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.

This paper attempts to provide a concise but systematic presentation of the discursive ontology of the social that underpins the thought of the Argentinian political theorist Ernesto Laclau. First articulated by Laclau and his collaborator Chantal Mouffe at the historical conjuncture of the late twentieth century that witnessed the disintegration of established leftist political visions and the rise of a plurality of new social movements, the post-structuralist discursive ontology on which Laclau bases his theorization of hegemony as the paradigm of politics is one that continues to exert a powerful influence on contemporary post-foundational political thought, discourse analysis, and “left populist” political movements. This paper traces the fundamental claims of that ontology, paying special attention to Laclau’s theses apropos the limits of universality and impossibility of “fullness.” In the final third of this paper, the French philosopher Alain Badiou’s approach to the conceptualization of social change is employed as a foil to draw some key implications of Laclau’s elevation of “hegemony” as the universal form of the political for political thought and practice.

Claro R. Ceniza [1927-2001] is arguably one of the best philosophers that the Philippines has ever produced. However, it is quite unfortunate that some of his important contributions are not that well-known. This paper aims to rectify this by presenting an evaluation of his original insights on three outstanding problems in philosophy, viz., the paradoxes of material implication, the nature of probability, and the metaphysics of modality.

The year 2020 began with the world being controlled by a then-unknown force. This unknown force would later be called a coronavirus or Covid-19. Not a single country would be free from infection by this virus. We are petrified with astonishment when confronted with this disease. Initially, after admitting the reality, we started struggling with and revolting against this virus. Time has led us to the consideration of our existence. This pandemic inclines us to revisit the major themes in existential philosophy discussed by Sartre in the Nausea and the philosophy of the absurd by Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus, The Plague, and The Stranger. The study addresses the concepts of anxiety, suffering, freedom, self-deception, absurdity, and choices. When confronted with the reality of the disease, we are shocked by an odd sensation like what Roquentin felt in his experience of nausea. This bizarre feeling brought an initial rejection, a self-deception followed by suffering, and a reflection of one's freedom. The concept of freedom leads us to certain decisions we make and the choices we are offered. The absurdity brought about by the pandemic is a reality that we must accept as it is. How would Sisyphus feel if he were living in the present? The struggle by Sisyphus can be our struggle now against a coronavirus. We feel condemned to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, a punishment that seems like 'futile and hopeless labor.' However, we are stronger than our rock. The paper presents a parallelism between our suffering during the pandemic and the sufferings of Sisyphus and Roquentin.

Theoretically, this essay is a psycho-social reflection on the patrimonial character of Philippine political democracy. Many scholars attest that Philippine politics is marred by oligarchic rule composed of elite families, knitted by blood and marriage, who use state resources to perpetuate themselves into public office. These officials control and exploit the economic and political landscape to rule and govern the lives of the Filipino people. Hence, I argue that the patrimonial culture is a social pathology and has imbibed other names such as patron-client democracy, cacique democracy, predatory oligarchic state, and bossism. This type of social malady highlights the coercive forms of control in the Philippine political arena and, thus, expanding oligarchic power relations over and above the interest of the people. Money and power are the main causes why this social malady persists. However, more than that, I want to add that the persistence of patrimonial culture in the Philippines lies probably in what Freud calls the introjected father image, which unconsciously becomes the standard of authority. Further, I contend that, like the Oedipus rivalry, fear is a primordial element in the introjection of this authority figure which began at the nascent of the Spanish rule. Particularly, the abuses and atrocities of the colonizers over the natives created a deep-seated traumatic experience that would later fortify the immanence of a patrimonial power structure in the Philippines. Hence, a psycho-social approach could perhaps unearth these 'events' that perpetuate a patrimonial culture in our country. I believe that excavating our collective experiences could probably help us in our search for leaders who could usher us towards real liberation.