Philosophy 1st SEM Finals Reviewer
eidetic and contingencies)
I. Phenomenology
● Philosophizing- thinking or expressing
oneself in a philosophical manner
● Phenomenology
- Founded by Edmund Husserl
- A philosophy and a methodology
- “The renewed interest in phenomenology
has seen a return a return to the much
discussed question of what
phenomenology is, for which a definitive
answer has yet to be found” (Rouback,
2014)
● Phenomenon- any object of conscious
experience which we are conscious of the
lived experience
- Has been used by previous philosophers
like Immanuel Kant to refer to the world of
experience
- Husserl took Kant’s ideas as his point of
departure. Husserl believed that we can
know, with certain servitude, what things
are (noumenon)
- True knowledge can still be achieved
by achieving a vision of essence
● Noumenon- things as they are
● Phenomenon- things as they appear to
be
● Transcendental Phenomenology
(Edmund Husserl)
- Can be achieved through reduction
(Epoche)
- “Transcend” the experience to discover
meaning
- Lived world- the world as perceived
and acted in
- Dedicated to return to the ‘things
themselves’
- To examine what appears in experience
- It is a scientific study of the essential
structures of consciousness; how we
think
● Consciousness is crucial in
phenomenology
● Husserl’s Phenomenology consists
of...
+ Bracketing (Epoche)
+ Phenomenological Reduction (revealing
● Epoche- we must try to enter a space of
openness to the experience or
phenomenon we are trying to understand
in its prereflective sense
● Reduction- once we have opened
ourselves, we try to close in on the
meaning of the phenomenon as it
appears in our experience or in our
consciousness
● Existentialism
- The main idea of it is the quest towards
the authentic self
- As a philosophical movement, is mainly
concerned with existence
- Soren Kierkegaard is a Danish
philosopher who is the father of
existentialism
- Considered as anti-religious
- Similar to Jean-Paul Sarte’s philosophy
- He argues for a pragmatic and practical
kind of philosophy (existentialism); one
which address the human condition
● Quest Towards Authentic Existence
+ Aesthetic Stage
- The lowest stage
- Pleasure-centered, personal satisfaction
- Develop feelings of emptiness and dread
(existential angst) and this prompts the
person to go to the next stage
- Lives in the world of the senses.
Everything is either fun or boring.
- Can experience angst, or a dread and a
feeling of emptiness (existential angst)
● Dread- a feeling of general
apprehension
- Kierkegaard interpreted it as God’s way of
calling each individual to make a
commitment to a personally valid way of
life
● Anxiety- stems from our understanding
and recognition of the total freedom of
choice that confronts us every moment,
and the individual’s confrontation with
nothingness
+ Ethical Stage
- Commitment towards accepts norms
and rules
- Geared towards social acceptance
- Doing what is right for the benefit of others
and not for oneself; what is best for the
community
- Instead of just thinking of pleasure, the
ethical person thinks of good and evil
- Characterized by seriousness and
consistency of moral choices
- Like Kant’s Ethics of Duty
- It is not that your opinion is right or wrong,
what matters is what you have an opinion
● Leap of Faith
- The ethical person soon encounters
existential angst (dread); gets tired of
always following the rules devoid of a
deeper understanding or what really
matters in life
- Abraham and Isaac story
+ Religious Stage
- Authentic Existence
- Personal and total communion with God
- The recognition that there is something
eternal within us
- Making decisions out of that persona;
relationship with God
- The highest stage of personal
commitment and subjectivity
- To Kierkegaard, this stage was
Christianity, “The only path to redemption”
- To choose faith rather than pleasure
● Objectivity of Being
- Gabriel Marcel strongly believed that
every human person recognizes the fact
that man is an existing thing, although he
believed that every human is compelled to
prove that his life is more significant than
just merely existing
- People define themselves by their
profession/possession (function)
● Gabriel Marcel- was an existentialist.
His philosophy centered on the problem
of being.
- Argues the need for philosophical and
existential healing
● The Human Person as an Embodied
Spirit
- Man as a substantial unity of body and
soul; is a thinking, emotive, and
independent being
- Although my body is an important part of
my being, my being cannot be equated to
my body alone
- Marcel is hostile to the idea of objectifying
people because it robs them of their being
● Creative being- to be more faithful to
Being
- Presence- recognizing we are
being-among-beings; a strong
awareness of being together
(here-ness)
● Friendship- it gives man the power to
overcome “objectivity” of other people
and produce a new level of intimacy
● Love- man commits himself to others in
the same manner he commits himself to
his spouse
● Emmanuel Levinas
- Jewish, was born in Lithuania
- Philosophy of Otherness
- His interjectivity is oriented towards the
chronic disease of egotism and self
interest
● Naked face- when we encounter the
Other, his/her Face, should be as nude
as possible
● Ethics of the Face- we cannot hurt others
because we could see ourselves to them.
Hurting them is also a form of
self-destruction
- “After you, sir!”
- Face-to-face encounter
- The self is the product of the dialogical
relationship between one being to another
- The basic reference point to judge
actions is the face of the Other
● Reciprocity- This intersubjectivity
relation is non-symmetrical
● Martin Buber
- Born in Vienna and was extremely shaped
by Kierkegaard’s ideas and his Jewish
descent
● The Sphere of the Interhuman
- The social is the life of the group of people
bound together by common experiences
and reactions
+ I-it relationship- the human being
dehumanize, depersonalized others
+ I-thou relationship- person becomes
aware of the other not as a mere object
● 4 Separate Categories
+ Aesthetic Perception
+ Perception as Movement
+ Categorizing by Type
+ Interpreting in Mathematical Terms
● Buber’s Concept of Love
- Not a feeling, but a cosmic force
- Love is a subject-to-subject relationship
- Love is a responsibility of an I for a Thou
● The Ultimate Thou
+ God
+ The Eternal Soul
II. Freedom
● Freedom- the capacity for
self-determination; the ability to say I
could have done otherwise
● Determinism- The theory that every
event, including every human action, is
governed by natural laws
● Types of Determinism
+ Biological Determinism
- Genetics
- Neuroscience
- Biological and objective necessity put
limits on our ability to do things
● B.F. Skinner
● Operant Conditioning- we are
conditioned to perform certain actions
with reward and punishment as the
main motivators
- Reward would likely increase the
behavior; punishment would likely
decrease it.
- As a behaviorist, Skinner argued that it
was not really necessary to look at internal
thought and motivations in order to explain
behavior. Instead, he suggested, we
should look only at the external,
observable causes of human behavior
+ Theological Determinism
- The question of God’s influence on
freedom
- Everything is planned
- As fatalism: there is nothing we can do to
affect our lives in any significant way
- Also known as religious predestination
- Kant maintains that we cannot know for
certainty if people are really free
- He maintains that freedom is a moral
postulate
● Moral Postulate- it is necessary to
assume that people are free to account
for personal responsibility
● To say that we are free...
- Is to assume that we are the source of
one’s actions
- A person is morally responsible for what
he has done only if he could have done
otherwise
● Aristotle’s Idea of Freedom
- Freedom is related to happiness
- A teleological approach (telos-end), our
freedom’s end/purpose is ultimate
happiness (Eudaimonia)
● Thomas Aquinas
- The Angelic Doctor
- Christianized Aristotle
- Catholic priest from the Dominican Order
- Freedom is the power of volition (will),
where beings strive to reach a state of
beatific vision of God
- Freedom and responsibility go hand in
hand
● Major Impediments- make us more or
less responsible for our responsible
+ Ignorance- not knowing what we should
do or not do; less responsibility
+ Duress- freedom is impeded when
someone tries to force us to do
something; less responsibility
+ Inordinate Attachments- money and
other things that enslave us and we do
not act with full freedom
- Crimes of passion
- Less responsibility

+ Fear- panic in the face of danger

● Intellectual Fear- since fear resides in the
mind
- Less responsibility

+ Habit- repeated behavior that are good

(virtues) or bad (vices); less responsibility

● Jean-Paul Sarte
● Existence precedes Essence
- Ws born in Paris
- Tabula Rasa
- “Hell is other people” (No exit)
- We make ourselves through our own
- Being and Nothingness- one of his most
choices, and those choices alone
influential books that deals with the
question of freedom
● Bad Faith
● Being-in-itself- one who is conscious of
- Sarte’s conception of self-deception
one’s existence and chooses essence
- The deliberate creation in oneself of the
appearance of a belief which one in
fact knows to be false

● Existential Anguish
- A response to the burden of
responsibility

● Sarte’s Philosophy of Action

- Given existential anguish, we just cannot
withdraw from life and retreat into
passivity and inaction
- We continue to endure and carry the
responsibilities because it is only through
self- creation that life becomes meaningful

● Filipino Fatalism
- Bahala na

III. Nature

● Destruction of Nature
- Humanity has seen itself the be-all and
end-all of things
- Human interests became more important
than protecting mother Earth

● Carbon Footprint- the amount carbon

dioxide released into the atmosphere
as a result of the activities of a particular
individual, organization, or community

● Instrumental Value- means for some
end (value is conditional)
● Intrinsic Value- ends in themselves
regardless whether they are useful as
means to other ends
● Anthropocentric (Human Centered)
- Only humans have intrinsic values.
Hence, other beings are just instrumental
to further the former’s ends
● Ecocentric
- Nature-centered
- Looking at created reality with the same
intrinsic value as that of humans
● Environmental Theories:
+ Deep Ecology- born in Scandinavia, the
result of discussion between Naess and
his colleagues Sigmund Kvaloy and Nils
Faarlund
● Biospheric Egalitarianism- all living
things are alike and have value in their
own right, independent of their usefulness
to others
● Relationalism- organisms are best
understood as knots in the biospheric
net.
+ Ecofeminism
- Human exploitation of nature is a
manifestation and extension of the
oppression of women
- Superior-inferior relationship must be
abolished
● Ecological Conscience- we need to
develop ecological conscience based
on individual responsibility
- Taking care of nature is everyone’s task;
to adopt a lifestyle that honors and
protects nature
● 7 Environmental Principles
1. Nature knows best
● Ecological backlash- counter-response
of nature that often brings destruction to
lives and properties
2. All forms of life are important
3. Everything is related to everything else
4. Everything changes
5. Everything must go somewhere
6. Ours is a finite earth
7. Nature is beautiful and we are stewards
IV. Death
● Bucket List-a list of things that one has
done but wants to do before dying.
● Death- the end of bodily functions
which signals the end of person’s life
- Refers to the separation of body and
spirit
- The body, being material, is bound by the
laws of time and space is subject to
growth, death, and decay.
- The spirit, being immaterial, will continue
to exist even after the body has passed
- Ending of life
- Science defines death as “the
irreversible cessation of functioning of
the entire brain”
The human person is an embodied spirit or the
unity of a body and a spirit. The body grows and
dies, while the soul continues to exist even after
the body has passed.
The Phenomenology of Death
- Death is not just the cessation of life, but
the cessation of being
● Christian Theology of Death
- Centers on the main idea that there is
life after death
● Eschatology
- Study of the ‘last things’ but the
beginning of new life
● Thomas Aquinas
- Man is not only a body but soul. These 2
are not separate, but complimentary
concepts which exist in perfect union.
- The body is the matter; the soul is the
form
- Death is seen as a passageway
towards eternal life
- Death is not our ultimate destiny because
it reduces us to mere bodies.
● Kubler-Ross Model 5 Stages
1. Denial- This can’t be happening!
2. Anger- Why me? It’s not fair!
3. Bargaining- can be directed to God
 4. Depression- takes time to grieve his/her
own death
5. Acceptance- ‘ready to go’
When people are about to die, they contemplate
on 3 Things:
1. Meaning of life
2. Dying appropriately
3. Hope that extends beyond the grave
● Dying Appropriately- not all are given
this chance with less pain as possible
● Eternal Life- we will not accept that death
is the end of everything
Death and Immortality
- 2 distinct yet complementary concept
● Immortality- indefinite continuation of a
person’s existence, even after death
- Plato: when the body dies, the soul frees
itself from the body
● Theory of the Divided Line
- The world of matter (phenomenon) and
the world of ideas (noumenon)
- Plato believes that the human person is a
substantial unity of body (matter) and soul
(form)
● 1st argument: Argument from The
Generation of Opposites
- As in cycles, things not only come from
opposites, but also go towards opposites
- Life and death are opposites in a cycle.
Thus, we had a life before being born, and
we shall have a life after we die
● 2nd Argument: Argument from
Recollection
- Education is just a recollection of the
things we already know
- The soul was ‘omniscient’. When it was
trapped in the body, the soul lost all the
things it knows
● 3rd Argument: The Simplicity
Argument
- Things in this world are composite;have
parts
- A things can be destroyed by separating it
into its parts
- Plato believed that the soul is in
composite and cannot be destroyed
Kant and Moral Postulates
- Kant maintains that by pure reason alone
we can never know if the soul is really
immortal
- The immortality of the soul is moral
postulate
Democritus and Immortality
- Being a materialist, denies the
possibility of the immortality of the
soul
● The Atomism of Democritus
- Reality is composed of indivisible particles
which have existed since the beginning of
time
- We are but atoms hence when we die,
the atoms just disintegrate and we
become non-existent
Immortality
- Hannah Arendt points out how we can
immortalize ourselves whilst still alive and
be remembered by generations to
come by our words and the work of our
hands
- Book:The Human Condition (immortality
as endurance in time; a deathless life)
- Our human task is to seek immortality, not
eternity for it is beyond our control
Pleasure
● Epicurus
- Founder of Epicureanism (the
philosophical movement that is
devoted to freedom from bodily pains
and troubles of the mind)
- Born after Plato’s death in the Athenian
colony of Samos
- He studies philosophy under Democritus;
hence, a materialist
- Founded ‘The Garden' philosophical
community and school where his
teachings are practiced
- The ultimate good is still happiness
(eudaimonia)
- Happiness = pleasure
● Pleasure Calculator
- Pleasurable results must be weighed
against possible side effects
- Pleasurable results in the short term must
be weighed against the possibility of
greater, more lasting, more intense
pleasure
- The goal of life is pleasure - freedom
forms pain, fear, and anxiety
- For Epicurus, being satisfied with what we
have can lead to happiness
- Happiness is the ultimate goal of man
● Epicurus and Death
- He believed that everything is made up of
atoms. Gods and the soul exist, but also
made up of atoms.
- Death is not a painful experience
- Argument; The only thing that is bad for us
is pain
Martin Heidegger
- German Philosopher
- A member and public supporter of the
Nazi Party
- Wrote the book ‘Being a Time’ that
dealt tremendously with the concept of
being
● Dasein
- ‘Being there’ (a being in the world)
- We cease to be when we are no longer in
this world
- The world serves as a place where
self-realization and actualization is made
possible
- Human is an unfinished character
● Death as the Completion of Dasein
● Our experience of death is not our own
death
● Death is like a wall
● My death is always mine
● Death is the greatest equalizer
● Anxiety- Heidegger argues that when
faced with death we feel anxiety/dread not
only of the possibility of death, but the
possibility of leaving the world
● Inauthentic Attitude Towards Death
- Death as a mishap that often occurs
- Bad faith is to hide our own possibility of
death by putting this as an event that only
happens to others
● Authentic Death
- Acknowledgement
- Dasein must face the possibility of death
● Suicide
- Heidegger is hostile to the idea of suicide
- Suicide does not actualize humans, but
denies themselves of their own
possibilities
- Dasein’s full potentialities are never
achieved
● Dasein as Being ahead of Himself
- We are capable of transcending
ourselves, to project ourselves in
advance/go back in time
Stoicism
- A philosophical movement influential
during the Roman era
- Stoic- a person who can endure pain or
hardship without showing pain or
complaining (a misnomer)
- Founded by Zeno of Citium; who taught
in a place called Stoa from which the
movement got its name
● Epictetus (emancipated slave)
● Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor)
● Seneca (adviser to Nero)
● 3 Disciplines:
1. Perception-the way we see things
- Stoics try to master
- Cognitive capacity to see things as good
or evil
2. Action- what we do about it; we use
problems to motivate us
● Momento Mori- Remember you too are
mortal. Remember, you too will die
3. Will- There are things that we can
control (internal) and things we cannot
(external)

The Art of Acquiescence

- Accepting, surrendering
- Everything happens out of necessity
- Remind yourself about others’ mortality
- He/she is a person who continually
reminds oneself how valuable a moment
is
- Live your life as if it were your last