Filipino_Philosophy_Past_and_Present_201.pdf

[Slightly revised (2014) paper published in Kaisipan  1 (1): 2013 [Opisyal Dyornal ng Isabuhay, Saliksikin, Ibigin ang Pilosopia (ISIP), a philosophical association based in Bulacan State University, Malolos, Bulacan.]

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FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY: PAST AND PRESENT Rolando M. Gripaldo, Ph.D.

Contrary to what skeptics believed, there is Filipino philosophy in the Western traditional sense that should be distinguished from ethnophilosophy or cultural philosophy. This  paper tries to elucidate this philosophical development by identifying the Western model of  philosophizing, by clarifying the meaning of “Filipino philosophy,” by giving examples from f rom the history of Filipino philosophers, and by mentioning the significance and prospects of Filipino  philosophizing.

INTRODUCTION

One of the major activities of the analytic philosophical tradition is the clarification of the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences. I presume from the title of my paper—“Filipino philosophy: Past and present”— that we understand what are meant by the words “past” and “present.” So I will proceed with the phrase “Filipino philosophy” and attempt to clarify its meaning, for it will be useless for us to go on talking about the historical development of Filipino philosophy unless we are clear as to its meaning. There are two terms terms here to analyze: “Filipino” and “philosophy.” “philosophy.” And there are many questions to ask: (1) What or who is a Filipino? (2) What is the meaning of “philosophy”? (3) How can we determine whether a particular kind of thinking is philosophical or not? (4) How do we know whether a particular kind of philosophy is Filipino or not? And (5) Is it necessary for one to be seriously—and even perhaps professionally—called a philosopher to have a degree in philosophy? These are questions we must answer in passing as we go along with our discussions (see Gripaldo 2009a, 1-9; 2012a, 59-65). GREEK PHILOSOPHY AS MODEL

The ancient Greeks did not have a constitution that defines who a Greek is, but they were able to identify themselves, by the time of Thales [620-546 BC], the first Greek philosopher, as Greeks living in 2 various city-states and regions. The Greeks  came, of course, from various tribes and, according to one version, 3 after the Trojan War these tribes formed the Great Amphictyonic League composed of twelve tribes. When Thales of Miletus, an Ionian philosopher, began philosophizing and spread his philosophical thoughts, historians of philosophy marked him as the father of philosophy. Although it was said that he went to Egypt and gained the perspective of logos  rather than of mythos, he did not have a formal training in philosophy. He did not have a degree in philosophy, so to speak. He simply asked a primordial question out of wonder: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” For him the fundamental substance of the universe is water. In other words, in reply to our fifth question above (5), it is not necessary to have a degree in philosophy—like Jose Rizal—to be a philosopher but one must be able to show coherence and consistency in 4 his writings or teachings about his philosophical ideas. Thales became the first teacher of philosophy and he had students, one among which was Anaximander, who in turn had a famous student by the name of Anaximenes. Later philosophizing spread to the other regions of Greece until it developed into a golden age in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. After Aristotle, we have the Greek and Roman stoics, hedonists, eclectics, and neoplatonists (see the Sahakians 1970, 581-83). The �

important thing here is that the body of philosophical literature produced by Greek individual thinkers was subsequently called “Greek philosophy.” The term philosophy was coined by Pythagoras, an Ionian mathematician-philosopher of Samos, from two Greek words  philia (love) and sophia (wisdom). It was said that the wisdom of man is derivative from the wisdom of God since God is the only truly wise, or is Wisdom Himself. Man can only be a lover or friend of wisdom (see Chroust 1964). In this regard, in answer to our second question above (2), philosophy generally is a body of principles that contains seeds of wisdom or ideas of great significance. A philosophical question is one wherein we go beyond what is empirically given in experience to seek for the connecting link to all or most of these data of experience. So we ask questions as to the nature, purpose, or moral justification of the what is. We ask questions for the authenticity of what appears—since it can be illusory—as in searching for the authentic life, authentic knowledge, authentic beauty, and so on. In answer to our third question above (3), the answers to these types of questions are what constitute philosophical thinking. Why is the Greek philosophical model important? It is important because if we want to seek a genuine or an authentic Filipino philosophy, then we must have a body of philosophical literature that is produced by Filipino individual thinkers. This is the same sense in which we call a body of philosophical literature as British philosophy, German philosophy, French philosophy, or American philosophy. We enumerate, together with their respective philosophies, individual British, German, French, or American thinkers. FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY

There are at present three different views about “Filipino philosophy.” Any taxonomy on this topic— Feorillo Demeterio III (2012a), for example, has a taxonomy of sixteen different meanings of “Filipino philosophy”—can always be reduced to these three categories. The first is the traditional or the authentic philosophical approach; the second is the cultural approach; and the third is the nationality or constitutional approach. Traditional/Philosophical Approach

The traditional approach is the genuine philosophical approach. It answers the question, “What is your own philosophy?” It is the truly  philosophical  approach as traditionally  used by historians of philosophy. It follows the Greek philosophical model. It enumerates Filipino individual philosophers and discusses their respective philosophical ideas. I have so far written two books— Filipino philosophy: Traditional approach, Part I, Sections 1 & 2 (2009c and 2009d) on this type of approach. In these books I discussed the philosophical ideas of Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Jacinto, Manuel Quezon, Jose Laurel, Renato Constantino, R. Esquivel Embuscado, Cirilo Bautista, Claro Ceniza, and Rolando Gripaldo. No doubt, this list is not complete and certainly the discussions of the philosophical views of these philosophers are not exhaustive. A complete history of Filipino philosophy has yet to be written. Cultural Approach

The second approach is the cultural one. It answers the question, “What is the people’s philosophical perspective?” or “What are the philosophical views of the people based on their socio-linguistic, cultural, and folk concepts or the like?” Originally, I called this the anthropological approach (1996, 3) because Leonardo Mercado (1976), the author of the book  Elements of Filipino philosophy, is an anthropologist. Florentino Timbreza (1982), who wrote Pilosopiyang Pilipino, also followed the anthropological approach (see Mancenido 2010, 80-94). But when I attended in Tehran in 1999 the World Congress on Mulla Sadra—a philosophical conference on an Iranian philosopher—I met Dr. George F. McLean, the editor of various books published by 5 the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.  In 2000 I requested him to write the foreword of the first edition of my book, Filipino philosophy: Traditional approach, Part I, Section 1 (2000a). He suggested that I �

use “cultural” instead of “anthropological,” since any social science approach to Filipino philosophy—be it 6 anthropological, psychological, sociological, and so on—is basically, broadly speaking, cultural in nature. To distinguish the genuine philosopher in the Greek traditional model of an individual who does his own original philosophizing on various philosophical themes from the cultural model of hermeneutic philosophizing—that is an individual who extracts interpretatively the myriad philosophical underpinnings, presuppositions, implications, or nuances of Filipino languages and dialects, myths, folk songs, riddles, folk 7 sayings, and the like—I now broadly use the term “ethnophilosopher.”   The product of an individual who philosophizes is a  personal  philosophy, while the product of an individual who extracts philosophical ideas from the languages and folk literature of a group of people is an ethnophilosophy (see the comments of Hallen 2010, 73-85). This distinction is very significant in the Philippine setting as the cultural or ethnophilosophical approach seems to undermine the authenticity of the genuine Filipino philosopher. So far, I have distinguished the philosopher from the historian of philosophy and the ethnophilosopher. The first is the authentic thinker in the sense that he creates his own philosophy which is distinguishable from the ideas of other philosophers, although this may not be purely original. The latter two extract the philosophical ideas either from the writings or lectures of philosophers (and present these historically) or from the cultural oral or written literature of an ethnic group (tribal or national). We should also distinguish the ethnophilosopher from the philosopher of culture. The former extracts the embedded philosophical underpinnings of a people’s languages, folk literature, folk reasoning, and so on, while the latter reflects upon the merits and demerits of one’s culture, how culture can be meaningful, what essence there is—if any—of culture, the ethical dimensions of culture, and the like. An ethnophilosopher can be a philosopher of culture and vice versa, but the two activities are quite distinct. Moreover, there are ethnophilosophers who simply remain as ethnophilosophers by resisting any meaningful philosophical change of one’s culture (see Gripaldo (2012a, 59-65). 8

Nationality/Constitutional Approach

The third approach I call the nationality or constitutional approach. It answers the question, “How do we classify a Filipino work on a Western or Eastern subject from the point of view of bibliography writing?” When I was gathering the philosophical materials of a research on a bibliography on Filipino philosophy (1996, 2000b, 2004) I simply gathered all writings by Filipinos on any philosophical topic, including ethnophilosophical topics, together with the writings of foreigners on Filipino thinkers like Rizal and Constantino. But when I began classifying the works into several philosophical categories—like ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, and so on—I was faced with the problem as to what to include as Filipino philosophy. A more accurate classificatory criterion was needed. What is Filipino philosophy from the perspective of bibliographic writing? What is a Filipino in the first place and who are the Filipinos? Should I consider a work on Bertrand Russell’s idea of neutral monism—written by a Filipino—a work on British philosophy or is it a work on Filipino philosophy? Most of the writings I have gathered are of this nature—a Filipino work on Heidegger’s Dasein, on Sartre’s existentialism, on Foucault’s genealogy, on Plato’s republic, and so on. These are works of Filipino philosophy scholars (see Gripaldo 2009b). What is the standard criterion for classifying philosophical works? So you see how great my predicament was. If I discard all Filipino writings on foreign philosophers and philosophies, then my research work will be reduced into a few pages as there are only very few writings done on both (i) ethnic and indigenous philosophical ideas and (ii) on original or derivative but distinctive philosophical works by Filipinos themselves. This is something I was not prepared to do. The normal or standard procedure is to classify Filipino works on foreign philosophies in terms of substance or content with the nationality of the author simply taken for granted. So a Filipino work on Heidegger’s concept of Being is a work on German philosophy; a Filipino work on Sartre’s concept of nothingness is a work on French philosophy; and so on. The standard central focus of analysis, in this case, is the substance or subject matter regardless of the nationality of the author. A deconstruction is necessary. We shift the central focus—or the criterion of classification—to the nationality of the writer himself or herself �

regardless of the subject matter. The basis of this deconstruction is the fact that when we say that Heidegger’s concept of Being is German philosophy, it is not the “concept of Being” that is German, but rather it is the bearer of the idea—Heidegger himself—who is German. So when we deconstruct, we place the nationality of the author at the center and place the subject matter at the periphery. There is another important reason for the shifting of the center to the nationality of the author in that when a Filipino, for example, writes about Heidegger’s concept of Being, the product is interpretative—even in basic expository writing on a philosopher’s ideas, which, it has been claimed, has no so-called “Filipinoness”—but this hermeneutic insight, no matter how slight, is essentially his or her own interpretation. When we apply this new deconstructive perspective, a Filipino work on Heidegger’s concept of Being is necessarily a work on Filipino philosophy in terms of the nationality of authorship and the hermeneutics that goes with the writing of the work. This analysis enables me to justify the inclusion of Filipino works on foreign philosophies—Western, Indian, Chinese, etc.—in my Filipino philosophy bibliography. And this is our answer to the fourth (4) question above. But deconstruction works both ways in so far as my Filipino bibliography is concerned. Deconstruction can also mean a decentering, which suggests that there is no permanent center or periphery depending on the situational need or context. I have collected some works by foreign authors on Rizal’s or Bonifacio’s ideas, for example. What should I do with these if not to revert to the original center—the subject matter—regardless of the nationality of the author? So Eugene Hessel’s (1983) book, The religious thought of Jose Rizal, is likewise included in the bibliography. In contemporary times, the author’s nationality is defined in the country’s constitution. In answer to our first question above (1), a Filipino generally comes from the Malayan race, and he is a Filipino as stipulated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution (Art. IV, Secs. 1-5). It is for this reason that sometimes I call the nationality approach as also the constitutional approach to Filipino philosophy. DEMETERIO’S TAXONOMY

Feorillo Demeterio III enumerates sixteen supposedly different but related meanings of the term “Filipino philosophy.” According to him (2013), this term is used to refer to: 1) the grassroots or folk philosophies of Filipinos; 2) the lectures of some Filipino academicians on Scholasticism and Thomism; 3) the lectures of some Filipino academicians on other foreign philosophical systems; 4) critical philosophy as practiced by some intellectuals outside the group of Filipino academicians in philosophy; 5) the practice of logical analysis; 6) the practice of existential, phenomenological, and hermeneutical reflection; 7) critical philosophy as practiced by some Filipino academicians in philosophy; 8) the appropriation of foreign philosophical theories; 9) the appropriation of folk philosophies; 10) philosophizing with the use of the Filipino language; 11) the textualized/written exposition of foreign philosophical systems; 12) breakthrough/revisionist writings or researches that make original contributions by going beyond the thoughts of certain established foreign philosophers; 13) the interpretation of Filipino identity and worldview; 14) researches on local cultural values and ethics; 15) Identification of presuppositions and implications of Filipino worldviews; and 16) the study on Filipino philosophical luminaries.

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The first three are unwritten or oral (“untextualized”) philosophy, the fourth is written (“textualized”) but outside of the academe, while the last twelve are written (“textualized”) within the academe. Since Demeterio (2014) writes about the contributions of some professional philosophers of the Philosophy Department of De La Salle University to Filipino philosophy, we do not need to follow his exclusions (like 1-4) from the list as less promising in developing “Filipino philosophy.” Let us analyze the 16 uses or meanings of Filipino philosophy from the point of view of my three approaches while indicating some possible overlaps through the use of brackets. Let us classify them at face value. •

Traditional/Philosophical Approach o 5) the practice of logical analysis; o 6) the practice of phenomenological and hermeneutical reflection; o 7) critical philosophy as practiced by some Filipino academicians in philosophy; o 12) breakthrough/revisionist writings or researches that make original contributions by going beyond the thoughts of certain established foreign philosophers; and o 16) the study on Filipino philosophical luminaries. Possible overlaps: o [8] the appropriation of foreign philosophical theories; o [9] the appropriation of folk philosophies. 9 o [10] Philosophizing with the use of the Filipino language.

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Cultural/National Approach o 1) the grassroots or folk philosophies of Filipinos; o 9) the appropriation of folk philosophies; o 13) the interpretation of Filipino identity and worldview; o 14) researches on local cultural values and ethics; and o 15) identification of presuppositions and implications of Filipino worldviews. Possible overlap: o [10] Philosophizing with the use of the Filipino language.

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Nationality/Constitutional Approach o 2) the lectures of some Filipino academicians on Scholasticism and Thomism; o 3) the lectures of some Filipino academicians on other foreign philosophical systems; o 4) critical philosophy as practiced by some intellectuals outside the group of Filipino academicians in philosophy; o 8) the appropriation of foreign philosophical theories; o 11) the textualized/written exposition of foreign philosophical systems. Possible overlap: o [10] Philosophizing with the use of the Filipino language.

This is a very rough and approximate classification. It is possible to have many actual overlaps or a misclassification. For example, A Filipino may appropriate Nietzsche (8) such that one becomes a Nietzschean through and through (nationality approach), but one can likewise appropriate Nietzsche by improvising and �

becomes a Neo-Nietzschean, thereby elevating him or her to the traditional approach. Anyway, the point here is that any taxonomy of this kind can be reduced to the three Filipino philosophy approaches. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF FILIPINO PHILOSOPHY Tribal/National Folk Philosophy

In his  Elements of Filipino philosophy , Mercado (1976) extracts the philosophical underpinnings found in three Filipino major languages: Tagalog, Bisayan, and Ilokano while in his Pilosopiyang Pilipino, Timbreza (1982) extracts the philosophical presuppositions of various Filipino folk sayings, folk mythologies, folk songs, riddles, and the like. I have also edited a collection of philosophical perspectives on Filipino cultural traits (2005). As a whole, I classify these as sources of Filipino ethnophilosophy. More sources, I think, can be found if one examines the multivolume work of Blair and Robertson (1973), The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 . Filipino Enlightenment Period

This section is a summary of a summary. The fullest version of the exposition is found in my two books, Filipino philosophy: Traditional approach, Part I, Sections 1-2 (2009d and 2009e) while a summarized version is expressed in my article, “Filipino philosophy: A Western tradition in an Eastern setting” (2009c) and in my review of Emerita Quito’s The state of philosophy in the Philippines (1988).  Introduction

Undoubtedly, Filipino languages, folk literatures, values, and cultural traits antedate the period of Filipino Enlightenment which occurred during the Propaganda Period and the Philippine Revolution of 1896. The first volume of my work, Filipino philosophy: Traditional approach, began with the discussion of Rizal’s philosophical ideas and ends with the analysis of Constantino’s philosophical views on nationalism. Many political luminaries do have philosophical views as expressed in their works like Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Emilio Aguinaldo, Apolinario Mabini, and Claro M. Recto, among others, but at that time I did not have sufficient time to do an extensive research on them. I will encourage others to do the research themselves. The point here is that the existing materials from Blair and Robertson and from the extensive reform and revolutionary materials have not been examined closely and critically by many Filipino philosophy scholars themselves. When I did a selective examination, especially of the latter materials, I found out that many of what have hitherto been considered as only of historical and political value are in themselves of philosophical value as well.  Enlightenment Period 10

For example, did anyone ever realize that Rizal’s extensive knowledge of Voltaire, who was an Enlightenment thinker, made Rizal a follower of Enlightenment ideas, such as the supremacy of reason, the deistic religion, the value of education, the inevitability of progress, and the like? The eighteenth-century Enlightenment in France travelled to Spain in the first half of the nineteenth-century and reached the Philippine shores in the second half of that century. It eventually led to the Philippine Revolution. An important contribution of Emilio Jacinto on the Revolution was his idea of Liberty telling the Filipino youth that the only remedy to the Philippine situation of oppression and exploitation is the expulsion of Slavery through violent means. Bonifacio argued that there was relative freedom and economic development prior to the coming of Spaniards but currently there was only relative economic exploitation and oppression.

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 American and Japanese Occupations

The most notable political luminaries during these periods were Manuel L. Quezon, who was the Senate President and later the President of the Philippine Commonwealth, and Jose P. Laurel, who was the President of the Japanese-sponsored Philippine Republic. Because of limited time and dwindling resources at the time, I decided to focus my research on them. The ideas of Sergio Osmeña Sr., Jorge Vargas, and Claro M. Recto, among others, are worth looking into. Quezon was a political pragmatist who followed a practical political strategy which says that one should aim for his ideals, but if obstacles to these are insurmountable, he must have an alternative that is better than nothing. It must be obtainable and acceptable to him or to the people he represents and must be in the right direction toward the ideal. His political philosophy while Commonwealth President was Darwinian republicanism. He believes in Social Darwinism, that governments are products of the struggle for survival and must be nurtured and protected in order to extend the duration of their survival. Political parties are necessary only when they have distinct programs of government, but he opposed them if their platforms are not different from the party in power but whose existence is grounded on merely criticizing the government in order to grab power. A  partyless democracy  (Quezon 1952) may be necessary when political parties do not have distinctive political programs. Laurel, on the other hand, was a compassionate Japanese collaborator. He was a double-agent—an agent for the Japanese administration and an agent for the Filipino people. He believed that each one has a task to perform. Some will have to go to the mountains, which he originally wanted to do, but since Quezon assigned him to deal with the Japanese because of his prewar Japanese connections—as a lawyer he represented Japanese economic interests in Mindanao—he came to the conclusion that his task was to cushion the oppressive impact of Japanese exploitation of the Filipino people. He was able to save some Filipino guerillas and others suspected to be against the government from capture or certain death. He provided community kitchens in Manila to help alleviate hunger among the populace. He believed that there should be a balance between the people’s liberty and the government prerogative. If there is too much liberty, anarchy emerges while if there is too much prerogative tyranny ensues. This balance can be achieved through education and discipline of both the citizenry and those running the government.  Immediate Post-Independence Period

Among the philosophical thinkers of the early post-independence period is Renato Constantino who is both a political philosopher and a philosopher of culture. He is a nationalist who argues that the only genuine or authentic Filipinos are the nationalists, and in this regard the Filipinos are a minority in the Philippines. Moreover, the majority of the inhabitants of the archipelago are miseducated in that they prefer what is foreign for what is local in almost anything. Filipino colonial experience has generated a captive consciousness that is tailored to the needs of the colonizers. It has developed a colonial consciousness with an indiscriminating attitude to favor foreign products. This led to a consciousness of inferiority and a crab consciousness, or the tendency for those down below to pull down those on top and those on top to push down those below. The net effect of this tendency is a very slow progress for all of them. A nationalist consciousness is needed to counter this captive consciousness. Its economic expression is industrialization; its political expression is an independent foreign policy dictated by its own national interests, not dictated by foreign interests; and its cultural expression is the development of a culture rooted in Filipino heritage.

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 Emergence and Dwindling of Philosophy Departments

No doubt, prior to independence, some philosophy subjects were taught in Philippine schools like the University of Santo Tomas, but the emergence of departments of philosophy came later. Early on, many sectarian schools, like San Beda College, and nonsectarian private schools, like the University of the East, had philosophy departments. It is during this period that many philosophy subjects from the West and the East were introduced. When the economic survival and political stability of the schools became the dominant consideration for course offerings, the number of philosophy departments slowly dwindled (see Gripaldo 1988; 1996, 13).  Later Post-Independence Philosophical Scenario

During this period, the existing philosophy departments produced many graduates of philosophy, some of whom went to law school, business, banking, and so on. A few became professional philosophers or teachers of philosophy. They trained for higher degrees and many finished the PhDs. In the process they also published some philosophy articles here and there, for there was no philosophy journal but only multidisciplinary journals like  Diwa, Philippine Studies, Philippiniana Sacra, Budhi, and Philippine Social Sciences and Humanities  Research, among others. Only much later that there emerge some philosophy journals such as the Phavisminda  Journal, Kinaadman, Σοφια  (Sophia)  which later was succeeded by Φιλοσοφια  (Philosophia): International  Journal of Philosophy, and the early Karunungan. Among the philosophy writers during this period, I singled out four who have written books which can be considered innovative in philosophical ideas. They are R. Esquivel Embuscado, Cirilo Bautista, Claro R. Ceniza, and Rolando M. Gripaldo. Embuscado is a painter-philosopher; Bautista, a poet-philosopher; Ceniza, a metaphysician; and Gripaldo, a circumstantialist.  R. Esquivel Embuscado. Embuscado (1975) is a dissectionist and his book is entitled The aesthetic[s] of dissectionism: A general theory and practice. Reality is not to be captured statically as when a photographer freezes a split of a second of reality in a still picture or when a painter captures realistically in a canvass a chunk of reality in frozen time. Reality is dynamic—in perpetual motion—since time does not stand still. It is this dynamic essence of reality that must be captured. The authentic painter must intuit reality in its dynamic movement, depict it in a canvass, and project it to the future because reality is a movement in space-time. Genuine art is not simply a continuation of past experience to the present; it must cut its umbilical cord from that past and project the present to the open future. True art must no longer be past-present oriented but presentfuture oriented. Dissectionism consists of lines that crisscross the canvass from all directions in beautiful movement. Its contents are the depressive social scenarios experienced at present: old age, war and intrigues, outcasts, monotonous life, and the like. The authentic artist intuits these social contents from the unifold of undifferentiated reality and creatively express them in multifarious dissectional ways through swirling motions into the open future. Dissectionism is a rebellion against artistic permanency—against stagnation and imitation (as in realism), mutilation of reality (as in cubism), fantasy (as in surrealism), uncreativity (as in repetitive commercial arts, and so on. Dissectionism is artistic futurism. Cirilo Bautista. Bautista (1998) writes in Words and battlefields: A theoria on the poem about the birth, nature, travails, and death of a poem. He believes that every particular poem has an ideal poem looming large in the consciousness of the poet. He calls it the Rubber Tower—which suggests being soft, bouncy, and pliant— that can be transformed into any particular poem. The Bible (John 1:1, 14) says that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was made flesh. Bautista sees the Rubber Tower as an organic flesh and the particular poem is the “flesh made Word.” Since the Rubber Tower is nourished by the people’s historical experience, then the particular poem is necessarily culture-bound. �

Part of the historical experiences of the poem is its transition from originally being an aural creation— made for the ears—to its visual transformation—made for the eyes—through the invention of writing. The printing press mummified the poem in a piece of paper: it becomes a “word painting” or a “piece of sculpture.” When St. Ambrose started in the Middle Ages the institution of silent reading, the ears were completely banished from participating in understanding the poem. Occasionally—to reclaim the ears’ prerogative to the poem—oral reading is performed to wide audiences. It is interesting to note that the poem has four layers of mask. That is why it can depict reality truly or disguisedly. It can be warlike, liberator, propagandistic, ethical, religious, political, historical, etc. The first layer is its lifeblood—the Verb—that prepares the poem’s intellectual direction. The second layer—the Adjective—webs the poem’s magical powers by providing us with multicolored cinematographic landscapes with sunrises and sunsets and with soothing or marching music. The Adverb is the “Adjective with legs” that keeps the sunset and sunrise in motion and always in the march—in the forefront of the poem’s search for meaning. The last layer—the Noun—is the “fulcrum of the poem’s turning.” It is carried on its back by the Verb and the Adjective, and it makes the poem a history or history a poem. The poem dies when (a) it is an expression of immaturity of the poet’s imagination or (b) when it is a bad poem which cannot compare in quality with other poetic texts—inarticulate or poor in tactical preparation. Claro R. Ceniza. Ceniza tries to reconcile Parmenides’ belief that change or motion is illusory from Heraclitus’ belief that change is real. Ceniza (2001) says in the book Thought, necessity, and existence:  Metaphysics and epistemology for lay philosophers that Parmenides argues only the One—the Totality—is real, while contingent objects are unreal or illusory because they involve contradictions. The unreality of contingent objects is derived from Parmenides’ two postulates. The  positive postulate says that what is rational is real and what is real is rational (what can be thought exists and what exists can be thought). The negative corollary postulate, however, says that what is not rational is unreal and what is unreal is not rational (what cannot be thought does not exist and what does not exist cannot be thought). When applied to contingent phenomena, the postulates involve a contradiction. For example, it is a contradiction for me to have a million dollars in a bank and not to have them in the same bank at the same time. It appears in a contradiction that it is not possible to have and not to have a million dollars in the same bank. For not being possible, or not being rational, the million dollars do not exist. This nonexistence does not mean the million dollars are completely obliterated, because we experience contingent objects like tables and chairs. How is it possible that conceptually contingent objects as contradictories do not exist but experientially they do? “To exist” is “to stand out.” Contingent entities do not stand out: they subsist. Ceniza provides several examples. Red and green result in yellow. Yellow is the color that exists in an object but even if the colors red and green do not stand out, they are there in the object subsisting. The rainbow colors subsist in white, which is the plenum or neutral state, as all positive and negative numbers subsist in zero. The other meaning of “to exist” is “to be caused” or “to make a difference” in the sense of affecting something or the surroundings. The Parmenidean Being, the One, is the only existent; all contingent entities subsist in it. From the point of view of the Parmenidean Being—the Great Plenum—contingent objects do not exist or stand out. From the point of view of finite beings or persons, however, they stand out from the Plenum through experience—that is, either phenomenologically (first person) or empirically (third person). From the perspective of finite beings, subsistence  is arrived at conceptually  while existence is experiential: it is arrived at phenomenologically or empirically. There are many things that Ceniza discusses in his book, but I think his reconciliation of the views of Parmenides and Heraclitus will serve as a good introduction.  Rolando M. Gripaldo. In his book Circumstantialism: An essay on situational determinism (2011), Gripaldo tries to analyze the concept of choice and asks the question, “In what sense is choice free?” In relation to the choosing situation, he identifies two senses of the word “circumstance.” The first sense is a situation totalized . Here the person feels coerced and had no choice: “Under the circumstance, I have no choice but to �

leave you.” The second sense merely means a situational condition  and in this situation, the choosing agent feels free to choose A or B or C: “Under the circumstances, I will choose A.” Gripaldo also identifies two broad types of choosing situations: the rational and the nonrational. Rational choices always involve deliberation and decision while nonrational choices are without deliberation such as mistaken choices, habitual choices, unconscious choices, tossing a coin, picking a card from a deck of cards, flippant choices, and choices done on simple preference. Since situational conditions are the determinants of choice, Gripaldo enumerates four sources. Source1 is the person’s present external environment where alternatives are found. In case of abstract choices, like going to Athens or not going to Athens, the spatiotemporal environment is still necessary because the chooser is always located in space-time. Source2 is the person’s past with memory as the repository. This includes habits, attitudes, and capacities. Source3 is the person’s future which projectively situates the choice in terms of consequences, or its advantages or disadvantages in the future. The last is source4 which refers to the person’s present physical and mental condition. All these sources through the determinant situational conditions help the person in discerning the best choice under the circumstances. Free choice is voluntary choice, that is, the person makes the choice without someone or an authority forcing him or her to choose a particular option that he or she may not necessarily want. Gripaldo explains how human freedom and situational determinism can be compatible in a choosing situation. The voluntary freedom one feels when confronting the alternatives (stage 1) is carried over to the stage (stage 2) where one makes a deliberation and a decision. When the chooser discerns the best choice during the second stage, the other alternatives are simply blotted out. The four sources in the situation determine the best choice which the chooser has discerned or has ascertained in the process of deliberation. In this regard, the chooser could not have chosen otherwise. Some or all of the situational conditions the chooser may avow as his or her reasons for selecting the choice. And when the chooser in stage 3 acts out the choice—by buying, eating, taking, etc., the choice—then the act of choosing is  fully  consummated. Since the chooser is free in the sense of not being compelled by a person, an authority, or the situation totalized, and since the situational conditions serve as the determinants of 11 one’s choice, then freedom and determinism are here compatible (soft determinism). CONCLUSION, SIGNIFICANCE, AND PROSPECTS

There is Filipino philosophy in the Western traditional sense of individuals doing philosophizing brought about by problems—basically political, social, artistic, metaphysical, and situational—in the Philippine philosophical horizon. Since there are many professional thinkers and teachers of philosophy nowadays who have finished their MAs and PhDs, the prospects for mature philosophical thought to arise is greater now than ever before. These thinkers, however, should aim not only to be scholars of existing philosophers but of going beyond them in order to stand independently of them with significant innovativeness. That is what Ceniza did with Parmenides. Better still is to offer a philosophical solution to existing philosophical problems as what 12 Embuscado, Bautista, and Gripaldo did. Scholarship, not pseudo-scholarship,  should serve as a stepping stone 13 towards one’s own personal brand of philosophizing. It is important in the Philippines to distinguish genuine philosophizing, or what I have called elsewhere as “philosophy proper” (2012b) from ethnophilosophy (folk philosophy). Philosophic sagacity is the articulation of folk wisdom derived from folk philosophy. This is not what we mean by authentic philosophizing where a person contemplates or makes a reflection on various philosophical themes about existence, morality, beauty, situations, worldviews, and so on. Finally, it is also important to recognize that Filipino philosophy, as it exists today, is generally a Western kind of philosophizing. But this kind should be nurtured since the Filipino culture nowadays is basically a Westernized one. From the perspective of a history of philosophy, the ethnophilosophical approach serves as a prehistoric philosophy. William T. Jones and Robert J. Fogelin (1969) have done this kind of historical analysis in the transition from myths to philosophy.

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NOTES

1. Revised paper delivered at the PNPRS Panel during the PAP Philosophical Conference held on 9 April at the Ateneo de Manila University. The older version of this paper was originally delivered at Bulacan State University on 27 April 2012. The theme of the seminar there was “ Kumperensya sa Katayuan ng Filipinong Pilosopiya Ngayon” (“Conference on the State of Filipino Philosophy Today”). The Philippine National Philosophical Research Society funded this paper. 2. According to Bertrand Russell (1972, 7-8), the Greeks migrated to Greece in three successive waves: Ionians, Achaeans, and Dorians. The Mycenaean civilization of the Achaeans was weakened by the wars between the Ionians and Achaeans, and was “practically destroyed” by the invading Dorians. 3. The league was founded by Amphictyon, the brother of Hellen. The Greeks were later referred to as the Hellenes after the Trojan War. According to Aeschines (see Wikipedia 2012a), the twelve Greek tribes are: …the Aenianes or Oetaeans �, the Boeotians�of Thebes, the Dolopes…, the Dorians �of Sparta, the Ionians�of Athens, the Phthian Achaeans…, the Locrians �(Opuntians…and Ozolians…), the Magnesians�, the Malians�, the Perrhaebians �, the Phocians�, the Pythians�of Delphi, and the Thessalians �. Among the descendants of  Hellen  are mentioned Aeolus, Ion, Achaeus, Dorus, Graecos and Makedon. It seems that the Macedonians were a  Dorian tribe which stood behind in Macedonia when the main Dorian tribes moved to the south. 4. It may be argued that Thales did not have a philosophy degree because there were no degree-granting institutions at the time. But nowadays, even when academic degrees in philosophy are aplenty, one can still be a philosopher even if he does not have a degree in philosophy. Others become philosophers even when they are trained for a different job. As someone (Gripaldo 2009b, 47) says: Benedicto de Spinoza wrote his famous book,  Ethics, while working as a lens grinder. Empedocles was a creative writer like William Shakespeare, expressing his philosophy in poetry and tragedies. Jean Jacques Rousseau, a romantic philosopher of the 18th century, was by training a musician and composer. Jose Rizal, although by training a medical doctor, was also a novelist and philosopher. 5. To read more about CRVP publications, see http://www.crvp.org. 6. A quotation from Wikipedia (2011) reads: …In some European countries, all cultural anthropology is known as ethnology (a term coined and defined by Adam F. Kollár in 1783). The study of kinship and social organization is a central focus of cultural anthropology, as kinship is a human universal. Cultural  anthropology also covers economic and political organization, law and conflict resolution, patterns of consumption and exchange, material culture, technology, infrastructure, gender relations, ethnicity, childrearing and socialization, religion, myth, symbols, values, etiquette, worldview, sports, music, nutrition, recreation, games, food, festivals, and language  (which is also the object of study in linguistic anthropology). [Italics supplied.] 7. Henry O. Oruka (see Wikipedia 2012b), a Kenyan philosopher, has identified four trends in African philosophy: ethnophilosophy, philosophical sagacity, nationalistic–ideological philosophy, and professional philosophy. To quote from Wikipedia (2012b): ��

 Ethnophilosophy  has been used to record the beliefs found in African cultures. Such an approach treats African philosophy as consisting in a set of shared beliefs, values, categories, and assumptions that are implicit in the language, practices, and beliefs of African cultures; in short, the uniquely African world view. As such, it is seen as an item of communal property rather than an activity for the individual. One proponent of this form, Placide Tempels, argued in  Bantu Philosophy  that the metaphysical categories of the Bantu people are reflected in their linguistic categories. According to this view,  African philosophy  can be best understood as springing from the fundamental assumptions about reality reflected in the languages of Africa…. Philosophical sagacity is a sort of individualist version of ethnophilosophy, in which one records the beliefs of certain special members of a community. The premise here is that, although most societies demand some degree of conformity of belief and behaviour from their members, a certain few of those members reach a particularly high level of knowledge and understanding of their cultures' world-view; such people are sages. In some cases, the sage goes beyond mere knowledge and understanding to reflection and questioning—these become the targets of philosophical sagacity…. Professional philosophy  is the view that philosophy is a particularly European way of thinking, reflecting, and reasoning, that such a way is relatively new to (most of) Africa, and that African philosophy must grow in terms of the philosophical work carried out by Africans and applied to (perhaps not exclusively) African concerns. This view would be the most common answer of most Western philosophers (whether of continental or analytic persuasion) to the question ‘what is African philosophy?’…  Nationalist-ideological philosophy  might be seen as a special case of philosophic sagacity, in which not sages but ideologues are the subjects. Alternatively, we might see it as a case of professional political philosophy. In either case, the same sort of problem arises: we have to retain a distinction between ideology and philosophy, between sets of ideas and a special way of reasoning…. [Italics mine, except  Bantu Philosophy.]

8. For the first time in this paper, I replaced “national” with “nationality,” because “national” has been confused with “nation.” “Nationality” and “nation” are, of course, political concepts but in the context of this current analysis, they are accurately classified as constitutional and cultural (as in tribal or national culture), respectively. In previous papers, I used “national” in the sense of nationality (constitutional) and not “national” in the sense of a nation or tribe (cultural). 9. This category can include philosophical activities from the traditional, cultural, and constitutional approaches to Filipino philosophy. 10. Rizal had the complete works of Voltaire. 11. Hard determinism says that every human action is strictly governed by deterministic laws while libertarianism says that man’s free will is absolutely undetermined. Soft determinism argues that both freedom and determinism are compatible. 12. A pseudo-scholar is one who does not exhaust all existing available materials on his or her research, and because of this he or she is more liable to misinterpret a text. Jeremiah J. Joaquin (2010, 124), for example, after having read only a few sources of the many articles and books on Filipino philosophy that I have written, argues that “Gripaldo operates with the assumption that prominent personalities of Philippine history are already philosophers.” This is far from the truth. Through the writings of these prominent political personalities, I have discovered that some of their works are in themselves philosophical, which make them philosophers. This fact could have been known had the writer earnestly and seriously studied the philosophies of these personalities as contained in the book, Filipino philosophy: Traditional approach, Part I, Section 1 (2009d). He should have also considered the continuation of the presentation (Part I, Section 2) (2009e). ��

13. In one article (Gripaldo 2009b, 65), I described—with Ralph Waldo Emerson—a scholar of a particular philosopher who could not go beyond that philosopher throughout his or her life as an “intellectual suicide.” REFERENCES

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