"Power Philosophy"

by Hubert Cua (2 of 2)

The article is just an opinion, and I may not be correct.

When I attended the talk on Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao, one of the speakers said something like this. Many people, like students, do not dislike philosophy and theology before they take philosophy and theology. Many people disliked philosophy and theology only during or after they take philosophy and theology. At this point, I want to coin two terms. (Again, these terms do not connote any superiority and inferiority.) The first term is formal philosophy, which refers to the philosophy of “elitist” or that is taught in schools and universities. The second term is popular philosophy, which refers to philosophy of “commoners” or that is widespread. Now, I would like to start analyzing from the title, which is Power Philosophy. What I noticed is that people start to philosophize formally mostly in times of prosperity or in times of chaos. This means that a certain level of power, prosperity or chaos, must be achieved in order to trigger formal philosophy. This seems true in Chinese, European, French, Greek, Indian, Roman, Russian Philosophy and more. In normal times, people often stick to popular philosophy. Since Philippines is generally developing, which is neither developed, nor undeveloped, most parts of the Philippines does not seem to have the condition of making formal philosophy flourish. Rather, popular philosophy is prevalent in most parts of the Philippines. This way, students would possibly prefer popular philosophy more than formal philosophy. This seems to make them dislike formal philosophy. However, I noticed that some philosophers, like Confucius, Levinas and etc, were able to make parts of their formal philosophies into popular philosophies at the same time. I also noticed that philosophy seems to be based on power. Western Philosophy (I know I am somewhat contradicting my previous blog post.) is generally taught in universities, like Ateneo, since western countries has a strong power and influence on Ateneo.

"There is no Eastern and Western Philosophy"

by Hubert Cua (Part 5 of 5)

I used to think that Eastern Philosophy, particularly Chinese Philosophy, and Western Philosophy strongly differ from each other. Even if they have some similarities, their similarities are quite insignificant to talk about. It is only until recently that I started to think that this seems wrong.

Several meetings ago, Dr. Garcia said something like this. For the westerners, art is to hide art. Poetry brings us to the unsaid and leaves it unsaid. Isn’t that eastern art? My impression of Western Philosophy on art is that they are materialistic, distinct, clear, direct, demonstrative and showy. On the other hand, my impression of Eastern Philosophy on art is that they are spiritualistic, indistinct, vague, indirect, undemonstrative and hiding. (All the adjectives I use do not connote inferiority and superiority.)  However, it seems that Eastern and Western Philosophy on art has converging point.

Few meetings ago, we talked about how some western philosophers think that humans is essentially good, while other western philosophers think that humans is essentially bad. Isn’t that one of the debates in Chinese Philosophy several thousands of years ago? When we took Chinese Philosophy in high school, our Chinese teacher said that some Chinese Philosophers, like Mencius, think that humans is essentially good, while other Chinese Philosophers, like Xunzi, think that humans is essentially bad. How is that?

Well, I think before, since civilizations generally do not interact with one another, each civilization formed its own unique characteristics. This makes each civilization clearly contrasts with all other civilizations. As time passes by, philosophy slowly becomes universal. Eventually, there will be a possibility that there will be no Eastern and Western Philosophy in the future. Is this good?