•  17
    Religion-based AI chatbots serve religious practitioners by bringing them godly wisdom through technology. These bots reply to spiritual and worldly questions by drawing insights or citing verses from the Quran, the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, the Torah, or other holy books. They answer religious and theological queries by claiming to offer historical contexts and providing guidance and counseling to their users. A criticism of these bots is that they may give inaccurate answers and proliferate bi…Read more
  •  8
    See You in 100+ Years or So: Immortality and the Afterlife in K-Dramas
    In Soraj Hongladarom, Jeremiah Joven Joaquin & Frank Hoffman (eds.), Philosophies of Appropriated Religions: Perspectives from Southeast Asia, Springer Nature Singapore. pp. 25-39. 2023.
    South Korean dramas or K-dramas have been top-rated worldwide. The dubbed or subtitled shows’ success is due to their sometimes outrageous yet wholesome storylines. They tackle family, love, relationship, and career themes. However, religious themes wherein immortal and reincarnated characters recur are noticeable in some of these K-dramas. The main characters have lived for 100+ years or so, and they have been waiting for their lovers to be reborn in their many lifetimes. These character and st…Read more
  •  6
    The Place of ‘Place’ in Intersectionality: Developing a Critical Place Theory
    In William Arrocha & Elena Xeni (eds.), Migrations and Diasporas, Emerald Insight. pp. 123-136. 2023.
    Various philosophers and thinkers have discussed the importance of thinking and philosophising about the concept of ‘place’. A necessary structure of human experience, place is vital to the very foundation of human experience. More than the geography or arrangement of places, place is a concept that moulds human experience and contributes to understanding oneself and the world. Place has also been used to explain political motivations and issues such as citizenship, diaspora and migration. Despi…Read more
  •  64
    Terms of Endearment: The Displacement of Inday
    with Ruel Nalam
    Asia-Pacific Social Science Review 20 (3): 102-110. 2020.
    The term inday implies two possible meanings depending on where one is in the Philippines. In the Luzon group of islands, more specifically in Metro Manila, inday refers to the female help, usually of Visayan descent. On the other hand, in the Visayas and Mindanao group of islands, inday is a term used for endearment and respect for female family members, friends, and women of influence. What this paper aims to do is to provide a theoretical grounding, through oppositional gazing, of why the ter…Read more
  •  12
    This paper reports the policy-responses of different Philippine higher education institutions (HEIs) to the novel coronavirus, COVD-19 pandemic. It compares these responses with those made by HEIs in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Publicly available data and news reports were used to gauge the general public’s reaction to these policies and how the Philippines’ responses fare with its Southeast Asian neighbors. The paper observes that despite the innovations made by Philippine HEIs in terms o…Read more
  •  31
    Questioning Demeterio’s Approach to Filipino Philosophy
    with Jeremiah Joven Joaquin
    Philosophia: International Journal of Philosophy (Philippine e-journal) 24 (1): 131-155. 2023.
    In his two articles, F. P. A. Demeterio III attempts to classify works in Filipino philosophy using a list of twelve (or sixteen) supposed discourses that prominent philosophers in the Philippines have engaged in and published over the past few years. From this list, he advises current Filipino philosophers to invest their time and effort in contributing to only five of these because of their alleged higher measure of "developmental potential" as opposed to other discourses. In this paper, we ra…Read more
  •  23
    Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr. On Why Racism Makes no Sense
    Filosofia Theoretica 11 (3): 105-126. 2022.
    In this interview with W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University, Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr, we discuss the metaphysical and ethical questions of grouping and classifying people in terms of race and ethnicity. Outlaw is the author of [On Race and Philosophy] and one of the recognised pioneers of Africana Philosophy. Outlaw talks about growing up in racial segregation in Starkville, Mississippi, the Black Power movement, the notion of the Black intellectual, scholarship and teach…Read more
  •  4
    Beyond the Bump: Reconceiving of the Philosophy of Pregnancy
    with Leni Garcia and Ninotchka Mumtaj Albano
    Philosophia: International Journal of Philosophy 22 (1): 19-34. 2021.
    French philosopher Helene Cixous stressed the importance of feminine writing. She believes that women should take part in sharing their experiences from their own novel points-of-view. We discuss that while pregnancy is an experience unique to women, it has been misappropriated by patriarchal structures throughout the years. The pregnancy bump, which is more than just evidence of the uterus stretching to accommodate the fetus, is a symbol of a woman's triumphs and struggles all throughout concep…Read more
  •  17
    Victim-blaming AIs
    with Rosallia Domingo
    AI and Society 1-2. forthcoming.
  •  23
    Sally Haslanger is Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women's and Gender Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leading contemporary feminist philosopher. She has worked on analytic metaphysics, epistemology, and ancient philosophy. Her areas of interest are social and political philosophy, feminist theory, and critical race theory. Her 2012 book, Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique, collects papers published over the course of twenty years that link work…Read more
  •  18
    What would a romantic relationship between a biological human and an artificial intelligence system look like? The question is explored through a fictional correspondence between Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace.
  •  13
    Extending bell hooks' Feminist Theory
    Journal of International Women's Studies 21 (1). 2020.
    In Feminist theory: from margin to center, feminist theorist bell hooks questioned the existing feminist discourses during her time by pointing out the lack of a solid definition of feminism and the predominance of white, privileged feminists in the movement. Although several other feminist theorists have made the same criticisms, what sets hooks apart is her invitation to a revolutionary feminist outlook, which uses a pluralistic lens to recognize the absence of oppressed groups and the interro…Read more
  •  48
    Love as an Act of Resistance: bell hooks on Love
    In Soraj Hongladarom & Jeremiah Joven Joaquin (eds.), Love and Friendship Across Cultures: Perspectives From East and West, Springer Singapore. pp. 127-137. 2021.
    Dubbed as one of the “100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life”, bell hooks or Gloria Jean Watkins tries to understand and define love in her numerous works. What makes her definition different from other thinkers is that she combines her own unique feminist theory with Engaged Buddhism to arrive at a framework for love. This paper aims to introduce bell hooks’ feminist theory, her pedagogy and ideas on spirituality, and clarify her notions on love. Through her love ethic theory, one uncovers …Read more
  •  16
    For a Moment or for Eternity: A Metaphysics of Perduring Lovers
    In Soraj Hongladarom & Jeremiah Joven Joaquin (eds.), Love and Friendship Across Cultures: Perspectives From East and West, Springer Singapore. pp. 179-190. 2021.
    This paper develops a philosophical account of the relata of romantic love, the nature of the objects in a love-relation. This account holds that the lover who loves and the beloved who is loved are particular people who persist through time by having temporal parts. We show how such a perdurantist account could provide models of different kinds of romantic love: from the love of transitory lovers to the love of immortal beings; from the love of lifelong companions to the love of soulmates. Fina…Read more
  •  39
    With its own Netflix program, Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has received a huge cult following. Considering that clutter sweeps 21st century daily living, what this paper aims to do, is to unravel the philosophical foundations of Kondo's work. Considering the trendiness of the KonMari method, one wonders why and how decluttering modern homes and one's day-to-day existence inspires certain profound reflections and raises social criticisms. Through a sweeping review of Kondo'…Read more
  •  42
    The hit American TV show The Good Place has garnered quite a following in recent years. Its main premise implies a scorekeeping view of the afterlife. People who have collected enough credits in their earthly lives will make the cut and go to the Good Place, while those who do not will be banished to the Bad Place. We suggest that such a premise would have to come to terms with Ted Sider's puzzle about the compatibility of a binary afterlife with God's divine attributes.
  •  33
    In ‘Fuzzy gender: between female embodiment and intersex’, Ashley Tauchert offers a ‘fuzzy’ model for gender. Her proposed model aims to account for the normative boundaries of sex and gender, especially between females, transwomen, and intersexuals, in terms of a ‘gender line’ on which different gender categories are located. This reply paper aims to clear the fuzziness in Tauchert’s model by pointing out two critical problems. First, her model appears to be self-defeating, since the marginaliz…Read more