Philo 1 Reading Materials 4

SUPPLEMENTAL READING MATERIAL IN
PHILO 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

Prepared By: Mr. J. Lacasandile
WEEK 4
What is PHILOSOPHIZING?
 To think or express oneself in a philosophical manner.

 It considers or discusses a (matter) from a philosophical standpoint.
SIX METHODS OF PHILOSOPHIZING
1. PHENOMENOLOGY (On Consciousness)

 Truth is based on the person’s consciousness.
 The study of phenomenon.
 It is the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness.
 It was founded by Edmund Husserl.
 According to Johnston 2006, this focuses on careful inspection and description
of phenomena or appearance’s, defined as any object of conscious experience,
that is, that which we are conscious of.
 Literally, phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”: appearances of things,
or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things,
thus the meanings things have in our experience.
 Phenomenology studies the structure of various types of experience ranging
from perception, thought, memory, imagination, emotion, desire, and volition to
bodily awareness, embodied action, and social activity, including linguistic
activity.
 Phenomenology studies structures of conscious experience as experienced
from the first-person point of view, along with relevant conditions of experience.
 PHENOMENON
 Comes directly from the Greek word phainomenon meaning “appearance.”
 These are the things that we are conscious of.
 IMMANUEL KANT- German philosopher who used the same word to refer to the world
of our experience.
 This process entails a method or a series of continuously revised methods- for

taking up a peculiarly phenomenological standpoint, “bracketing out” everything
that is not essential, thereby understanding the basic rules or constitutive
processes through which consciousness does its work of knowing the world.
Saint John Bosco College of Northern Luzon, Inc.Page 1

2. EXISTENTIALISM (On Freedom)
 The truth must be based on one’s attitude or outlook.
 According to Soren Kierkegaard, the authentic self as the personally chosen
self, as opposed to public or “herd” identity.
These themes include:
 The human condition or the relation of the individual to the world;

 The human response to that condition;
 Being, especially the difference between the being of person and the being of
other kinds of things;
 Human freedom;
 The significance of choice and decision in the absence of certainty and;
 The concreteness and subjectivity of life as lived, against abstractions and false
objectifications.
3. POSTMODERNISM (On Cultures)

 Postmodernism has come into vogue as the name for a rather diffuse family of
ideas and trends that in significant respect rejects, challenges, or aims to
supersede “modernity”.
 According to Shield 2010, “It is a best holding pattern, perhaps cry for despair.”
4. ANALYTIC TRADITION
5. LOGIC AND CRITICAL THINKING (Tools in Reasoning)

 It serves as paths to freedom from half-truths and deceptions.
 Critical thinking helps us uncover bias and prejudice and open to new ideas not
necessarily in agreement with previous thought.
TWO BASIC TYPES OF REASONING
A. INDUCTIVE REASONING
 It is based from observations in order to make generalizations.
 It starts from basic or simplest component down to complex component.
 This reasoning is often applied in prediction, forecasting, or behavior.
B. DEDUCTIVE REASONING
 It draws conclusion from usually one broad judgement or definition and one
more specific assertion, often an inference.
EXAMPLE SYLLOGISM:
(1) All philosophers are wise. Major premise

Confucius is a philosopher. Minor premise
Therefore, Confucius is wise. Conclusion

(2) All men are mortal. Major premise
Socrates is a man. Minor premise
Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Conclusion
6. FALLACIES
 A reasoning error that weakens or invalidates the argument.
 A fallacy is a defect in an argument other than its having false premises.
 To detect fallacies, it is required to examine the argument’s content.
Here are some of the usually committed errors in reasoning:
a. Appeal to pity (Argumentum ad misericordiam)

 A specific kind of appeal to emotion in which someone tries to win support for an
argument or idea by exploiting his or her opponent’s feelings of pity or guilt.
 The arguer tries to get you to agree b indicating that he or she will be harmed if
you don’t agree.
EXAMPLE:
 I realize that I haven’t done well on the exams and I’ve missed a lot of classes, but I
need a 2.0 in class to graduate, if I don’t get it, I’ll have to come back for another
semester.
b. Appeal to ignorance (Argumentum ad ignorantiam)

 Whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa.
EXAMPLE:
 Not a single report of a flying saucer has ever been authenticated. Therefore, flying
saucers don’t exist.
c. Equivocation
 This is a logical chain of reasoning of a term or a word several times, but giving
the particular word a different meaning in each time.
EXAMPLE:
 All trees have barks. Every dog barks. Therefore, every dog is a tree.
 Human beings have hands; the clock has hands.
 He is drinking from the pitcher of water; he is a baseball pitcher.
d. Composition
 This infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some
part of the whole.
 The reverse of this fallacy is division.
EXAMPLE:

e. Division
 One reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or
some of its parts.
 A person reasons that what is true for the whole must be true for the parts. The
person fails to justify that interfere with the required degree of evidence.
EXAMPLE:
 The ocean when seen as a whole is blue in color, then each drop of water individually
must also be blue in color.
f. Against the Person (Argumentum ad hominem)
 This fallacy attempts to link the validity of a premise to a characteristic or belief of
the person advocating the premise.
 Unfairly attacking a person instead of the issue.
 Attacking the character and/ or reputation of a position’s supporter.
EXAMPLE:
 Why should we think a candidate who recently divorced will keep her campaign
promises?
g. Appeal to force (Argumentum ad baculum)
 An argument where force, coercion, or the threat of force, is given as a
justification for a conclusion.
 This argument says that something bad will happen if the audience doesn’t
agree.
EXAMPLE:
 If you don’t believe in God, you will rot in hell.
h. Appeal to people (Argumentum ad populum)
 An argument that appeals or exploits people’s vanities, desire for esteem, and
anchoring on popularity.
EXAMPLE:
 Everybody who has a Facebook page has a lot of friends; therefore, I should make a
Facebook page.
i. False cause (post hoc)
 This fallacy says (falsely) that because one event follows another, it must have
been caused by the other.
EXAMPLE:
 The rooster crows always before the sun rises, therefore the crowing rooster causes the
sun to rise.

j. Hasty generalization
 The logical fallacy occurs when someone draws a conclusion based on just a
sample size. In other words, the conclusion is supported by insufficient evidences.
EXAMPLE:
 My friend has been eating pizza, hamburgers, and fries for ten years and he has no
health issues. Therefore, fast food is not unhealthy for you.
 A person is walking through a town and he meets a few polite kids, seeing that he
concludes that all the kids in town are polite.
k. Begging the Question (Petitio Prinsipii)

 This is a type of fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed
implicitly or explicitly the premise.
EXAMPLE:
 Murder is always morally wrong. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.

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SUPPLEMENTAL READING MATERIAL IN

PHILO 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

 To think or express oneself in a philosophical manner.

SIX METHODS OF PHILOSOPHIZING

1. PHENOMENOLOGY (On Consciousness)

 This process entails a method or a series of continuously revised methods- for

Saint John Bosco College of Northern Luzon, Inc.Page 1

These themes include:

 The human condition or the relation of the individual to the world;

3. POSTMODERNISM (On Cultures)

5. LOGIC AND CRITICAL THINKING (Tools in Reasoning)

TWO BASIC TYPES OF REASONING

(1) All philosophers are wise. Major premise

Saint John Bosco College of Northern Luzon, Inc.Page 2

Here are some of the usually committed errors in reasoning:

a. Appeal to pity (Argumentum ad misericordiam)

b. Appeal to ignorance (Argumentum ad ignorantiam)

Saint John Bosco College of Northern Luzon, Inc.Page 3

Saint John Bosco College of Northern Luzon, Inc.Page 4

k. Begging the Question (Petitio Prinsipii)

Saint John Bosco College of Northern Luzon, Inc.Page 5

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