On The Questions That Matter: imagination

Friday, February 21, 2014

We Can Be Because of Philosophy

by George Goking

Doctor Garcia opened a discussion regarding the potentially life changing aspect of Philosophy on the human being. I thought about what he said, but there wasn’t enough time for me to bring up my reflection during class. But what I wanted to mention was that, I think most of, if not all, concepts we discuss in philosophy are things that the human reflect on every day. These ideas that possibly circulate in our thoughts are coded in a language beyond words and gestures.

Do you ever get that feeling when you come in to eye-to-eye contact with a random stranger from a distance, you almost instantly pick up a message, and carry out that calling before even being able to put that message into words in your head? Students that have taken up Scott Peck’s article, Love, might be able to understand what I am trying to explain.

There are several things that we reflect upon but do not have words to discuss them openly. But when there is literature that exists and explains such phenomena in a language that is manageable (i.e. English, Tagalog, etc.) then the person will be drawn out from this uneasiness, knowing that there is a such thing and that it was not just him/her over thinking.

I believe that many people do not act out on what they truly desire because of the absence of a venue to discuss or exercise such ideas and practices. Through our discussion of Philosophy, this creates an environment where fellow students can discuss certain phenomena and not sound crazy or out of this world. Such ideas would most likely be labelled as products of over thinking for those who have not formally encountered Philosophy.

This environment enables students to enrich their understanding and appreciation of Philosophy to levels that exceed just the mind which allows the person to act out in his environment, knowing that he is not alone, and that this is not just some overthought imagination.

Our society has labelled so many characteristics under being weird and other negative categories. I believe that those who are less exposed to Philosophical literature feel that way towards people who reflect on existence and being. I think the Philosophy breaks that barrier and sprinkles confidence on people that share the same amusement towards such things, which allows them to live it up with less hesitation and more motivation.

About The Professor

Leovino Ma. Garcia, Ph. D. is a professor of the Department of Philosophy of Ateneo de Manila University. He finished his degree in humanities under the guidance and tutelage of Fr. Roque Ferriols, S.J., and eventually attained his doctorate degree in Philosophy in the Catholic University of Louvain. He was the dean of the School of Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 1994 as its first lay dean, and then became the dean once again, this time of the School of Humanities from 2001 to 2007. He is the second recipient of the Natividad Galang-Fajardo Lifetime Chair for the Humanities in 2011 and currently the President of the World Conference of Catholic Philosophers (COMIUCAP).

But most of all, he is a thinker, a life teacher, a lover of the arts, and, as he always claims to be, "the poor boy who knows the fields and rivers of the Cagayan valley," truly human in his own way.

These lectures delivered for the school year 2012-2013 are transcribed and summarized by Earl Allyson Valdez (AB Philosophy, Pre-Divinity Track 2010), once his student and now his teaching assistant.