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)
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento