Who Am I?

by Bambi San Pedro

Reflection on the first Ph 101 Plenary

By now, each one of us must already be able to define what Philosophy really is. In my own understanding, Philosophy helps someone in dealing with the questions that he encounter as he tries to discover who he really is as a person. However, another important question to pour our thoughts into is “What are we trying to do when we do Philosophy?”

In every single day of our lives, day-in day-out, we follow a specific pattern. But in this certain rhythm, we don’t bother to reflect that much, until something happens. This “something” is called a “Break Situation”, or when the normal run of things come to a halt. It is during these times when we question ourselves about the what’s and why’s of this life. What should be my next move? Why this instead of that one? Why me and not her? And sometimes, these break situations might catch us off-guard when they happen in extremes – bankruptcy, failure, death. These are the moments when what we’re holding onto slips from our lives. As for students like us, it might be getting kicked out from the Ateneo with only just 0.5 lacking in the retention QPI. It is this kind of instances that our self-esteem gets affected. The ground of our notion of something gets broken, and we, in turn, break down.

An Extreme Break Situation may be classified as either a Painful Wonder or a Joyful Wonder. In either situation, we look at life as a whole. Right now, we already know that the world is charged with the wonder of God. But, knowing is different from experiencing. When we experience, we are gifted with that “Aaahhh!!” moment, usually the breath-taking ones.

As a science, Philosophy is not one of those that study the human person. Biology deals with the study of the living organism. Sociology deals with the study of the development, structure and functioning of the human society. Psychology deals with the study of the human minds and its function. As for Philosophy, it particularly studies the human phenomenon in the whole of reality. It doesn’t deal with what it means to be human, but what it means to be.

In discovering one’s self, a lot of questions have to be cleared up before he figures out what kind of person he really is. What does it mean to be a human being? What does it mean to be? What does it mean to be me? And finally, Who am I? Then, ask yourself this question, “What does it mean to be myself in the face of others?”

During the talk, Mr. Calasanz retold two different stories about two famous names. He mentioned an instance in St. Augustine’s life when his bestfriend died. The worse part is that their friendship ended in a quarrel, meaning they were not in good terms even before. So when it dawned to him that he has really lost his bestfriend, he goes out in search for his soul and later realized that without his bestfriend, life has no meaning. Here, St. Augustine was dealing with the death of the one he loved, when he came into the question, Who am I? The second story he shared was about Descartes life. He was a man who had a lot of questions about certainty, since a lot of scientific facts are criticized by enumerable brilliant minds. The questions that he usually had to deal with were, How can I be sure? Can I be sure of anything? Can I hold my ground somewhere? And these are also our questions and problems in this time. One common experience among teenagers like ourselves is when we doubt our dad’s words, like when he tells us that he’s going to a conference for a couple days (but the idea of him meeting up with his mistress, crosses our minds).
Reflection might seem easy because the thought flows freely. However, the difficulty comes in when things are so simple that there’s nothing there to breakdown. Thus, Dualism comes in.

Dualism means that this “thinking” is simply thinking. It has no body; it simply thinks. All these things can be doubted. BUT on the other hand, the “act of thinking” is that one thing you can be sure of. One cannot doubt that he’s doubtingbecause it is an act of doubting in itself. Also, one cannotdoubt that he is thinking, because it is an act of thinking in itself. That’s why there is a saying, “I think therefore I am.” And this cliché leads back to the question, Who is this “I”?

In order to fully understand the answer, one must experience HIS body – his own proper body. It’s his. The experience of the “I”, or the self, can only be done by him. No one else can be in his place. This is the only radical solitude that every human being has. One cannot be distinguished from his own body. This self is not a disembodied self rather this self is a body. It cannot go unnoticed. He IS his body. Where his body is, there he is. Just as when his body gets hurt, he also gets hurt. And in the same way, one cannot be identified with the body. There is a separation and ambiguity. He HAS his body. Therefore, he cannot be reduced into his body.

And for Mr. Calasanz’s last point, he explained the thread of facticity and transcendence. Because he IS his body, he is facticity. Facticity came from the word “facturate”, meaning something that is given, or “yari na”. Therefore, it is not something you can decide upon or choose, sort of like one’s genetic makeup. It is not the person’s fault if he is stingy, bipolar or unattractive. All these constitute the spark of who he really is. As for transcendence, it refers to crossing over or going beyond. It provides the answer to the question, What do I do with the given’s, once I realize it? In other words, it shows that what one does with the given’s, is not a given. This leaves a space for choice, a space for creating meaning, a space for reorienting facticities. This facticity is the original source of pain, burden, limitation and woundedness. Transcendence gives that person the act of ownership. This means that he has the capacity to turn this Painful Wonder into a Joyful Wonder. On that account, Philosophy then is trying to see things in the perspective of the totality as a whole.

Discovering who “I” am is seeing that this body is an embodied self and not an abstract one.