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I Kant Take This Anymore!

And here I go again! My post for some reason on Philosophy DISAPPEARED for some reason. It’s as if the Internet is conspiring against me and they Kouldn’t take the post anymore either. Is talking about Philosophy that bad? But kidding aside I should probably enable a feature here on WordPress where it e-mails me my post every time I write a new one so if ever I do lose a post or two (it’s not the first time it’s happened -__- Silly of me not to back up after every new post), I wouldn’t be that horrified.

I’m going to try to rewrite everything again just because I did enjoy writing it. I wonder how I’ll sound like the second time around

For those in college or Uni or have taken Philosophy in high school, do/did you guys enjoy it? Before entering college, I never knew the reason why people had to study Philosophy. I mean why ponder on life when you could be just living it. You know Carpe Diem, JUST DO IT. Don’t stop to think or smell the roses and bees (okay maybe not the bees), color ze roses or pluck the roses if you grew your own roses or found them from a place that allows people to pluck roses. Don’t think about the existence of the rose anymore or what its purpose may be or why did you suddenly have an encounter with this rose.

Or should I? The only influence that I’ve had on Philosophy is the Filipino “term” pilosopo. Actually maybe it’s only in the Philippine language when being called a philosopher is actually a bad thing. It practically means being a smart aleck or an ass or being sarcastic or something. It’s also a term for a “joker” too.

Por Examplo (it’s a bit green):

Teacher: Bobits, magbigay ka ng halimbawa ng hayup? (Bobits, give an example of an animal)
Bobits: Dog Mam!
Teacher: Very good! Give me another example.
Bobits: Another Dog mam!
Teacher: Abay pilosopo kang bata ka ah! Sige, subukan ko ang galing mo. Use “2 dogs” in a sentence. (Ay kid, you’re such a pilosopo! Okay, let’s see how smart you are.)
Bobits: mmmmmmm.. Yesterday, I saw a dog..
Teacher: O, sabi ko dalawang dog ah! (Hey I said 2 dogs!)
Bobits: E mam teka muna di pa nga tapos e. Yesterday, I saw a dog.. connected to another dog. (Eh Ma’am wait I’m not yet finished!)

AND BAM, you’re branded as a pilosopo. The person talking to a Pilosopo would usually roll his/her eyes or smack his/her head after speaking to one. But hey, this isn’t what Philosophy is about.

This isn’t the Philosophy that Socrates taught Plato at all or any of the Greek/German/French/Chinese philosophers have argued and debated for thousands of years. If you have read Heidegger’s What is Philosophy, he doesn’t exactly ANSWER the question straightforwardly (for that matter, do any philosopher?) and just goes about that philosophy is the act of philosophizing itself! The moment you question philosophy, that’s the moment that philosophy arises from. The moment you notice that a chair isn’t really a chair but simply the essence of a “true’ chair, the chairing-ness or the chair-ness of the chair, that is philosophy. Actually Philosophy is so broad, that after studying a few philosophers, I STILL DON’T HAVE A DARN ANSWER. Maybe just a form of one but it isn’t really the answer because nobody has ever answered the question yet. But philosophy deals with a way of life (though it is confused with religion because religion too is a way of life). It’s a set of beliefs I think anyway, I mean philosophy talks about ethics. The last philosopher that we talked about was Kant, and it was actually my professor whose name is Ice and looks like Jesus Christ (hey that sorta rhymes XD) who said this quote because he couldn’t take how Kant GOES ON AND ON and then says his point only at the end so you’ve got garble and hifalutin words (WHY KAN’T PHILOSOPHERS JUST SIMPLY SAY WHAT THEY WANT IN SIMPLE TERMS? Don’t they want to be heard? But I guess that’s the difficulty of language. They have to be written that way to be fully understood. It’s the reader’s problem then to interpret what it means) at the beginning and you wanna smack Kant in the face.

Kant deals with the kind of ethics where he sees that in a moral dilemma for example, a murderer walks in and demands for the location of your kids or loved ones, for Kant it is the right thing to tell him the location because YOU DON’T CONTROL THE CONSEQUENCES. YOU DON’T CONTROL OTHER PEOPLE’S ACTIONS SO YOU DID WHAT WAS MORALLY RIGHT EVEN THOUGH THE CONSEQUENCE MAY BE THE DEATH OF YOUR LOVED ONES. It’s all about the Categorical Imperative, in short if you have a maxim or a belief that can be applied TO ALL (NO EXCEPTIONS, THAT’S THE POINT OF KANT) then that is the thing you must do. HE’S CRAZY if you ask me. I mean wouldn’t you? He says that you must tell the truth ALL THE TIME. No exceptions.

I wanted to write about this because I found this nifty youtube video that explains Kant as much as possible in 3 minutes AND IT’S QUITE EFFECTIVE. Please do try to watch, it’s humorous and the drawings are also funny. You won’t get bored at all. One commenter even said that he learned more in 3 minutes than in 3 months. Haha!

This is why talking about Philosophy or reading it is important because this actually defines how we live. I mean would you follow Kant or go with Aristotle who judges people by moral character and virtue? I love my class now because my professor dares to ask the right and difficult questions and it’s a training that we must all have. We must learn how to question properly and rightfully so to help the situation for example of your country, or maybe even just your home. He questions those who don’t like Kant, who think that Kant is too idealistic or optimistic because he has a set of rules already. He’s not imposing though, he just says that a man can choose what is right for himself and doesn’t need external influences. I mean WOULD THERE BE POVERTY IF EVERYONE FOLLOWED THIS RULE of Kant? Wouldn’t everyone be all equal since you can’t lie, you can’t kill or anything like that (so yeah he doesn’t include cultural relativism so Eskimos killing their babies and old people is considered a wrong practice). But what do you think?

I suggest reading some of Plato’s works or Aristotle or Marcel (so that you’d get the Empricist side of Philosophy, based on experience and shiz) to get you started in Philosophy. Thomas Aquinas is good too for starters. I wanted to smash Heidegger when I read his paper but maybe it’s because he was discussing the difficulty of language AND BOY WAS IT DIFFICULT. Here’s one of Aristotle, quite funny really! AND I FORGOT ABOUT DESCARTES!

I guess this is long enough hahaha! By the way, I just received Krystal’s AWESOME letter last month! Doesn’t she draw well? Man thank you really so much for sending me a letter. Receiving letters is a joy of the past

Awesome isn’t it? I’d probably write more letters once school is finished

Questions:
1. What is Philosophy for you?
2. Do you agree with Kant?
P.S. Oh gosh my first academic related post in years