Philosophical anthropology

I COULD very well understand if the title scares you. I know it sounds ighfalutin, abstruse, esoteric. Perhaps too academic or intellectual for a newspaper column. But I think it’s very relevant for all to know. Let me explain.

I was fortunate to be asked to give a class on this subject recently to a group of teachers. I was given some notes and books to study and prepare my classes. That’s when I started to get really excited about the subject. Why?

First of all, I would like to say how important it is to always develop and nurture our intellectual life and work. To me, our intelligence together with the will is our highest, most useful human faculty or tool.

It’s worth the effort to distinguish these spiritual faculties from all the other faculties that make up our cognitive system, so we can give due attention and care to them.

Our problem is that we tend to get so mixed up that we don’t know anymore which faculty is really ruling us—the intelligence and will or our emotions. Often, we realize things only too late, when harm and damage have already been inflicted.

Our intelligence and will that comprise our spiritual faculties enable us to go beyond what we simply see and feel, and bring us to the world of finer distinctions that lead us to a greater, deeper, wider understanding of things.

They enable us to know what is objectively true and good, irrespective of how we feel. Besides, they, more than anything else in us, enable us to enter into the world of the spiritual, the supernatural, the world of faith and religion.

So, my prayer is that everyone gets to study and develop the intellectual life. We should find time and exert the necessary effort for this purpose, so indispensable in our life. Otherwise, we will be gravely handicapped in life.

Of course, we have different intellectual endowments. Thus, those who are more able should realize their responsibility to support those who are less able. Our social concern should extend to this aspect of our life. Yes, we also need to help one another in this area.

Now, the beauty of philosophical anthropology is that it studies man by combining the wealth of philosophy with that of the experimental sciences that deal with the study of the different aspects of man.

Thus, with this subject we get both the holistic, integrated picture of man as well as the increasingly specialized knowledge of a particular aspect of man, be it in the field of psychology, sociology, history, politics, business, culture, etc.

It blends metaphysics with the exciting world of the experimental sciences. It has the elements of both the old and the new, the constant and the changing, the essential and the accidental, the immediate and the ultimate, the eternal and the temporal.

It analyzes and synthesizes things; it considers both the internal and external aspects. It’s really a milestone in the development of knowledge about man, neither too philosophical which is the main complaint of the old school, nor too experimental, the weakness of the new school. Too philosophical means the knowledge is too abstract and so detached from concrete situations as to be useless in grappling with real issues. With this mentality, one tends to be rigid and closed to new phenomena. It can lead to self-righteousness and sanctimony.

Too experimental, on the other hand, means the knowledge is too tentative and prone to get lost in the details without sense of direction. With this mentality, one tends to be loose and lax, to be without absolute guiding principles and to be completely dominated by pragmatism and relativism.

I consider this subject to be very dynamic, because it always flows with the times and yet manages to keep its proper bearings. Of course, the integrity of this subject will depend on the players and agents who develop it as we go along.

My prayer is that more and more people get interested in this subject. It’s a field with limitless possibilities. And it’s something to be spread more widely.

In the end, I think we truly would need divine guidance, since no matter how smart and clever we are, we easily can get lost, what with all the maze of phenomena and data we are bombarded with everyday.