philosopher's life, works and relation to philippine law

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RENE DESCARTES

March 31, 1596 February 11, 1650

"I entirely abandoned the study of letters.

Resolving to seek no knowledge other than

that of which could be found in myself or else

in the great book of the world, I spent the rest

of my youth traveling, visiting courts and

armies, mixing with people of diverse

temperaments and ranks, gathering various

experiences, testing myself in the situations

which fortune offered me, and at all times

reflecting upon whatever came my way so as

to derive some profit from it." (Descartes,

Discourse on the Method).

LIFE

Descartes was born in La Haye en Touraine

(now Descartes), Indre-et-Loire, France. When

he was one year old, his mother Jeanne

Brochard died. His father Joachim was a

member in the provincial parliament. At the

age of eight, he entered the JesuitCollège

Royal Henry-Le-Grand at La Flèche. After

graduation, he studied at the University of

Poitiers, earning a Baccalauréat and Licence in

law in 1616, in accordance with his father's

wishes that he should become a lawyer.

In 1618,D

escartes joined the International

College of War of Maurice of Nassau in the

Dutch Republic.On 10 November 1618, while

walking through Breda, Descartes met Isaac

Beeckman, who sparked his interest in

mathematics and the new physics,

particularly the problem of the fall of heavy

bodies. While in the service of the Duke

Maximilian of Bavaria, Descartes was present

at the Battle of the White Mountain outside

Prague, in November 1620.

On the night of 1011 November 1619, while

stationed in Neuburg (near Ulm), Germany,

Descartes experienced a series of three

powerful dreams or visions that he later

claimed profoundly influenced his life. In the

first of these dreams, Descartes found himself

buffeted and thrown down by a powerful

whirlwind while walking near a college. In the

second, he was awoken by an inexplicable

thunder or explosion-like sound in his head to

see sparks coming from the stove in his room.

In the third dream, he finds a great dictionary

and an anthology of ancient Latin poets on his

bedside table. In the latter book, he reads a

verse that begins, "What path shall I follow in



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life?" Descartes concluded from these visions

that the pursuit of science would prove to be,

for him, the pursuit of true wisdom and a

central part of his life's work.

In 1622 he returned to France, and during the

next few years spent time in Paris and other

parts of Europe. He arrived in La Haye in 1623,

selling all of his property to invest in bonds,

which provided a comfortable income for the

rest of his life.

He returned to the Dutch Republic in 1628,

where he lived until September 1649. In April

1629 he joined the University of Franeker,

living at the Sjaerdemaslot, and the next year,

under the name "Poitevin", he enrolled at the

Leiden University to study mathematics with

Jacob Golius and astronomy with Martin

Hortensius. In October 1630 he had a falling

out with Beeckman, whom he accused of

plagiarizing some of his ideas. In Amsterdam,

he had a relationship with a servant girl,

Helena Jans van der Strom, with whom he

had a daughter, Francine, who was born in

1635 in Deventer, at which time Descartes

taught at the Utrecht University.

Despite these frequent moves he wrote all his

major work during his 20 plus years in the

Netherlands, where he managed to

revolutionize mathematics and philosophy. In

1633, Galileo was condemned by the Roman

Catholic Church, and Descartes abandoned

plans to publish Treatise on the World, his

work of the previous four years. "Discourse

on the Method" was published in 1637. In it

Descartes lays out four rules of thought,

meant to ensure that our knowledge rests

upon a firm foundation.

Descartes continued to publish works

concerning both mathematics and philosophy

for the rest of his life. In 1643, Cartesian

philosophy was condemned at the University

of Utrecht, and Descartes began his long

correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of

Bohemia. In 1647, he was awarded a pension

by the King of France. Descartes was

interviewed by FransBurman at Egmond-

Binnen in 1648.

René Descartes died on 11 February 1650 in

Stockholm, Sweden, where he had been

invited as a teacher for Queen Christina of

Sweden. The cause of death was said to be

pneumoniaaccustomed to working in bed

until noon, he may have suffered a

detrimental effect on his health due to

Christina's demands for early morning study

(the lack of sleep could have severely



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compromised his immune system). Others

believe that Descartes may have contracted

pneumonia as a result of nursing a French

ambassador, Dejion A. Nopeleen, ill with the

aforementioned disease, back to health.In his

recent book, Der rätselhafteTod des René

Descartes (The Mysterious Death of René

Descartes)the German philosopher Theodor

Ebert asserts that Descartes died not through

natural causes, but from an arsenic-laced

communion wafer given to him by a Catholic

priest. He believes that Jacques Viogué, a

missionary working in Stockholm,

administered the poison because he feared

Descartes's radical theological ideas would

derail an expected conversion to Roman

Catholicism by the monarch of Protestant

Lutheran Sweden.

In 1663, the Pope placed his works on the

Index of Prohibited Books.

WORKS

Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker

to provide a philosophical framework for the

natural sciences as these began to develop.

"But contemporary debate has tended

tounderstand [Cartesian method] merely as

the method of doubtI want to define

Descartes's method in broader termsto

trace its impact on the domains of

mathematics and physics as well as

metaphysics."

In his Discourse on the Method, he attempts

to arrive at a fundamental set of principles

that one can know as true without any doubt.

To achieve this, he employs a method called

hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt, also

sometimes referred to as methodological

skepticism: he rejects any ideas that can be

doubted, and then reestablishes them in

order to acquire a firm foundation for

genuine knowledge.

Initially, Descartes arrives at only a single

principle: thought exists. Thought cannot be

separated from me, therefore, I exist

(Discourse on the Method and Principles of

Philosophy). Most famously, this is known as

cogito ergo sum (English: "I think, therefore I

am"). Therefore, Descartes concluded, if he

doubted, then something or someone must

be doing the doubting, therefore the very fact

that he doubted proved his existence. "The

simple meaning of the phrase is that if one is

skeptical of existence, that is in and of itself

proof that he does exist."



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Descartes concludes that he can be certain

that he exists because he thinks. But in what

form? He perceives his body through the use

of the senses; however, these have previously

been unreliable. SoDescartes determines that

the only indubitable knowledge is that he is a

thinking thing. Thinking is what he does, and

his power must come from his essence.

Descartes defines "thought" (cogitatio) as

"what happens in me such that I am

immediately conscious of it, insofar as I am

conscious of it". Thinking is thus every activity

of a person of which he is immediately

conscious.

To further demonstrate the limitations of the

senses, Descartes proceeds with what is

known as the Wax Argument. He considers a

piece of wax; his senses inform him that it has

certain characteristics, such as shape, texture,

size, color, smell, and so forth. When he

brings the wax towards a flame, these

characteristics change completely. However,

it seems that it is still the same thing: it is still

the same piece of wax, even though the data

of the senses inform him that all of its

characteristics are different. Therefore, in

order to properly grasp the nature of the wax,

he should put aside the senses. He must use

his mind. Descartes concludes: And so

something which I thought I was seeing with

my eyes is in fact grasped solely by the faculty

of judgment which is in my mind.

In this manner, Descartes proceeds to

construct a system of knowledge, discarding

perception as unreliable and instead

admitting only deduction as a method. In the

third and fifth Meditation, he offers an

ontological proof of a benevolent God

(through both the ontological argument and

trademark argument). Because God is

benevolent, he can have some faith in the

account of reality his senses provide him, for

God has provided him with a working mind

and sensory system and does not desire to

deceive him. From this supposition, however,

he finally establishes the possibility of

acquiring knowledge about the world based

on deduction and perception. In terms of

epistemology therefore, he can be said to

have contributed such ideas as a rigorous

conception of foundationalism and the

possibility that reason is the only reliable

method of attaining knowledge.

In Descartes's system, knowledge takes the

form of ideas, and philosophical investigation

is the contemplation of these ideas. This

concept would influence subsequent



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internalist movements as Descartes's

epistemology requires that a connection

made by conscious awareness will distinguish

knowledge from falsity. As a result of his

Cartesian doubt, he viewed rational

knowledge as being "incapable of being

destroyed" and sought to construct an

unshakable ground upon which all other

knowledge can be based. The first item of

unshakable knowledge that Descartes argues

for is the aforementioned cogito, or thinking

thing.

Descartes also wrote a response to skepticism

about the existence of the external world. He

argues that sensory perceptions come to him

involuntarily, and are not willed by him. They

are external to his senses, and according to

Descartes, this is evidence of the existence of

something outside of his mind, and thus, an

external world. Descartes goes on to show

that the things in the external world are

material by arguing that God would not

deceive him as to the ideas that are being

transmitted, and that God has given him the

"propensity" to believe that such ideas are

caused by material things.

RELATION AND CONTRIBUTION

TO PHILIPPINE LAW

Descartes was also known for his work in

producing the Cartesian Theory of Fallacies.

This can be most easily explored using the

statement: "This statement is a lie." While it is

most commonly referred to as a paradox, the

Cartesian Theory of Fallacies states that at

any given time a statement can be both true

and false simultaneously because of its

contradictory nature. The statement is true in

its fallacy. Thus, Descartes developed the

Cartesian Theory of Fallacies, which greatly

influenced the thinking of the time. Many

would-be philosophers were trying to develop

inexplicable statements of seeming fact,

however, this laid rumors of such a

proposition impossible. Many philosophers

believe that when Descartes formulated his

Theory of Fallacies, he intended to be lying,

which in and of itself embodies the theory.

As mentioned earlier, in his famous Discourse

on the Method, the use of these enables one

to arrive at a fundamental set of principles

and with that one can know as true without

any doubt. After employingthe

hyperbolical/metaphysical doubt or the

methodological skepticism: one rejects any

ideas that can be doubted, and then



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reestablishes them in order to acquire a firm

foundation for genuine knowledge. In this

regard, it enables one to establish judgments,

final orders and conclusions with regards to

these doubts and regards to their senses as

previously discussed earlier in his method of

Wax Argument.



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Jean-Paul Charles Aymard

Sartre

June 21, 1905 April 15, 1980

Life has no meaning the moment you lose

illusion of being eternal.

LIFE

Sartre was born in 1905 in Paris. After a

childhood marked by the early death of his

father, the important role played by his

grandfather, and some rather unhappy

experiences at school, Sartre finished High

School at the Lycée Henri IV in Paris. After

two years of preparation, he gained entrance

to the prestigious EcoleNormaleSupérieure,

where, from 1924 to 1929 he came into

contact with Raymond Aron, Simone de

Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and other

notables. He passed the Agrégation on his

second attempt, by adapting the content and

style of his writing to the rather traditional

requirements of the examiners. This was his

passport to a teaching career. After teaching

philosophy in a lycée in Le Havre, he obtained

a grant to study at the French Institute in

Berlin where he discovered phenomenology

in 1933 and wrote The Transcendence of the

Ego. His phenomenological investigation into

the imagination was published in 1936 and his

Theory of Emotions two years later. During

the Second World War, Sartre wrote his

existentialist magnum opus Being and

Nothingness and taught the work of

Heidegger in a war camp. He was briefly

involved in a Resistance group and taught in a

lycée until the end of the war. Being and

Nothingness was published in 1943 and

Existentialism and Humanism in 1946. His

study of Baudelaire was published in 1947

and that of the actor Jean Genet in 1952.

Throughout the Thirties and Forties, Sartre

also had an abundant literary output with

such novels as Nausea and plays like Intimacy

(The wall), The flies, Huis Clos, Les Mains Sales.

In 1960, after three years working on it, Sartre

published the Critique of Dialectical Reason.

In the Fifties and Sixties, Sartre travelled to

the USSR, Cuba, and was involved in turn in

promoting Marxist ideas, condemning the

USSRs invasion of Hungary and

Czechoslovakia, and speaking up against

Frances policies in Algeria. He was a high

profile figure in the Peace Movement. In 1964,

he turned down the Nobel prize for literature.

He was actively involved in the May 1968

uprising. His study of Flaubert, LIdiot de la



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Famille, was published in 1971. In 1977, he

claimed no longer to be a Marxist, but his

political activity continued until his death in

1980.

WORKS

Sartres early work is characterized by

phenomenological analyses involving his own

interpretation of Husserls method. Sartres

methodology is Husserlian (as demonstrated

in his paper Intentionality: a fundamental

ideal of Husserls phenomenology) insofar as

it is a form of intentional and eidetic analysis.

This means that the acts by which

consciousness assigns meaning to objects are

what is analyzed, and that what is sought in

the particular examples under examination is

their essential structure. At the core of this

methodology is a conception of consciousness

as intentional, that is, as about something, a

conception inherited from Brentano and

Husserl. Sartre puts his own mark on this view

by presenting consciousness as being

transparent, i.e. having no inside, but rather

as being a fleeing towards the world.

The distinctiveness of Sartres development of

Husserls phenomenology can be

characterized in terms of Sartres

methodology, of his view of the self and of his

ultimate ethical interests.

Methodology

Sartres methodology differs from Husserls in

two essential ways. Although he thinks of his

analyses as eidetic, he has no real interest in

Husserls understanding of his method as

uncovering the Essence of things. For Husserl,

eidetic analysis is a clarification which brings

out the higher level of the essence that is

hidden in fluid unclarity (Husserl, Ideas, I).

For Sartre, the task of an eidetic analysis does

not deliver something fixed immanent to the

phenomenon. It still claims to uncover that

which is essential, but thereby recognizes that

phenomenal experience is essentially fluid.

In Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, Sartre

replaces the traditional picture of the

passivity of our emotional nature with one of

the subjects active participation in her

emotional experiences. Emotion originates in

a degradation of consciousness faced with a

certain situation. The spontaneous conscious

grasp of the situation which characterizes an

emotion, involves what Sartre describes as a



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magical transformation of the situation.

Faced with an object which poses an

insurmountable problem, the subject

attempts to view it differently, as though it

were magically transformed. Thus an

imminent extreme danger may cause me to

faint so that the object of my fear is no longer

in my conscious grasp. Or, in the case of

wrath against an unmovable obstacle, I may

hit it as though the world were such that this

action could lead to its removal. The essence

of an emotional state is thus not an immanent

feature of the mental world, but rather a

transformation of the subjects perspective

upon the world. In The Psychology of the

Imagination, Sartre demonstrates his

phenomenological method by using it to take

on the traditional view that to imagine

something is to have a picture of it in mind.

Sartres account of imagining does away with

representations and potentially allows for a

direct access to that which is imagined; when

this object does not exist, there is still an

intention (albeit unsuccessful) to become

conscious of it through the imagination. So

there is no internal structure to the

imagination. It is rather a form of

directedness upon the imagined object.

Imagining a heffalump is thus of the same

nature as perceiving an elephant. Both are

spontaneous intentional (or directed) acts,

each with its own type of intentionality.

The Ego

Sartres view also diverges from Husserls on

the important issue of the ego. For Sartre,

Husserl adopted the view that the subject is a

substance with attributes, as a result of his

interpretation of Kants unity of apperception.

Husserl endorsed the Kantian claim that the I

think must be able to accompany any

representation of which I am conscious, but

reified this I into a transcendental ego. Such

a move is not warranted for Sartre, as he

explains in The Transcendence of the Ego.

Moreover, it leads to the following problems

for our phenomenological analysis of

consciousness.

The ego would have to feature as an object in

all states of consciousness. This would result

in its obstructing our conscious access to the

world. But this would conflict with the direct

nature of this conscious access. Correlatively,

consciousness would be divided into

consciousness of ego and consciousness of

the world. This would however be at odds

with the simple, and thus undivided, nature of



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our access to the world through conscious

experience. In other words, when I am

conscious of a tree, I am directly conscious of

it, and am not myself an object of

consciousness. Sartre proposes therefore to

view the ego as a unity produced by

consciousness. In other words, he adds to the

Humean picture of the self as a bundle of

perceptions, an account of its unity. This unity

of the ego is a product of conscious activity.

As a result, the traditional Cartesian view that

self-consciousness is the consciousness the

ego has of itself no longer holds, since the ego

is not given but created by consciousness.

What model does Sartre propose for our

understanding of self-consciousness and the

production of the ego through conscious

activity? The key to answering the first part of

the question lies in Sartres introduction of a

pre-reflective level, while the second can then

be addressed by examining conscious activity

at the other level, i.e. that of reflection. An

example of pre-reflective consciousness is the

seeing of a house. This type of consciousness

is directed to a transcendent object, but this

does not involve my focussing upon it, i.e. it

does not require that an ego be involved in a

conscious relation to the object. For Sartre,

this pre-reflective consciousness is thus

impersonal: there is no place for an I at this

level. Importantly, Sartre insists that self-

consciousness is involved in any such state of

consciousness: it is the consciousness this

state has of itself. This accounts for the

phenomenology of seeing, which is such that

the subject is clearly aware of her pre-

reflective consciousness of the house. This

awareness does not have an ego as its object,

but it is rather the awareness that there is an

act of seeing. Reflective consciousness is the

type of state of consciousness involved in my

looking at a house. For Sartre, the cogito

emerges as a result of consciousnesss being

directed upon the pre-reflectively conscious.

In so doing, reflective consciousness takes the

pre-reflectively conscious as being mine. It

thus reveals an ego insofar as an I is brought

into focus: the pre-reflective consciousness

which is objectified is viewed as mine. This I

is the correlate of the unity that I impose

upon the pre-reflective states of

consciousness through my reflection upon

them. To account for the prevalence of the

Cartesian picture, Sartre argues that we are

prone to the illusion that this I was in fact

already present prior to the reflective

conscious act, i.e. present at the pre-

reflective level. By substituting his model of a



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two-tiered consciousness for this traditional

picture, Sartre provides an account of self-

consciousness that does not rely upon a pre-

existing ego, and shows how an ego is

constructed in reflection.

Ethics

An important feature of Sartres

phenomenological work is that his ultimate

interest in carrying out phenomenological

analyses is an ethical one. Through them, he

opposes the view, which is for instance that

of the Freudian theory of the unconscious,

that there are psychological factors that are

beyond the grasp of our consciousness and

thus are potential excuses for certain forms of

behaviour.

Starting with Sartres account of the ego, this

is characterized by the claim that it is

produced by, rather than prior to

consciousness. As a result, accounts of agency

cannot appeal to a pre-existing ego to explain

certain forms of behaviour. Rather, conscious

acts are spontaneous, and since all pre-

reflective consciousness is transparent to

itself, the agent is fully responsible for them

(and a fortiori for his ego). In Sartres analysis

of emotions, affective consciousness is a form

of pre-reflective consciousness, and is

therefore spontaneous and self-conscious.

Against traditional views of the emotions as

involving the subjects passivity, Sartre can

therefore claim that the agent is responsible

for the pre-reflective transformation of his

consciousness through emotion. In the case

of the imaginary, the traditional view of the

power of fancy to overcome rational thought

is replaced by one of imaginary consciousness

as a form of pre-reflective consciousness. As

such, it is therefore again the result of the

spontaneity of consciousness and involves

self-conscious states of mind. An individual is

therefore fully responsible for his

imaginationss activity. In all three cases, a

key factor in Sartres account is his notion of

the spontaneity of consciousness. To dispel

the apparent counter-intuitiveness of the

claims that emotional states and flights of

imagination are active, and thus to provide an

account that does justice to the

phenomenology of these states, spontaneity

must be clearly distinguished from a

voluntary act. A voluntary act involves

reflective consciousness that is connected

with the will; spontaneity is a feature of pre-

reflective consciousness.



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Existential Phenomenology

Is there a common thread to these specific

features of Sartres phenomenological

approach? Sartres choice of topics for

phenomenological analysis suggests an

interest in the phenomenology of what it is to

be human, rather than in the world as such.

This privileging of the human dimension has

parallels with Heideggers focus upon Dasein

in tackling the question of Being. This aspect

of Heideggers work is that which can

properly be called existential insofar as

Daseins way of being is essentially distinct

from that of any other being. This

characterisation is particularly apt for Sartres

work, in that his phenomenological analyses

do not serve a deeper ontological purpose as

they do for Heidegger who distanced himself

from any existential labelling. Thus, in his

Letter on Humanism, Heidegger reminds us

that the analysis of Dasein is only one chapter

in the enquiry into the question of Being. For

Heidegger, Sartres humanism is one more

metaphysical perspective which does not

return to the deeper issue of the meaning of

Being.

Sartre sets up his own picture of the

individual human being by first getting rid of

its grounding in a stable ego. As Sartre later

puts it in Existentialism is a Humanism, to be

human is characterised by an existence that

precedes its essence. As such, existence is

problematic, and it is towards the

development of a full existentialist theory of

what it is to be human that Sartres work

logically evolves. In relation to what will

become Being and Nothingness, Sartres early

works can be seen as providing important

preparatory material for an existential

account of being human. But the

distinctiveness of Sartres approach to

understanding human existence is ultimately

guided by his ethical interest. In particular,

this accounts for his privileging of a strong

notion of freedom which we shall see to be

fundamentally at odds with Heideggers

analysis. Thus the nature of Sartres topics of

analysis, his theory of the ego and his ethical

aims all characterize the development of an

existential phenomenology. Let us now

examine the central themes of this theory as

they are presented in Being and Nothingness.



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TO PHILIPPINE LAWS

The Project of Bad Faith

The way in which the incoherence of the

dichotomy of facticity and freedom is

manifested, is through the project of bad faith.

To clarify Sartres notion of project, the fact

that the self-identity of the for-itself is set as a

task for the for-itself, amounts to defining

projects for the for-itself. Insofar as they

contribute to this task, they can be seen as

aspects of the individuals fundamental

project.

Among the different types of project, that of

bad faith is of generic importance for an

existential understanding of what it is to be

human. This importance derives ultimately

from its ethical relevance. Sartres analysis of

the project of bad faith is grounded in vivid

examples. Thus, Sartre describes the precise

and mannered movements of a café waiter. In

thus behaving, the waiter is identifying

himself with his role as waiter in the mode of

being in-itself. In other words, the waiter is

discarding his real nature as for-itself, i.e. as

free facticity, to adopt that of the in-itself. He

is thus denying his transcendence as for-itself

in favor of the kind of transcendence

characterizing the in-itself. In this way, the

burden of his freedom, i.e. the requirement

to decide for himself what to do, is lifted from

his shoulders since his behavior is as though

set in stone by the definition of the role he

has adopted. The mechanism involved in such

a project involves an inherent contradiction.

Indeed, the very identification at the heart of

bad faith is only possible because the waiter is

a for-itself, and can indeed choose to adopt

such a project. So the freedom of the for-itself

is a pre-condition for the project of bad faith

which denies it. The agents defining his being

as an in-itself is the result of the way in which

he represents himself to himself. This

misrepresentation is however one the agent

is responsible for. Ultimately, nothing is

hidden, since consciousness is transparent

and therefore the project of bad faith is

pursued while the agent is fully aware of how

things are in pre-reflective consciousness.

Insofar as bad faith is self-deceit, it raises the

problem of accounting for contradictory

beliefs. The examples of bad faith which

Sartre gives, serve to underline how this

conception of self-deceit in fact involves a

project based upon inadequate

representations of what one is. There is

therefore no need to have recourse to a



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notion of unconscious to explain such

phenomena. They can be accounted for using

the dichotomy for-itself/in-itself, as projects

freely adopted by individual agents. A first

consequence is that this represents an

alternative to psychoanalytical accounts of

self-deceit. Sartre was particularly keen to

provide alternatives to Freuds theory of self-

deceit, with its appeal to censorship

mechanisms accounting for repression, all of

which are beyond the subjects awareness as

they are unconscious (BN, 54-55). The reason

is that Freuds theory diminishes the agents

responsibility. On the contrary, and this is the

second consequence of Sartres account of

bad faith, Sartres theory makes the individual

responsible for what is a widespread form of

behaviour, one that accounts for many of the

evils that Sartre sought to describe in his plays.

To explain how existential psychoanalysis

works requires that we first examine the

notion of fundamental project.

The Fundamental Project

If the project of bad faith involves a

misrepresentation of what it is to be a for-

itself, and thus provides a powerful account

of certain types of self-deceit, we have, as yet,

no account of the motivation that lies behind

the adoption of such a project.

As we saw above, all projects can be viewed

as parts of the fundamental project, and we

shall therefore focus upon the motivation for

the latter. That a for-itself is defined by such a

project arises as a consequence of the for-

itselfs setting itself self-identity as a task. This

in turn is the result of the for-itselfs

experiencing the cleavages introduced by

reflection and temporality as amounting to a

lack of self-identity. Sartre describes this as

defining the `desire for being. This desire is

universal, and it can take on one of three

forms. First, it may be aimed at a direct

transformation of the for-itself into an in-

itself. Second, the for-itself may affirm its

freedom that distinguishes it from an in-itself,

so that it seeks through this to become its

own foundation (i.e. to become God). The

conjunction of these two moments results,

third, in the for-itselfs aiming for another

mode of being, the for-itself-in-itself. None of

the aims described in these three moments

are realizable. Moreover, the triad of these

three moments is, unlike a Hegelian thesis-

antithesis-synthesis triad, inherently instable:

if the for-itself attempts to achieve one of

them, it will conflict with the others. Since all



.

15

human lives are characterized by such a

desire (albeit in different individuated forms),

Sartre has thus provided a description of the

human condition which is dominated by the

irrationality of particular projects. This picture

is in particular illustrated in Being and

Nothingness by an account of the projects of

love, sadism and masochism, and in other

works, by biographical accounts of the lives of

Baudelaire, Flaubert and Jean Genet. With

this notion of desire for being, the motivation

for the fundamental project is ultimately

accounted for in terms of the metaphysical

nature of the for-itself. This means that the

source of motivation for the fundamental

project lies within consciousness. Thus, in

particular, bad faith, as a type of project, is

motivated in this way. The individual choice of

fundamental project is an original choice.

Consequently, an understanding of what it is

to be Flaubert for instance, must involve an

attempt to decipher his original choice. This

hermeneutic exercise aims to reveal what

makes an individual a unity. This provides

existential psychoanalysis with its principle.

Its method involves an analysis of all the

empirical behavior of the subject, aimed at

grasping the nature of this unity.

Freedom

For Sartre, each agent is endowed with

unlimited freedom. This statement may seem

puzzling given the obvious limitations on

every individuals freedom of choice. Clearly,

physical and social constraints cannot be

overlooked in the way in which we make

choices. This is however a fact which Sartre

accepts insofar as the for-itself is facticity.

And this does not lead to any contradiction

insofar as freedom is not defined by an ability

to act. Freedom is rather to be understood as

characteristic of the nature of consciousness,

i.e. as spontaneity. But there is more to

freedom. For all that Pierres freedom is

expressed in opting either for looking after his

ailing grandmother or joining the French

Resistance, choices for which there are

indeed no existing grounds, the decision to

opt for either of these courses of action is a

meaningful one. That is, opting for the one of

the other is not just a spontaneous decision,

but has consequences for the for-itself. To

express this, Sartre presents his notion of

freedom as amounting to making choices, and

indeed not being able to avoid making choices.

Sartres conception of choice can best be

understood by reference to an individuals



.

16

original choice, as we saw above. Sartre views

the whole life of an individual as expressing

an original project that unfolds throughout

time. This is not a project which the individual

has proper knowledge of, but rather one

which she may interpret (an interpretation

constantly open to revision). Specific choices

are therefore always components in time of

this time-spanning original choice of project.

Critique of Dialectical Reason

The experience of the war and the encounter

with Merleau-Ponty contributed to

awakening Sartres interest in the political

dimension of human existence: Sartre thus

further developed his existentialist

understanding of human beings in a way

which is compatible with Marxism. A key

notion for this phase of his philosophical

development is the concept of praxis. This

extends and transforms that of project: man

as a praxis is both something that produces

and is produced. Social structures define a

starting point for each individual. But the

individual then sets his own aims and thereby

goes beyond and negates what society had

defined him as. The range of possibilities

which are available for this expression of

freedom is however dependent upon the

existing social structures. And it may be the

case that this range is very limited. In this way,

the infinite freedom of the earlier philosophy

is now narrowed down by the constraints of

the political and historical situation.

Sartres existentialist understanding of what it

is to be human can be summarized in his view

that the underlying motivation for action is to

be found in the nature of consciousness

which is a desire for being. It is up to each

agent to exercise his freedom in such a way

that he does not lose sight of his existence as

a facticity, as well as a free human being. In so

doing, he will come to understand more

about the original choice which his whole life

represents, and thus about the values that

are thereby projected. Such an understanding

is only obtained through living this particular

life and avoiding the pitfalls of strategies of

self-deceit such as bad faith. This authentic

option for human life represents the

realization of a universal in the singularity of a

human life.



.

17

Plato

429347 B.C.E.

W ise men speak because they have

something to say, fools because they have to

say something.

LIFE

It is widely accepted that Plato, the Athenian

philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E and died

at the age of eighty or eighty-one at 348-7

B.C.E. These dates, however, are not entirely

certain, for according to Diogenes Laertius,

following Apollodorus chronology, Plato was

born the year Pericles died, was six years

younger than Isocrates, and died at the age of

eighty-four. If Platos date of death is correct

in Apollodorus version, Plato would have

been born in 430 or 431. Diogenes claim that

Plato was born the year Pericles died would

put his birth in 429. Later, Diogenes says that

Plato was twenty-eight when Socrates was

put to death (in 399), which would, again, put

his year of birth at 427. In spite of the

confusion, the dates of Platos life we gave

above, which are based upon Eratosthenes

calculations, have traditionally been accepted

as accurate.

Little can be known about Platos early life.

According to Diogenes, whose testimony is

notoriously unreliable, Platos parents were

Ariston and Perictione.. Both sides of the

family claimed to trace their ancestry back to

Poseidon. Diogenes report that Platos birth

was the result of Aristons rape of Perictione

and which is a good example of the

unconfirmed gossip in which Diogenes so

often indulges. We can be confident that

Plato also had two older brothers, Glaucon

and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone, by the

same parents. (W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of

Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, 10 n. 4 argues

plausibly that Glaucon and Adeimantus were

Platos older siblings.) After Aristons death,

Platos mother married her uncle, Pyrilampes

(in Platos Charmides, we are told that

Pyrilampes was Charmides uncle, and

Charmides was Platos mothers brother),

with whom she had another son, Antiphon,

Platos half-brother.

Plato came from one of the wealthiest and

most politically active families in Athens.

Their political activities, however, are not

seen as laudable ones by historians. One of



.

18

Platos uncles (Charmides) was a member of

the notorious Thirty Tyrants, who

overthrew the Athenian democracy in 404

B.C.E. Charmides own uncle, Critias, was the

leader of the Thirty. Platos relatives were not

exclusively associated with the oligarchic

faction in Athens, however. His stepfather

Pyrilampes was said to have been a close

associate of Pericles, when he was the leader

of the democratic faction.

Platos actual given name was apparently

Aristocles, after his grandfather. Plato

seems to have started as a nickname,perhaps

first given to him by his wrestling teacher for

his physique, or for the breadth of his style, or

even the breadth of his forehead. Although

the name Aristocles was still given as Platos

name on one of the two epitaphs on his tomb,

history knows him as Plato.

When Socrates died, Plato left Athens, staying

first in Megara, but then going on to several

other places, including perhaps Cyrene, Italy,

Sicily, and even Egypt. Strabo claims that he

was shown where Plato lived when he visited

Heliopolis in Egypt. Plato occasionally

mentions Egypt in his works, but not in ways

that reveal much of any consequence.

Better evidence may be found for his visits to

Italy and Sicily, especially in the Seventh

Letter. According to the account given there,

Plato first went to Italy and Sicily when he

was about forty. While he stayed in

Syracuse, he became the instructor to Dion,

brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius I.

According to doubtful stories from later

antiquity, Dionysius became annoyed with

Plato at some point during this visit, and

arranged to have the philosopher sold into

slavery.

In any event, Plato returned to Athens and

founded a school, known as the Academy.

(This is where we get our word, academic.

The Academy got its name from its location, a

grove of trees sacred to the hero Academus

or Hecademus a mile or so outside the

Athenian walls; the site can still be visited in

modern Athens, but visitors will find it

depressingly void of interesting monuments

or features.) Except for two more trips to

Sicily, the Academy seems to have been

Platos home base for the remainder of his life.

The first of Platos remaining two Sicilian

adventures came after Dionysius I died and

his young son, Dionysius II, ascended to the

throne. His uncle/brother-in-law Dion



.

19

persuaded the young tyrant to invite Plato to

come to help him become a philosopher-ruler

of the sort described in the Republic.

Although the philosopher (now in his sixties)

was not entirely persuaded of this possibility,

he agreed to go. This trip, like the last one,

however, did not go well at all. Within months,

the younger Dionysius had Dion sent into

exile for sedition, and Plato became

effectively under house arrest as the

personal guest of the dictator.

Plato eventually managed to gain the tyrants

permission to return to Athens, and he and

Dion were reunited at the Academy.

Dionysius agreed that after the war, he

would invite Plato and Dion back to Syracuse.

Dion and Plato stayed in Athens for the next

four years. Dionysius then summoned Plato,

but wished for Dion to wait a while longer.

Dion accepted the condition and encouraged

Plato to go immediately anyway, but Plato

refused the invitation, much to the

consternation of both Syracusans. Hardly a

year had passed, however, before Dionysius

sent a ship, with one of Platos Pythagorean

friends on board begging Plato to return to

Syracuse. Partly because of his friend Dions

enthusiasm for the plan, Plato departed one

more time to Syracuse. Once again, however,

things in Syracuse were not at all to Platos

liking. Dionysius once again effectively

imprisoned Plato in Syracuse, and the latter

was only able to escape again with help from

his Tarentine friends.

Dion subsequently gathered an army of

mercenaries and invaded his own homeland.

But his success was short-lived: he was

assassinated and Sicily was reduced to chaos.

Plato, perhaps now completely disgusted with

politics, returned to his beloved Academy,

where he lived out the last thirteen years of

his life. According to Diogenes, Plato was

buried at the school he founded (D.L. 3.41).

His grave, however, has not yet been

discovered by archeological investigations.

Inf luences on Plato

Heraclitus

Aristotle and Diogenes agree that Plato had

some early association with either the

philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, or with

one or more of that philosophers followers.

The effects of this influence can perhaps be

seen in the mature Platos conception of the

sensible world as ceaselessly changing.



.

20

Parmenides and Zeno

There can be no doubt that Plato was also

strongly influenced by Parmenides and Zeno

(both of Elea), in Platos theory of the Forms,

which are plainly intended to satisfy the

Parmenidean requirement of metaphysical

unity and stability in knowable reality.

Parmenides and Zeno also appear as

characters in his dialogue, the Parmenides.

Diogenes Laertius also notes other important

influences:

He mixed together in his works the arguments

of Heracleitus, the Pythagoreans, and

Socrates. Regarding the sensibles, he borrows

from Heraclitus; regarding the intelligibles,

from Pythagoras; and regarding politics, from

Socrates.

A little later, Diogenes makes a series of

comparisons intended to show how much

Plato owed to the comic poet, Epicharmus.

The Pythagoreans

Diogenes Laertius claims that Plato visited

several Pythagoreans in Southern Italy (one of

whom, Theodorus, is also mentioned as a

friend to Socrates in Platos Theaetetus). In

the Seventh Letter, we learn that Plato was a

friend of Archytas of Tarentum, a well-known

Pythagorean statesman and thinker, and in

the Phaedo, Plato has Echecrates, another

Pythagorean, in the group around Socrates on

his final day in prison. Platos Pythagorean

influences seem especially evident in his

fascination with mathematics, and in some of

his political ideals, expressed in various ways

in several dialogues.

Socrates

Nonetheless, it is plain that no influence on

Plato was greater than that of Socrates. This is

evident not only in many of the doctrines and

arguments we find in Platos dialogues, but

perhaps most obviously in Platos choice of

Socrates as the main character in most of his

works. According to the Seventh Letter, Plato

counted Socrates the justest man alive.

According to Diogenes Laertius, the respect

was mutual.



.

21

WORKS

Platos Dialogues and the Historical

Socrates

Supposedly possessed of outstanding

intellectual and artistic ability even from his

youth, according to Diogenes, Plato began his

career as a writer of tragedies, but hearing

Socrates talk, he wholly abandoned that path,

and even burned a tragedy he had hoped to

enter in a dramatic competition. Whether or

not any of these stories is true, there can be

no question of Platos mastery of dialogue,

characterization, and dramatic context. He

may, indeed, have written some epigrams; of

the surviving epigrams attributed to him in

antiquity, some may be genuine.

The Theory of Forms

In many of his dialogues, Plato mentions

supra-sensible entities he calls Forms (or

Ideas). So, for example, in the Phaedo, we

are told that particular sensible equal

thingsfor example, equal sticks or stones

are equal because of their participation or

sharing in the character of the Form of

Equality, which is absolutely, changelessly,

perfectly, and essentially equal. Plato

sometimes characterizes this participation in

the Form as a kind of imaging, or

approximation of the Form. The same may be

said of the many things that are greater or

smaller and the Forms of Great and Small, or

the many tall things and the Form of Tall, or

the many beautiful things and the Form of

Beauty. When Plato writes about instances of

Forms approximating Forms, it is easy to

infer that, for Plato, Forms are exemplars. If

so, Plato believes that The Form of Beauty is

perfect beauty, the Form of Justice is perfect

justice, and so forth. Conceiving of Forms in

this way was important to Plato because it

enabled the philosopher who grasps the

entities to be best able to judge to what

extent sensible instances of the Forms are

good examples of the Forms they

approximate.

Scholars disagree about the scope of what is

often called the theory of Forms, and

question whether Plato began holding that

there are only Forms for a small range of

properties, such as tallness, equality, justice,

beauty, and so on, and then widened the

scope to include Forms corresponding to

every term that can be applied to a

multiplicity of instances. In the Republic, he

writes as if there may be a great multiplicity



.

22

of Formsfor example, in Book X of that

work, we find him writing about the Form of

Bed. He may have come to believe that for

any set of things that shares some property,

there is a Form that gives unity to the set of

things (and univocity to the term by which we

refer to members of that set of things).

Knowledge involves the recognition of the

Forms, and any reliable application of this

knowledge will involve the ability compare

the particular sensible instantiations of a

property to the Form.


TO PHILIPPINE LAW

In the Laws, Platos last work, the philosopher

returns once again to the question of how a

society ought best to be organized. Unlike his

earlier treatment in the Republic, however,

the Laws appears to concern itself less with

what a best possible state might be like, and

much more squarely with the project of

designing a genuinely practicable, if

admittedly not ideal, form of government.

The founders of the community sketched in

the Laws concern themselves with the

empirical details of statecraft, fashioning rules

to meet the multitude of contingencies that

are apt to arise in the real world of human

affairs. A work enormous length and

complexity, running some 345 Stephanus

pages, the Laws was unfinished at the time of

Platos death. According to Diogenes Laertius,

it was left written on wax tablets

Known for his work of the Republic, this

dialogue devotes a considerable part of his

discussion to the critique of ordinary social

institutions the family, private property,

and rule by the many. The motivation that lies

behind the writing of this dialogue is the

desire to transform (or, at any rate, to

improve) political life, not to escape from it

(although it is acknowledged that the desire

to escape is an honorable one: the best sort

of rulers greatly prefer the contemplation of

divine reality to the governance of the city).

And if we have any further doubts that Plato

does take an interest in the practical realm,

we need only turn to Laws. A work of such

great detail and length about voting

procedures, punishments, education,

legislation, and the oversight of public

officials can only have been produced by

someone who wants to contribute something

to the improvement of the lives we lead in

this sensible and imperfect realm. Further



.

23

evidence of Plato's interest in practical

matters can be drawn from his letters, if they

are genuine. In most of them, he presents

himself as having a deep interest in educating

(with the help of his friend, Dion) the ruler of

Syracuse, Dionysius II, and thus reforming

that city's politics.

Taking into account also is Platos theory of

forms, it has contributed much to the idea of

equality in so far as our Constitution is

concerned. Mainly because he explained that

the idea of having a form will associate one to

be different with each other but as one entity

they are all equal in as much as they are

categorized under one form.



.

24

Charles Sanders Peirce

September 10, 1839 April 19, 1914

If men where immortal he could be perfectly

sure of seeing the day when everything in

which he had trusted should betray his trust.

LIFE

Charles Sanders Peirce was born on

September 10, 1839 in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, and he died on April 19, 1914

in Milford, Pennsylvania. His writings extend

from about 1857 until near his death, a period

of approximately 57 years. His published

works run to about 12,000 printed pages and

his known unpublished manuscripts run to

about 80,000 handwritten pages. The topics

on which he wrote have an immense range,

from mathematics and the physical sciences

at one extreme, to economics, psychology,

and other social sciences at the other extreme.

Peirce's father Benjamin Osgood Peirce was

Professor of Mathematics at Harvard

University and was one of the founders of the

U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey as well as one

of the founders of the Smithsonian Institution.

The department of mathematics at Harvard

was essentially built by Benjamin. From his

father, Charles Sanders Peirce received most

of the substance of his early education as well

as a good deal of intellectual encouragement

and stimulation. Benjamin's didactic

technique mostly took the form of setting

interesting problems for his son and checking

Charles's solutions to them. In this challenging

instructional atmosphere Charles acquired his

lifelong habit of thinking through

philosophical and scientific problems entirely

on his own. To this habit, perhaps, is to be

attributed Charles Peirce's considerable

originality.

Peirce graduated from Harvard in 1859 and

received the bachelor of science degree in

chemistry in 1863. For thirty-two years, from

1859 until late 1891, he was employed by the

U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, mainly

surveying and carrying out geodetic

investigations. The latter task involved making

measurements of the intensity of the earth's

gravitational field by means of using swinging

pendulums, which were often of his own

design. For over thirty years, then, Peirce was

involved in practical and theoretical problems

associated with making scientific

measurements. This involvement was crucial



.

25

in his ultimately coming to reject scientific

determinism, as we shall see.

From 1879 until 1884, Peirce maintained a

second job teaching logic in the Department

of Mathematics at Johns Hopkins University.

During that period the Department of

Mathematics was headed by the famous

mathematician J. J. Sylvester. This job

suddenly evaporated for reasons that are

apparently connected with the fact that

Peirce's second wife was a Gypsy, and was a

Gypsy moreover with whom Peirce had

allegedly cohabited before marriage. The

Johns Hopkins position was Peirce's only

academic employment, and after losing it

Peirce worked thereafter only for the U. S.

Coast and Geodetic Survey. This employment

was terminated in late 1891 ultimately

because of funding objections generated in

Congress. Thereafter, Peirce eked out a living

doing intellectual odd-jobs (such as

translating) and carrying out consulting work

(mainly in chemical engineering and analysis).

For the remainder of his life Peirce was often

in dire financial straits, and sometimes he

managed to survive only because of the

charity of friends, for example that of his old

friend William James.

Peirce was amazingly precocious and began

to study logic seriously at a very early age.

According to noted Peirce scholar Max Fisch

in his Introduction to Volume 1 of The

Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological

Edition, p. xviii, Peirce's introduction to and

first immersion in the study of logic came in

1851 within a week or two of his turning 12

years of age. Remembering the occasion in

1910, in his Note on the Doctrine of Chances,

in Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce,

Volume II, p. 408, Peirce himself remembered

the crucial event as having occurred in 1852,

when he was 13 years old. Regardless of his

exact age, at the time of the event Charles

encountered and then over a period of at

most a few days studied and absorbed a

standard textbook of the time on logic by

Bishop Richard Whately. Having become

fascinated by logic, he began to think of all

issues as problems in logic. During his

freshman year at college (Harvard), in 1855,

when he was 16 years old, he began private

study of philosophy in general, starting with

Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education

of Man and continuing with Kant's Critique of

Pure Reason. After three years of intense

study of Kant, Peirce concluded that Kant's

system was vitiated by what he called its



.

26

puerile logic, and about the age of 19 he

formed the fixed intention of devoting his life

to study of and research in logic. It was,

however, impossible at that time to earn a

living as a research logician, and Peirce

described himself at the time of his

graduation from Harvard in 1859, just short of

his 20th birthday, as wondering what I would

do in life. Within two years, however, he had

resolved the problem. During those two years

he had worked as an Aid on the Coast Survey,

in Maine and Louisiana, then had returned to

Cambridge and studied natural history and

natural philosophy at Harvard. He said of

himself that in 1861 he No longer wondered

what I would do in life but defined my object.

Apparently, his adoption of the profession of

chemistry and his practice of geodesy allowed

Charles both to support himself and to

continue to engage in researches on logic.

From the early 1860's until his death in 1914

his output in logic was voluminous and

extraordinarily varied. One of his logical

systems became the basis for Ernst

Schroeder's great three-volume treatise on

logic, the Vorlesungenueber die Algebra der

Logik, and Peirce became widely regarded as

the greatest logician of his day. By all who are

familiar with his work he is considered one of

the greatest logicians who ever lived.

D

espite Peirce's early and deep

disagreements with Kant's position, Peirce

continued to respect and read the first

Critique throughout his life. His own ultimate

philosophical position even has much in

common with the transcendental idealism of

Kant, though the common elements do not

include Kant's a priori methodology or Kant's

insistence on the Euclidean nature of space or

its subjective status. Like Kant, Peirce even

developed a set of ultimate categories (more

on which later). It might be added here that

Peirce's later philosophy has even more in

common with the objective idealism of Hegel

than it does with the transcendentalism of

Kant.

WORKS

It is not sufficiently recognized that Peirces

career was that of a scientist, not a

philosopher; and that during his lifetime he

was known and valued chiefly as a scientist,

only secondarily as a logician, and scarcely at

all as a philosopher. Even his work in

philosophy and logic will not be understood



.

27

until this fact becomes a standing premise of

Peircean studies.

Max Fisch 1964

Peirce was a working scientist for 30 years,

and arguably was a professional philosopher

only during the five years he lectured at Johns

Hopkins. He learned philosophy mainly by

reading, each day, a few pages of Kant's

Critique of Pure Reason, in the original

German, while a Harvard undergraduate. His

writings bear on a wide array of disciplines,

including mathematics, logic, philosophy,

statistics, astronomy, metrology,geodesy,

experimental psychology,economics,

linguistics, and the history and philosophy of

science. This work has enjoyed renewed

interest and approval, a revival inspired not

only by his anticipations of recent scientific

developments but also by his demonstration

of how philosophy can be applied effectively

to human problems.

Peirce's philosophy includesa pervasive three-

category system, fallibilism, belief in truth's

immutability and discoverability, logic as

formal semiotic on signs, arguments, and

inquiry's waysincluding philosophical

pragmatism (which he founded), critical

common-sensism, and scientific method

and, in metaphysics: Scholastic realism, belief

in God, freedom, and immortality, objective

idealism, and belief in the reality of continuity

and of chance, mechanical necessity, and

creative love. In his work, fallibilism and

pragmatism may seem to work somewhat like

skepticism and positivism, respectively, in

others' work. However, for Peirce, fallibilism

is a basis for belief in the reality of chance and

continuityand pragmatism fortifies belief in

the reality of the general.

For Peirce, First Philosophy, which he also

called cenoscopy, is less basic than

mathematics and more basic than the special

sciences (of nature and mind). It studies

positive phenomena in general, phenomena

available to any person at any waking

moment, and does not settle questions by

resorting to special experiences. He divided

such philosophy into (1) phenomenology

(which he also called phaneroscopy or

categorics), (2) normative sciences (esthetics,

ethics, and logic), and (3) metaphysics; his

views on them are discussed in order below.



.

28


TO PHILIPPINE LAWS

Theory of inquiry

Critical common-sensism, treated by Peirce as

a consequence of his pragmatism, is his

combination of Thomas Reid's common-sense

philosophy with a fallibilism that recognizes

that propositions of our more or less vague

common sense now indubitable may later

come into actual question, for example

because of science's transformation of our

world. It includes efforts to work up genuine

doubts in tests for a core group of common

indubitable that vary slowly if at all.

Rival methods of inquiry

In The Fixation of Belief (1877), Peirce

described inquiry in general not as the pursuit

of truth per se but as the struggle to move

from irritating, inhibitory doubt born of

surprise, disagreement, and the like, and to

reach a secure belief, belief being that on

which one is prepared to act. That let Peirce

frame scientific inquiry as part of a broader

spectrum and as spurred, like inquiry

generally, by actual doubt, not mere verbal or

hyperbolic doubt, which he held to be

fruitless. Peirce sketched four methods of

settling opinion, ordered from least to most

successful:

1. The method of tenacity (policy of

sticking to initial belief) which

brings comforts and decisiveness but

leads to trying to ignore contrary

information and others' views as if

truth were intrinsically private, not

public. The method goes against the

social impulse and easily falters since

one may well notice when another's

opinion seems as good as one's own

initial opinion. Its successes can be

brilliant but tend to be transitory.

2. The method of authority which

overcomes disagreements but

sometimes brutally. Its successes can

be majestic and long-lasting, but it

cannot regulate people thoroughly

enough to withstand doubts

indefinitely, especially when people

learn about other societies present

and past.

3. The method of congruity or the a

priori or the dilettante or "what is

agreeable to reason" which

promotes conformity less brutally,

but depends on taste and fashion in



.

29

paradigms and can go in circles over

time, along with barren disputation. It

is more intellectual and respectable

but, like the first two methods,

sustains capricious and accidental

beliefs, destining some minds to

doubts.

4. The method of science the method

wherein inquiry can, by its own

account, go wrong (fallibilism) and

thus tests itself and criticizes, corrects,

and improves itself.

Peirce held that, in practical affairs, slow and

stumbling ratiocination is often dangerously

inferior to instinct and traditional sentiment,

and that the scientific method is best suited

to theoretical research, which in turn should

not be trammeled by the other methods and

practical ends; reason's "first rule"is that, in

order to learn, one must desire to learn and,

as a corollary, must not block the way of

inquiry. Scientific method excels the others

finally by being deliberately designed to

arrive eventually at the most secure

beliefs, upon which the most successful

practices can be based. Starting from the idea

that people seek not truth per se but instead

to subdue irritating, inhibitory doubt, Peirce

showed how, through the struggle, some can

come to submit to truth for the sake of

belief's integrity, seek as truth the guidance of

potential conduct correctly to its given goal,

and wed themselves to the scientific method.

Scientific method

Insofar as clarification by pragmatic reflection

suits explanatory hypotheses and fosters

predictions and testing, pragmatism points

beyond the usual duo of foundational

alternatives: deduction from self-evident

truths, or rationalism; and induction from

experiential phenomena, or empiricism.

Peirce's approach is distinct from

foundationalism, empiricist or otherwise, as

well as from coherentism, by three

dimensions:

1. Abduction: Active process of theory

generation, with no prior assurance of

truth;

2. Deduction: Subsequent application of

the contingent theory in order to

explicate its logical and practical

implications;

3. Induction: Testing and evaluation of

the provisional theory's utility for the



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30

anticipation of future experience, in

both senses: prediction and control.

Thereby he fleshed out an approach to

inquiry far more solid than the flatter image

of inductive generalization simpliciter, which

is a mere relabeling of phenomenological

patterns. Peirce's pragmatism was the first

time the scientific method was proposed as

an epistemology for philosophical questions.

A theory that succeeds better than its rivals in

predicting and controlling our world is said to

be nearer the truth. This is an operational

notion of truth used by scientists.

Peirce extracted the pragmatic model or

theory of inquiry from its raw materials in

classical logic and refined it in parallel with

the early development of symbolic logic to

address problems about the nature of

scientific reasoning.

Abduction, deduction, and induction make

incomplete sense in isolation from one

another but comprise a cycle understandable

as a whole insofar as they collaborate toward

the end of inquiry. In the pragmatic way of

thinking in terms of conceivable practical

implications, everything has a purpose, and a

thing's purpose is the first thing that we

should try to note about it. Abduction

hypothesizes an explanation for deduction to

clarify into implications to be tested so that

induction can evaluate the hypothesis, in the

struggle to move from troublesome

uncertainty to secure belief. No matter how

needful or traditional it is to study the modes

of inference in abstraction from one another,

inquiry's integrity strongly limits the effective

modularity of inquiry's principal components.

Peirce outlined the scientific method as

follows:

1. Abduction (or retroduction). Guessing,

inference to explanatory hypotheses for

selection of those best worth trying. From

abduction, Peirce distinguishes induction as

inferring, on the basis of tests, the proportion

of truth in the hypothesis. Every inquiry,

whether into ideas, brute facts, or norms and

laws, arises from surprising observations in

one or more of those realms (and for example

at any stage of an inquiry already underway).

All explanatory content of theories comes

from abduction, which guesses a new or

outside idea so as to account in a simple,

economical way for a surprising or

complicated phenomenon. Oftenest even a

well-prepared mind guesses wrong. But the



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31

modicum of success of our guesses far

exceeds that of random luck, and seems born

of attunement to nature by instincts

developed or inherent, especially insofar as

best guesses are optimally plausible and

simple in the sense of the "facile and natural",

as by Galileo's natural light of reason and as

distinct from "logical simplicity". Abduction is

the most fertile but least secure mode of

inference. Its general rationale is inductive: it

succeeds often enough and it has no

substitute in expediting us toward new truths.

In 1903 Peirce called pragmatism "the logic of

abduction". It points to efficiency.

Coordinative method leads from abducing a

plausible hypothesis to judging it for its

testability and for how its trial would

economize inquiry itself. The hypothesis,

being insecure, needs to have practical

implications leading at least to mental tests

and, in science, lending themselves to

scientific testing. A simple but unlikely guess,

if uncostly to test for falsity, may belong first

in line for testing. A guess's objective

probability gives value to its trial, while

subjective likelihood can be misleading.

Guesses can be chosen for trial strategically,

for which Peirce offered as example the game

of Twenty Questions. One can hope to

discover only that which time would reveal

through a learner's sufficient experience

anyway, so the point is to expedite it; the

economy of research is what demands the

"leap" of abduction and governs its art.

2. Deduction. Analysis of hypothesis and

deduction of its consequences (as predictions

about evidence to be found). Two stages:

i. Explication. Logical analysis of the

hypothesis so as to render its parts as

clear as possible.

ii. Demonstration (or deductive

argumentation). Deduction of

hypothesis's consequence.Corollarial

or, if needed, Theorematic.

3. Induction. Evaluation of the hypothesis,

inferring from observational or experimental

tests of its deduced consequences. The long-

run validity of the rule of induction is

deducible from the principle

(presuppositional to reasoning in general)

that the real "is only the object of the final

opinion to which sufficient investigation

would lead". Induction involving the ongoing

accumulation of evidence follows a method

which, sufficiently persisted in, will diminish

its error below any predesignate degree and,



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32

if there were something to which such a

process would never lead, then that thing

would not be real. Three stages:

i. Classification. Classing objects of

experience under general ideas.

ii. Probation (or direct Inductive

Argumentation): Crude (the

enumeration of instances) or Gradual

(new estimate of proportion of truth

in the hypothesis after each test).

Gradual Induction is Qualitative or

Quantitative; if Quantitative, then

dependent on measurements, or on

statistics, or on countings.

iii. Sentential Induction. "...which, by

Inductive reasonings, appraises the

different Probations singly, then their

combinations, then makes self-

appraisal of these very appraisals

themselves, and passes final

judgment on the whole result".



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33

Saint Thomas Aquinas

1225 March 7, 1274

One who has faith, no explanation is

necessary; to one without faith no explanation

is possible.

LIFE

St. Thomas Aquinas was the greatest

medieval philosopher. He tried to show the

harmony between faith and reason, and

between Christianity and philosophy.

Aquinas's views have been very influential,

especially in Catholic thought.

Thomas was born in 1225 at Roccasecca, a

hilltop castle from which the great

Benedictine abbey of Montecassino is not

quite visible, midway between Rome and

Naples. At the age of five, he was entered at

Montecassino where his studies began. When

the monastery became a battle sitenot for

the last timeThomas was transferred by his

family to the University of Naples. It was here

that he came into contact with the new

Aristotle and with the Order of Preachers or

Dominicans, a recently founded mendicant

order. He became a Dominican over the

protests of his family and eventually went

north to study, perhaps first briefly at Paris,

then at Cologne with Albert the Great, whose

interest in Aristotle strengthened Thomas's

own predilections. Returned to Paris, he

completed his studies, became a Master and

for three years occupied one of the

Dominican chairs in the Faculty of Theology.

The next ten years were spent in various

places in Italy, with the mobile papal court, at

various Dominican houses, and eventually in

Rome. From there he was called back to Paris

to confront the controversy variously called

Latin Averroism and Heterodox

Aristotelianism. After this second three year

stint, he was assigned to Naples. In 1274, on

his way to the Council of Lyon, he fell ill and

died on March 7 in the Cistercian abbey at

Fossanova, which is perhaps twenty

kilometers from Roccasecca.

Little is known of Thomas's studies at

Montecassino, but much is known of the

shape that the monastic schools had taken.

They were one of the principal conduits of the

liberal arts tradition which stretches back to

Cassiodorus Senator in the 6th

century. The

arts of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic)

and those of the quadrivium (arithmetic,

geometry, music and astronomy) were

fragments preserved against the ruinous loss



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34

of classical knowledge. They constituted the

secular education that complemented sacred

doctrine as learned from the Bible. When

Thomas transferred to Naples, his education

in the arts continued. Here it would have

been impressed upon him that the liberal arts

were no longer adequate categories of

secular learning: the new translations of

Aristotle spelled the end of the liberal arts

tradition, although the universities effected a

transition rather than a breach.

Taking Thomas's alma mater Paris as

reference point, the Faculty of Arts provided

the point of entry to teen-aged boys. With the

attainment of the Master of Arts at about the

age of 20, one could go on to study in a higher

faculty, law, medicine or theology. The

theological program Thomas entered in Paris

was a grueling one, with the master's typically

attained in the early thirties. Extensive and

progressively more intensive study of the

scriptures, Old and New Testament, and of

the summary of Christian doctrine called the

Sentences which was compiled by the twelfth

century Bishop of Paris, Peter Lombard. These

close textual studies were complemented by

public disputations and the even more unruly

quodlibetal questions. With the faculty

modeled more or less on the guilds, the

student served a long apprenticeship,

established his competence in stages, and

eventually after a public examination was

named a master and then gave his inaugural

lecture.

WORKS

Thomas's writings by and large show their

provenance in his teaching duties. His

commentary on the Sentences put the seal on

his student days and many of his very early

commentaries on Scripture have come down

to us. But from the very beginning Thomas

produces writings which would not have

emerged from the usual tasks of the

theological master. On Being and Essence and

The Principles of Nature date from his first

stay at Paris, and unlike his commentaries on

Boethius' On the Trinity and De

hebdomadibus, are quite obviously

philosophical works. Some of his disputed

questions date from his first stint as regius

master at Paris. When he returned to Italy his

productivity increased. He finished the

Summa contra gentiles, wrote various

disputed questions and began the Summa

theologiae. In 1268, at Rome, he began the

work of commenting on Aristotle with On the

Soul, and during the next five or six years



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35

commented on eleven more (not all of these

are complete). During this time he was caught

up in magisterial duties of unusual scope and

was writing such polemical works as On the

Eternity of the World and On There Being

Only One Intellect.

At Naples, he was given the task of elevating

the status of the Dominican House of Studies.

His writing continued until he had a mystical

experience which made him think of all he

had done as mere straw. At the time of his

death in 1274 he was under a cloud in Paris

and in 1277, 219 propositions were

condemned by a commission appointed by

the Bishop of Paris, among them tenets of

Thomas. This was soon lifted, he was

canonized and eventually was given the title

of Common Doctor of the Church. But the

subtle and delicate assimilation of Aristotle

that characterized his work in both

philosophy and theology did not survive his

death, outside the Dominican Order, and has

experienced ups and downs ever since.

Philosophy and Theology in Thomas'

Thought

A. For Thomas philosophy is ancillatheologiae

(handmaiden of theology). Aquinas was first

and foremost a theologian, though he was

quite capable of distinguishing philosophy

proper from theology. He held that

(1) philosophy can prove by means of reason

unaided by revelation some truths proposed

by Christian faith;

(2) it can clarify truths which cannot be

proved; and

(3) it can defend the principles of Christian

faith against their detractors.

True philosophy cannot conflict with Christian

faith but it can fall short of it--e.g., the

existence of God as efficient cause of the

universe can be established by reason alone,

the full meaning of "God" can only come from

faith.

Aquinas is not the only, but he is the most

important, medieval thinker who tried to

incorporate many of Aristotle's ideas into

Christian philosophy. He goes as far towards

accepting Aristotle's views as a Christian of his

time could do. But there are some points on



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36

which even Thomas would have to depart

from Aristotle: chief among them (i)

Aristotle's view that the universe is

everlasting and (ii) Aristotle's rejection of

individual immortality.

B. Christian PHILOSOPHY: Philosophy as

Thomas understands it depends on this: that

there is a natural world; that its substantial

components regularly exercise their own

causal powers; that there are intelligent

beings capable of understanding the natural

world by their own mental powers.

C. CHRISTIAN philosophy: Christian

philosophy for Thomas depends on this: that

the world of creatures is totally based--for its

existence, endurance and operation--upon

God, who freely creates, conserves and

cooperates with what He has created.

KINDSOF LAW

Aquinas recognizes four main kinds of law:

the eternal, the natural, the human, and the

divine. The last three all depend on the first,

but in different ways. Were we to arrange

them in a hierarchy, eternal would be at the

top, then natural, then human. Divine law is

not in conflict with natural law, but it reaches

human beings by a different route, revelation.

a. Eternal Law

Eternal law is identical to the mind of God as

seen by God himself. It can be called law

because God stands to the universe which he

creates as a ruler does to a community which

he rules. When God's reason is considered as

it is understood by God Himself, i.e. in its

unchanging, eternal nature, it is eternal law.

b. Divine Law

Divine law is derived from eternal law as it

appears historically to humans, especially

through revelation, i.e., when it appears to

human beings as divine commands.D

ivine

law is divided into the Old Law and the New

Law. In which the Old and New Law roughly

corresponding to the Old and New

Testaments of the Bible. When he speaks of

the Old Law, Thomas is thinking mainly of the

Ten Commandments. When he speaks of the

New Law, he corresponds to the teachings of

Jesus.



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37

Old Law commands conduct externally in

which reaches humans through their capacity

for fear. It is a law promised earthly rewards

(social peace and its benefits).

New Law commands internal conduct in

which reaches humans by the example of

divine love and where it promises heavenly

reward.

c. Human Law

Thomas' philosophy, as we should expect

knowing how much he is indebted to Aristotle,

is pervaded with a sense of teleology.

Nowhere is this clearer and more important

than in his discussion of human law. You

might think here that he would define human

law as what we sometimes nowadays call

positive law, the laws actually enacted and

put in force in our human communities. But in

fact human law fits just those so-called

positive laws which are what written and

enacted laws should be. So-called laws which

fall short of what they should be are not true

laws at all, according to Thomas.

I shall hold off giving Thomas' own definition

of human law, because it relies upon the

concept of natural law to which we will turn

to later. We can say now that Thomas thinks

of human laws as laws, devised by human

reason, adapted to particular geographical,

historical and social circumstances.

Law is directed to the common good, and

human law is no exception. The promotion of

virtue is necessary for the common good, and

human laws are instruments in the promotion

of virtue. Aristotle already pointed out that

most people are kept from crime by fear of

the law. Thomas accepts this judgment,

suggestingthat by coercion even men who are

evilly disposed may be led in the direction of

virtue.


TO PHILIPPINE LAWS

Thomas Aquinas said that manmade laws

were subject to a higher law. The source of

this higher law is none other than God himself

who is Perfect Justice personified.

Aquinas defined law is an ordinance of reason

for the common good, made by him who has

care of the community, and promulgated.

Such definition was adopted by our

lawmakers today to guide them in their

legislative functions.



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Aquinas uses the term "natural law" to refer

to morality, or the moral law. He sees law as a

rational attempt to guide action. A law is a

prescription that we act or not act; it may also

exist in us as an inclination to act in certain

ways. A law must be made and promulgated

by those in charge of the community.

Aquinas describes law as "a certain rule and

measure of acts whereby man is induced to

act or is restrained from acting." Because the

rule and measure of human actions is reason,

law has an essential relation to reason; in the

first place to divine reason; in the second

place to human reason, when it acts correctly,

i.e., in accordance with the purpose or final

cause implanted in it by God.

Laws must be directed to the common good --

to the happiness that is the goal of human

actions. Prescriptions that aren't for the

common good are unjust. A so-called "unjust

law" isn't properly a "law" at all. Law is

directed by its nature to the good, and

especially to the universal or common good. It

is addressed not primarily to private persons

but to the whole people meeting in common

or to persons who have charge of the

community as a whole.

Promulgation (for instance, the application of

the law to those to whom it is applied and the

communication of this law to them) is

essential to the nature of the law. The natural

law is promulgated by God: "God has instilled

it into human minds so as to be known by

them naturally." Divine and human laws can

be promulgated by word of mouth or, even

better, by writing.

Laws are also important, says Thomas, for

other reasons noted by Aristotle.

(1) It is easier to find a few wise persons who

can make good laws than to find many who,

in the absence of laws, can judge correctly in

each instance.

(2) Lawmakers can deliberate at length before

making laws while many particular cases must

be judged quickly, when they arise.

(3) Lawmakers judge in the abstract and are

less likely to be swayed by emotions evoked

by concrete circumstances or by the kinds of

things that tend to corruption. There is less

danger of perversion of law, which is

formulated in general, than there would be

perversion of judgment in particular cases

where no law exists to guide judgment.



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39

Even though laws are general, they are still

adapted to the nature of the community,

which is not everywhere the same, and to the

classes of individuals who make up the

society. For example, there may be one set of

laws that govern the conduct of trade,

another set of laws that govern the control of

parents over their children, another set of

laws setting limits on the powers of what

passes for a police force.

In other words, there may be different laws

for different kinds of citizens, who have

different functions in the community. Still

laws are general to two ways. All human laws

worthy of the name laws are directed

towards the common good. And even specific

laws, say, for merchants, are general in some

way: that they go farther than a single case.

The human law, says Thomas, is not obliged

to repress all vices. It is framed for most

people, who are far from perfect in virtue. It

is aimed at the more grievous vices from

which the majority can abstain, i.e., those

which are to the hurt of others, e.g., murder,

theft, and the like. Were the law to attempt

to legislate perfection, it would make people

hostile to the law and defeat its purpose.

For the same reason, the law does not

prescribe all the acts of the virtues. But it

does prescribe some acts corresponding to

each virtue. For example, some acts that a

just man would do are prescribed; some acts

that a temperate person would do are

prescribed.

Everyone is subject to human law and ought

to obey the human law, that is, the true

human law, not the occasional perversion of

it which is sometimes presented as law. But

the ruler (charged with stating and enforcing

the law) is in a special position. Normally, he

is obliged to follow the law which he himself

has stated. But there is nobody over him to

judge him in this life. However, he is not

exempt, since he will be held accountable by

God.

Thomas considers when it may be permissible

to violate the letter of the law. He realizes

that, because it is by nature general, the law

may require exceptions. In most cases, these

should be made only with the consent of the

political authorities, but there are exceptions

even to this rule, when the common good is

under unusual peril.

Human laws are subject to change, according

to Aquinas, because experience in practical



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40

matters may allow us to improve them.

Aristotle understood that there could be

progress in the arts and in philosophy, but he

saw history as cyclical, and he anticipated that

social catastrophes would cultural and

technical progress to be lost, though they

might be recovered in a later cycle. Thomas,

by contrast, has an essentially linear notion of

history, which is connected with the Christian

idea that there is just one Big Story and each

human event has its unique place in that story.

Human law can be changed, and occasionally

should be changed, but it should not be lightly

changed. The reason is that respect for the

law is largely a matter of custom or habit, and

inessential change undermines this custom.

The common good is not served by a more

finely tuned, theoretically better law, if

people have less respect for law and follow it

less faithfully.

philosopher's life, works and relation to philippine law

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