On The Questions That Matter: joker

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Becoming The Joker

by Mara Cepeda

I want to become silly.

Like how Simon Critchley describes philosophers in the text “What is a Philosopher?” I want to become the one who destroys the status quo. I want to become “a laughing stock, an absent-minded buffoon, the butt of countless jokes.”

I want to become silly because it means that I am aware, that I have, or at least I am trying to, remove myself from my default setting.

You see, one of the main things that struck me from the past three meetings in class is that to philosophize means to constantly pay attention. Paying attention then means realizing that the “familiar” world we know is not so familiar after all. Apparently, we need to get out of ourselves and realize, accept and understand that the world around us still has so much more meaning to offer.

To philosophize therefore is to allow yourself to be constantly surprised by the world.

But isn’t that scary, the thought that you can never be too sure about yourself and the world?

It is. However, in my little contemplation these past few days, I realized that perhaps it is okay to realize one’s unfamiliarity with the world. To become the joker, to become the odd one out, may just be a good thing after all.

I believe it was Socrates who said that “I only know that I know nothing,” and I think this statement is spot on.

Isn’t philosophizing the act of, to borrow Dr. Garcia’s words in the last meeting, “being aware that you are aware,” and consequently, also being aware that you are not aware?

Because when we sought to know, we realize more and more how much we do not know. This uncertainty therefore can propel us to never be too sure of ourselves, to stop thinking that the world revolves around us, and to realize just how small we are compared to the unknown universe.

Perhaps this is why Critchley said philosophers are silly, because who on earth would want to humbly accept that you only know nothing?

The joker will. The silly one will. The philosopher will.

And maybe, just maybe, this is what PH 101 is us challenging to do.

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.