PHILOSOPHY 101

Good morning/afternoon/night (whatever time it is your eyes are going through today’s class notes) class. My name is Professor Pogrey Kiogothe and I will be taking you through this introductory Philosophy unit. Welcome to Introduction to philosophy 101. I believe you all decided to join this fundamental unit out of your own individual initiative and on that I congratulate you because as the Son of Man puts it, no one revealed to you the importance of the unit but the heavenly Father for the believers and for the rest I don’t know but all the same here you are, at home away from home.

Let me commence by saying that you aint philosophers because you have attended this lecture but rather by virtue of being a human being. I never did Philosophy in my undergraduate studies but all the same, here I am your philosophy professor.
I didn’t go through my notes for one reason or another but by my own definition, philosophy implies the study of the pursuit of truth, wisdom and knowledge. If I may refer to my earlier statement, we are all philosophers in different capacities because the pursuit of truth defines who we are; human beings with the ability to reason and make judgment based on our conclusions.

Still on my first objective of making sense of what philosophy is by definition, I will synonimise the word with our pursuit of the inner us, existence, our basic principles and beliefs, our core, what drives us. Philosophy according to me can be equated to our perspective of issues. That makes our philosophy. From such originates statements like “a school of thought, philosophies of life, the relativity of truth, differing perspectives”

My next objective will be to introduce the core of philosophy which is the term “relative” and in my case I call it relative relativity. This is a core phrase in philosophy. Still referring to a phrase earlier used, philosophies is a plural term because of the basic principle that distinguishes man from other living beings; the ability to reason and make choice thus the different perspectives to issues. With this at the back of our minds, another very core element is “discussions and arguments” What else can one expect from a plurality of capable minds with differing perspectives to issues? Arguments. Thus in our introduction today, I want to make it clear that different points of view on specific issues is healthy as long as the argument generated is sensical and tolerated by the parties involved because of reasons explained above. The rationale behind this is because of the warning advanced by the wise man Solomon in his writings that forbids arguments with the perceived fools.

Despite efforts to discourage a prospective philosophy student from taking this core unit, I still strongly deem it basic which tempts me to write to all the institutions of higher learning to reconsider and make it compulsory. The reason I say this is that as much as we pursue different courses at college level, some of the basic skills intended for the students could be traced to philosophy. For instance one of the early orientations I got before joining college was on the idea that no answer given on an essay question could be wrong. At that point, I did not know exactly comprehend what my early tutors meant. Later on It made more sense when I joined college. Essay and discussion questions set approve the fact that we all have our own different perspectives to issues thus we argue out questions based on our understanding of the issue at hand.

That reminds me of the exam guide books at high school level. There was one of the authors who took the burden of explaining the basic terms in exam setups. One of the obvious terms was ‘DISCUSS” In his explanation of this word, he considered it exigent to most students, he advised the young readers to watch out for the word. To make it short, a DISCUSSION sheds light on both sides.

Long ago when education and the study of knowledge was more important than the search for gold and oil mines, scholarly arguments were a common thing. As my college professor once put it, people literally travelled far and wide in pursuit of knowledge. Literal scholarly works were subject to arguments and discussions. Theories were approved and disapproved. Literal works were challenged and defended. Thus came the era of defense of thesis, dissertations and theories which are still the way of life in the corridors of knowledge. One did not just wake up one day and earn the respect of fellow scholars. You had to prove mental muscle before a panel. This makes sense of the doctor of philosophy; doctorate degree at the PhD level.

In the last bit of our class today we are going to sample some probable philosophical arguments. In my slight imaginations of how an undergraduate philosophy class would be like, I came across this school of thought that stood for the perspective that philosophy is for the liberal atheists, controversial people. The baseline behind this view was that philosophy questions the existence of a supreme being. This meant that those sitting these lectures should brace themselves for arguments such as “Prove that God exist!!!”

I am a believer in a Supreme God who created the universe thus if the paragraph above is factual then I would not have been a philosopher. What does that mean? Philosophy argues out issues and facts to prove their worth as universal facts. The last two words introduce my students to yet other key terms in philosophy. If I may ask, are their universal truths?

Let us go back to our introduction where we noted ability to reason as a key distinguishing characteristic between human beings and other living things. If I was to be asked to respond to the above phrase, I would base my argument on the bible which is my reference book as a Christian. I would then conclude it to be a universal fact but then I realize that not everyone shares in my perspective.

The ability to reason, to analyze and make best conclusive choices makes us uniquely more of human beings than mere animals. We all have different perspectives to issues. Does that mean we cease to be human when we cannot reason? You know better.

As a key phrase, universal truth has been subject to arguments not only in the philosophical or scholarly world but in the world in general. As a sample argumentative term, let’s use the principle “truth”. What is truth? In simple lay man terms, truth is the absence of deceit. As your professor, my stand on truth would have been neutral. At least that is how I am expected to present myself. But am I not part of the human race? Yes I am. That implies that I have my views on this term too which I won’t shy from sharing. Just to jog your mind, what is the difference between these two definitive phrases? “ Truth is the absence of falsehood” and “Truth is the total absence of falsehood” The first one gives room for the exposure of the components in the word truth; relativism while the second phrase is the ideal definition that tempt us to believe truth to be a universal principle.

As earlier seen, different perspectives to issues is the obvious situation in a world with plural minds. Picture this; boy A steals sugar from his mum’s kitchen and shares with boy B. Boy B is not aware that the sugar was stolen. Later, mum catches boy B licking the sugar and accuses him of being a thief. Boy B swears that he did not steal which is true. But the law considers beneficiaries of a stolen item equally predisposed to punishment. Cries of innocence by boy B is truth as far as he is concerned but the law says otherwise. Both have their own angles on the issue. Both are right in their own perspective.

Thus ignorance or lack of information disqualifies truth from being a universal truth. Same view points originating from presence of knowledge or right information would be the only ground under which truth is truth which in this case close to universalism. We all have our versions of truth on an issue. Does that make us all liars? Depending on the reference point, liars and truth Sayers can be separated. Reminds me of Galileo Galilei and the church in the early days. One camp had science as a reference point while the church had a theological reference point.

By the powers bestowed on me by the Blog University, I am tempted to present some of my own philosophical phrases such as positive impatience, positive negativity, perfect imperfections, contradicting contradictions etc etc. Just to shed some light on a number, positive negativity can be a situation of a good side realized from a perceived negative thing. Eg manure makes organic fertilizer. This means there is a positive side of a perceived negative thing. On the other hand, impatience can be a virtue if viewed from a different angle….i know she disagrees.

My dear student, looking at my watch, it’s about fifteen minutes to time and being the good students you are, I’ll spare some time for questions and answer session. Any queries?
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Thank you for being attentive and for your active participation. As your weekend assignment, I would like you to argue this out;

As the adage goes, knowledge is power; one school of thought may argue that what you do not know cannot hurt while another camp can make reference to the book of John 8:32 in the Bible that advocates for knowledge of truth as a key to freedom or emancipation. But if we looked at it illustratively and site an example, we realize that knowledge or truth if not used constructively can be destructive. An example is the knowledge of our ethnic identities which may turn one into a stereotype of “we verse them” mental slavery. Such knowledge to children depending on how it was disseminated from parents may cage the youngsters in cocoons which instead of freeing them and enabling them relate well with people of other nations, tribe and race, turns others into ”them” Is epistemology and search for truth worth our time and can it be destructive? Argue for and against (30 Marks)

In conclusion; education makes us all philosophers in our own different capacities since it sharpens our ability to think critically and empowers us to make reasonable conclusions.

(Four years later at the graduation grounds; “ Now by the powers rested on me I allow you to go out there and reason. You may now drop your tassels on the left side of your caps.”