"Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?"

by Patrick Cruz

“Why is there something rather than nothing?”

In order to attempt to answer the question, we must first examine the question more closely. We note that the questions asks for why, meaning, a reason of existence of something rather than nothing. That is completely different if we ask the question “Is there something rather than nothing?”. Whereas the latter questions if that something really exists, the former asks for a reason of its existence given the presumption that it really exists. Answering the latter question “Is there something rather than nothing?” will be totally pointless because indeed, things are and we are! Hence, any further explanation will result into answering why.

Moreover, the word is plays an important role in understanding the question too. Is basically denotes a particular instant of time: present. It brings us to the full consciousness of the right here, right now presence—to the presence of this text, the medium one is using in reading this text and you who are reading this text. Nevertheless, the question does not limit itself to the present time, as it also acknowledges the past and the future, both in conjunction to define the present. As an example, a pencil may be seen on the table at present, but that is only because someone has put it there in the past and possibly, someone will still find it there and use it in the future. In a deeper sense, is may point out to a concept, idea, physical object, movement, position, etc. depending on the context. But all paths will lead us back to the idea of existence, where is deeply grounds.

Furthermore, we must clearly identify too the difference between something and nothing, and their intimate relationship. Something is characterized by its existence, having unique properties that contribute to the totality of its being. Something is present and it can never be doubted or invalidated. Something affirms itself simply by its own presence. In contrast, nothing is the absence of something. We say absence, not opposite. Because if it were to be treated as the opposite, then, it will create two distinct poles where an intermediary point can be determined. But that is simply contradictory since either an object exists or it does not, and nothing can be defined in between. With nothing as absence of something, nothing becomes a part of Something, where it is intimately connected, where it participates for the richness of its greater whole.

The last statement shows that there is no point of arguing the existence of something rather than nothing, because in the first place, nothing belongs to Something. Thus, something always is and it can’t cannot be. This enables us to cut the question into “Why is there something?”, which will be a completely different question that requires another endeavor. As a glimpse into this new journey of questioning, one must be careful of realizing a reasonable starting point: in a strict sense, not ourselves. Nevertheless, this will still remain a question.  


Even if we have pursued the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?”, the answer to this question will still remain as a mystery, as a personal lovingly struggle of finding one’s own purpose of existence in this world, or even beyond.

A Real Analysis of Philosophy

by Wys So

“The Greek language, and it alone, is logos.”

It is one of the statements in Heidegger’s “What is Philosophy?” that has caught my attention. After trying to relate the Greek language (or the Logos) to my life, I’ve found out that I have approached more Greek letters than I imagined. To my surprise, more than half of my life I have been dealing with those Greek letters such as α, β, µ, Ω, £, etc.

Few days ago when I was reviewing for my Advanced Calculus test about real number line, I surprisingly gained some insights about the relatedness of Mathematics and Philosophy. Theoretically, imagine a real number line from negative infinity to positive infinity, this real number line for me is the whole reality itself. From the real number line I choose a subset “S”, this subset can be imagined as a small circle located inside a very, very big circle named “R” which stands for reality. So each and everyone of us has our own “S”, which is our unique life, our daily routine, or the world that we are immersed in subconsciously.
Recalling David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water” lead me to think of a concept in Advanced Calculus called the “boundary point”. David Foster Wallace called our attention to be “aware”, similarly, it’s like telling us to be on the “boundary” of our own “S”. Being on the boundary point and to be aware will help us in realizing that the world is not just about ‘my’s. We are actually living with other people, with many other more subsets on the real number line. In addition, it is also implied by David Foster Wallace that we should go to the “exterior” of our own subset, going “out” of ourselves.

Moreover, Advanced Calculus highly focused on the problems about “existence”. Most of the problems are all about proving. Some of the problems are: Prove that x is an interior point; prove that the limit does not exist; prove that S does not contain its limit point; prove that the union of open sets is open, etc. All of these problems are similar to philosophy in the sense that they are looking for a reason, for an existence, perhaps. In fact, philosophy is about reason, about existence.


And it’s probably why people say that great mathematicians are great philosophers.

Life Is Like A Puzzle

by Frenchi Baluyot

11 July 2013
Discussed Text: Heidegger, "What Is Philosophy?"

Every life for me is like a puzzle, containing a masterpiece, which is ultimately the self. In our constant struggles to piece our lives together, we form this unique masterpiece of ourselves. We paint a picture of our own struggles and experiences as we journey through the roads of self discovery and purpose.

I can say that I am still in that stage where I am struggling to find my place in this whole. I am getting there but I am not quite so there yet. This is ultimately my puzzle; it is far from complete and there are still missing pieces that are yet to be found. I cannot envision the whole picture as it is still unknown, and I am very much aware of this. Life precisely is also a puzzle in this very way, it is puzzling and it is unknown to me. I cannot see and limit life simply into a small frame of truth as I have to be aware that not all of my certainties are fundamentally true. This is one of the things that philosophy teaches me “To know that we do not know” and to live a life open to different possibilities and opportunities.

I guess this struggle, this striving, and awareness of things is exactly what Heidegger leads us to understand- That what it means to live is to strive and yearn for the sophon, the striving to know and discover our places and the whole scheme of things. Life here again is very much like a puzzle in a sense that we, all individually, have a place in this whole. We are the pieces that make this whole complete as we strive to be in unity with everything and all its existence. As he says “all being is in Being”, what fundamentally unites us all together is this act of mutual existence however this is also where our differences truly lie. Just like puzzle pieces, even though they are all connected to one another and necessary to form that whole, each piece is still fundamentally different and unique in this own way.

Ultimately, I find that this metaphor is able to encapsulate what life really is and as life itself is placed in the center of our own puzzles affixed with an arbitrary frame of experiences, possibilities, and opportunities, what is left now between the center and the edges is what remains to be lived and discovered. Ultimately, as we journey through life, we find these puzzle pieces that form our own masterpiece yet also at the same time we see ourselves as the pieces themselves, who form and are part of an even bigger masterpiece.

On Being

by Inah Robles

12 July 2013
Discussed text: Heidegger, "What is Philosophy?"

I have two insights about Heidegger's work - (1) the immensity of Being and (2) its forgetting.
Honestly, I've been having difficulty in understanding the reading because it uses being in many different senses and ways. One thing that makes it difficult to understand is the sheer immensity of Being. It must have been very challenging for Heidegger to write about the topic of Being, knowing that many aspects of Being cannot be encapsulated in human language or even comprehended by human rationality.

My struggle as a reader to understand Heidegger's point could also be a reflection of the struggle of the great Heidegger himself in facing Being. From his very insights, he is able to illustrate how perplexing the phenomenon is, being-in-the-world and being-toward-death.

This leads me to my next insight, about the forgetting of Being. While Heidegger's thoughts are astounding in themselves, it is also striking that I did not reflect about my being-in-the-world until I went through the reading. On one hand, there is a level of simplicity in the concept of the thrown-ness. I cannot deny that there were many things I did not choose - appearance, gender, genetic attributes, economic standing, family, nationality, freedom, and even existence itself. On the other hand, this simple concept has also eluded me. Our merit-based society has come to conceal the thrown-ness or the given-ness of the human person, and sought to explain a great deal of where I am and who I am based on what I have done, instead of what I have been given or how I have been thrown into the world. This is how the forgetting of Being has happened.
With these two things in mind, the immensity and forgetting of Being, I feel that I have developed a deeper and more sophisticated understanding of the human person and the human condition.

Have A Little Faith

by Czarina Reyes

7 July 2013
Discussed Text: Heidegger, "What Is Philosophy?"

There are so many things that I want to do with my life. I have so many plans and dreams that I want to achieve. I want to head another project before this school year ends. I want to accomplish all my responsibilities as part of the executive board of my organization. Of course, I also want to get better grades because all my long-term dreams will not come true if I slack off. Obviously, I have things going on in my life right now and I don’t want to mess them up and jeopardize my future. But the thing is, I don’t know if I’m good enough. I’m so uncertain of myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever be motivated to do everything the best that I can and be confident to face anything that comes my way. I’m so sure that I’m limited and sometimes it gets in the way for me to get better. I know I should make a conscious effort to improve myself because I’ll never go far if I keep thinking I’ll never be good enough.

Maybe, there is a deeper reason why I feel this way. Maybe something in my past made me doubt myself. Maybe it’s because I never got to finish things that I started like all the sports I enrolled in. I never felt I exceled in anything because I never experienced being number one. There are so many reasons to doubt myself but I know deep down, these things shouldn’t define me. I guess, what hinders me most to keep trying and believing in myself is that I’m too afraid to fail, to disappoint the people around me, and most importantly, to disappoint myself.

Then last Tuesday, something happened that gave me hope. That maybe, there’s something in me that is worth the risk. My head in my org told me something that totally came to me unexpected. He said that they were seeing me as a future candidate for one of the top positions and I really wasn’t expecting that. Yes, it is too early to hold on to that hope because the year has just started and there are a lot of things that can still happen. Maybe they won’t see me as someone fit for the job in the succeeding months. But what he said was enough to motivate me, to push myself and continue to be better. The idea makes me want to aspire for more because I actually have a potential. Others recognize it, and it’s time for me to acknowledge it too. I have been given enough opportunities to prove to myself that I am good enough. I guess what I’m trying to say is that all my inhibitions shouldn’t limit me because there’s more to life than failure. It’s true that there’s no guarantee that I’ll succeed, but that shouldn’t stop me from trying.

The future is so unpredictable and there are so many possibilities that can happen. There are personal issues that can limit us to be the best that we can be. But all these uncertainties and restrictions disappear when we start believing. Believe that we have so much to offer and that we are capable of accomplishing wonders in our lives. It’s just a matter of focusing on what is essential, rather than what is not, because eventually, this faith in ourselves will lead us to greater things. The future may still be uncertain but at least, we feel that we are ready to face it because we can.

Musings and Visions

by Alix Apostolicas

9 July 2013
Discussed Text: Martin Heidegger, "What is Philosophy?"

It is sort of difficult for me to focus in general. One mention of another topic and my mind decides to jet off in that direction thinking in depth about one line when the lecture keeps moving forward. In a class like Ph101, one reading can have so many insights that Dr. Garcia always talks about many different topics in one class day, my mind is always going to a various number of places.

In math, there are many ways to solve a problem but there is only the 1 same solution. With philosophy and life, however, there are many paths but many destinations as well. A question that was raised was “Where do you see your life heading?” and this made me drift into a mini day-dream of what my life could have been and where it was heading.

I suddenly had the image of myself like Bree Van De Kamp, from the TV show Desperate Housewives. Could I possibly end up like the top homemaker in television? Always keeping the house prim and proper. Always throwing dinner parties. Always being the supporting wife. I had always thought of myself as the type of gal that would not be happy by simply staying home and taking care of theoretical children and I’ve actually thought I’d die unmarried but yet this was the first thought that popped into my head (perhaps because I had spent the morning before the class cooking breakfast and doing the dishes). I then had a thought that maybe if I had gone to school in Boston, like my original plan, I might have met a highly conservative Republican and we might have gotten married and the whole scenario could have been plausible.

Another image of myself in the future popped up into my brain. I saw myself in corporate attire dragging myself to my multinational corporation job (that I used my BS Management degree to get) each day. I imagined myself to be completely together on the outside and a complete wreck on the inside. I would be completely alone in a lavish apartment and completely unhappy. This was of course due to the influence of me watching an episode of Skins Series 7, where Effy works as a trader of stocks the night before.
Yet another vision of myself was as a happy 26/27 year old working in a TV studio, having a blast with a show I loved working on. I would be a producer of this amazing show that was even more amazing behind the scenes. I would have life long friends from this show that would run for 8-10 seasons. Then I would come home to a fiancé or a long time boyfriend. It’s ridiculous typing it out because I seem like this little girl imagining her wedding but these thoughts really did pop into my head, even though I’m against that kind of wedding planning. This vision was sort of my dream vision and it can only come true if I took certain steps after my time in Ateneo. Actually, that could only happen if I managed to keep on the path that I chose earlier this junior year.

All these musings and “visions” of myself came to me all in a minute. I don’t know why that question impacted me like that but I really do hope I manage to find and stay on a path that would get me to the destination of my choice.

Descendants, Where Are You?

by Hubert Cua (part 3 of 5)

I wrote this article with the intention of criticizing, but not falsifying Martin Heidegger.


For Martin Heidegger, Being is Time. Human beings exist temporally in the stretch between birth and death. Being is time and time is finite, because it comes to an end with our death. The only authentic death is one’s own. To die for another person would simply be to sacrifice one-self.

From what Martin Heidegger says, here are some things that we can analyze. Married to Elfride Heidegger, Martin Heidegger said this during World War 1. Some soldiers usually reason out that they fight and sacrifice for their descendants. Considering that he has children already, he seems to be selfish when he said this.
However, considering that he said this during the time when theocentrism is still prevalent, can we say that he is selfish? He just overshot when breaking through theocentrism. He wanted to direct himself from God to self.

Also, don’t we be in our descendants, like surnames, memories, ancestral possessions, last notes and genes? Even without all of these, except the genes, the fact that our descendants exist itself already connotes that we exist.

The Twist

by Jolo Villanueva

27 November 2012
Discussed text: Levinas, "It is There," Ethics and Infinity


What is being? What does it mean to be? These are the questions we've been tackling since the beginning of the school year. I somehow found myself content with Marcel's, Heidegger's, and Luijpen's takes on being. The essence of being from lived experience itself was appealing to me because it truly tackled what philosophy and rationality were all about: the human and his world;we make sense of the world by relying on direct experience and being IN the world rather than being OF the world.

Levinas, however, put a new twist into this. He argued that it is not enough "to be" in the Heideggerian sense. Affirming our existence through ourselves is not enough. This would merely lead to the generalization of the being of others. He argues that we must take into consideration the "uniqueness of the existence of each existent." An authentic life is a life focused outside oneself and towards the authenticity of others.

In my opinion, Levinas was merely formulating a more authentic and more open version of classic phenomenology. Since this view endorses lived experiences as sources for knowledge and reflection, isn't focusing on others a more open mode of experiencing? Going out of yourself and experiencing other people and their being is truly characteristic of phenomenology. Experiencing openly in relation to one's self is a good foundation in learning and appreciating the environment in a philosophical sense, but approaching others in their authenticity really gives a more authentic sense of being, because being IN the world entails every experience as open to learning and reflection, and realizing that others are also IN the world, rather than OF the world, makes experience richer and more phenomenological in the classical sense.

Being Amidst Infinite Possibilities

by Tara Alberto

20 November 2012
Discussed Text: Levinas, "Heidegger," Ethics and Infinity

One of the things Dr. Garcia discussed in class earlier that especially caught my attention was how Heidegger claimed that we are ‘thrown’ into the world, that our Being-in-the-world is a ‘thrownness’. According to Heidegger, human beings were thrown into this world deprived of any other option or any prior knowledge. In a simple and at the same time fascinatingly intricate way, we are here in this world. We exist.

We are thrown into this world in the midst of our possibilities. Heidegger stresses that these possibilities are not merely in front of us, unlike things that we can decide on; they are not things that we have. It is not a question of having, but instead a question of actually being these very real possibilities.

Heidegger saw the human being as a project – a work-in-progress. We are thrown into the world and in Being-in-the-world, there is an experience of transcending – of going beyond. If we were to go beyond to embrace the capabilities within us and explore the multitude of our possibilities, we may be able to make a difference. That said, isn’t that among the few things truly important in life, making a positive difference?

In desiring to make a difference, we must be firm in our pursuit of the fundamental possibilities. Nowadays, people tend to forget the question of being and thus get involved with or fixated in other things like money, sex, or power, forcing them to be stuck on just the secondary possibilities, failing to be authentic. In failing to be authentic, these beings then become inauthentic, and that is where ‘fallenness’ comes in. ‘Fallenness’ is slipping away and the forgetfulness of being in the present society, in one’s fundamental situation. In order to move from inauthenticity back to authenticity, one needs to climb back up to being, feeling the urgency towards authenticity – to really live according to being as being instead of simply being entrenched in inauthenticity.

The ideas of ‘thrownness’ and the many possibilities of our being in this world reminded me of a particular move that I was required to watch for one of my classes during my sophomore year. The movie is aptly entitled “Life in a Day”. Basically, people from all over the world submitted snippets of a day in their life, hence the title.

The movie, which is an uninterrupted compilation of all the submitted video clips ranging from the typical to the extraordinary, somehow led me to realize how all of us are thrown into this world, into a particular setting or situation, none of which are due to our choosing. Seeing glimpses of how such diverse people live in different parts of the earth despite how little they have or how difficult their condition is was truly inspiring. It goes to show how minute our own problems can be, and that a being can truly be, no matter the external factors, because it is only a matter of transcending your current situation. Making a difference is possible no matter who or where one is thrown into this world.We human beings have an innate potential to be so much more than what we are now. That being is not just static being – it’s a becoming – becoming more of what we have to be. That we are a project, a possibility, a work-in-progress – that our fundamental task is to keep on transcending because we have the possibility of doing such.
As Dr. Garcia said, we must give the best of what we can everyday. “Walang awang pagtiyatiyaga” – the ceaseless desire to be, the ceaseless effort to exist. 

New Perspectives

by Jason Dacuyan

A few days ago, my gastritis had struck again and since the pain was unbearable, I really had to go out and buy medicine from the drugstore. Mercury Drug Katipunan wasn’t far since I live in the Ateneo university dormitory but it was still a challenge for me with my stomach all fiery and painful. So I mustered up my courage and took a “trike” (short for tricycle) going to Mercury Drug. And did I mention how much I dislike trikes? They drive so recklessly fast leaving me kind of nauseated every time I go down. To add to that, the brakes on their motorcycles sound like those annoying sounds one makes when scratching the chalk board. Okay, so I buy my medicine but before I’m able to leave the drugstore, heavy rain fell and just my luck, I forgot to bring an umbrella. After faring the heavy rains for a few minutes, I finally found a trike going home. And it was on this trike ride that David Foster Wallace’s speech entered my mind.

At that moment in time, I was really tired and frustrated not to mention the gas pains that were currently happening in my stomach. “This is Water”, I told myself. As I paid attention to the heavy rains, the cars on the road beside my trike, the people on the sidewalks in umbrellas, and even the trike driver himself —I finally began to understand. I am not the center of the universe. I thought how the cars around me could have more urgent problems than me wanting to go home or how the trike driver might not have had lunch yet or he might also be sick but he’s risking his health to earn money for his family. I thought of the people who have to walk home under the heavy rain—only then that I felt lucky to be riding on a trike. I can control how and what I think, that’s what I realized. And once I was aware that I was aware, everything seemed okay.

The rain didn’t frustrate me anymore. I began to see it merely as rain, not some external factor giving me discomfort. The screeching brakes of the trike didn’t seem to matter anymore. The trike driver must have spent a lot just to have those brakes work properly and maybe he couldn’t do anything about the screeching sound anymore without spending more money. This experience has surprised me in a lot of ways. It has allowed me to see the bigger picture—that I am part of a greater whole. This must be what Simon Critchley meant when he said that philosophers seem to be elsewhere. And I was elsewhere. I was at that moment the same Jason but my mind was on the things around me. The experience was a big surprise and I was amazed at the realization. Although I already knew about these things after reading the articles, it really is different if you experience the realization firsthand.

Because of this experience, I also remembered Heidegger’s article about being in Being. I never really quite understood what it meant but now I think I have gained some understanding. By looking at the bigger picture and being aware of the things around me, I was moved. I was moved by Being. This must be what Heidegger meant about Philein which he described as a kind of harmony that reveals to us what it means to love and be sensitive to the vibration of the other. I think for a moment there, I experienced Philein with the people around me. I thought to myself, “If I’m already bothered and frustrated with all this rain, how much more the trike driver. He’s soaked from the rain.” Also, during my ride home, one car even splashed some water on the trike I was riding as it sped past a rain puddle. Normally, I would’ve been pissed. But because of my awareness, I was able to let it go and remind myself that I am part of a greater whole. I usually don’t bother thinking about these kinds of things at all. But I did think of these things. And because of that, I finally realized what Heidegger said about “being gathered together in Being” meant. Me, the trike driver, the cars, the road, the passersby, the tees—we’re all connected. We’re all expressing our Being, the dynamic act of existence, in a singular way. It means that we are part of something greater. I am part of something greater, something beyond and outside myself.

Everything seemed to connect —from Critchley, to Wallace, to Heidegger, and finally to Ferriols’ insight—seeing what something actually means as it exists. Who knew a mere tricycle ride could help me philosophize, gain some insight about the world and change my perspective. I choose what I think about. I get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. I am part of a greater whole.

A Part Of All That Is

28 June 2012


Discussed Text: Martin Heidegger, "What Is Philosophy?"

Most of the time, Heidegger worked in solitude in the Black Forest, and his dwelling in the forest influenced much of his writing, one of those being the use of a path, way, or road as a metaphor for doing philosophy. In the text, he asks us to tarry, to dwell in order to experience what it means to do philosophy, and hence one should pause, stop, and take time. This is one important point that we can reflect upon in the course of doing philosophy, as it is also a reminder of what we are supposed to do to arrive at an insight which will lead us to a greater appreciation of our own being (vb) as one with Being.

Another point we can reflect on is Heidegger's assertion that experience is always an experience of the whole, or an experience that comes with a sense of the whole. This is what David Foster Wallace means when he says about participating in a greater whole, or what Simon Critchley means when he talks about those who do philosophy as "being elsewhere."

With those two points, let us now meditate (or dwell on) the meaning of Being. To be clear, the word "being" here is not used as a noun (e.g. the table, the book, we human beings, or anything that exists), but as a verb, referring to the dynamic act of existence. The two, however are related, in such a way that all of these individual beings express the theme of Being in unique ways: being a table, being a book, being human.

But it is only in language where one can express Being. Language has the power of expression, that which enables us to communicate and render intelligible our experience, and this can either be immediately expressed (like the way we Filipinos refer to things through onomatopoeic words such as batingaw for the church bell, kuliling for the little bell, or paruparo for butterflies) or understood as metaphors (like the poems of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who expressed his insight on Being not through long philosophical essays but through poems). Heidegger's thought on philosophia points out that words are not merely signs or labels (like the ones we used to indicate where the washroom or parking lot is). Instead, they do present reality in a particular way, and philosophia certainly presents what it means to do philosophy for him.

One can see how Hopkins arrived at his insight on being, through language, in saying that the just man justices, in the same way that we can say the student studies, the teacher teaches, the painter paints, the dancer dances, which are all possible facets of being human. All of these suggest that only in acting out what one is that one becomes such. All of these are ways of expressing Being (which, on the other hand, for Hopkins, as a Jesuit, is acting out Christ in every moment).

The dynamic act of Being is that which binds everything together, with the diversity of acts as the ground for unity. Only when one is fully aware of the fact that we are bound together in the world with everything as beings in Being, then one gains a certain wisdom, an awakening to the fact that Hen Panta, all is one. And insofar as the human being is concerned, it is an awakening to everything that the human being can be, leading one to echo the classical and humanist thinkers, who in their own ways have said: "Nothing human is foreign to me."


Going back to Heidegger and bringing all of these points together, we go back to the path that leads us into philosophy, and that is the path to language, the path that calls us to name the experience, for naming things is to call out and recognize Being (such as a little child calling his playmate taba, in which the being of a person as fat stands out among other characteristics). The name is very important, and, like Adam who took the responsibility to name and consequently recognize other creatures, we are called to recognize other beings and their participation in Being by naming them, and to name is to recognize their existence, and more importantly to care for them. Indeed, language has this certain power to communicate being, given that what has been said manifests eloquentia that comes with much sapientia, or to simply put it, that one ought to speak well as one thinks well.

Meditating on Being and our way of expressing Being arises as a response to the question of Being, a question that is raised not only because we don't know, but more importantly, because the original view of things have been broken. In the same way disappointments in life force us to ask the meaning of things, the experience of not being able to know something brings us to these very essential questions that help us arrive at an insight. The philosopher Albert Camus brought up the question of the meaning of life, and he arrived at an insight: human beings need not exist, for there is no essential reason that they should, but what is important  is that the human being is, and as he/she exists, the question "What should I be?" is constantly raised.

Language, as Heidegger's path, is the key to understanding as that which presents experience, and words draw us to a distinct domain that we might have not gone to before. For Heidegger, the Greek language alone is logos, able to present reality, as that which manifests immediately the experience and meaning that such word would want to refer to.

It should be noted as well that there are moments when things speak on behalf of their own Being, like the way the Marikina valley basking in sunlight telling me (Dr. Garcia) to "become a teacher." Rainier Rilke's poem on Apollo might not immediately show how these things speak their own being, but in the end, he made the message clear: "You must change your life." Perhaps we might also experience these as we walk through Katipunan Avenue, where the sight of the poor children begging in the streets, the massive traffic, or the dilapidated structures, draws us,moves us to tell ourselves that someday, somewhere, we can change the world and make it a better place. This is a response of being moved by Being, and therefore we should be excited with Being, to allow ourselves to be moved by Being by letting Being show itself, reveal itself to us.

And of course, this excitement over Being is a form of second naivete, knowing that one knows and yet recognizing that there is still something mysterious, that there is more that one should know. This recognition allows one to open oneself to Being and anticipate for it, unlike the "sophisticated" people who know nothing else than say "been there, done that" as if nothing new will reveal itself in every event.

Philein, as Heidegger has said, is a kind of harmony, availability, attunement (which means being able to put oneself in an instrument and go with the music). This reveals us what it means to love, to be sensitive to the vibration of the Other. To love what? The Sophon, the Hen Panta, the all expressing the theme of Being in their own singular way, which gathers them together in Being. If you have this sense that a stone, a tree, an elephant, and your fellow human being is a part of you and you are part of this gathering together in Being, then you have this sense, and in one way or another, you are on your way to becoming wise yourself.

This is the ground of our consciousness and care for something that is outside us: the environment, our heritage, our culture, and most importantly, our fellow human being, the other that is in a way that is similar to us and yet different and unique. We are called to such consciousness, but we can only realize and respond through our awareness that we are part of something greater, that which lies beyond and beneath ourselves.

Trudging the Path

26 June 2012


Discussed Text: Martin Heidegger, "What Is Philosophy?"

In reading this text by Martin Heidegger (which is actually a lecture he presented in Cerisy-la-Salle, Normandy in 1955), two important remarks have to be made in order for us to fully understand what Heidegger really wants to point out.

The first is that there is something lost in the English translation of the title ("What is Philosophy?"). The original title of the lecture in German is "Was ist das -- die Philosophie?" Obviously, what is lost in the English translation is the dash, which indicates a pause. This is a pause that indicates one taking time, as well as looking and listening. It is a pause of wonder, a pause to look at the experience of doing philosophy and asking the question itself. It somehow points to the fact that it would be more fitting to experience doing philosophy first rather than defining it.

It is interesting to note how we Filipinos use the word karanasan to point to experience. The Sanskrit word rasa can be derived from karanasan, which is equivalent to our very own lasa, meaning "to taste." To experience precisely is to taste, to get out of myself in order to take something in and let yourself be moved by it (Heidegger will later on talk about that which moves us). To experience, to taste is also to suffer in something, to take one's time doing or thinking about something. It is not merely fleeting from one thing to another, but to actually set one's own sights on something, for what presents itself, what happens before us, is something that won't happen again. Experience is sufferance.

The second is that Heidegger verbally stressed "ist" in "Was ist das," which indicates his emphasis on the dynamic act of Being (here, we talk about the verb). Heidegger is known as the philosopher who meditated, thought about Being, and as such, his question on Being is geared towards the dynamic act of each and every being (now, the noun), the becoming of each being. When we ask, for example, "What is a table?," we normally think of it as a question answered by "what" actually a table is; however, this question can also be a question of existence, precisely what does it mean to be such, i.e. "what does it mean for the table to be 'table-ing"'? Heidegger, as one who thinks of being, certainly asks this question in the second way, focusing on the dynamic act of being, in the same way that we ask how students exist as studying persons and teachers as teaching persons who, in their own ways, are becoming.

With these two remarks, we can then begin to look not at the answer of Heidegger, but the way he confronted and dealt with the question.

Heidegger recognizes that the question "what is philosophy?" can be answered in so many ways through so many methods. Given that wide range, Heidegger deems it necessary to limit his inquiry and define a direction which can lead us to an answer as to what philosophy is. The question has to be put in focus, and the answer should not be a "saturation bombing," but something that remains within the limits and directions set. After all, the word direction is very much related to sense, which brings us to the question of meaning: where are we going exactly with the things that we have said and are about to say?

The discussion therefore should be brought into a path (not the path, for this path is only one among others). The path (in Greek, hodos) that we are about to take not only points to the direction that we are going, but also somehow gives us a clue of what lies beyond (in Greek, meta hodos, from which the word method is derived). This path, then, with a given direction and goal, assures us that we are "fence ourselves," work within philosophy and philosophical thinking. Perhaps the image of philosophizing as a path and as a search for answers (as well as questions) can be seen in Heidegger, as he is known to philosophize while walking in the Black Forest in Freiburg, which involves following a trail, retracing his steps once he reaches a dead end, until he finds a clearing where light comes in. Perhaps this is the very method that he wants us to take, to at least trudge a path until we arrive at a clearing, where we gain insight about, in this case, philosophy and what it means to do philosophy.

Another thing to note is that Heidegger's inquiry on philosophy does not place us outside or around philosophy in order to define and answer it. Rather, the path that the question takes is into philosophy itself. It might appear that the question puts us outside of philosophy, but in act, it is asked in such a way that we are already inside, with the demand to dwell within it, to take our time, to pause, and to experience doing philosophy. In fact, in dealing with (or dwelling in) this question, Heidegger actually does philosophy already, which is, for him, the only way of arriving at the answer to his inquiry.

But does this path to discovering what philosophy is lead us to that which concerns us, affects us, and touches us, and therefore is a matter of affection, emotions, and sentiments? Heidegger agrees that it is that which concerns our very becoming as human persons, but he disagrees that it is not about sentiments, for too much sentimentality hinders us from thinking well. In fact, it is not about creating the divide between what can be counted as rational or irrational, of what is intellectual and sentimental, a matter of merely accepting one and rejecting the other. To ask about what is rational and what is irrational would lead us to a circular discussion and lead us nowhere. Instead, Heidegger wants to emphasize that philosophy concerns something that essentially moves us (be-ruhren, a metaphysical stirring) integrally, as whole human persons. It is neither witty nor "emo," but it is something that genuinely draws our very being to something else beyond us.

Given all of these, what, then, is the path that we are about to take? For Heidegger, it is the path of language, through which the experience of something is articulated, and certainly, the word philosophy is a word that points to an experience of it. Therefore, we have to go back to how philosophy has been spoken when it was conceived, specifically the Greek philosophia (in the original manuscript, he writes philosophia in its original Greek), and this is the path that we are traveling into. Through this, we will be able to uncover the words and determine what it originally means. It is important to go back to philosophia because its very foreign nature (as a set of Greek characters) disorients us and allows us to look at it like we have never known it before, to once again set out to explore what it actually means.


However, Heidegger goes back to language not to do a simple etymology of it in order to define what philosophy is. In fact, he does not define philosophy like a dictionary entry or a science. Rather, what he intends to do is to invite us to experience what it actually means to do philosophy by actually going back to the experience that brought forth such word which has changed and given various meanings across time. It is an inquiry of the nature of philosophy in order to remove the question and recover its fundamental relationship with human beings who are in the midst of doing philosophy or those who are about to do so. Because the Greek language is logos, through which the things we encounter and experience make sense and are spoken of (obviously, we see Heidegger's Eurocentrism here), he finds it worthwhile to trace the roots of philosophy in philosophia.


Philosophia brings us back to the word philosophos, a term which the thinker Heraclitus coined. Certainly, this Pre-Socratic thinker does not have philosophia in mind. For him, the Greek adjective philosophos (the man who is philosophos is called an aner philosophos) is far from being philosophical, but it brings us into an insight that could perhaps tell us something about philosophia.

Philosophos can be expanded to the phrase hos philein to sophon, which means "to love the sophon." Philein, in the Heraclitean sense, is homolegein, to speak in the way the Logos speaks, to have a correspondence (or, as the older generations would say, ka-vibes) with the Logos. On the other hand, Sophon refers to Hen Panta (from which the English word pantheon is derived), which means One is all, signifies everything united into one through the dynamic act of Being.

Thus, the aner philosophos, and eventually the philosopher (or the one who does philosophy) is one who finds himself/hersef to be aware of the one that is all, knowing that he is a part of all that is, and is in an affinity with everything, knowing that he/she is united with everything by virtue of the fact that, like them, he/she fundamentally is.

Hos philein to sophon.