PHILOSOPHY- love of wisdom

 Knowledge can be acquired through reading, researching, while wisdom is the

summarization of the knowledge you acquired throughout the years.
TWO APPROACHES:
I. Historical Approach
1. Ancient Philosophy (cosmocentric)
1. Greece
o Thinkers (from the small island of Miletus)- people who did note believe
gods (such as Zues, Poseidon, etc.) are controlling earth’s natural
phenomena
a. Thales- water
b. Anaximenes- air
c. Anximander- boundless or “apeiron”
2. Athens
o Aristotle
o Plato
o Socrates
2. Medieval Philosophy (theocentric)- means God-centered
A. Christian Philosophers
1) St. Thomas Aquinas
2) St. Augustine of Hippo
3) St. Anselm
B. Muslim Philosophers
1) Avicenna
2) Averroes
3) Al-Ghazali
3. Modern Philosophy (anthropocentric)- talks about self
a. Rene Descartes
- Father of Modern Philosophy
- “cogito ergo sum” or I think therefore I am
- first philosopher who talk about existence
4. Post-Modern or Contemporary Philosophy
 A critique of the Modern Philosophy
 Prominent philosophers:
a. Jacques Derrida- deconstructionalism
b. Michel Foucault- prominent in his word “panopticon”
II. Systematic Approach
A. Theoretical
1. Epistemology- the study of the nature, origin and limits of human
knowledge
2. Metaphysics- is the fundamental/ core of a thing beyond physical
3. Philosophy of Religion/ Theodicy- study of religion through the lenses of
philosophy.
4. Social Philosophy- the study and interpretation of society and social
institutions in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations.

B. Practical
1. Logic- study of correct reasoning
 2. Ethics- study of moral principles
Ethics- Ethos- a characteristic way of acting
I. Definition
Ethics is the practical science or the morality of human conduct.
Human Conduct (how you act)-> Human Activity (you do things you do) --> deliberate & free
An act performed with advertence & motive, an act by the free will, is called a Human Act.
Human act- gipaminaw
Act of man- nakadungog
II. Object
A. Material Object - human act
B. Formal Object - right morality or rectitude of human acts
III. Importance
-an upright life is and must be
IV. Division
A. General Ethics -presents truths about human acts
B. Special Ethics-applied ethics
ARTRICLE 1

A. Definition of the Human Act

 A human act is an act which proceeds from the deliberate free will of man.
 Man is Animal and Rational or Rational Animal.
-knowing and freely willing

Man’s Animal acts of sensation and appetition as well as acts that man performs
indeliberately or without advertence and the exercise of free choice are call acts of man.

Acts of Man -> Human Acts

Ex. Hearing -> Listening

Ethics is not concerned with the acts of man, but only with human acts because man is
responsible and they are imputed to him as worthy of praise or blame, of reward or
punishment.

Human acts tend to repeat themselves and to form habits. Habits coalesce into what we call
a man’s character.

B. Classification of Human Acts

1. The Adequate Cause of Human Acts
Elicited Acts- acts that begin and are perfected in the will itself and the rest begin in
the will and are perfected by other faculties under control of the will.
a. Wish- The simple love of anything; the first tendency of the will towards
a thing, whether this thing be realizable or not.
b. Intention- The purposive tendency of the will towards a thing regarded
as realizable, whether the thing is actually done or not.
c. Consent- is the acceptance by the will of the means necessary to carry
out the intention. Consent is further intention of doing what is necessary
to realize the first or main intention.
d. Election- The selection by the will of the precise means to be employed
in carrying out an intention.
 e. Use- The employment by the will of powers to carry out its intention by
means elected.
f. Fruition- enjoyment of a thing willed and done; the will’s act of
satisfaction in intention fulfilled.

Commanded Acts- perfected by the action of mental or bodily powers under the
control of the will, or, so to speak, under orders from the will.

a. Internal- acts done by internal mental powers under command of the

will.
b. External- acts affected by bodily powers under command of the will.
c. Mixed- acts that involve the employment of bodily powers and mental
powers.
2. The Relation of Human Acts to Reason
Human acts are either in agreement or in disagreement with the dictates of reason,
and this relation with reason constitutes their morality.
Morality- Good, Evil, Indifferent
a. Good- When they are in harmony with the dictates of right
reason
b. Evil- When they are in opposition to these dictates
c. Indifferent- When they stan in no positive relation to the
dictates of reason. A human act that is indifferent in itself
becomes good or evil according to the circumstances which
affect its performance, especially the end in view of the agent.
C. Constituents of the Human Act
In order that an act be human, it must be knowing, free, and voluntary.
A. Knowledge
- a human act proceeds from deliberate will; it requires deliberation.
- It means merely advertence or knowledge in intellect of what one is about
and what this means.
The will cannot act in the dark, for the will is a “blind” faculty in itself. It
cannot choose unless it “see” to choose, and the light, the power to see, is
by intellectual knowledge.
B. Freedom
- A human act is an act determined (elicited or commanded) by the will and
by anything else.
- It is an act, therefore, that is under control of the will, and act that the will
can do or leave undone. Such act is called a free act.
Thus, every human act must be free. In other words, freedom is an essential
element of human act.
C. Voluntariness
- The Latin word for will is voluntas, from this word we derive the English
terms, voluntary and voluntariness.
- Voluntariness is the formal essential quality of the human act, and for it to
be present, there must be both knowledge and freedom in the agent.