THE ETHICS of thinking offers deeper understanding of the pandemic by allowing the mind to think beyond the anthropological view, philosophy professor Paolo Bolaños said Thursday during the launching of his book “Nietzsche and Adorno on Philosophical Praxis, Language, and Reconciliation: Towards an Ethics of Thinking.”
Bolaños mentioned that the ethics of thinking is “a guide of thinking that is motivated by guilt” because humans, as rational beings, were responsible for understanding human and non-human others.
He suggested that utilizing ethical thinking as a philosophical practice would enable humans to recognize the pandemic adversaries from the perspective of non-human others—the point of view of being a virus.
“If we are able to do that at least in the philosophical virtual space then perhaps we would have a broad understanding of what is going on […] kasi baka mayroon tayong hindi naiisip na mas malawak na dahilan o reason,” he said.
Doing this allows the mind to philosophically practice ethics, which is outside ethical notions of the system of moral codes, he added.
“In an attempt to make sense of what I called the ethics of thinking, I would like to use (Raymond) Geuss’ second description of ethics. Philosophical thinking has always been a way of looking at or thinking about the world and the object within it,” Bolaños said.
Bolaños further incited that the ethics of thinking also presupposed memory, which is essential in gaining knowledge and consciousness.
Yet, he also cited that it is natural for humans to forget the painful memory of the past, but in return, it became a way for history and societal identity to vanish.
“The philosophical [notion] of memory […] provides the avenue to the discourse of themes of violence, injustices, sufferings, and the exacerbation of the truth that we choose to vanish in our collective memory,” he said.
This memory, however, is essential to avoid the occurrence of the same suffering, said Bolaños.
Bolaños is a former chairperson of the UST Department of Philosophy, and a chief editor of the Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy.
He is also a research fellow at the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts, and Humanities, and a member of the Philippine Academy of Philosophical Research.
The book launching was held via Google Meet, and live streamed through the Department of Philosophy official Facebook page. F
