REALIZE THE METHODS OF PHILOSOPHY

THAT LEAD TO WISDOM AND TRUTH

PHILOSOPHY
is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge,
values, reason, mind, and language
IMPORTANCE
PHILOSOPHY
- study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values,
reason, mind, and language.
Richard Double
(1999)
CRITICAL
THINKING
2. The real aim of education is not in QUANTITY but in QUALITY
El Filibusterismo
"...and if they do abound in quantity, perhaps they are deficient in quality. Since the young men can't be
prevented from studying, and no other professions are open to us, why let them waste their time and
effort? And if the instruction, deficient as it is, does not keep many from becoming lawyers and doctors, if
we must finally have them, why not have good ones? After all, even if the sole wish is to make the
country a country of farmers and laborers, and condemn in it all intellectual activity, I don't see any evil in
enlightening those same farmers and laborers, in giving them at least an education that will aid them in
perfecting themselves and in perfecting their work, in placing them in a condition to understand many
things of which they are at present ignorant."
Lawyers may be plenty. Doctors may be abound in number. And all of them make trouble with each other
by casting invectives and insults on one another.

Pitiful social conditions existed in the Philippines as late as three centuries after his conquest in Spain,
with agriculture, commerce, communications and education languishing under its most backward state. It
was because of this social malady that social evils like inferiority complex, cowardice, timidity and false
pride pervaded nationally and contributed to the decay of social life. This stimulated and shaped Rizal's
life philosophy to be to contain if not eliminate these social ills. Rizal hope of a better Filipino nation
through the development of the thoughts and actions of his fellow countrymen.
PROGRESS IN THE ECONOMY BY MEANS OF GOOD WORKS AND THOUGHTS
2. We must focus our motive to the welfare of our country
Speech at the Café Habanero, December 31, 1891
-"The good and welfare of our country is our motive. "
-" The individual should give way to the welfare of the society."

5. We must distinguish ourselves as a nation with its own identity

-" Distinguish yourselves then by revealing yourselves in your own character, try to lay the foundations of
the Philippine fatherland!"
-" I would stimulate these Philippine studies which are like the nosce te ipsum( know thyself) that gives
the true concept of one's self and drives nations to do great things."

The proper thoughts and actions of its people will propel a country towards progress.
RIZAL'S THOUGHTS ON VICES AND OTHER MISDEEDS
While Rizal was fearless in denouncing the evils of the colonial administration of his time, he was no less
fearless in pointing out to his countrymen "our own mistakes, our own vices, our supine and culpable
acquiescence to these evils.
1. The Filipinos had no sense of national consciousness nor a desire for independence.
Noli Me Tangere
“Our young people think about nothing more than love affairs and pleasure. They spend more time
attempting to seduce and dishonor young women than in thinking about their country's welfare. Our
women, in order to take care of the house and family of God, forget their own. Our men limit their
activities to vice and their heroics to shameful acts. Children wake up in a fog of routine, adolescents live
out their best years without ideals, and their elders are sterile, and only serve to corrupt our young people
by their example.”

2. The Filipinos must be honorable not despicable

"I would like the Filipino people to become worthy, noble, honorable, for a people who makes itself
despicable for its cowardice or vices exposes itself to abuses and vexation."
3. Removing ignorance from our minds will help us become free from vices
El Filibusterismo
"The vices, those powerful children of idleness, escaped from us as soon as serious problems occupied
our minds."

4. Vices are widely accepted and tolerated

El Filibusterismo
-"In this world, compliance with vice is rewarded better than the fulfillment of duty. "
-“It’s more immoral that vice has good buildings and learning none. Let’s be practical, gentlemen, and not
be carried away by sentiment. In politics there’s nothing worse than sentiment. While from humane
considerations we forbid the cultivation of opium in our colonies, we tolerate the smoking of it, and the
result is that we do not combat the vice but impoverish ourselves.”
5. The causes of our backwardness and ignorance.
"We believe that the cause of our backwardness and ignorance is the lack of means of education, the vice
that afflicts us from the beginning until the end of our careers, if not the lack of stimulus of doubtful
future, or the fetters and obstacles that are encountered at every step."
6. There is a price paid for using vice
Noli Me Tangere
-“Vice pays for its own freedom.”
-“A God who chastises our lack of faith, our vices, the little esteem in which we hold dignity and the civic
virtues.
We tolerate vice, we make ourselves its accomplices
, at times we applaud it, and it is just, very just that we suffer the consequences, that our children suffer
them."
7. Vices and crime will not bring freedom
El Filibusterismo
“The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin. You have believed that what
crime and iniquity have defiled and deformed, another crime and another iniquity can purify and redeem.
Wrong! Hate never produces anything but monsters and crime criminals! Love alone realizes wonderful
works, virtue alone can save!
No, if our country has ever to be free, it will not be through vice and crime
, it will not be so by corrupting its sons, deceiving some and bribing others, no! Redemption presupposes
virtue, virtue sacrifice, and sacrifice love!”
Jose Rizal firmly denounced the misdeeds and vices of our countrymen and promoted national
consciousness
1. A Filipino must be a good man and citizen for his country
Letter to Mariano Ponce, London, June 27, 1888
"The principal thing that should be demanded from a Filipino of our generation is not to be a literary man
but to be a good man, a good citizen who will keep his country to progress with his head, his heart, and if
need be with his arms. "
3. Whatever we do today will be the fruit of tomorrow
"Let us do for the generation that must follow us, which will be either our reward or our reproach, all that
we would like to have been done for us by our ancestors, perhaps placed by fatality in very dismal
circumstances, though full of generous aspirations.... The road is ours as the present is ours, and if it is not
given to us to reach the end, we may be sure that by fulfilling our duties, the future will be ours also---the
future full of blessings."
4. Progress through intellectual development
-"The real wealth of country is knowledge, science, and fluency of speech."
Knowledge
because the progress of a country depends upon its richness in culture which is the sum total of its
experience.
Science
, because it develops the natural resources of the country and so assures its economic self-sufficiency and
national well-being.
-"I am assiduously studying the happenings in our country. I believe that nothing can redeem us except
our brains."
5. We must distinguish ourselves as a nation with its own identity
-"Distinguish yourselves then by revealing yourselves in your own character, try to lay the foundations of
the Philippine fatherland!"
-"I would stimulate these Philippine studies which are like the nosce te ipsum( know thyself) that gives
the true concept of one's self and drives nations to do great things."
The proper thoughts and actions of its people will propel a country towards progress.
ATTRIBUTES OF A CRITICAL THINKER
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS FOR THE
PROGRESS OF THE NATION
SELF-ASSESSMENT

KUNDIMAN
Tunay ngayong umid yaring dila’t puso
Sinta’y umiilag, tuwa’y lumalayo,
Bayan palibhasa’y lupig at sumuko
Sa kapabayaan ng nagturong puno.

Datapuwa’t muling sisikat ang araw,

Pilit maliligtas ang inaping bayan,
Magbabalik mandin at muling iiral
Ang ngalang Tagalog sa sandaigdigan.

Ibubuhos namin ang dugo’t babaha

Matubos nga lamang ang sa amang lupa
Habang di ninilang panahong tadhana,
Sinta’y tatahimik, iidlip ang nasa.
KASAYSAYAN
Balayan, Batangas
Awit -> Kumintang
Dr. Francisco Santiago (Ama ng Kundiman)
Setyembre 12, 1891
Pag-ibig ng binata sa dalaga
Pag-ibig sa tinubuang lupa.
PAG-IBIG
A. The Principles and Thoughts of Dr. Jose Rizal
I. Religious Thoughts
II. Political Thoughts
III. Social and Economic Thoughts
IV. Care for Education and Freedom
V. Progress of the Economy by means of Good Works and Thoughts
VI. Vices and Other Works
VII. Social Movement for the progress of the Nation
VIII. Social Orders of Properties
B. Kundiman (1891) by Jose Rizal
-Jose Rizal was unlike other international heroes who fought for the country with the use of force.
-Rizal wanted reforms for his country. He wanted the Spaniards to treat the Filipinos as their equals.
-Rizal was an intellectual novelist, a social critic, a believer in the power of the pen over the sword.
1. He repudiated the Philippine Revolution at the time.
Manifesto
-"From the beginning, when I had news of what was being planned, I opposed it, fought it, and
demonstrated its absolute impossibility."
-"I have given proofs, more than anybody else, of desiring liberties for our country and I still desire them.
But I place as a premise the education of the people so that by means of education and of labor they might
have a personality of their own and make themselves worthy of liberties."
-"I cannot but condemn and I do condemn this absurd, savage, uprising planned behind my back."
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo
-Kabesang Tales failed
-Elias was killed
-Simoun died realizing his mistakes in conjuring a revolution that was largely born out of self-interest
Letter to Blumentritt
"A peaceful struggle shall always be a dream, for Spain will never learn the lesson of her South American
colonies. Spain cannot learn what England and the United States have learned. But, under the present
circumstances, we do not want separation from Spain. All that we ask is greater attention, better
education, better government [officials], one or two representatives [in parliament], and greater security
for persons and our properties."
2. He ought only autonomy – freedom and not independence, since he believed a country could be
independent without being free.
He had always desired democratic rights for the Philippines coupled with the unity of the Filipino people
through education. If per chance independence should come, it was because, according to Rizal, the
people deserved it and Mother Spain would willingly grant them independence.
Letter to Blumentritt
"If to make my country happy I had to act vilely, I would refuse to do so because I am sure that what is
built in sand will collapse sooner or later…"
Letter to M.H. del Pilar
"I am assiduously studying the events in our country. I believe that only intelligence can redeem us, in the
material and in the spiritual, I still persist in this belief"
Father Florentino (Noli Me Tangere)
"What is independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? "
3. For Rizal, the use of force or freedom by means of a revolt was to be used only as a last resort.
Rizal’s Untitled Last Poem
"(2) On the fields of battle, in the fury of fight,
Others give you their lives without pain or hesitancy,
(3) I die as I see tints on the sky b'gin to show
And at last announce the day, after a gloomy night;"
Letter to Blumentritt
“I assure you that I have no desire to take part in conspiracies which seem to me very premature and
risky. But if the government drives us to the brink, that is to say, when no other hope remains but seek our
destruction in war, when the Filipinos would prefer to die rather than endure their misery any longer, then
I will also become a partisan of violent means. The choice of peace or destruction is in the hands of Spain,
because it is a clear fact, known to all, that we are patient, excessively patient and peaceful, mild,
unfeeling, etc. But everything ends in this life, there is nothing eternal in the world and that refers also to
our patience.”
Conversation with Dr. Pio Valenzuela
-Rizal objected to Bonifacio’s audacious project to plunge in bloody revolution. He was of the sincere
belief that it was premature.
1. The people are not ready for a revolution
2. Arms and funds must be first collected before raising the cry of revolution
RIZAL’S TIME
During the times of Rizal, the sinister shadows of Spain’s decadence darkened the Philippine skies.
The Filipino people were agonized beneath the yoke of Spanish misrule, for they were unfortunate
victims of the evils of an unjust, bigoted, and deteriorating colonial power.
Among these evils were as follows:
1. Instability of colonial administration
2. Corrupt officials
3. No Philippine representation in the Spanish Cortes
4. Human rights denied to Filipinos
5. No equality before the law
6. Maladministration of Justice
7. Racial Discrimination
8. Frailocracy
9. Forced labor
10. Haciendas owned by the friars
11. The Guardia Civil
6. Lastly, the Filipinos must not only have the sentiment of nationalism, they must be able to manifest it.
In this way, they would have the dignity and patriotism worthy of a people.
Their internationalism must be rooted in their nationalism.
If the Filipino people would have this broad nationalism in their hearts, they cease to be corrupt and
would have racial pride. They would value the national interest above individual familial interests.

For the Motherland in war,

For the Motherland in peace,
Will the Filipino keep watch,
He will live until life will cease!

MEN:
Now the East is glowing with light,
Go! To the field to till the land,
For the labour of man sustains
Fam'ly, home and Motherland.
Hard the land may turn to be,
Scorching the rays of the sun above...
For the country, wife and children
All will be easy to our love.

Chorus:
WIVES:
Go to work with spirits high,
For the wife keeps home faithfully,
Inculcates love in her children
For virtue, knowledge and country.
When the evening brings repose,
On returning joy awaits you,
And if fate is adverse, the wife,
Shall know the task to continue.
Chorus:

MAIDENS:
H ail! Hail! Praise to labour,
Of the country wealth and vigor!
For it brow serene's exalted,
It's her blood, life, and ardor.
If some youth would show his love
Labor his faith will sustain :
Only a man who struggles and works
Will his offspring know to maintain.
Chorus:

CHILDREN:
Teach, us ye the laborious work
To pursue your footsteps we wish,
For tomorrow when country calls us
We may be able your task to finish.
And on seeing us the elders will say:
'Look, they're worthy 'f their sires of yore!'
Incense does not honor the dead
As does a son with glory and valor.
Hymn to Labor
Although philosophy is an organized body of knowledge, The subject matter of philosophy is questions,
which have three major characteristics
Philosophical question have answers but the answers remain in dispute.
Philosophical questions cannot be settled by science, common sense, or faith.
Philosophical questions are of perennial intellectual interest to human beings.
Method that philosophers use to address philosophical questions
Careful
Reflective
Rational
systematic
understanding of philosophy and refraining from merely claims but through
careful thought.
Maboloc and Pascua
(2008)
Defining, analyzing, and devising solutions
Arriving at reasonable and informed conclusions;
Applying understanding and knowledge to new and different problems;
Willingness to change one point of view
Continually examining and re-examining ideas
Willingness to say "I don't know"
Looking for evidence to support assumption and beliefs
Adjusts opinions
Looks for proof
Examines
problem
Rejects irrelevant
and incorrect information
ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking.
analyze
evaluate
explain
restructure
False Belief