INTRODUCTION
TO THE
PHILOSOPHY OF
THE HUMAN
PERSON
Methods
of Philosophizing
The optimist says
the glass is half full.
The pessimist says
the glass is half empty.
Existentialism
“Human are totally free and must
take responsibility and define the
meaning of their own lives.”
Freedom, action, and decision are
fundamental
Existentialism believes that
individuals are entirely free
and must take personal
responsibility for
themselves (although with
this responsibility comes
angst, a profound anguish
or dread).
Existentialism
A human person is “thrown into” a
tangible, physical, real universe
“Existence precedes essence”
THE ULTIMATE REALITY IS FREE CHOICE
JEANPAUL SARTRE
“Man exist, turns up, appears on
the scene, and only afterwards,
defines himself. If man conceives
him, is indefinable, it is because
he is nothing. Only afterward
will he be something, and he
himself will have made what he
will be.”
This means that any object, if it has
to come into existence its idea
should exist in the mind of the
creator. For example, if we want to
build a house, an idea of how the
house will look like, its features and
location must take place in our
mind; its essence should be there
before it can come into existence.
Jean Paul Sartre implies that
existence precedes essence in
human beings. Sartre believes that
the self or body or in other words,
the existence comes into being first
and then after the human being has
entered this world; he defines or
makes up his essence or nature by
his interaction with the
surroundings, people and
opportunities around him.
It is a movement in
philosophy which holds that
philosophy should apply
logical techniques in order to
attain conceptual clarity, and
that philosophy should be
consistent with the success of
modern science.
For many Analytic
Philosophers, language
is the principal
(perhaps the only) tool,
and philosophy
consists in clarifying
how language can be
used.
Phenomenology
is a broad discipline and method of inquiry in
philosophy, developed largely by the
German philosophers Edmund Husserl and
Martin Heidegger.
It is based on the premise that
reality consists of objects and
events (“phenomena”) as they
are perceived or understood in
the human consciousness, and
not of anything independent of
human consciousness.
Phenomenology
Method of philosophical inquiry that is
based on the premise that reality is made
up of events perceived and understood in
the human consciousness
Came from two Greek words namely:
1. Phainomenon – appearance
2. Logos – study
Phenomenology
Phainomenon portends to
the objects, either real or
imagined, that are
perceived by the
“conscious knower”
Things will remain
unknown without
a conscious
knower.
Edmund Husserl
The Father of
Phenomenology
Described
phenomenology using
“two poles”
1. Noema (that is
perceived)
2. Noesis (the act of
perceiving)
Phenomenology is…
Free from presumptions because:
1. Does not make claims about some objective
reality
2. Studies objects or events from the position
of observers.
3. Everyday life, objects, experiences, other
people, ideas, and everything sensed and
perceived by the individual are factually
real from the individual’s point of view; thus
reality as one perceives it is factually real.
“Lived experiences
are the most
important reality.”
it is the study of reasoning, or the study
of the principles and criteria of valid
inference and demonstration. It
attempts to distinguish good reasoning
from bad reasoning.
Logic investigates and
classifies the structure of
statements and arguments,
both through the study of
formal systems of inference and
through the study of arguments
in natural language.
It deals only with propositions
(declarative sentences, used to
make an assertion, as opposed to
questions, commands or sentences
expressing wishes) that are capable
of being true and false.
It is not concerned with
the psychological
processes connected
with thought, or with
emotions, images and
the like.
Logic covers core topics such
as the study of fallacies and
paradoxes, as well as specialized
analysis of reasoning using
probability and arguments
involving causality and
argumentation theory.
