Author's note:

Author's note:

Biyernes, Enero 27, 2017

My Filipino'ness'

The commentary written by Christopher Ryan Maboloc was quite an eye-opener, if only it would be read by many – how philosophy serves its purpose in our country but despite that there is something bigger and more important than it. Only by now did I come to realize this thing. I guess I was even too dumb to grasp the fact that philosophy really is something with regards to giving our society the possibility for some progress, much more that there is something bigger which in my dumbness I’ve never known that I had with me all along.
            I’ve been into philosophy for more than two years already but only now did I come to my senses that philosophizing can envision me with great changes that can happen to this society where I myself belong, if I just tried to lend my attention to it for even so little a time.
            Karl Marx’s famous statement says that philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways and that the point however was to change it. Maybe change is really something that can be put to actualization by philosophizing. Maybe it doesn’t just exist for us to interpret this world we are living in.
            I guess what was wrong in that statement of Marx is that it seemed like it despised the fact that philosophy was used in interpreting the world, which for me was a wrong move. I believe philosophy is destined not just to change the world but diagnose it as well in the very first place. Nothing’s going to change and no change can we possibly do if we don’t know anything as to how we should change it. The point is we should philosophize to interpret and understand the world so that we can have the knowledge that we need to do the so-called changes.
            In the article, it clearly stated how philosophizing identified the problems of our society, problems like our actions, globalization, self-centeredness, the ‘throw-away’ culture and so on. It’s so obvious that we’ve come to know these problems by philosophizing, much more to realize that it is all rooted in that same thing – philosophy. Wrong notions really tend to create havoc to us just like with the hell that is happening in us. A very good example is our very own president showing the utilitarian notion by killing those who are useless and thus disregarding the immorality of his actions. Philosophy is somehow what causes our problems for each and every bit of it is rooted in different notions. We’ve managed to know this through philosophy. Now, we might as well use philosophy to serve its purpose and that is none other than to bring changes.
“Doing philosophy in the margins” seems like a professional kind of act especially when it comes to actualizing some envisioned progress for our society. Yet Maboloc insists that the very act is rooted in our social solidarity. He even concluded his article that despite the interesting notions of Camus and Marcel, he emphasized on the richness of human life and that it goes far beyond the abstractions of continental thought. Why did he even come to saying this? Because he still believes that everything should first start with our selves being Filipinos.

Yes indeed. Philosophy is special in a way that it can always bring us the great changes, changes that our Philippine society need. Yet despite all of it, all of the interesting notions and big changes that they can possibly give, in one way or another we still have to go back to our very selves first because in the first place we should be what we should – a Filipino. And this, being the Filipino that we are is the start of it all and we should keep in mind that it will bring us more to ourselves than philosophy and its interesting notions. (Reaction Paper on Metaphysics.. written last September 8, 2016)

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