“METHODS OF PHILOSOPHIZING”

In our lesson in philosophy, we’ve discuss the  philosophizing and their methods. Philosophizing
means to think or express oneself in a philosophical manner. And for me philosophizing is about
the mind. After that, we discussed the 4 different methods of philosophizing. These are the:

LOGIC  truth is based on reasoning and critical thinking analysis and construction of arguments.
It serve as path to freedom from half truths and deception. According to my research, logic is
also   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.

2 TYPES OF REASONING

INDUCTIVE REASONING– moves from specific premises to a general conclusion.

Example:

Every tornado I have ever seen in the United States rotated counterclockwise, and I have seen
dozens of them.
We see a tornado in the distance, and we are in the United States.
I conclude that the tornado we see right now must be rotating counterclockwise.

DEDUCTIVE REASONING–  Deductive reasoning moves from a general premise to a more

specific conclusion.

Example:

All men is mortal

Socrates is a man

Therefore, Socrates is  mortal.

The first premise states that all objects classified as “men” have the attribute “mortal”. The
second premise states that “Socrates” is classified as a “man” – a member of the set “men”. The
conclusion then states that “Socrates” must be “mortal” because he inherits this attribute from his
classification as a “man”.

EXISTENTIALISM it is the importance of free individual choice regardless of the power of the
people to influence and coerce our desires, beliefs, and decisions.  For example, there is a
problem that you need to make a decision but you should face what would be its early
consequences.Another example of existentialism would be when a person makes a decision
about their life, follows through or does not follow through on that decision and begins to create
their essence. It is said in existentialism that existence comes first and essence comes second.

According to my research, Existentialism has general characteristics:

1. EXISTENCE BEFORE ESSENCE: Existentialism gets its name from an insistence that
life is only understandable in terms of an individual’s existence, his particular life
experience.
2. REASON IS UNABLE TO DEAL WITH THE DEPTHS OF LIFE: There are two
parts to this idea: first, that reason is relatively weak and imperfect, (people often do not
do the “right” thing), and second, that there are dark places in life which are “non-
reason,” to which reason scarcely penetrates, (meaning we often commit acts which seem
to defy reason, to make no sense).
3. ALIENATION: Existentialism holds that, since the Renaissance, people have slowly
been separated from concrete earthly existence. Individuals have been forced to live at
ever higher levels of abstraction, have been collectivised out of existence, and have
driven God from the heavens, (or, what is the same thing to the existentialist), from the
hearts of men. It is believed that individuals live in a fourfold condition of alienation:
from God, from nature, from other people, and from our own “true” selves.
4. “FEAR AND TREMBLING“and ANXIETY: The optimism of the 18th and 19th
centuries gives way, after WW I, to the Great Depression, WW II and the Holocaust, to
a feeling of pessimism, fear and anxiety. Another kind of anxiety facing individuals in
the 20th C when the philosophy of existentialism develops is “the anguish of Abraham,”
the necessity which is laid upon people to make “moral” choices on their own sense of
responsibility.
5. THE ENCOUNTER WITH NOTHINGNESS: According to the existentialists, for
individuals alienated from God, from nature, from other people and even from
themselves, what is left at last but Nothingness? This is, simply stated, how existentialists
see humanity: on the brink of a catastrophic precipice, below which yawns the absolute
void, black Nothingness, asking ourselves, “Does existence ultimately have any
purpose?”
6. FREEDOM: Sooner or later, as a theme that includes all the others mentioned above,
existentialist writings bear upon freedom. All of these ideas either describe some loss of
individuals’ freedom or some threat to it, and all existentialists of whatever sort are
considered to enlarge the range of human freedom.

ANALYTICAL TRADITION, one of the methods of philosophizing ,is the conviction that the
some significant
structure. Any of various philosophical methodologies holding that clear and precise definition a
nd argumentation are vital to productive philosophical inquiry. For example, the definition of a
concept can be determined by uncovering the underlying logical structures, or “logical forms,” of
the sentences used to express it.

According to my research analytical tradition has a characteristics paragraph by Russell:

It develop a powerful logical technique.It is thus able, in regard to certain problems, to achieve
definite answers, which have the quality of science rather than of philosophy.It has the
advantage, in comparison with the philosophies of the system-builders, of being able to tackle its
problems one at a time, instead of having to invent at one stroke a block theory of the whole
universe. Its methods, in this respect, resemble those of science.

Analytical traditions has three main foundational planks:

 that there are no specifically philosophical truths and that the object of philosophy is the
logical clarification of thoughts.
 that the logical clarification of thoughts can only be achieved by analysis of the logical
form of philosophical propositions, such as by using the formal
grammar and symbolism of a logical system.
 a rejection of sweeping philosophical systems and grand theories in favuor of
close attention to detail, as well as a defense of common sense and ordinary
language against the pretensions of traditional metaphysics and ethics.

PHENOMENOLOGY it is careful inspection and description of phenomena or appearance. it is

also a scientific study of essential structure. According to my research, phenomenology is
commonly understood in either of two ways: as a disciplinary field in philosophy, or as a
movement in the history of philosophy. An example of phenomenology is studying the green
flash that sometimes happens just after sunset or just before sunrise.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PHENOMENOLOGY

According to my research phenomenology has main characteristics.

1.In phenomenology, the objective is the direct investigation and description of phenomena as
they are consciously experienced, without theories about the causal explanations or their
objective reality.
2.Phenomenology therefore seeks to understand how people construct meaning.
3.It investigates experiences as they are lived by those experiencing them, and the meaning that
these people attach to them.
4.Critical truths about reality are grounded in peoples lived experiences.

There are four aspects of these lived experiences, namely:

  lived space
 lived body
 lived time
 lived human relations.

5.Phenomenology consists mainly of in-depth conversations.

6.In phenomenology, the researcher and the informants are often considered as co-participants.
7.A very important characteristic in phenomenology is person-centred rather than being
concerned with social processes, cultures, or traditions.

For me I learned that it is important to study the methods of philosophizing to know what we say
and spoke to others. If they continue to teach this until next  generation. It helps to extend the
knowledge of the people especially the youth like me.

methods of philosophizing
Presented by :
Group 1
Philosophy 1-C
Introduction
 This chapter present the commonly held significant philosophical methods with
their main proponents and fundamental claims.
 This chapter explicates four main methods of philosophy, namely, the Socratic,
phenomenological, hermeneutical, and the analytic one.
The Socratic method
 Socrates engaged in a “didactic dialogue” of questioning, that is expressed in the
critical examination and cross-examination of the positions of every participant to
the conversation.
 The didactic dialogue intends not to convey new truth but only as guide to
arriving at the truth. (Nelson, 1965, pp. 269-316)
 The method is later known as “the Socratic method of question.”
intellectual midwifery
- The facilitation of the delivery of truth straight from the innate conception
of the individual Socrates is discussing with.
intellectual midwifery
“Knowing oneself is the first step to knowing the truth” –Socrates
“The unexamined life is not worth living for a man” (Plato, 2000, p.37e)
intellectual midwifery
- This helps in making clear all our assertions of our assumed knowledge of things.
- This helps with their presuppositions to arrive at a clear and doubt-free truth.
- Didactic Dialogue leads us to think deeper and assert what they hold to be true.
- One’s humble recognition for one’s limitations and one’s love for justice = true wisdom
What it takes to be a Philosopher?
A. Someone who loves wisdom
B. “discusses virtue everyday”
C. Constantly embraces the thought of him/her being ignorant
learned ignorance
“I do not think I know what I do not know” –Plato
learned ignorance
 Socrates separates himself from accomplished speakers (Athenian crowd)
 “The man who speaks the truth” –Plato =REAL accomplished speaker
learned ignorance
 Way to wisdom
1.) Admit that you don’t know anything
 True Philosophical Wisdom
1.) Engaging into rigor of philosophizing
2.) Staying in the problem
3.) Questions for answers
4.) Problems solved
learned ignorance
 Paradox of learned ignorance: Claiming knowledge that people do not know
anything about
 Socratic Method entails not to insist on inculcating knowledge to students but
rather guides them to arrive at certain truths.
the phenomenological method
 “That I exist and that the I exists is essentially a thinking I- the cogito” –Ariel
 “I think before I am” - Descartes
 It’s a critique against the claims of the Cartesian Method Doubt.
 “I is always conscious”- Husserl
 Cogito lacks the proper understanding of the world.
 Husserl claims that Descartes had not understood the nature of consciousness –
“always conscious of something other than itself”
The substance of Phenomenology
 Phenomenology/Transcendental and Reflexive
-study of our conscious experience
-deals with the determination of nature and structure of human conscious experience
 You learn thru experience
 Conscious Experience=People’s aware perception of the world.
Phenomenology and Everyday Lived Experiences
 Phenomenology is ultimately directed upon the primordial meaningfulness of our
everyday experience.
 The world is something that’s outside of us and not just a mere product of our
mental exercises.
 Edmund Husserl inquires how our linguistic utterances and judgements - through
mental structures, directing us into objects that are existent in the world.
 Objects present to us in perception
 Perception is the beginning of all of our experiences of the world
 Human consciousness is always conscious of something other than itself.
The Phenomenological Reduction
 “epoche” = allowing truthfulness of human experience to reveal itself
-the process of suspending our prejudices to our natural encounter with the world to
reveal the meanings in their purest sense
-attempts to lay bare the essential and general features of that world as a set of
essential meanings
  What exists in our mind is not the actual book, but a reduced form by it=
“intentional inexistence”
 A thing exists in the mind, but not as an actual thing, but as an idea.
Martin Heidegger and the Hermeneutical Method
 Philosophical art of interpretation
 Proceeds with a free genius act of dealing with the original meaning of the text
 Texts do have their own proper temporal context
 An understanding that is derived from the things themselves (Heidegger, 2008,
p.153)
 The interpreter must take into consideration the “alterity” of the text
 The text that one reads may give a variety of meanings to a variety of readers
 Person = “Dasein”
 Life is a text that needs an interpretation
 It is anchored on the need to know its meaning… being of life
 “Being of Life”= meaning of man’s being in the world
Dasein’s Self-Understanding of Time
 The meaning of being is “forgotten”
 Being is to “enframe”
 To reduce one’s encounter with reality into mere ideas
 “Language is the house of being” –Heiddeger
 Time can make someone understand the meaning of life
 The meaning of the being o one’s life can only be interpreted within the horizon
of “historicity”
 “Hermeneutics of Facticity”= the revaluation of our conscious presuppositions of
things as detached from the very structure of “everydayness”.
 Understanding is identified with one’s openness to his/her very world
Hermeneutics of Facticity and Alethea
 Knowledge of things is always identified with the situations he/she finds
himself/herself in, that is in the experience of her/his factcity
 Alethea= the revelation of the meaning of the human person
 One cannot detach one’s understanding or feelings from the situation one finds
himself/herself into
 Alethea happens as a form of liberation and aid from our state of facticity
 The revelation of truth is the realization of the Being of the human person along
time
The Analytic Method
 directed upon solving or decimating the problems of philosophy in general
 tends to provide an accurate presentation on the nature of language to solve the
problems set by philosophy
 explains the nature of language by identifying logical statement
 shows how language is related to what is real in the sensible terms
Language as Truth-Functional
 the truth-vale of a proposition is determined by the truth value of its constituent
parts
  propositions are statements of facts
 statement makes sense only when they are statement of facts
 for language to be meaningful, it must picture that which is real
 language is a picture of reality
Tractatus Logico-Philisophicus
 Logical method that is centred on the analysis of the structural meaning of
language in reference to the world
 “The meaningfulness of prepositions rests in their picturing realities” –
Wittgenstein, 1974
 The world is the totality of facts
 Facts therefore, are the resulting states of affairs in the logical configurations of
objects
 Propositions are statements that either affirm or deny something
 Two types of Propositions: Elementary propositions complex propositions
 Elementary propositions: can’t be broken down into many false statements
 Complex propositions: Combination of 2 or more elementary propositions
 “Whereof one cannot speak, one must Passover into silence” – Wittgenstein,
1974
Conclusion
 Socratic Method= characterized with the method of dialectical questioning
 Socrates insists on the recognition of once ignorance and to know oneself for
him/her to be truly wise
 Phenomenological Method= helps recover primordial meaningfulness of life
 The eidetic aspects of our everyday lived-experience
 Hermeneutic Method= determination of language is the medium for the
revealing of truth
 Analytic Method=determination of language as expressing the state of affairs of
the world
 Language is the picture of realty
 Analytic Philosophy= determines the limit of language
 Language being the picture of reality is limited since ,what can be spoken about
is only the world