first try - philo

• Philosophy


  The study of a variety of fundamental questions about the nature of ourselves and the world we live in
• Φιλοσοφία


  Philos + Sofia, "Love for Wisdom"
• Philosophy was coined by Pythagoras
• Philosophy


  • Knowledge of all things through their ultimate causes acquired through the use of reason
  • Seeking the deepest explanations regarding the existence and nature of beings
  • Seeking the ultimate explanations that can be arrived at by applying reasoning to facts supplied by experience
• Nature of Philosophy


  • An attempt to arrive at a rational conception of reality
  • Enquires into the nature of the universe, the nature of the human soul, and its destiny, and the nature of God or the Absolute, and their relation to one another
  • Enquires into the nature of matter, time, space, causality, evolution, life, and mind, and their relation to one another
  • The art of thinking all things logically, systematically, and persistently
  • The art of thinking rationally and systematically of the reality as a whole
  • The mother of all sciences, mother of all disciplines
• Philosopher


  • One who asks questions with a genuine desire to know
  • One who does not claim to know everything
  • One who is humble with one's own ignorance (fundamental ignorance)
  • A lover of wisdom
  • One who is not afraid of different perspectives
• Purpose of Philosophy


  • Faith Seeking Understanding: Philosophy as Handmaiden of Theology in the medieval times
  • Search for Certitude (Falsification, Dialectics, Paradigm Shifts etc.)
  • Search for Clarity (Emphasizes linguistic and logical analysis of terms used in a discourse)
• Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas: '"Philosophy is the science of all things in their ultimate causes and principles, as known by the light of natural reason."'
• Karl Jaspers: '"Philosophy is a discipline in which questions are more important than answers, because answers themselves will in turn become questions."'
• Karl Marx: '"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it."'
• How Philosophy starts


  Philosophy starts when a person, in their human nature, asks questions
• Philosophical Approaches in Greece, India, & China

  • Greece (Cosmocentric): "Where am I?"
  • India (Psychocentric): "Who am I?"
  • China (Anthropocentric): "What am I?"
• The Branches of Philosophy


  • Metaphysics
  • Epistemology
  • Axiology
  • Ontology
  • Natural Theology
  • Cosmology
  • Logic
  • Empiricism
  • Rationalism
  • Ethics
  • Aesthetics
  • Political Philosophy
• Metaphysics, Ontology, Natural Theology, Cosmology


  Studies and asks questions about the essence and existence of being, reality, the physical world, and the universe

  
• Epistemology, Logic, Empiricism, Rationalism


  Seeks to explain how we acquire knowledge, how knowledge relates to notions like justification, truth, and belief, and how and where it falls in the spectrum of certainty and error
• Axiology (Moral Philosophy), Ethics


  Studies morality and values, seeks to address questions about how we should live our lives, define proper conduct, and meaning of the good life
• Axiology (Moral Philosophy), Aesthetics


  Studies everything related to beauty, art, and good taste, includes how we define art, how we feel when viewing art or witnessing beauty, how we judge works of art, and how we form our taste
• Axiology (Moral Philosophy), Political Philosophy


  Examines various concepts related to politics, government, laws, liberty, justice, rights, authority, state, and even ethics (ethical ruling)
• Philosophers Throughout History


  • Presocratics (Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus)
  • Socratics (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle)
  • Modern Philosophers (Rene Descartes, Jean)
• Thales


  • First one to break the tradition of following Greek myths to explain nature
  • Believed the primary substance in the world is water and earth is flat
  • Dubbed as Father of Western Philosophy
• Pythagoras


  • Considered philosophy and mathematics as a means to purify the soul
  • Believed that a contemplative life is an important part of purification
  • Believed that everything could be explained through numbers
• Heraclitus: '"You cannot step twice into the same rivers, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you. We step and do not step into the same rivers, we are and are not."'
• Socrates


  • "Know thyself"
  • Saw philosophy as a way of life, the highest calling of a select few
  • Believed that circumspect use of language and endless self-questioning are crucial in the quest for wisdom
  • Believed that the highest good is knowledge
• Plato


  • Founded the Academy
  • Believed that reality is divided into two parts: the ideal and the phenomena
  • Famous for his work in political philosophy
• Aristotle


  • Founded the Lyceum and tutored Alexander the Great
  • Virtue Ethics – Successful people possess certain virtues
  • "Man is a political animal"
  • First logician and biologist
  • Influenced numerous theologians and philosophers, including St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
  • "The form is what makes matter what it is (as the soul defines a living body)"
• Socrates: 'The only thing that is permanent in this world is change.'
• Socratics (Essence)


  • Socrates
  • Plato
  • Aristotle
• Socrates


  • "Know thyself."
  • Saw philosophy as a way of life, the highest calling of a select few
  • Believed that circumspect use of language and endless self-questioning are crucial in the quest for wisdom
  • Believed that the highest good is knowledge
• Plato


  • Founded the Academy
  • Believed that reality is divided into two parts: the ideal and the phenomena
  • Famous for his work in political philosophy
• Aristotle


  • Founded the Lyceum and tutored Alexander the Great
  • Virtue Ethics – Successful people possess certain virtues
  • "Man is a political animal"
  • First logician and biologist
  • Influenced numerous theologians and philosophers, including St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
  • "The form is what makes matter what it is (as the soul defines a living body)"
• Modern Philosophers (individuality and others)

  • Rene Descartes
  • Jean Jacques Rousseau
  • Immanuel Kant
  • Martin Heidegger
  • Søren Kierkegaard
  • Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Jean-Paul Sartre
• Rene Descartes


  • Father of modern philosophy
  • The only thing that he couldn't doubt was himself thinking, hence cogito, ergo sum ("I think, therefore, I am.")
  • Made landmark contributions to mathematics (Cartesian geometry), to metaphysics (belief in God and the material world, acceptance of mind-body dualism), and to philosophical methodology (Discourse On Method)
• The Social Contract


  • Members of a society should cooperate for social benefits, sacrificing some individual freedoms for state protection
  • People are born good but society wields a corrupting influence on them
  • The driving force behind society is the General Will, and it must be respected. The challenge is to attain freedom amidst corruption and worldliness.
• Immanuel Kant


  • "Moral actions can only arise from a sense of duty (as opposed to, say, the outcome of actions, which may be pleasurable or beneficial to someone)"
  • Kantian Ethics – Deontology (nature of duty and obligation) – What is good arises from duty and free will
  • "The world of things-in-themselves is unknowable; the world of appearance, the phenomenal world governed by laws, is knowable"
• Søren Kierkegaard: '"Life can only be understood forwards but must be lived backwards"'
• Friedrich Nietzsche: '"God is dead, and we have killed him."'
• Jean-Paul Sartre: '"We don't have meaning yet when we are born; we create meaning as go along with our lives"'
• The Existentialists


  • A leap of faith is necessary in order to define who we are; God will help us in that aspect
  • Human beings are unique because they can both act and be aware of it at the same time
  • There is no meaning to our life a priori, so the deepest striving is to define ourselves in a random and contingent world

  
• Friedrich Nietzsche


  • Rejected Christianity's compassion for the weak, exalting the "will to power"
  • Belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable
• Martin Heidegger


  • Dasein – Being towards death
  • "We're essentially alone; we come into the world alone and exit it alone"
  • We shouldn't be afraid of death as it is inevitable and death is merely a term for nonexistence