Philosophical Methods 2

PHILOSOPHI
CAL
METHODS
Natural Sciences
Observe and explain They express their

natural phenomena in a workings in objective Physics, Chemistry, and
calculative and judgments using empirical Biology
experimental way. methods to arrive at
concrete results.
Human
Sciences
• put a value on the
human person not
primarily as a natural
organism but often as a
socio-cultural entity
Traditional Branches of Philosophy
Branch of Philosophy Concern Question
Ethics Study of action What ought I do?
Metaphysics Study of existence What is being?

Epistemology Study of knowledge What can I know?
Aesthetics Study of art What is beautiful?
Logic Study of reasoning What is the correct inference?
Politics Study of power What makes a just society?

Ethics
HOW DO WE TELL GOOD EXPLORES THE NATURE OF A STUDY OF THE NATURE

FROM EVIL? MORAL VIRTUE AND OF MORAL JUDGMENTS
EVALUATES HUMAN ACTIONS
Socrates - " To be
happy, a person has
a to live a virtuous
life."
• Greek word "arete" -

virtue
Virtue
• Is not something to be
taught or acquired through
education, but rather, it is
merely an awakening of
the seeds that lay dormant
in the mind and heart of a
person
Epistemology
• Deals with nature, sources, limitations, and validity of
knowledge
Epistemology Questions
1. How do we know what 2. How we can find out 3. How can we differentiate
we claim to know? what we wish to know? truth from falsehood?
Induction
Method
• Using a specific
observation to form a
general conclusion
Deduction Method
• Using a general premise to form a
specific conclusion
LOgic – greek word "logike"
TREATISE ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO THE THE TRUTH OR VALIDITY OF OUR

HUMAN THOUGHT ARGUMENTS
Aristotle
First philosopher to devise a Truth exists when the minds Provides us with accepted
logical method representations "ideas" scientific proofs of universally
correspond with things in valid propositions or
objective world statements
Various Ways of
Categorizing
Philosophical
Subdisciplines
a. Ancient
Philosophy
• refers to the mode and
systems of philosophizing
dominant in the 6th century
B.C.E. until roughly the 4th
century CE
Cosmocentric View
(kosmos – world )
• Ancient philosophers
wondered about the world
(origin of the universe)
• "arche" - (Greek for starting
point)
• "Where all did the things come
from?"
b. Medieval
Philosophy
• refers to the dominant
philosophical/theological
thought from the 5th to the
15th century C.E., after
which comes the modern
period of philosophy (from
the 16th to the 20th
centuries).
Theocentric View
(Theos-God)
• The world become secondary

to God
• The church sustained man's
intellect and Christianity
greatly influenced philosophy
• Avicenna, St. Augustine, St.
Thoman Aquinas
c. Contemporary
Philosophy
• refers to the present mode and
systems of philosophizing, referred to
by some as postmodern philosophy
(although what that term means is
subject to intricate debate and
discussion)
Anthropocentric view (anthropos – man)
• Characterized by subjectivity and individualism
Rationalism
• Committed to the view that
knowledge is acquired
through reason independent
of sense experience
Rene Descartes - French
philosopher, foremost
modern philosopher)
• Believe din the power of ideas

• " I think, therefore, I am."
Holds that all
knowledge is
ultimately
derived from
sense
Empiricism experience
John Locke
(English philosopher
and physician)
• Human mind at birth is

like a blank sheet of paper
(tabula rasa) that is later
filled through sense
experience
This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC B

PHILOSOPHICAL
REFLECTION
Reflection
is used to refer to being

engaged in thought, The concern of reflection
reflections can never be
daydreaming, or is everyday life in which it is
separated from life.
recollecting/remembering embedded.
an event in our minds.
Example:
• If I lose my cell phone or cannot find my house
keys, I am disturbed, and my life is disrupted, if
only momentarily. The disruption comes from
the fact that I consider my cell phone and keys as
something valuable to me. So, I do my best to
recall my last memory of my cellphone and my
keys to locate them. Nobody can perform these
reflections for me because my cell phone and keys
are personal property. What is at stake is my
engagement with these valuable objects.
Reflection
Is not only about remembering external

objects. It also involves a memory of a
friend, a conversation with a teacher, or
In this sense, is a personal act that is linked bonding with family members. It can also
to my personal experience. Nobody can include personal questions like “What am I
reflect on me; it is already a task I need to living for?”, “what do I live by?”, “what is
perform to find my cell phone and keys. this all for?” As such, part of essentially
being a human is the capacity to live with
hardly any self-awareness and experience
life in a reflective way
Martin Heidegger
• German philosopher (1889-1976),
argues that only the human person is
capable of questioning its very existence
The dog is not asking if it is already a dog
by its very act of barking. Neither does the
rat inquire into its being a rat by eating
cheese. In contrast, the human person
does question his very being. We do not
just live; we are interested in what living
means and in living well. In the vernacular,
we say: “madaling maging tao, mahirap
magpakatao.” The cliché is true because
we inquire into our actions, reflect on our
experiences, and contemplate our
identity.
Reflection begins :
We encounter a break from Recalls and reexamines The richer the experience,
our everyday concerns and experience in order to the more reflective it
It is a discontinuity, or a
from our everyday life. It is a understand and comprehend possibly makes us, and the
jarring disturbance, in our
discontinuity, or a jarring the experience. In this sense, more reflective the human
experience.
disturbance, in our the experience transforms person, the richer their
experience itself into reflection.. experience.
Primary and
Secondary Reflection
Primary and Secondary
Reflections are
concepts from the work
of Gabriel Marcel, a
Christian Existentialist
1. Primary reflection breaks the
unity of experience and is the
foundation of scientific inquiry
Husserl speaks of this breaking up of experience (or analysis) as the natural attitude.
Husserl’s natural attitude referred to the scientific attitude predominant during his time
and carried to the extreme to become scientistic (the belief that only science is
authoritative and all other viewpoints are invalid).
It is the instrument of scientific knowledge (which is not necessarily scientistic); it understands its
objects by abstraction, which implies breaking them into constituent parts. This type of reflection is
interested in definitions and technical and methodical solutions to problems. Its answers and
judgments are objective (derived from the Latin obiectu, literally “to throw against”).
It is interested in what is outside of me or before me; it dissects the experience into parts. It
dissolves the unity of the experience by emphasizing the parts rather than approaching it as a
whole.
It can be answered in a similar way as filling up a form with my biographic data.

Austrian-German
philosopher and
Edmund mathematician
who established
Husserl
the school of
phenomenology
PHENOMENOLOGY
THE ULTIMATE
SOURCE OF ALL
PHILOSOPHY OF MEANING AND VALUE
EXPERIENCE IS THE EXPERIENCE OF
HUMAN BEINGS
Example:
• A biologist examining a frog or a slide
containing cells of allium cepa. Instead of
understanding the frog or onion as a whole,
the biologist dissects the frog into organs and
systems and compartmentalizes the onion
into mitotic cell division phases. As a result,
specific details are brought to the fore while
clouding the frog or the onion as a whole.
While the example provided is
simplistic, it does capture the
nature of primary reflection—
the dissolution of the whole into
parts
It recuperates the unity of the original experience. For phenomenologists,
secondary reflection is the instrument of philosophical reflection.
2. Secondary It’s concerned with that which is in me, which I am, or with those areas where the
distinctions “in me” or “before me” tend to break down; it attempts to recuperate
reflection-is the unity of the original experience. This is the attempt to see the parts in relation
to the whole—to interpret the parts with the whole in sight. Philosophical
reflection is interested in secondary reflection, which is not contrary to primary
synthetic; it reflection; it just refuses to accept primary reflection as final and definite.
It provides an important aspect in accessing ourselves. It

unifies rather becomes clear in the question of identity that when we ask,
“Who am I?” This is a primordial question on which all other
than divides questions in the philosophy of the human person hinges
It recognizes incomprehensibility, the refusal of myself to be

reduced to categories but still referring to these categories.
Here is the recognition of the mysterious I as a subject
beyond my comprehension
Example:
• I react to the reduction of myself to my biographical details. It allows me to
consider myself apart from my biographical data. This is not to show me that I
am not my biographic data but to emphasize that I am more than my
biographic data. It is the same reaction that we encounter when psychologists
reduce our personalities into specific types or our intelligence into a specific
percentile score. This reaction is rooted not in denying these scores or
categories as untrue or mistaken but in recognizing their truthfulness.
This means that these scores and categories do, in fact, tell us
something about ourselves. This points the way toward a fuller
understanding of the participation alluded to in examples of the
mysterious, in that secondary reflection brings about a sense of
uneasiness that somehow compels us to ask: who are we really? The
complexity of the human person, its incomprehensibility and
mystery, can be partially understood with the help of
phenomenology.

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PHILOSOPHI

Observe and explain They express their

Metaphysics Study of existence What is being?

Aesthetics Study of art What is beautiful?

Logic Study of reasoning What is the correct inference?

Politics Study of power What makes a just society?

HOW DO WE TELL GOOD EXPLORES THE NATURE OF A STUDY OF THE NATURE

• Greek word "arete" -

TREATISE ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO THE THE TRUTH OR VALIDITY OF OUR

• The world become secondary

• Believe din the power of ideas

• Human mind at birth is

This Photo by Unknown author is licensed under CC B

is used to refer to being

Is not only about remembering external

It can be answered in a similar way as filling up a form with my biographic data.

It provides an important aspect in accessing ourselves. It

It recognizes incomprehensibility, the refusal of myself to be

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