Pilosopong Tasyo

"The absurd enlightens me on this point: there is no future"
Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

It is a gross mistake to assume that the working man is no philosopher. In my books, the working man makes an excellent philosopher.

Philosophies are not confined in books. Philosophy is out there – growing on trees, sprouting in rice paddies, germinating in sardines-factories.

It is to be mourned that in the directory of philosophers, not a single Filipino is registered. This is an anomaly in a country where everybody seems to have an opinion. We are not in the map – 70 million opinion-makers, zero philosopher, and too many lawyers. How did this happen?

As a Filipino, I feel handicapped not being able to quote or paraphrase a Filipino thinker/philosopher. Try quoting Jose Rizal in a PolSci class, chances are, you’ll get a smirk or a sneer from your professor. Quote an obscure Continental thinker, your professor stares at you with glazed eyes.

It was quite frustrating to major in a philosophy-heavy course like PolSci, borrowing ideas from everyone except from your own kind. There’s the competing Frankfurt and Chicago schools of thought. The French have post-structuralism, post-modernism, anything with the post-prefix. The Italians have Machiavelli and Gramsci who are not necessarily sweet bedfellows despite their shared nationality. The Latin Americans have liberation theology and their dependency theories. Africa has its post-colonial studies.

Where’s the Philippines? Some stalwarts of the Philippine Left are internationally –known but their works are not taught in schools. The so-called “Asian Way,” essentially Confucian, is alien to us.

It’s not really a pressing problem needing solution - the fact that there is no universally recognized Filipino thinker. So what? It does not mean we don’t have the intellectual capacity for scholarship and intelligent theorizing. We just have to nurture our scholars a few hugs and kisses more.

But what kind of environment is provided for serious scholarship? Assess our universities, learning institutions where we are supposed to lead the “life of the mind”. Start from the kind of shepherding we get from our teachers. Excuse me, there is hardly any for a number of reasons.

One, the teacher lacks commitment or is simply lazy. Second, in order to hold on to his/her job, the teacher needs to do some research work, therefore, dividing his attention between instruction and research. On one hand, you’re still learning the ropes of teaching and groping for your teaching style. On the other, you have to dabble in theory-testing and theory-refutations, the bedrock of research. You end up, what?

The bigger question is: Does the nature of academic research in the country even push the frontiers of theory-building?

I don’t move around academic circles basically because I am a bum, so I don’t know. As a student, I have been to only 2 professorial lectures because as I said, I am a bum. So I don’t know.

But I have heard stories of dishonest research practices, of researches bereft of integrity. A professor-friend chides about research papers “discovering the obvious,” declaring what the frogs in our backyard already know from their previous incarnations.

There goes the future of philosophy in this country – down in the well with the frogs.

Croak, croak, croak.