WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY I

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? I

• Philosophy in the west begins with the Greeks.
• Philosophy is a Greek word which means love of
  wisdom.
• Philosophers seek wisdom about man, the cosmos,
  and mans relation to the cosmos.

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? II

• Philosophy is an attempt to provide critically
  acceptable answers to ultimate questions.
• What is an ultimate question? (The English word
  ultimate derives from the Medieval Latin
  ultimatus meaning last and from the Late Latin
  ultimare meaning to come to an end, to be
  last.)
• Meanings of ultimate relevant to phil. are - 1
  arrived at as the last result - i.e. the ultimate
  question 2 basic, fundamental - i.e. the
  ultimate nature of things 3 incapable of further
  analysis, division or separation - i.e. the
  ultimate level has been reached (rock bottom)

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? III

• Examples of ultimate questions are How do we
  know anything? Can we prove that the external
  world exists? Do other minds exist? What is my
  self? How does the mind relate to the body? How
  do words mean? Are there abstract objects? Are we
  free? Does God exist? Do we survive death? Does
  life have meaning?

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? IV

• Philosophy thinks about things such as mind,
  matter, language, life, and death which everyone
  has some idea of, and which they tend to take for
  granted and do not question.
• Philosophy calls common ideas into question and
  attempts to analyze them, to get at the basic
  truth or nature of each such concept.
• In general, philosophy deals with the most
  general and abstract features of reality which
  have been and continue to be of interest to
  mankind, and which cannot be answered by other
  disciplines, such as science.

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? V

• At one time most of the parts of science, such as
  physics and astronomy were part of philosophy.
  The last discipline to break off was psychology.
• Accordingly, what philosophy is or what it
  concerns can change with time and with the
  progress of other disciplines.
• Although disciplines which were once part of
  philosophy have their own specialized area of
  concern, that does not mean that they cease to be
  of interest or relevance to philosophy.

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? VI

• critically acceptable means to stand the test
  of argument, to be well-reasoned, and to have
  influenced the thought of other thinkers.
• Articles thought to be critically acceptable tend
  to get published in journals or in books or both,
  and books which are critically acceptable tend to
  get published, read and reviewed.
• Books and articles which are extremely important
  become part of the history of philosophy and are
  read by succeeding generations.

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? VII

• Attempt Philosophers attempt to answer the
  problems of philosophy through the use of reason.
  By thinking about the problems, by writing books
  and articles about them, by discussing them with
  other philosophers.
• But it is hard to find two philosophers who will
  agree about everything, and, for any book or
  article that someone has written, there will be
  philosophers who disagree with some or all of it.
• Attempt reflects the fact that philosophys
  answers are provisional and not certain.

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? VIII

• A reason for this is the difficulty of the
  problems. They exist at the very limits of human
  reason.
• Also, philosophy does not operate like science.
  Scientific theories make predictions that can be
  tested in the world.
• Philosophy also cannot produce strict formal
  proofs in the manner of mathematics.

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PROTAGONISTS OF PHILOSOPHY

• Pre-Socratics Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno
• Main classical philosophers Socrates, Plato,
  Aristotle
• Main Christian and medieval philosophers St.
  Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas
• Main rationalists Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz
• Main empiricists Locke, Berkeley, Hume
• Other main moderns Kant, Hegel
• Great 20th century philosophers Frege, Russell,
  Wittgenstein

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WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? IX

• Philosophy is a disinterested search for truth
  about man, the cosmos, and mans relation to the
  cosmos.
• Main branches of philosophy are logic,
  epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and
  aesthetics.
• Also phil. of mind, phil. of science, and phil.
  of language.