaning. This intellectual search is inevitable insofar as man is always
bewildered by the tremendous paradox of human life. According to Florentino
Timbreza, “to philosophize means to search for meaning, and philosophy is
understood as man’s intellectual search for the ultimate meaning of human
existence.” Indeed, it is precisely because human life is a great problem that
every individual feels the need to search for an answer and this intellectual
quest is known as philosophy.
To search for meaning is to know first the condition of man and how
meaningful are the human nature in the concrete human existence.
Human condition we mean; It encloses the somatic, behavioral, and

attitudinal levels of human nature. In other words, human condition absorbs
and embraces the totality of human nature.
Secondly, By human condition is meant the state of being human. If

this is expressed in a form of a question it shall posit the question “ how is it to
be human/” The “how” to be human presupposes the state of being human.
Thus, to talk of human condition is to consider how man exist and lives
distinctively as a human being.
Thirdly, If man has a distinctive way of existing and living how does man
realize this? Human condition requires not only an understanding of the state
of being human, but also of the meaning of being human.
Man should encounter the sense, purpose, and direction of being human
so that man’s existence could have meaning. Otherwise, human existence will
become nothing else but a mere absurdity.
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MAN: THE WORKER
On account of man as the shepherd of being, the builder of the world,

and the gardener of the world, man, in the Christian perspective, is also called
God's co-creator of the world. It is in view of man as the worker that all these
are realized.
Work is one of the basic aspects of the human person's being-with-
others-in-the-world. Through work, the network of human relatedness is well-
expressed. Thus, man works in order to supply his needs and the heeds of
mankind. We cannot deny the social implications of work inasmuch as
everything which man does always bears an inherent social character.
But what is the meaning of work? What are its kinds? And what are its
Christian implications?
THE MEANING OF WORK

Work means any activity of man whereby man exerts physical and/or
other powers in order to make something. By dint of work, man exerts effort for
the purpose of the production of goods. Holistically, work involves the whole
human person. Work, therefore, is not just a mere human activity; it is a
personal human activity. It is the whole person that works and not just man's
hands, feet, eyes, or body. Since man as a person is an embodied subjectivity,
it is the whole man who is involved in work. Glenn, a recognized Catholic
author, has this to say:
All human effort unites in different proportions the activities of

the body (muscular effort), intellect (mental effort), and will
(moral effort). And any human effort, no matter what proportion
of muscle, mind, and will will be nvolved, which tends partially
or entirely to the production. , of goods, utilities, commodities,
values... is labor or work.
If work, in the strict sense of the word, involves body, intellect, and will,
then, work is distinctly a human activity. Thus, non-human creatures do not
work since they do not have both intellect and will. They only act in accordance
with their instinct patterned according to God's plan and purpose of His
creation. To this, Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter "On Human Work"
says the following:
Work is one of the characteristics that distinguishes man from

the rest of the creature whose activity for sustaining their lives
cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only
man works at the same time by work bears a particular mark of
a person operating within a community
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As a distinctly personal human activity, work identifies man in his
dignity. Through work, man establishes a sense of superiority over and above
other creatures, since, through it, man produces his own food. Man works in
order for him to live. Work then is a basic dimension of human existence.
Man's life is built up everyday. From work it derives its specific “dignity” says
the author of the encyclical letter, “On Human Work.”
Aside from considering work as something which specifies human

dignity, work can also be understood as a sacred call from God. It is not true
that work originates as God's punishment to man's first parents so that labor
is treated of as a consequence of sin. This means that even if man did not sin,
he would still be inclined to work. According to Pope Leo XI11: "Man, even
before the fall, was not destined to be wholly idle, Likewise, St. Thomas
Aquinas argues that man has a natural inclination towards work. God, through
work, invites man to be His co-creator. Indeed, by his work, man becomes
God's co-creator. Thus, it is in the spectrum of Christian belief that man has to
work hard in order for him to be really God's co-creator as he paints and
beautifies the world.
Further, work can also be considered as the founding entity of man and
society. It is impossible for man to live and exist if man does not work. St. Paul,
in the Bible, makes it clear: "He who does not work should not eat.” Besides, if
man works, it would be impossible also that his produce is only intended for
his own satisfaction. In this case, work bears within itself a two-fold aspect,
namely: individual or personal and social. It is personal m the sense that the
individual human person exerts his powers for the production of goods. It is
social in the sense that the State will benefit from the produce of man's work.
Besides, the products of human effort will make the common good more
secure.
KINDS OF WORK
Everything that man does which involves the process of producing the
goods and services that mankind needs and desires is work. In this process,
work can be classified into several kinds, to wit: manual, clerical, professional,
management, entrepreneurial, invention, and intellectual.
Manual work is the most common form of work. Almost everybody who is
physically fit to work can engage in this kind of work. Clerical work, more or
less, can be acquired through a specialized clerical course. Professional work
refers to the work which is done by learned individuals who are college
graduates or those who are holding post graduate degrees, e-g- journalist,
businessman, surgeon, lawyer, clergyman, physician, teacher, etc. Work of
management refers to the work which is done by managers, superintendents,
etc. in various industries. Likewise, capital owners also engage in this kind of
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work. Work of enterpriser refers to the work which is done by small-scale
business oriented individuals who set to establish their own business. Work of
invention refers to that kind of work which is done by scientists in their
laboratories. This kind of work obviously requires a lot of brains and creativity.
Intellectual work is usually attributed to the thinkers who are labeled as
scholars, philosophers, including scientists.
CHRISTIAN IMPLICATIONS OF WORK
The Bible does not say that man should do nothing except work. In fact,
the Bible even narrates that God "rested" on the seventh day- This implies that
the worker is more important than his work. It is true that after the Fall, work
becomes compulsory to man. Had man remained innocent, work should have
been his delightful concern- After the Fall, man assumes his lot to work so that
he can sustain himself. But this does not mean that man is cursed by God so
that he should do nothing but work.
It is a fundamental fact that the human person, who is the worker, is

more important than his work. When work is overemphasized than the worker,
the worker would find his work meaningless. It is man's sense of responsibility
that makes work meaningful. And man can only find an authentic sense of
responsibility when his work is always intertwined with his belief in God.
To the Christian, work is performed as a service to God. It is the attitude

of the Christian that work is his grateful response to God who is the Creator
and Sustainer of his life. The Christian is not ashamed of his work since the
nature of his work is not important because for him what is important is his
linkage to God in his work. In this light, the Christian believes that through his
work, he glorifies God. Work, then, for the Christian is service both to God and
to man.
Suffice it to say that for the Christian, each man is called by God to work
(so that man acts as His co-creator) and that any kind of work is man’s active
service to God, his Creator, his Redeemer, and Sustainer.
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SUMMARY
1. Work refers to any activity which man does through which he exerts
physical and/or other efforts in order to produce or to make
something.
2. Work involves the whole human person since man is an embodied

subjectivity; the self or the whole man/ therefore/ cannot be
dichotomized from work.
3. Since work involves not only the human body but also man's intellect
and will/ work is exclusive to man. This is underscored by Pope Paul
II in his encyclical letter titled: “On Human Work".
4. Through work, man establishes his dignity. Through work man

produces his own food and thereby makes himself superior over other
creatures which cannot, on their own accord, produce their own food.
5. Work is not a curse from God due to human sinfulness since, even if
man did not sin, man is still inclined to work- This is emphasized by
both St.Thomas Aquinas and Pope Leo XIII.
6. Work is the founding entity on man and society; work has a two-fold
aspect, viz.: personal and social.
7. There are several kinds of work, to wit: manual, clerical, professional,

management, enterpriser, invention, and intellectual.
For the Christian, the worker is more important than work. Work is man's
service to God; it is man's grateful response to God his Creator and Sustainer.
The Christian is not ashamed of the nature of his work because he finds God m
his work. Work is man’s way of glorifying God; it is his gesture of service to
both God and his fellowman.
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ALIENATED LABOR
Karl Marx
The worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces, the more his
production increases in power and extent. The worker becomes a cheaper
commodity the more commodities he produces. The increase in the value of the
world of things is directly proportional to the decrease in the value of human
world. Labor not only produces commodities. It also produces itself and the
worker as a commodity, and indeed in the same proportion as its produces
commodities in general.
This fact simply indicates that the object which labor produces, its product,
stands opposed to it as an alien thing, as a power independent of the producer.
The product of labor is labor embodied and made objective in a thing. It is the
objectification of labor. The realization of labor is its objectification. In the
viewpoint of political economy, this realization of labor appears as the diminution
of worker, objectification as the loss of subservience to the object, and the
appropriation as alienation (Entfremdung), as externalization (Entausserung).
So much the realization of labor appear as diminution that worker is

diminished to the point of starvation. So much does objectification appear as loss
of the object that the worker robbed of the most essential objects that not only of
life but also of work. Indeed, work itself becomes a thing of which he can take
possession only with the greatest effort and with the most unpredictable
interruptions. So much does the appropriation of the object appear as alienation
that the more objects the worker produces, the fewer he can own and more he
falls under the domination of his product, of capital.
All these consequences follow from the fact that the worker is related to the
product of his labor as to an alien object. For it is clear according to this premise:
The more the workers exert himself, the more powerful becomes the alien
objective world which he fashions against himself, the poorer he and his inner
world become, the less there is that belongs to him. It is the same in religion. The
more man attributes to God, the less he retains himself. The worker puts his life
into the object; then it no longer belongs to him but to the object. The greater this
activity, the poorer is the worker. What the product of his work is, he is not. The
greater this product is, the smaller he is himself. The externalization of the
worker in his product means not only that his work becomes an object, an
external existence, but also that its exist outside him independently, alien, an
autonomous power, opposed to him. The life he has given to the object confronts
his as hostile and alien…
Up to now we have considered the alienation, the externalization of the

worker only from one side: his relationship to the products of his labor. But
alienation is shown not only in the result but also in the process of production, in
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the producing activity itself. How could the worker stand in an alien relationship
to the product of his creativity if he did not alienate himself from himself in the
very act of production? After all, the product is only the resume of activity, of
production. If the product of work is externalization: production itself must be
active externalization, externalization of activity. Only alienation- -and
externalization in the activity of labor itself - - is summarized in the alienation of
the object of labor.
What constitutes the externalization of labor?
First is the fact that labor is external to the laborer - - that is, it is not part
of his nature - - and that the worker does not affirm himself in his work but
denies himself, feels miserable and unhappy, develops no free physical and
mental energy but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind. The worker, therefore,
feels at ease only outside work, and during work he is outside himself. He is at
home when he is not working and when he is working he is not at home. His
work, therefore, is not voluntary, but coerced, forced labor. It is not the
satisfaction of a need but only a means to satisfy other needs. Its alien character
is obvious from the fact that as soon as no physical or other pressure exist, labor
is avoided like the plague. External labor, labor in which man is externalized, is
labor of self-sacrifices, of penance. Finally, the external nature of work for the
worker appears in the fact that it is not his own but another person’s, that in
work he does not belong to himself but to someone else. In religion the
spontaneity of human imagination, the spontaneity of human brain and heart,
acts independently of the individual as an alien, divine or devilish activity. It
belongs to another. It is the loss of his own self.
The result, therefore, is that man ( the worker) feels that he is acting freely
only in his animal functions - - eating, drinking, and procreating, or at most in his
shelter and finery - - while in his human functions he feels only like an animal.
The animalistic becomes the human and the human the animalistic.
To be sure, eating, drinking and procreating are genuine human functions.

In abstraction, however, and separated from the remaining sphere of human of
human activities and turned into final and sol ends, they are animal functions.
We have considered labor, the act of alienation of practical human activity,

in two Aspects: (1) the relationship of the worker to the product of labor as an
alien object dominating him. This relationship is at the sane time the relationship
to the sensuous external world, to natural objects as an alien world hostile to
him: (2) the relationship of labor to the act of production in labor. This
relationship is that of the worker to his own activity as alien and not belonging
to him, activity as passivity, power as weakness, procreation as emasculation,
the worker’s own physical and spiritual energy, his personal life - - for what else
is life but activity - as an activity turned against him, independent of him, and
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not belonging to him. SELF-ALIENATION, as against the alienation of the object,
stated above.
A direct consequences of man’s alienation from the product of his work,

from his life activity, and from his species-existence, is the ALIENATION OF MAN
FROM MAN. When man confronts himself, he confronts other men. What holds
true of man’s relationship to his work, to the product of his work, and to himself,
also holds true of man’s relationship to other men, to their labor, and the object of
their labor.
Summary of Marx Ideas Related to Work
1. The need for a classless economic society. Marx claims that as it is, there
is a society of oppressors versus the oppressed, the exploiters versus the
exploited. Hence, the history of class struggle is society.
2. Religion is man’s opium for it only creates a world of illusion for men who
cannot fond his happiness in this world.
3. society should be changed, but philosophizing is inadequate, action is
called for.
4. This action is a form of social revolution led by the proletariat, the
oppressed class. This revolution can be done by the abolishing private
properties.
5. The reason for this that the fundamental form of human work is not
thought but manual labor, the product of which is self- alienation in the
present society, does not belong to the laborer. By the dialectic
movement of the historical process, the way to communism is paved.
6. The capitalist system exploits the workers for the capitalist does not pay
the workers the full value of the commodity he produces. The system
itself is fraudulent, even with the payment of higher wages. The system
must be abolished.
7. Man is not primarily contemplative but active. His activity is in the
production of goods to answer his basic needs. This process goes on and
on as there are always fresh needs to be satisfied. This, of course,
involves social relations among men and contains the whole history as
well as the philosophy of man.
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

ESSAY: Make a critical analysis of Karl Marx’s concept about work and labor.
How is this related with your personal beliefs or convictions.
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

ESSAY: HOW DO YOU ENVISION YOURSELF AS FUTURE WORKER? WILL IT

BE AN ALIENATING LABOR FOR YOU?
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ANTHEM
Ayn Rand
“I am. I think. I will…
“What must I say besides? These are the words. This is the answer.
“ stand here on the summit of the mountain. I lift my head and I spread my
arms. This - - my body and spirit - - this is the end of the quest. I wished I know
the meaning of things. I am the meaning. I wished to find a warrant for being. I
need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon being . I am the
warrant and the sanction….
“I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it
is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what
happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to
vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end . It is its own
goal. It is its own purpose.
“Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am

not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for
their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars…
“I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I none to

life for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man’s soul nor is my soul theirs
to covet.
“I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall
deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do ore than have been
born. I do not grant my love without reasons, nor to any chance passer - - by who
may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be
earned.
“I shall choose friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. A shall
choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, neither
command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or stand alone
when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each
man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with
others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.
“For the word “WE” must near be spoken, save by one’s choice and as a
second thought. This word must near be placed first within man’s soul else it
becomes monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root cause man’s torture
by men, and of an unspeakable lie.
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“For the word “WE” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens
stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is
black are lost equally in the gray of it. It is word by which the depraved steal the
virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the
fool steal the wisdom of the sages.
“What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is
my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all
creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are masters? What is life, if I am
but to bow, to agree, and to obey?
“But I am done with creed corruption.
“I am done with the monster of “WE”, the word of serfdoms, of plunder, of

misery, falsehood and shame.
“And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god
whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them
joy and peace and pride.
“This god, this one word: I”
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. How do you understand the philosophy of Ayn Rand?
2. Do you agree that the “WE” is the monsters? Why?
3. Cite scenarios wherein the philosophy of Ayn Rand is manifested?
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LESSON 2
MAN AND THE MEANING OF LIFE
1. Know the fact that man faced a lot of struggles in life.

2. Understand how man can use these struggles on his quest for
the real meaning of human existence.
MAN: HIS QUEST FOR MEANING

The task in this portion of the manual is not to show the human
existence as such is meaningful; instead, it is to show the fact of the man quest
towards finding and realizing the meaning of human existence.
But is it a human imperative that a man should find meaning in his
existence. Can man impose a meaning in his existence? Is the meaning of
human existence something to be made or to be found? Can man finds
meaningful life amidst various kinds of crises?
It is in this philosophical questions that Viktor Frankl found meaning in
life. He has proven that man can surpass different kinds of turmoils in life.
What Frankl has shown is that man can develop an ability or skill to handle
whatever pain, be it dire poverty, hardship, suffering, and frustration which
man encounters in life. Exactly, it is his dehumanizing behind-bars
experiences in the Nazi prison camps that prompted him to found logotherapy.
Let us read the following excerpts from the book of Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s
Search For Meaning”…
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Excerpts from MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING
Viktor Frankl
The Meaning of Life
I doubt whether a doctor can answer this question in general terms. For
the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day, and from hour to
hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather
the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. To put the question
in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to chess
champion: “Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?” There simply
is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular
situation in a game and the particular personality of one’s opponent. The same
holds for human existence. One should not search for an abstract meaning of
life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a
concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be
replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is
his specific opportunity to implement it.
As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents

problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be
reserved. Ultimately, man should not ask what meaning of his life is, but rather
he must recognize that it is HE who is asked. In a word, each man is
questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life;
to life he can only respond by being responsible. Thus, logotherapy sees in
responsibleness the very essence of human existence.
The Essence of Existence
This emphasis on responsibleness is reflected in the categorical

imperative of logotherapy, which is: “LIVE AS IF YOU WERE LIVING FOR THE
SECOND TIME AND AS IF YOU HAD ACTED THE FIRST TIME AS WRONGLY
AS YOU ARE ABOUT TO ACT NOW!”. It seems to me that there is nothing
which would stimulate a man’s sense of responsibleness more than this
maxim, which invites him to imagine first that the present is past, and second,
that the past may yet to be changed and amended. Such a precept confronts
him with life’s finiteness as well as the finality of what makes out of both his
life and himself.
Logotherapy tries to make the patient fully aware of his own

responsibleness: therefore, it must leave to him the option for what, to what,
on to whom he understands himself to be responsible. That is why a
logotherapist is the least tempted of all psychotherapist to impose value
judgments on his patients, for he will never permit the patient to pass to the
doctor the responsibility of judging.
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It is therefore up to the patient to decide whether he should interpret his
life task as being responsible to society or to his own conscience. There are
people, however who do not interpret their own lives merely in terms of a task
assigned to them but also in terms of the taskmaster who has assigned it to
them.
Logotherapy is neither teaching nor preaching. It is far remoed from

logical reasoning as it is from moral exhortation. To put it figuratively, the role
played by a logotherapist is that of an eye specialist rather than that of a
painter. A painter tries to convey to us a picture of the world as he sees it; an
ophthalmologist tries to enable us to see the world as it really is. The
logotherapist’s role consist of widening and broadening the visual field of the
patient so that the spectrum of potential meaning becomes conscious and
visible to him.
By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential

meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be
discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it
were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic “ the self-
transcendence of human existence.” It denotes the fact that being human
always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself –
be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one
forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love
– the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-
actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more
one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-
actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.
Thus far we have shown that the meaning of life always changes, but
that it never ceases to be. According logotherapy, we can discover this meaning
in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by
experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we
take toward unavoidable suffering. The first, the way of achievement or
accomplishment, is quite obvious. The second and third need further
elaboration.
The second way of finding a meaning in life is by experiencing

something- - such as goodness, truth and beauty - - by experiencing nature
and culture or, last but not the least, by experiencing another n human being
in his very uniqueness - - by loving him.
The Meaning of Love
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the inner core of
his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another
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human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enable to see the essential
traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is
potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.
Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to
actualized these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of
what and how he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.
In logotherapy, love is not interpreted as a mere epiphenomenon of

sexual dries and instincts in the sense of a so-called sublimation. Love is a
primary a phenomenon as sex. Normally, sex is a mode of expression for love.
Sex is justified, even sanctified, as soon as, but only as long as, it is vehicle of
love. Thus love is not understood as mere side-effect of sex; rather, sex is a way
of expressing the experience of that ultimate togetherness which is called love.
The third way of finding a meaning in life is by suffering.
The Meaning of Suffering
We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when
confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be
changed. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human
potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to
turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. When we are no longer able
to change a situation – just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable
cancer – we are challenged to change ourselves.
Let me cite a clear-cut example: Once, elderly general practitioner

consulted me because if his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss
of his wife who have died two years ago and whom he had loved above all else.
Now, how could I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from
telling him anything bit instead confronted him with the question, “What would
have happened, Doctor, if you had died first and your wife would have had to
survive you?” “oh”, “he said,” for her this would have been terrible; how she
would have suffered! “Whereupon I replied, “ You see, Doctor, such a suffering
has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering – to be
sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no
word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering
ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning
of a sacrifice.
Of course, this was no therapy in the proper sense since first, his despair
was no disease; and second, I could not change his fate; I could not revive his
wife. But in that moment I did succeed in changing his attitude toward his
unalterable fate in as much as from that time on he could at least see a
meaning in his suffering. It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man’s
133
main concern as not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a
meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition,
to be sure, that his suffering has meaning…
There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do
one’s work or to enjoy one’s life; but what never can be ruled out is the
unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has
a meaning literally to the end. In other words, life’s meaning is an
unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable
suffering.
Let me recall that which was perhaps the deepest experience I had in the
concentration camp. The odds of surviving the camp were no more than one in
twenty-eight, as can easily be verified by exact statistics. It did not even seem
possible, let alone probable, that the manuscript of my first book, which I had
hidden in my coat when I arrived at Auschwitz, would ever be rescued. Thus, I
had to undergo and to overcome the loss of my mental child. And now it
seemed as if nothing and no one would survive me; neither a physical nor
mental child of my own! So I found myself confronted with the question
whether under such circumstances my life was ultimately void of any meaning.
Nor yet did I notice that an answer to this question with which I was
wrestling so passionately was already in store for me, and that soon thereafter
this answer would be given to me. This was the case when I had to surrender
my clothes and in turn inherited the worn=out rags of an inmate who had
already been sent to the gas chamber immediately after his arrival at the
Auschwitzs railway station. Instead of the many pages of my manuscript, I
found in the pocket of the newly acquired coat one single page torn out a
Hebrew prayer book, containing the most important Jewish prayer, Shema
Ysrael. How should I have interpreted such a “coincidence” other than as a
challenge to lie my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper?
A bit later, I remember, it seemed to me that I would die in the near

future. In this critical situation, however, my main concern was different form
that of most of my comrades. Their question was, “Will we survive the camp?
For, if not, all this suffering has no meaning.” The question which beset me
was. “Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning? For a life whose
meaning depends upon such a happenstance – as whether one escapes or not –
ultimately would not be worth living at all.”
So for Frankl, man can find meaning in his existence in a three-fold

manner, namely:
1. By doing a life-project;
2. By experiencing value, particularly in the context of love; and
3. By finding meaning in suffering.
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Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

ESSAY: WHAT MAKES A MEANINGFUL LIFE?
135
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. What is logotherapy? How can it help us understand the meaning of life?
2. How can we realize the meaning of life through suffering?
3. How can we realize the meaning of life through love?
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HAVING AND BEING IN DAILY EXPERIENCE
From “ To have or To be”
Erich Fromm
Because the society we live in is devoted to acquiring property and

making a profit, we rarely see any evidence of the being mode of existence and
most people see the having mode as the most natural mode of existence, even
the only acceptable way of life. All of which makes it especially difficult for
people to comprehend the nature of the being mode, and even to understand
that having is only one possible orientation. Nevertheless, theses two concepts
are rooted in human experience. Neither in should be, or can be, examined in
an abstract, purely cerebral way; both are reflected in our daily life and must
be dealt with concretely. The following simple examples of how having and
being are demonstrated in everyday life may help readers to understand these
two alternative modes of existence.
Learning
Student in the having mode of existence will listen to a lecture, hearing

the words and understanding their logical structure and their meaning and, as
best they can, will write down every word 8iin their loose-leaf notebooks – so
that, later on, they can memorize their notes And thus pass an examination.
But the content does not become part of their own individual system of
thought, enriching and widening it. Instead, they transform the words they
hear into fixed clusters of thought, or whole theories, which they store up. The
students has become the owner of a collection of statements made by
somebody else (who has either created them or taken them over from another
source).
Students in the having mode have but one aim: to hold onto what they
“learned” either by entrusting it firmly to their memories or by carefully
guarding their notes. They do not have to produce or create something new. In
fact, the having- type individuals feel rather disturbed by new thoughts or
ideas about a subject, because the new puts into question the fixed sum of
information they have…
The process of learning has an entirely different quality for students in

the being mode of relatedness to the world. To begin with, they do not go to the
course of lectures, even to the first one in a course, as “tabulae rasae”. They
have thought beforehand about the problems the lectures will be dealing with
and have in mind certain questions and problems of their own. They have been
occupied with the topic and it interest them Instead of being passive
receptacles of words and ideas, they listen, they hear, and most important,
they receive and they respond in an active, productive way. What they listen to
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stimulates their own thinking process. New questions, new ideas, new
perspectives arise in their minds. Their listening is an alive process. They listen
with interest, hear what lecturer says and spontaneously come to life in
response to what they hear. They do not simply acquire knowledge that they
can take home and memorize. Each student has been affected and has
changed. Each is different after the lecture than he or she was before it. Of
course, this mode of learning can prevail only if the lecture offers stimulating
material. Empty talk cannot be responded to in the being mode, and in such
circumstances, students in the being mode find best not to listen at all, but to
concentrate on their own thought processes.
Conversing
The difference between the having and being modes can be easily
observed in two examples of conversations. Let us take a typical conversational
debate between two men in which A has opinion X and B has opinion Y. Each
identifies with his own opinion. What matters to each is to find better, i.e.,
more reasonable, arguments to defend his opinion. Neither expects to change
his own opinion or that his opponent’s opinion will change. Each is afraid of
changing his own opinion, precisely because it is one of his possessions, and
hence its loss would mean an impoverishment.
The situation is somewhat different in a conversation that is not meant

to be a debate. Who has not experienced meeting a person distinguished by
prominence or fame or even by real qualities, or a person of whom one wants
something; a good job. To be loved, to be admitted? In such circumstances
many people tend to be at last mildly anxious, and often they “prepare”
themselves for the important meeting. They think of topics that might begin the
conversation; some even map out the whole conversation, as far as their own
part is concerned.
Or they may bolster themselves up by thinking about what they have:

their past successes, their charming personality ( or their intimidating
personality if this role is more effective), their social position, their connections,
their appearance and dress. In a word, they mentally balance their worth, and
based one this evaluation, they display their wares in the ensuing
conversation. The person who is very good at this will indeed impress many
people, although the created impression is only partly due to the individual’s
performance and largely due to poverty of most people’s judgment. If the
performer is not so clear, however, the performance will appear wooden,
contrived, boring and will not elicit much interest.
In contrast are those who approach a situation by preparing nothing in

advance, not bolstering themselves up in any way. Instead, they respond
spontaneously and productively; they forget about themselves, about the
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knowledge, the positions they have. Their egos do not stand in their own way,
and it is precisely for this reason that they can fully respond to the other
person and that person’s ideas. They give birth to new ideas, because they are
not holding onto anything. While the having person rely on what they HAVE,
the being persons rely on the fact that they ARE, that they are alive and that
something new will be born if only they have the courage to let go and to
respond. They come fully alive in the conversation, because they do not stifle
themselves by anxious concern with that they have. Their own aliveness is
infectious and often helps the other person to transcend his or her
egocentricity. Thus the conversation ceases to be exchange of commodities
(information, knowledge, status) and becomes a dialogue in which it does not
matter any more who is right. The duelists begin to dance together, and they
part not with triumph or sorrow – which are equally sterile – but with joy. The
essentials factor in psychoanalytic therapy is this enlivening quality of the
therapist. No amount of psycho analytic interpretation will have an effect if the
therapeutic atmosphere is heavy, unalive, and boring.
Reading
What holds true for a conversation holds equally true for reading, which
is – or should be – a conversation between the author and the reader. Of
course, in reading ( as well as in personal conversation) whom I read from (or
talk with) is important. Reading an artless, cheap novel is a form of
daydreaming. It does not permit productive response; the text is swallowed like
television show, or the potato chips one munches while watching TV. But
novel, says Balzac, can be read with inner participation, productively – that is,
in the mode of being. Yet probably most of the time it is also read in the mode
of consuming – in having. Their curiosity having been aroused, the readers
want to know the plot: whether the hero dies or lives, whether the heroine is
seduced or resist; they want to know the answer. The novel serves as a kind of
foreplay to excite them; the happy or unhappy end culminates their experience:
when they know the end, they HAVE the whole story, almost as real as if they
rummaged in their own memories. But they have not enhanced their
knowledge; they have not understood the person in the novel and this have not
deepened their insight into human nature, or gained knowledge about
themselves.
The modes of reading are the same with regard to a book whose theme is
philosophy of history. The way one reads a philosophy or history book is
formed – or better, deformed – by education. The school aims to give each
student a certain amount of cultural property, and at the end of their schooling
certifies the students as having at least the minimum amount. Students are
taught to read a book so that they can repeat the author’s main thoughts. This
is how the students “know” Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant
Heidegger, Sartre. The difference between various level of education from high
139
school to graduate school is mainly in the amount of cultural property that is
acquired, which corresponds roughly to the amount of material property the
students may be expected to own in later life. the so-called excellent students
are the ones who can most accurately repeat what each of various philosophers
had to say. They are like a well-informed guide at a museum. What they do not
learn is that which goes beyond this kind of property of knowledge. They do not
learn to question philosophers, to talk to them; they do learn to be aware of the
philosophers’ own contradictions, of their leaving out certain problems or
evading issues; they do not learn to distinguish between what was new and
what the authors could not help thinking because it was the “ common sense”
of their time; they do not learn to hear so that they are able to distinguish
when the authors speak only from their brain and when their brain and heart
speak together; they do not learn to discover whether the authors are authentic
or fake; and many more things.
The mode of being readers will often come to the conclusion that even a
highly praised book is entirely without or of very limited value, or they may
have fully understood a book, sometime better than had the author, who may
have considered everything he or she wrote being equally important.
Faith
In a religious, political, or personal sense the concept of faith can have

two entirely different meanings, depending upon whether it is used in the
having mode or in the being mode.
Faith, in the having mode, is the possession of an answer for which one
has no rational proof. It consist of formulation created by others, which one
accepts because one submits to those others – usually a bureaucracy. It carries
the feeling of certainly because of the real (or only imagined) power of the
bureaucracy. It is the entry ticket to join a large group of people. It relieves one
of the hard task of thinking for oneself and making decisions. One becomes one
of the “beati possidentes”, the happy owners of the right faith. Faith, in the
having mode, gives certainty; it claims to pronounce ultimate, unshakeable
knowledge, which is believable because the power of those who promulgate and
protect the faith seems unshakeable. Indeed, who would not choose certainty,
if all it requires is to surrender one’s independence?
God, originally a symbol for the highest value that we can experience
within us, becomes in the having mode, an idol. In the prophetic concept, an
idol is a thing that we ourselves make and project our own power into, thus
impoverishing ourselves. We then submit to our creation and by our
submission are in touch with ourselves in an alienated from. While I can HAVE
the idol because it is a thing, by submission to it, IT, simultaneously, has ME,
once He has become an idol, God’s alleged qualities have as little to do with my
personal experience as alienated political doctrines do. The idol may be praised
140
as lord of mercy, yet any cruelty may be committed in its name, just as the
alienated faith in the human solidarity may not even raise doubts about
committing the most inhuman acts. Faith, in the having mode, is a crutch for
those who want to be certain, those who want an answer to life without daring
to search for it themselves.
In the being mode, faith is an entirely different phenomenon. Can we live

without faith? Must not the nursling have faith in its mother’s breast? Must we
all not have faith in other beings, in those whom we love, and in ourselves?
Can we live without faith in the validity of norms for our life? Indeed, without
faith we become sterile, hopeless, afraid to the very core of our being.
Faith, in the being mode, is not, in the first place, a belief in certain ideas
(although it may be that, too) but an inner orientation, an attitude. It would be
better to say that one is IN FAITH than that one HAS FAITH. (The theological
distinction between faith that IS belief [ fides qua creditor] and faith As belief
[fides qua criditur] reflects a similar distinction between the content of faith
and the act of faith.) one can be in faith with oneself and toward others, ad the
religious person can be in faith toward god. The god of the old testament is,
first of all, a negation of idols, of gods whom one can have. Though conceived in
analogy to an Oriental king, the concept of god transcends itself from the very
beginning. God must not have a name; no image must be made of god.
My faith in myself, in another, in human kind, in our capacity to become

fully human also implies certainty, but certainty based on my own experience
and not on my submission to an authority that dictates a certain belief. It is
certainty of a truth that cannot be proven by rationally compelling evidence, yet
truth I am certain of because of my experiential, subjective evidence. ( the
Hebrew word for faith is EMUNAH, “certainty, AMEN means “certainly”.
If I am certain of a man’s integrity remains inviolate to the time of his

death, even which would not exclude a positivistic standpoint that he might
have violated it had he lived longer. My certainty rests upon the knowledge in
depth I have of the other and of my own experience of love and integrity. This
kind of knowledge is possible only to the extent that I can drop my own ego and
see the other man in his suchness, recognize the structure of forces in him, see
him in his individuality and at the same time in his universal humanity. Then I
know what the other can do, what he cannot do, and what he will not do. Of
course, I do not mean by this that I could predict all his future behavior, but
only the general lines of behavior that are rooted in basic character traits, such
as integrity, responsibility, etc.
This faith if based on facts, hence, it is rational. But the facts are not
recognizable or “provable” by the method of conventional, positivistic
psychology; I, the alive person, am the only instrument that can “register”
them.
141
Loving
Loving also has two meanings, depending upon whether it is spoken of in

the mode of having or in the mode of being.
Can we HAVE love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a “love.”

“love is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody
has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the ACT OF LOVING. To
love is productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming,
and enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to
life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self-
increasing.
When love is experienced in the mode of having it implies confining,

imprisoning, or controlling the object one “loves.” It is strangling, deadening,
suffocating, killing, not life-giving. What people call love is mostly a misuse of
the word, in order to hide the reality of their not loving? How many parents love
their children is still an entirely open question. Lloyd de mause has brought
out that for the past two millennia of western history there have been reports of
cruelty against children, ranging from physical to psychic torture, carelessness,
sheer possessiveness, and sadism so shocking that one must believe that
loving parents are the exception rather than rule.
The same may be said of marriage. Whether their marriage is based on

love or, like traditional marriages of the past, on social convenience and
custom, the couple who truly love each other seems to be exception. What is
social convenience, custom, mutual economic interest, shared interest in
children, mutual dependency, or mutual hate or fear is consciously
experienced as “love” – up to the moment when one or both partners recognize
that they do not love each other, and that they never did. Today one can note
some progress in this respect: people have become more realistic and sober,
and many no longer feel that being sexually attracted means to love, or that a
friendly, though distant, team relationship is a manifestation of loving. This
new outlook has made for greater honesty – as well as more frequent change of
partners. It has not necessarily led to a greater frequency of loving, and the
new partners may love as little as did the old.
The change from “falling in love” to the illusion of “having” love can often
be observed in concrete detail in the history of couple who have “fallen in love.”
(in the ART OF LOVING. I pointed out that the word “falling” in the phase of
“falling in love” is a contradiction in itself. Since loving is a productive activity,
one can only STAND in love or walk in love; one cannot “fall” in love, for falling
denotes passivity.”
142
During courtship neither person is yet sure of the other, but each tries to
win the other. Both are alive, attractive, interesting, even beautiful – inasmuch
as aliveness always makes a face beautiful. Neither yet has the other; hence
each one’s energy is directed to BEING, i.e. to giving to and stimulating the
other. With the act of marriage the situation frequently changes fundamentally.
The marriage contract gives each partner the exclusive possession of the
other’s body, feelings and care. Nobody has to be won over any more, because
love has become something one HAS, a property. The two cease to make the
effort to be lovable and to produce love, hence they become boring, and hence
their beauty disappears. They are disappointed and puzzled. Are they not the
same persons any more? Did they make a mistake in the first place? Each
usually seeks the cause of the change in the other and feels defrauded. What
they do not see is that they no longer were the same people that they were
when they were in love with each other; that the error one can have love has
led them to cease loving. Now, instead of loving each other, they settle for
owning together what they have: money, social standing, a home, and children.
Thus, in some cases, the marriage initiated on the basis of love becomes
transformed into a friendly ownership, corporations in which two egotism are
pooled into one: that of the “family.”
When the couple cannot get over the yearning for the renewal of the
previous feeling of loving, one or the other of the pair may have the illusion that
new partner (or partners) will satisfy their longings. They feel that all they want
to have is love. But love to them is not an expression of their being; it is a
goddess to whom they want to submit. They necessarily fail with their love
because “ love is a child of liberty” (as an old French song says), and the
worshiper of the goddess of love eventually becomes so passive as to be boring
and loses whatever is left of his or her former attractiveness.
This description is not intended to imply that marriage cannot be the

best solution for two people who love each other. The difficulty does not lie in
marriage, but in the possessive, existential structure of both partners and, in
the last analysis, of their society. The advocates of such modern-day forms of
living together as group marriages. Changing partners, group sex, etc., try, as
far as I can see, to avoid the problem of their difficulties in loving by curing
their boredom with ever new stimuli and by waiting to HAVE more “lovers,”
rather than to be able to love even one.
143
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Cite instances wherein the HAVING MODE AND BEING MODE are clearly
manifest.
1. Learning
Having Mode:
Being Mode:
2. Conversing
Having Mode:
Being Mode
3. Reading
Having Mode:
Being Mode
4. Faith
Having Mode:
Being Mode
5. Love
Having Mode:
Being Mode
144
Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

After finishing all the topics, come up with your own philosophy in life.
145
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Babor, Eddie R. The Human Person: Not real, but Existing. Quezon City, C &
E Publishing Inc. 2001
Bali, Dev Raj. Introduction to Philosophy. Sterling Publication. New Delhi.

1998.
Cedeño, Lourdes R. So God Created Man. Quezon City, Katha Publishing

House Co. Inc. 2003
Cruz, Corazon L. The Philosophy of Man. 3rd ed. Mandaluyong City, National
Bookstore. 2004
Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. Baker Book House, Grand Rapids,

Michigan.1998
Garle, William James. Introduction to Philosophy. Mc Graw-Hill, Inc., New

York,U.S.A. 1992
Honer, et. al. Philosophy: Issues and Options. Wadsworth Publishing

Company.1999
Tubo, Dennis V. Philosophy of Man: Existential-Phenomenological Approach.

rev. ed. Mandaluyong City, National Bookstore, 2006
Westphal, Jonathan. Philosophical Propositions. New York, 1998
INTERNET
Determinism - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.htm.@Yahoo.com
Freedom and Determinism.htm.@Yahoo.com
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Introduction to the

*This reading material is compiled and edited

Module One : What is Philosophy?

Module Two: Man as Knowing

Module Three: Man as Embodied Subject

Module Four: The human person in their environment

Module Five : Man and Freedom

Module Six : Man and God

Module Seven: Man as oriented towards their Impending death

Protagoras, a contemporary of Socrates,

Too often Philosophy tends to be regarded as a remote and abstruse

In order to benefit greatly in our philosophical studies, one must always

This Module serves to introduce and orient the students about

This module contains the following:

Lesson 1: What is Philosophy?

Philosophy is the love of wisdom (etymologically from the Greek philos

You will not learn from me philosophy, but how to

Philosophy refers to a way of living and thinking. In this sense, every

PHILOSOPHY: Its Approaches, Major Branches and Functions

1. Historical Approach – This is done by dividing philosophy into four

Ancient Classical Philosophy – The philosophical period emphasized a

Medieval Philosophy – This philosophical period used philosophy to

Modern Philosophy – This period in philosophy is characterized by a

Ancient Classical Philosophy

Modern Philosophy Contemporary Philosophy

3. Approach through philosophical problems – Philosophers are

MAJOR BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY

These are some of the major branches of philosophy and their

Philosophy of Man attempts to understand, man as an individual, as a

Philosophy undertakes a critical examination of the grounds on which

Another function of philosophy is to frame a picture of the whole

PHILOSOPHY, SCIENCE AND RELIGION

It is quite useful to discuss science, religion and philosophy under one

We don’t have to dwell on this aspect lengthily considering that a

Ten Commandments of Philosophy

1. Allow the spirit of wonder to flourish in your breast. Philosophy begins

WISDOM by Alfred North Whitehead

The fading of ideals is sad evidence of the defeat of

Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. What is the etymology of the word “philosophy”?

2. In what way that philosophy is an attitude and activity of the mind?

3. What are the philosophical queries philosophers are concerned with?

4. What are the general functions of philosophy?

5. What are the major branches and their corresponding description of

6. How does philosophy differ from science and religion?

Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

1. _____________________ What is the essence of my life?

Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

Write an essay about the significance of studying Philosophy in your life as

Name ____________________________________ Score _________________

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Matching Type : Write the letter only!

5_________1. Speculative in nature

Name _________________________________ Score _______________

Matching Type : Write the letter only!

A. Study of the ultimate reality through the

Name _________________________________ Score ___________________

Matching Type : Write the letter only!

_________1. Speculative in nature

This Module comes in four lessons:

Lesson 1: Knowledge and Human Knowing

KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN KNOWING

After studying this lesson, you should be able to:

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