philosophy as a dynamic human endeavor

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PHILOSOPHY AS A DYNAMIC HUMAN ENDEAVOR

This work aims to give hope to readers so that they may understand my point, and to aid some

philosophical reflection into our present context of philosophizing. My problem now is how to prove the

grain of truth found in the discontent of man in philosophizing and the process of rethinking as a

foundation of philosophy. How to evaluate philosophical achievements, changes, and progress through

the discontent and embarrassment of man? But before I begin to discuss the topic, I have to pause for a

breath of enlightenment.

Philosophy, as an exemplar of a chief discipline, is a dynamic human endeavor. It continues to grow as

time moves on and yet philosophers freely accept other philosophies and integrate them as a part of

him. Great philosophies up to this day are the products of a long history, for the present philosophers

have more of the past to reflect upon and follow more philosophies to be transformed. Also, the stand

of philosophy in the future will be different from today because future philosophers will have more of

the past philosophies to think about. Whatever great philosophical achievement today is derivative

from the past. No matter how good is our philosophy today, there will be a discontent arises and an

embarrassment occurred. The future is an open field of new philosophies to surpass the philosophy

today. Great philosophical achievement today will be surpassed in the next year to come. Thus, any

postmodern philosophers cannot make a criticism, cannot borrow some selected ideas, and cannot

reject the ideas that had no existence in the modern period of philosophy.

For instance, Abulad, a Filipino Kantian scholar, will not be able to have such scholarship if the

philosopher whom he is going to study did not live before him. Also, it is impossible to call him Kantian

without having any Kantian thoughts. This reflection gives way to my philosophical inquiry. Following

this example, I have the certainty with a credible basis to prove that philosophy is a dynamic process of

human endeavor.

One point of justifying this proposition is to evaluate it through language and literature. The active

potency of ideas to change or the continuing evolution of ideas, as I shall coin the term, will be made

possible. In what way would this event take effect? Many of the present thinkers, scholars, and

philosophers forget the truth that there is no pure philosophy as it continually changes and grow. The

publication of some literatures that have a strong philosophical bent and the use of language are the

mediums of this change and growth.

No philosophy is completely pure, nor is there any that is totally independent that it is not influenced,

if not brought about, by other philosophies. Every great philosophy always carries footnotes that speak

of past philosophies. Alfred North Whitehead said: European philosophical traditions consist of a
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series of footnotes to Plato.1 What we know of philosophy in this day was indebted from the past. The

early Greek thinkers had been influenced by their neighboring civilizations like Babylonia, Egypt, and

some parts of Eastern society, and deciphered them according to their own intelligible culture.

The aggressiveness of these early thinkers, especially in the search to have an explanation to what was

the basic stuff, Urstoff, that constituted the world made them great today. They enjoyed the

refutation of considering them as the early natural scientists of Western culture not because of the

conclusion they reached and formulated but because of their initiative pioneering method of

philosophizing that inspired the latter scientists to break the chains that bound them. The flourishing

Greek culture shaped the highest peak of the great triune philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

The act of philosophizing gave more focus on the idealistic view, most especially that of Plato and with

a dualistic aesthetic and epistemology by which there is an object-subject dichotomy. The object is

being differentiated from the subject as a knower. Plato himself had been influenced by Parmenides in

his metaphysics of unchangeable world. Plato also borrowed from Socrates idea and baptized it in the

context within itself.

We can also notice, however, that there is a considerable rejection and transformation of point of

view. Socrates, a student of the Sophist, disregarded its teaching of relativistic morality of might is

right. Aristotle himself a brilliant student of Plato, endeavored a departure from his teachers tenets

on idealism by forwarding more practical philosophies.

Moreover, at the time of Greece diminishing political power due to invasion and war, the Greeks view

of philosophy changed. History gave birth to the emergence of Epicureanism, Stoicism, Skepticism, and

neo-Platonism, fresh philosophies that would ignite human thought, and the focus of such undertakings

was more on the practical side. Therefore, such way of philosophizing restricted with the present

context of the time yet advancing them to a more vivid enigma. No one would dare to talk about

Platos theory of Form when they saw themselves devoid of a social order and facing some wars.

Epicureanism borrowed its tenets from the materialistic-atomistic theory of Democritus, suggesting

that the existence of the world was a result of the collision of infinite, indestructible atoms. The

bigger the atoms formed during collision would account for the formation of bigger bodies in the

universe. This implies that the world, including man and God, is the product of accidental collision of

atoms. This realization helped man to have an intellectual peace and the absence from the fear of

afterlife and punishment. However, Epicurus and his followers did not only borrow this without any

alteration from their individual ideas. There was a specification, and the evidence was that Epicurus,

despite his materialistic point of view, employed a moralistic principle of happiness based on pleasure.

1Whitehead


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The same happened to Stoicism where Heraclitus tenets governing principle, the Logos, were

borrowed. Only a minimal change of ideas and it became another school of thought. Skepticism

neglected the metaphysical view of Plato and only accepted Socrates dialectical method of doubting.

Similarly, Plotinus added his own theory of religious mysticism to the tenets of Plato, giving birth to

neo-Platonism, a philosophy that would also serve as a right bridge to medieval philosophy.

Many postmodern ideas are just borrowed, with certain alterations, from their predecessors and other

foreign essential ideas. Only those ideas that are intelligible for ones own understanding are selected

and related within the philosophy. To a reader, the language and ideas presented in the literature will

no longer be the same ideas when they are objectified by his understanding and interpreted in his own

language as a point of expressing what he understood. If this would be true, the conclusion that I am

going to land upon will not be considered as conjectural and a childish method of philosophizing.

Philosophy, in a real sense, is the act of rethinking other philosophies and metamorphosing them into

the context of the new breed of thinker. What has been borrowed from the other becomes part of the

philosopher himself.

14 August 2009

by Glenn Rey Anino

philosophy as a dynamic human endeavor

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