Department of Philosophy

Chair’s Corner

In good times nobody questions the importance of philosophy; philosophy does not have to justify itself.  Even today, in fact, the greatest nations on earth, of both hemispheres, are likewise the most philosophical.  Both aesthetic and scientific depth presupposes philosophy as its groundwork. Name any discipline, and its greatest purveyors are equally adept as philosophers.

This is why the highest academic honors have always been laid at the door of one who manages to obtain a Doctor of Philosophy.  Even in our times when titles have become rather cheap and are many times no longer the measure of genuine worth, respect is still attributed to one with Ph.D. after his name. That's no accident. No area of human endeavor is untouched at bottom by philosophical assumptions, right or wrong.

It is thus important that all our students get their philosophy right.  It is this philosophy which shapes not only a person's head but also, and more importantly, his life.  As a Filipino thinker once said, we are as good or as bad as our philosophy.  No matter whether one is into the humanities or the sciences, one is served well by learning the correct philosophy, or at least how to philosophize well.

In short, the value of philosophy is without measure.  All who are on the verge of adulthood should get the proper exposure to the manner of thinking and the kind of ideas that philosophy richly offers.  It is a measure of a society's high-mindedness that it seeks to cultivate rather than demean the resources of thought available especially among its youth.  This is why no Filipino student should be deprived of the inconsiderable benefits of philosophy.  And, to a growing number of our young men and women, this subject must provide more and more with such an inexhaustible source of interest that they should even dare to attain a mastery of it.  This, we are emboldened to say, is the only way for our country to mature beyond our damaged culture.

Our claim is that although all education is philosophy, there is a certain breadth and depth in life and thought which can be had only through a full-time indulgence in pure philosophy.  And that's why those who have the born skills for it should not hesitate to take philosophy as a major; they will be amazed at what riches await them at some point of their student life, granted that they persevere in it.  As a bonus, philosophy offers the best preparation for any other course one might be interested in, including law, business, education, literature, medicine, physics and theology.  No one stays in or leaves philosophy without gaining something of perennial value; whoever has not experienced philosophy would of course not know what he is missing.  So, let me take this opportunity to invite everyone to come and experience this wonderful world of philosophy in order to discover in it the meaning of his vocation, whatever it might be.  Welcome to everyone!

Br. Romualdo E. Abulad, SVD, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Philosophy