Nostalgia and Philosophy-Consumption or the Hyperreality of “Filipino Philosophy”

Abstract

One of the prevailing agenda of philosophical discourse and inquiry in the Philippine academe is to problematize the existence and status of Filipino philosophy. Filipino professors of philosophy have claimed that the existence of Filipino philosophy is already answered and no longer a legitimate subject of debate. However, the “answer” that ultimately puts this question to rest remains ambiguous. My objective in this paper is to provide an account of this ambiguity and to go through the two pathological responses towards the problem of Filipino Philosophy, namely, (1) the nostalgia for an “authentic” Filipino essence and (2) the culture of philosophy-consumption. The paper consists of three sections: (1) a critique of Abulad’s diachronic schematization of Filipino philosophy, (2) a critique of Mercado’s attempt to salvage the project of indigenization in his short essay Reflections on the Status of Filipino Philosophy, and (3) a critique of the culture of philosophy-consumption through a return to the problems identified by Emerita Quito in The State of Philosophy in the Philippines and an examination of F. P. A. Demeterio III’s taxonomy of Filipino philosophy.