Leobelo Jofel Delicana Modern Philosophy

AB Philosophy

Enlightenment: the aim of Philosophy
We as humans have the tendency of being curious. We wonder on so many things. We
ask ourselves so many questions. For the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, wonder is the
beginning of philosophy. Wonder brings us to the act of thinking bringing out so many questions
that thirst for answers. In philosophy there is that notion that questions are more important than
answers. But why ask then, if you will believe that question is more important than answer?
Nevertheless, it is because knowledge is inexhaustible. What we can only be certain is that we
can think of as many questions. However, we are not so sure if we will be able to find answers to
these questions or if we would be able to justify the answers that we will be able to find out.
Then again, we are only certain that we are finding something. There is that search for truth.
Philosophy is a search for the truth. Truth here covers a very wide span of knowledge. It
may even pertain to the single component making up this universe. Truth is what Socrates died
for. Truth is what every other philosopher searched and wants to search in their conquest of
philosophy. To bring this to the practical sense, let us use it ambiguously with truth which means
reality presenting itself to be true. For one, let us take knowledge. Once we acquire a new one, it
does not end there. The more we know the more we realize that we dont know. Being able to
realize this reality makes us wise, wise in a sense that we are able to philosophize for the sake of
philosophy itself. There are a lot of things in this world that mans capacity has yet to encounter,
that mans ability has yet to discover. Technology for an instance, nowadays, there are already
means to promote life. Who would have thought that sending a message to someone miles away
would be possible in only a matter of seconds? For a fact, technology continues to develop. What
one mind can imagine had somehow become actualized in reality.
Yet again, we can use the term truth to refer to the happenings and scenarios we
experience in our lives. In life we sometimes fail but this does not mean that it is already the end.
The same is true to philosophy, one may not be able to extract what truth really is but it is not the
end of philosophizing. Rather, it is a challenge to go on. He who has the why to live, can bear
almost any how. This is one of the philosophies of the German Philosopher Friedrich
Nietzsche. Many if not all of us would agree to this. Life may be sometimes troublesome, but
because we bear in mind that we have a purpose in this world, we are able to face the challenges
of our lives. We continue to strive to survive. We then ask ourselves, what then is our purpose as
human beings? There is this gift, a big advantage that we humans possess over any other beings
in this world. That is the faculty of rationality. We think and that separates us from plants and
animals bringing us into a whole new level of existence.
As a rational being capable of thinking, we are aware that we are existing and that we are
not nothing (metaphysical). We are able to appreciate life and existence and that the purpose of
an individual is only secondary (existential).We are able to acquire knowledge (epistemological)
that could be essential in our living. With acquired knowledge, we are able to reason well
(logical). Also, we are able to use that knowledge to know what is right and wrong (ethical). All
of these human abilities mentioned are of reverence to what philosophy cares about. The truth
that philosophy continues to search comprises all that is metaphysical, existential,
epistemological, logical, ethical and everything human mind would have wondered and yet to
unravel. The eye of the philosopher view things not only on how they look or how they
function but to the deeper extent of boundless horizon. The mind of the philosopher is equipped
with imagination. He continues to search; and that process of searching is philosophy.
In that process of unfolding an inexhaustible truth, there is enlightenment. Another Greek
thinker by the name of Plato had something to say about this in his Allegory of the Cave. The
cave here symbolizes ignorance of the truth. In this illustration, there are four men chained in the
cave wherein what they could only see are shadows reflected from a point where light enters. For
those who have been seeing only shadows, they did not know what the reality is. For the man
who is unbound in chains, he is able to turn around and see what really caused this objects.
Therefore, he now believes the objects he had seen. When had found his way beyond the cave,
he is now able to reason that what caused these shadows were the object he saw outside. Lastly,
after going beyond the cave, he became fully liberated when he already had the understanding of
the thing he saw. He is enlightened after understanding the reality that lies beyond the cave.
After this, the man fully liberated returned to the cave and shared what he had learned after being
able go beyond the cave. Sad to say, he only found himself talking to fools who believed that the
shadows that they saw is the reality. Thus, the man fully liberated only found himself persecuted.
In our present situation, we could say that some if not most of us are still chained inside
the cave, the cave of ignorance. There are times in our lives when we can say that we somehow
became like the men chained in the cave. Those are times when we try to pretend that we know,
when we insist ourselves towards other people, when we try to care only about our personal
interests and opinions. This is philosophys challenge to humanity. We must put in mind that we
in our little ways could also become like the enlightened man. Just like what Plato said, He who
knows what is good, will do what is good. The challenge to us as thinking individuals is to use
our knowledge in a way that we could be beneficial to this world. We can be everyday
philosophers if we pursue the path of enlightenment rather than becoming ignorant men chaining
ourselves in the cave of ignorance. In every day of our lives let us think, and there must be no
end to that thinking. For it is only through thinking that we prove our existence as human beings
in this world. Let us be enlightened for it is the role of philosophy. Let us enlighten one another
for it is our role as everyday philosophers.