What roles does Iwa [character in Yoruba belief] play in Yoruba philosophy of existence, and how can these roles help provide a solution to challenges of contemporary socio-political order, not only in Africa but also across the globe? Both are the daunting questions this paper sets out to examine. The foundation of Yoruba philosophy of existence is predicated mainly on the moral pivot called iwa. It is on iwa, which has both ontological and ethical etymologies that the meaning of life is based. Iwa regulates the social relations among people, and adherence to it within the Yoruba cultural matrix provides answers to complex questions of existence. It is submitted that the moral foundation of Yoruba philosophy of existence, as dictated by iwa, is a veritable basis for engendering normative principles for addressing problems in contemporary society as it harmonizes disparate interests for the common good, thereby reconciling the self with the other.

French philosopher Helene Cixous (1976) stressed the importance of feminine writing. She believes that women should take part in sharing their experiences from their own novel points-of-view. We discuss that while pregnancy is an experience unique to women, it has been misappropriated by patriarchal structures throughout the years. The pregnancy bump, which is more than just evidence of the uterus stretching to accommodate the fetus, is a symbol of a woman's triumphs and struggles all throughout conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. We show that women have already gone beyond the bump and challenged existing patriarchal systems through different means, as Cixous has enjoined women to do. With this, it is asserted that the philosophy of pregnancy be reconceived as well, in order to escape existing boundaries that constrict the discourse to ethical issues of rape, abortion, and medical interventions, making it face issues that surround women's experience of pregnancy, as well as deeper meanings the pregnant body itself represents.

The capacity to share and understand another’s state of mind or the ability to put oneself into another’s shoes or, in some way, experience the outlook or emotions of another being within oneself has been referred to as empathy. It is a presumed ability to burrow into another person’s structures of consciousness and experience oneself as another. Hence it involves the capacity of one to understand or feel what another is experiencing from within their frame of reference. This paper investigates the im/possibility of empathy. The question of the im/possibility of empathy finds expression in the question of the possibility of a subject’s access into the subjective conscious experiences of another. The paper appraises various positions accruing from the basic Husserlian/Steinian views. It also highlights the optimists’ belief that empathy puts us in touch with others in a way that generates a compassionate concern that forms the foundation of morality and the pessimists’ view that empathy merely blurs the distinction between oneself and others, yielding self-interested motivation or at least precluding genuine altruism. This paper suggests that the problem of the im/possibility of empathy would persist in so far as the definition of empathy involves ‘feeling with’ rather than ‘feeling for.’ As Diana Meyers puts it, “the metaphor of putting oneself in the other’s shoes is misleading, for it is a mistake to assume that the other feels the same way as one would oneself feel in the same circumstances.” Thus, it is either that empathy is unreal or what is considered as empathy requires a redefinition.

Chan Buddhism as we know it today can perhaps be traceable to what is known as the Hongzhou school, founded by Mazu Daoyi. Although it was Huineng who represented an important turn in the development of Chan with his iconoclastic approach to enlightenment as sudden rather than gradual, it was in Huineng’s successor, Mazu, where we saw its complete radicalization. Specifically, Mazu introduced a radicalized approach of collapsing substance (體 ti) and function (用 yong), as well as principle (理 li) and phenomena (事 shi), into a complete overlap. As a result of this radicalization, the Hongzhou lineage received some strong criticisms, the most important of which was possibly by Guifeng Zongmi, of the Heze lineage. Zongmi criticized Mazu for his supposed antinomianism, claiming that Mazu’s approach completely stunts moral and religious cultivation. Due to their commitment to “suchness” rather than deliberate theory, however, Hongzhou never bothered to answer Zongmi’s critique. As such, it is the goal of this article to utilize Guo Xiang’s philosophy as a tool to understand the implicit Hongzhou response to Zongmi. As I shall demonstrate, his philosophical enterprise shares the same ontology of absolute oblivion which Hongzhou was also predicated upon and is, therefore, a possible alternative to understanding what could have been the Hongzhou response to the alleged antinomianism.

It may be commonplace hearing people accuse the discipline of philosophy of irrelevance, especially when it comes to societal issues. Hannah Arendt, a contemporary political thinker, remarked that philosophy and political action are irreconcilable spheres of thought—that the space for contemplation is nowhere near the space for action. Granting Arendt’s observation, how can philosophy courses cross the chasm brought about by disciplinal borders? How can philosophy classes help produce active and more engaged citizens? In this paper, I dispute the former claim by way of undertaking two tasks. First, to lay down the groundwork, I provide a philosophical analysis that underlines Hannah Arendt’s political position and most important ideas, particularly those that surface in one of her greatest works, “The Human Condition.” Second, I point out how Arendt’s notions inspire some practices in education and pedagogy, thus paving the way for a genuine application of a philosophical theory to society. By drawing on experiences in teaching philosophy by employing social reconstructionist education and its corollary pedagogical tool, service-learning, this paper hopes to bring back some space to a reconsideration of philosophy as a relevant discipline in society, particularly in education. In the end, I conclude that philosophy and action, contrary to the claim of Arendt herself, are fully compatible. In doing philosophy, the germ of genuine action may be found.

Theories of persistence are often motivated on the grounds that they can account for or solve certain problems that accompany persistence as a metaphysical problem. These problems are what I will call the problems of persistence: change, cohabitation, and vagueness. In this paper, I claim that any theory of persistence should be able to account for these problems. Any theory of persistence which fails to do so should be rejected or, at the very least, be seen as unsatisfactory. Kristie Miller introduces a possible contender, terdurantism, which is a “non-perdurantist four-dimensionalism,” as she puts it. This view is attractive because it avoids the usual objections raised against its rivals: perdurantism and endurantism. Miller and I both ultimately argue against the plausibility of terdurantism as a theory of persistence, but our motivations differ. Miller’s argument is based on the presumption that any theory of persistence which is non-perdurantist ultimately fails. She argues that temporal parts are needed in any account of persistence. My argument is based on the “problem-solving” capacity or the ability of the theory to account for the persistence problems. I will argue that terdurantism is not a plausible theory of persistence since it fails to give a viable account of the three problems. By showing the importance of accounting for the three problems — and how a terdurantist position fails to accomplish this — I hope to have convinced the reader that not only is terdurantism an unattractive persistence theory, but any plausible theory of persistence ought to account for the problems.

This work interfaces the philosophies of Jean Baudrillard and Martin Heidegger. It hopes to contribute to both Heideggerian and Baudrillardian scholarship by employing Baudrillardian ideas in more effectively describing the historical happening of the so-called withdrawal of Being from man, which preoccupied much of Heidegger’s body of work. The work argues that by re-visiting an earlier idea of Baudrillard, which he termed as seduction, one finds a possible way of navigating the obscenity of the current epoch of Being. Akin to Heidegger’s idea of Gelassenheit or releasement, Baudrillard’s concept of seduction invites one to allow the real to once again appear, no longer by way of subjective representation, but to let it appear in its very disappearance in hyperreality.

If we are to periodize the intellectual biography of Rolando Gripaldo into his Mindanaoan, Lasallian, and retirement periods, his Lasallian period would be a very significant one because this is the period where he produced the most important works that earned him a niche as one of the important Filipino philosophers. This paper exposed and analyzed the works of Gripaldo in this very significant period of his intellectual biography. This paper was able to identify four clusters of themes that recur in Gripaldo’s Lasallian period writings: 1) his reflective thoughts on Filipino philosophy, 2) his studies of Filipino philosophical luminaries, 3) his critical Filipino philosophy, and 3) his efforts towards revisionist writing. This paper contributes towards the discourse of Filipino philosophy that studies Filipino philosophical luminaries, a discourse in which Gripaldo was a leading advocate. Contributions in this specific discourse can make Filipino philosophy more mainstream and easier to study, especially for beginners and undergraduate students.

In Words and Battlefields: A Theoria on the Poem, Cirilo Bautista advances the thesis that there is such a thing as a Filipino epic and that it is key to nation-building.1 Well known for his long-form poetry, Bautista can be said to be taking a position on one of the main issues in the philosophy of poetry, namely the ontology or being of poems. I argue that his theory of the poem has three cornerstones, which I critique and evaluate through a close reading of the epic poem “The Cave.”

Christian apologetics has recently gained a new impetus from authors such as Alister McGrath, who advocates a new, Trinitarian approach to natural theology, the main purpose of which is to confirm a resonance between scientific discoveries and Christian doctrine, thus confirming its credibility. In this article, we use Trinitarian natural theology, which has many advantages over classical natural theology, on the example of the surprising phenomenon of true love. This is manifested in the material world in The Principle of Insufficient Reason, observable through observations of deeds of love, which lack reciprocity and, in the lifeworld in the essence of ratio-sui or selfexplicability of true love, experienceable through experiences of explanation of the reasons for love with love itself. The analysis of different layers of reality and its scientific methods, together with the postpositivistic recognition of the plurality of methods, has shown that the method of inference to the best explanation, which is used in the article, is a legitimate scientific method. The Christian doctrine of the Triune God of Love and the doctrine of perichoresis make perfect sense of the empirical observations and lifeworld experiences of true love. However, the question remains unanswered: which of the worldviews best explains the curious and surprising phenomenon of true love?

The objective of this work is to investigate the philosophical anthropology that underpins the anthropology of the Early Christians. It is curious to know why Christian anthropology is intellectually and practically inclined towards the philosophical anthropology of the Platonic tradition rather than the theological-philosophical tradition of the biblical Hebrew people in the Old Testament. Today the emphasis on Christian anthropology is that the human person is an integration of body and soul. Contrary to this position, the writer maintains that the Christian anthropology, especially during the period of the early Christians (here understood as the period within the first five centuries C.E.), fundamentally conceives the human person as a composite of soul and body, which is a conscious employment of Platonic anthropology. This article observes that, as regards the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, there is a dichotomy between theological coherency and the actual Christian practice on the Christian conception of the human person. Hence, this work argues that the Platonic influence on the philosophical anthropology of the Early Christian was a deliberate act to give a more rational foundation to the theological problematic on the resurrection of the dead and on the resurrected body. It explains why Aquinas’s theological cum philosophical thinking, though overwhelmingly an Aristotelian ground, could not “Aristotelize” his philosophical anthropology.