(originally written 5/15/2008)
Traveling from Sta. Rosa to Makiling Hiway in Calamba gives one a lot of time to reflect. It's not as long as my travel to Malolos, so there is a smaller chance to doze to sleep. This morning, going through the same travel and inner reflection, I looked at the faces of the different people riding that jeepney. Outside, hundreds of vehicles are going to and fro, eager to arrive early for their destination. I asked myself this question - What might be going on in their minds? Are they thinking the same things as I am? Do they also wonder why there are existents instead of nothing? Are they concerned about the so-called problem of universals, or whether there are innate ideas in the mind? I looked at them one more time, and as one middle-aged person looks at the breast of a girl sitting beside him, I realized that majority of the people do not think about these things.
What is going on in their heads? What motivates them? Ah, perhaps they are thinking of their loved ones, or the cellphone they will purchase next month. Perhaps, they are thinking about their ugly bosses, or about their routines in their offices. Perhaps too, they are thinking about their children, and how they will live in this sick and dying world.
All these things considering, most people if at all, think only about the intermediate future. In chess, it's like thinking along 1-2 moves in advance. Mostly also, people think about themselves alone, or their family members.
When one thinks for the good of more people - education for example, s/he is dubbed as an altruistic person. S/he thinks not merely for him/herself, but rather for others. Of course, there is the question of whether the person's goal is primarily for the good of another, or rather, merely a ploy to get more acceptance, fame, etc. But, beyond that, we seldom find these people. For one, how could anyone thinks of the good of somebody else if his/her own needs are wanting? If these people do come around, they are as poets - they see everything other people see, but are able to find the right words to express them. If these people think, they think of deeper connections between/among things, and usually apply these connections to their lives.
The question necessarily falls into this: What is thinking? What makes a certain person think, and another person to remain unthinking? If man is a thinking being, and this sets him apart from animals, it must be crowned with precious gems, and be the goal of every person. The end of man, says
If the philosophers are right and in agreement with this, it must be true to say that indeed, to say the least, thinking and the intellective process is important in every human life.
But what makes a man thinking?
“Thinking man” appeared many times in the Essay of Human Understanding by Locke, and in the Critique of Pure Reason, among others.
Let me describe to you a thinking person. Forgive the poetry.
A thinking person is someone who reasons not because of pressure. If s/he does, his/her “thinking” cannot be considered a human act because of lack of volition.
Further, s/he reasons not because of age-old traditions, and assumptions made by his/her parents and/or ancestors. S/he does not reason through the reasoning of people who are called wise by his/her peers. S/he does not reason primarily because of needs and aspirations although it is very hard to do.
S/he reasons not through assumptions, nor assumes without reason.
S/he does not snuggle in the bed of indolence and contentment.
Nor does s/he stop struggling because the world already “knows” the answers; nor because somebody finally wrote a refereed article on a scientific journal.
Or wrote a book about it.
Or was given prestigious awards for it.
Because, ultimately, the world has not the final answers.
The world commits blunders every now and then. The world usually favors a Sophist than a Socrates, a Ptolemy than a Copernicus. The world usually condemns a Galileo. And yes, it even condemns a Baptist, or a Jesus who cries out truth! Truth! But there is no truth. The world does not recognize light, says the Beloved, because it was born in darkness. Thomas Aquinas points out that this darkness is the twofold birthmarks of ignorance and sin. It is needless to assume these things here, but there is some agreement in the “dark” plight of man – of knowing, or wishing eternity, but never being able to grasp it; of being the most spiritual of the physical world, and the most physical of the so-called spiritual world.
We have to struggle past these assumptions. In the beginning, we have to be tossed from wave to wave of such deluge of doctrines. There will be apparent inconsistencies, because of our insistence on the process of thought. Again, this is so, since our way of reasoning proceeds from resolved proposition to another proposition. Thomists would call it ratiocination, and would add a clause – as opposed to angels who know by intellection. But, the end should see us firm in our beliefs – actually, things that we will eventually believe, through much reasoning and even experimentation. The purpose of doubting then should be certainty. We don’t doubt for the sake of doubting. We don’t argue for the sake of arguing. We must end in truth.
Therefore, I seek truth. And start by disowning the assumptions of my youth.
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