INSIGHTS: Think Differently!

  Snippets on Love, Truth, Knowledge   By Archie R. Magarao      Love knows no bounds. Boundaries in l ove are but conventions. To love is to believe in it eternally that it will persist beyond death. It is in love that we realize that we live for others. Loving is revolutionary. To be passionate for it is to be ready to die for it as many did in the cross, war, and others.      Truth is singular. It is gentle and kind. At times, we have to risk our lives to reveal the truth. From womb to tomb, we are meant to live with others.      To love is to be tragic. But we must not stop believing it.    Knowledge is a mirror. It tells us who we are and what we should become.      All revolutionary acts for love and justice might be considered cynical and senseless that a drop of water can never be the ocean. However, the ocean is made up of drops of water.      Our actions are controlled by phenomena. Our lives are connected past, present, future.      Transcendence is what it takes to be pas

The ministry of education is truly the most worthy, the most noble, the most meritorious, the most beneficial, the most useful, the most necessary, the most natural, the most reasonable, the most worthy of thanks, the most pleasing and the most glorious. - Memorial to Cardinal Tonti by St. Joseph Calasanz INTRODUCTION Today, there is a plethora of educational philosophies. Sometimes it is confusing which among these educational philosophies one should choose. However, the dark side of this overabundance is that some significant and founding educational philosophies are left in oblivion. One of these is the educational philosophy of St. Joseph Calasanz. [1] That with too much emphasis on his religious contributions, according to Joseph Domenech i Mira, his educational philosophy was overshadowed by others. This paper aims at highlighting the core educational philosophy of St. Joseph Calasanz. In this relation, the paper is divided into two segments: the history s

The Hermeneutics of Existence: Revisiting Heideggerian Ontological Hermeneutics ARCHIE R. MAGARAO Introduction Martin Heidegger What the contemporary hermeneutics consider as the “hermeneutic turn” is attributed to Martin Heidegger.  He initiated a so-called hermeneutics of existence in his notion of the Dasein (there-being). He also used the word “hermeneutics” in the context of his larger quest for a more “fundamental” ontology. [1] His conception of understanding is something that is not static but dynamic, having the power “to be”. Nevertheless, for Heidegger “understanding is the power to grasp one’s own possibilities for being, within the context of the lifeworld in which one exists.” [2] Understanding and the “World” What is the world? One might be wrong in conceiving the “world” ( Welt ) as we understood it now when Heidegger coined it. The “ world is not  the whole of all beings but the whole in which the human beings (Dasein) always fin

Panopticon: The Ever Watchful Eye By Archie R. Magarao                 Michel Foucault, a French social philosopher, is one of the key philosophers of the modern time. His critical philosophy is so wide-ranging that it includes psychology, sociology, jurisprudence, ethics, politics, philosophy, history, and natural sciences. No wonder why his thoughts are much talked about in the academe. In this very brief philosophical reflection on Foucault, allow me to introduce to you one of his key concepts namely the panopticon. Although the philosopher Jeremy Bentham generally coined the term, it was Foucault who took the matter seriously. Foucault argues that modern society is similar to penal colonies. What makes this resemblance possible is the existence of the ubiquitous and ever watchful faceless panopticon.                 The term panopticon is of Greek origin which simply means all-seeing. Technically, it is the prison’s central tower where the guards stay and watch over the