I.

Philosophical knowledge
What
is
Philosophy?
Philosophy is simply thinking hard
about life, about what we have learned,
about our place in the world.
Philosophy is, literally, the love of
wisdom. It is the search for the larger
picture, and this involves the demand
for knowledge. [] Philosophy,
religion, and science have always been
closely related. The emphasis shifts, but
the point of these endeavors is the same:
the importance of ideas and
understanding, of making sense out of
our world and seeing our lives in
some
larger,
even
cosmic,
perspective. (TBG) It is love then,
the search, not the finding. It is an effort
(thats why its not just thinking, but
thinking hard), a need (we require
knowledge because we lack it).
Philosophy, then, is a quest without end,
with no definitive answer (unlike
science and religion), it is a lifetime
project, a whole conceptual framework
(a world view) to which news ideas may
be added and in which even the more
solid ones may collapse. This love,
philosophy, relies on a basic desire of
knowledge, a thirst for answers
constitutive of human nature.
Can we live, then, without philosophy? No doubt we can, but the exercise of
philosophy enriches our minds and our lives, because it enriches the answer to questions
which are unavoidable to us human beings. We may flee those questions, we may buy
prefabricated answers, borrow them from others sure, we may choose a life without
obstacles, without risks, but this is not the philosophical attitude, philosophy seeks for
problems, for adventure. Students, not trained in hard thinking but starved for ideas
and understanding, will retreat to the easier alternatives pop philosophies of self-help,
exotic religious practices, extreme politics... If the hard thinking of philosophy does not
address the big questions, then perhaps these easier alternatives will. The difference
between philosophy and the popular alternatives is ultimately one of quality the
quality of ideas, the thoroughness of understanding. Because we all live by our ideas
anyway, the choice becomes not whether to do philosophy or not do philosophy, but
whether to accept a cheap and unchallenging substitute or to try the real thing. (TBQ)
The practice of philosophy is an effort to build our own view about who we are and
what does all there is (my life, society, the universe) means. It is an effort because
it is useless to borrow previous ideas to build this personal view as long as we have not
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made them our own, we have to take part, to confront alternate views, connect different
ideas, and justify them. If it is through ideas that we see the world, if they determine
how we feel about ourselves and live our lives, then our ideas make all the difference.
So it is urgent as well as intellectually necessary that you ask, at every turn, Do I
really believe that? and, Is that compatible with other things I believe? Good
philosophy, and great philosophy, depends upon the seriousness and rigor with which
such questions are asked. (TBQ) Our ideas have to be articulated (put in clear,
concise, readily understandable language), we have to be able to analyze them
(understand them by distinguishing and clarifying its main components), synthesize
them (gather them into an organised, more complex and unified vision) and to give
arguments which support them and overcome objections. All this is the work of
philosophy.

I.1. The origins of philosophy: gods and gadflies

I.1.1. Everything is full of gods.
Thales of Miletus (ca. 620-546 BCE) is said to have uttered those enigmatic
words, he also defended that the principle of nature is water in a time in which the
will of the Olympic gods explained all natural events. He was the first of the so called
pre-Socratic philosophers (or philosophers of nature), () these men turned their faces
away from the poetical and mythologic way of accounting for things, which had obtained
up to their time, and set their faces toward Science. Aristotle shows us how Thales may
have been led to the formulation of his main thesis by an observation of the phenomena of
nature. (ITP) Thales, as the rest of pre-Socratic philosophers, lights the way from
myth to logos with his quest to find the arch (principle) of physis (nature).
Both mythos and logos mean the speech, the discourse, but philosophy marks
the end of a discourse based on tradition and the beginning of a speech based on reason
and facts. Within the mythical discourse the gods are responsible for the events of
nature, so all theses events are magical, arbitrary and unpredictable, whereas in the
speech understood as logos lies the intuition of an intelligible and ordered nature,
governed by necessary laws to which reason may have access. This logical discourse,
the voice of reason against tradition, seeks for the arch which, according to Aristotle,
is that from which is everything that exists and from which it first becomes and into
which it is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it, but transforming in
qualities, that they say is the element and principle of things that are. So it is the origin
of the Universe and its matter, the cause of change and its end, gods play no role in the
transformations of nature, just the intrinsic properties of the arch: water,
according to Thales.
Is this materialist description of nature, the very beginning of scientific inquiry,
compatible with a world full of gods? It is. The utterance all there is, is full of gods
just expresses the wonder [cf. Text2] which boosts philosophy: in fact, nothing in the
World is obvious, to the eyes of the philosopher all there is a mystery and thats
why the doubt, the inquiry of philosophy is so radical, theres no assumptions,
everything can be the object of philosophical dispute. Wonder, then, is the seeds of
philosophy. All there is deserves a why?, the capacity of wonder instigates endless
curiosity. And thats precisely why philosophy, being logos, challenges tradition,
because it is critical, it accepts no dogma [cf. Text4], and thats also why the endless
curiosity of philosophy may upset authorities to the point of repression.
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I.1.2. I only know one thing: that I know nothing

The best example of philosophical attitude and of the dangerous consequences it
may have is the life of Socrates. Socrates was one of the greatest philosophers of all
times, though he never recorded his philosophy in writing. (All that we know of him
comes down to us from his student Plato and other philosophers.) Socrates was born in
470 BCE and lived his whole long life in Athens. He had a spectacular gift for rhetoric
and debating. [] He based his philosophy on the need to know yourself and on
living the examined life, even though the height of wisdom, according to Socrates,
was to know how thoroughly ignorant we are. Much of his work was dedicated to
defining and living the ideals of wisdom, justice, and the good life. In 399 BCE he was
placed on trial by the Athenians for corrupting the youth with his ideas. He was
condemned to death, refused all opportunities to escape or have his sentence repealed,
and accepted the cruel and unfair verdict with complete dignity and several brilliant
speeches, dying as well as living for the ideas he defended. (TBQ)

The death of Socrates - Jacques-Louis David

In Apology of Socrates, the philosophical dialogue in which Plato narrates the
trial of his master, Socrates defends that worst than ignorance is false belief [cf.
Text1], and that showing how truly ignorant were those Athenians deemed wise had
upset his fellow citizens to the point of having him on trial. Nevertheless Socrates aimed
to help the citizens of Athens, make them wiser, because weve better be aware of our
own ignorance than ignoring it, since only when we know what it is that we ignore
may we be ready to learn about it. According to this, he who knows that he knows
nothing is wiser than those who ignore their own ignorance.
Socrates used to say that he was a gadfly because of this relationship of
uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a dimwitted horse. If you kill a man like me you will injure yourselves more than you will
injure me [because my role is that of a gadfly] to sting people and whip them into fury,
all in the service of the truth. (Apology) Instead of having students for a wage, as the so

called sophists (the wise) did, he scoured the city of Athens proclaiming ironically his
ignorance and waiting for the wisdom of those teachers, only to prove that they were
more ignorant than he was (which provided him with many followers and admirers, but
without payment). The enemy of the philosopher is then the sophist, he who calls
himself wise, because self-indulgence is contrary to doubt, no truth can be pursued if I
believe I already possess the truth. This gadfly Socrates was always asked the same
question (although in very different versions): Could you define your terms? And this
question always revealed that in fact the sophists and their students lacked a proper
definition of whatever they were discussing and so they didnt really know what they
were talking about. So, you say you teach how to make beautiful speeches, but what is
beauty itself? So, you defend that it is better to be unjust than just, but what does
justice really means? A universally valid definition was sought, none found, Socrates
was always able to give a counterexample to the definition. Sure, those things you
mention are beautiful, but what do they have in common that makes them beautiful? So
-he concluded after receiving no satisfying answer- you know how beauty appears to be,
not what it really is. Those gadflies philosophers are, then, push their fellow
citizens to pursue a truth beyond appearances. True justice was the more pressing
question Socrates investigated, and he showed the sophists up, the problem is that
showing the teachers ignorance is never much appreciated by those teachers who are
not philosophers), gadflies are really annoying, so not surprisingly Socrates made
himself a lot of enemies and died because of that.

I.2. The role of philosophy and its different branches

I.2.1. Philosophy, science and religion
Lets go back to the first days of philosophy, to Thales, to the first step of the
way from myth to logos. Where rests the novelty of the quest of the arch of the
universe on? The same question can be addressed within mythology, science and
philosophy, nevertheless the same question gets different meanings. Very roughly, the
question What is the arch/principle of the Universe? may mean: a) Whats the
beginning of the Universe? (myth), b) Whats the substance of the universe? (science) or
c) Whats the reason of the Universe? (philosophy). Of course the answers may be
connected, because the question remains the same, nevertheless the three disciplines
focus on different aspects of the question. At the very beginning of philosophy the
differences between the philosophical and the mythical narrations were ones of degree,
and there was no difference at all between science and philosophy (they were the same
thing, the discourse of logos, of reason).
Before philosophy, mythology tried to unravel the mysteries of the Universe
through etiological (explanatory) myths (changing seasons were explained by the
relation of Demeter with her daughter), theogonies (the origin of gods and its qualities,
like the birth of Athena) and cosmogonies (the origin of the World, like the separation of
Gaia and Uranus). All those myths belonged to a long tradition and they were repeated
generation after generation. Thales of Miletus gave up the authority of tradition, he
looked directly to the stars (so thoroughly, says Thales legend, that one day he fell into
a well) in search for answers because he believed that reason itself was enough to
understand nature. Socrates looked for true justice, justice in itself, instead of
resigning to what was said to be justice, because he believed that truth arouse from
rational discussion and not from recited lessons. They both believed, then, that there is
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a difference between the way the World simply seems to be and the way it really is
(between appearance and reality), and once we have made this basic distinction, a
whole new world opens up to us, a real world behind (or above or below)
appearances and it follows an attempt to account for the sequence of events seen in
terms of other events unseen. Primitive mythologies populate this world behind the
scenes with spirits, demons, gods and goddesses. (TBQ)
Until the 16th century, when modern science appears, there is no difference
between philosophy and science, both are rational and systematic disciplines and they
share the same subject. In the 16th century both disciplines split, questions about what is
transcendent or metaphysical are excluded from science and laws and theories within
science become mathematized (its propositions are expressed in the language of
mathematics to avoid ambiguity) and experimental (its propositions have to be provable
by experience).
Concerning religion, philosophy shares its worries and problems, and they both
have a similar practical dimension. They seek to teach us how to live a good life
offering moral principles for action. Theyve been very closely related in some periods
of history (in the Middle Ages) but philosophy, especially from the Enlightenment
period, has become more and more critical with religion.
Philosophy

Science

Religion

Rational, critical and

systematic.

Rational, critical and

systematic.

Dogmatic, based on
authority and faith.

Axiological
dimension

Present through norms and

principles.

Specific
Description of facts,
predictions, understanding
of the universe
Mathematics, observation,
experiments.
Absent.

General
Transcendence,
meaning of existence

Tools

General
Transcendence, meaning of
existence, understanding of
the universe
Language, logic, arguments.

Kind of
knowledge
Questions
Interests

Sacred scriptures or oral

traditions.
Present through norms
and principles

I.2.2. Main features of philosophy

Philosophy can be defined taking into consideration not only border disciplines,
but its intrinsic characteristics.
Philosophy is, above everything, a radical Why?. Radical because it aims
for the roots, the foundations of all knowledge, and radical because theres no limit to its
doubt, everything can be putted into question, even philosophy itself (its own
foundation). For philosophy nothing is taken for granted (thats why philosophy
cherishes wonder). It tries to discover mistakes, fallacies and ideological manipulations
because philosophy pursues the emancipation of every form of cultural, political or even
scientific domination.
Philosophy is rational, it is based on logical arguments and experience
(scientific facts), but it is not only descriptive, it seeks the ultimate sense of what there
is.
Philosophy is systematic, all its assertions have to be related and hierarchical,
ordered within a system without contradictions.
Philosophy is critical, nothing is admitted without previous rational scrutiny,
any knowledge has to be re-examined and rebutted if there are no good reasons behind
it.
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Philosophy has been accused for lack of progress, for adding no final results but
a variety of contradictory theories. But philosophy is a problematizing discipline, its
value lies in its peculiar way of addressing problems more than in how it solves them.
The questions, more than its answers, are valuable. [cf. Text3]
Philosophy is a Universalist and interdisciplinary subject, it covers all reality,
not a specific area or range. It is useful, then, to establish unions between multiple
disciplines.
Philosophy is practical, even though sometimes its very abstract it is an art of
living, this axiological (from axiology - "theory of value) aspect of philosophy makes
it quite unique since reason is used not only in a descriptive way (as in science) but also
in an evaluative manner.
There are, then, two great dimensions in philosophy tied to two different uses
of reason: the theoretical and the practical. The first focuses on reality and knowledge
(metaphysics and epistemology), the second on human action and morality (ethics and
politics). Certainly humans are rational animals since they are capable of a sophisticated
use of reason, a capacity to make the better possible choice. But what do we choose
through reason? Beliefs and actions. So a distinction has to be made between a
theoretical rationality, reason when used to choose the best reasons to consider a
statement true, and a practical rationality, reason when used to choose the best means
for a particular end. Theoretical philosophy aims to conform beliefs and reality through
understanding, practical philosophy aims to conform desires and events through actions.
Statements (beliefs) can be true or false, actions can be right or wrong, and philosophy
addresses both aspects of rationality: theory and practice.
I.2.3. Fields of philosophy
All the problems of philosophy are interwoven and its difficult to pursue a
question in any one field without soon searching in others too. Despite this systematic
unity, traditionally philosophy is divided into.
Metaphysics (literally beyond-physics): the theory of reality and the ultimate
nature of all things. The aim of metaphysics is a comprehensive view of the universe, an
overall overview. It is often subdivided into ontology, the study of being (of entities),
and theology, the study of God. How can we tell the difference between appearances
and true reality?, Do mathematical objects have some kind of reality? or Do
universals exist? are metaphysical questions.
Logic (from logos word, reason, discourse, speech): the study of the
formal structures of sound thinking and good argumentation. Can I prove the
soundness of this argument? or Is [(pq)p]q a valid argument? are logical
questions.
Epistemology (from episteme science, knowledge): theory of knowledge,
the study of truth criteria, and of the possibility, origin and limits of knowledge. Part of
it is the philosophy of science which studies what science is and defines it to
distinguish it from pseudoscientific accounts. What can we know?, How do we know
anything? or What is truth? are epistemological questions.
Ethics (from ethos habit): also called moral philosophy, the study of good
and bad, right and wrong, the search for the good life and the enquiry of the principles
and rules of morality. How can we reach happiness?, Is it right to treat persons as
means? or Does free will exist? are ethical questions.

Politics (from polis city, society): the study of the foundations and the
nature of society and the state, an attempt to formulate a vision of the ideal society and
implement ideas and reforms in our own society to better achieve this. Is the existence
of the state necessary?, What is justice? or How can power be legitimate? are
political questions.
Aesthetics (from aesthesis sensitive knowledge): the study of the nature of art
(philosophy of art) and the experiences we have when we enjoy the arts or take pleasure
in nature, including an understanding of concepts such as beauty, expression and
taste. What is beauty?, Is ugliness to be avoided within art? or Why do we want
to feel terror with a horror movie? are aesthetical questions.
Anthropology (from anthropos human): (we speak of philosophical
anthropology to distinguish it from biological or social anthropology) the study of the
place humanity occupies in the world, its origin and nature. Does a human nature
exist? or Is violence a cultural artefact? are anthropological questions.

I.3. Outline of the History of Philosophy

I.3.1. Ancient philosophy (VI BCE IV)

The School of Athens - Raphael

The pre-Socratics. Different philosophical schools fall under the label preSocratics, all focused on the problem of the arch of the universe. Different theories
were proposed to unravel the mystery of nature, the more salient thinkers of that period
were Thales (ca. 620-546 BCE), Pythagoras (ca. 570-495 BCE) who defended that the
ultimate elements of reality were numbers, Parmenides (515-440 BCE) who went so
far as to suggest that the world of our everyday life, because it was so filled with
changes and things coming into being and disappearing, could not be genuinely real,

Heraclitus (540-475 BCE) who said that change is real, thus contradicting Parmenides
principle that reality is what doesnt change, and he expressed the idea that everything is
constantly in flux by saying that you cannot step in the same river twice and finally
Democritus (460- 371 BCE) who suggested that the world consisted of tiny
indestructible elements, which he called atoms, that combined and recombined in
various ways to give us the different elements and all the complex things of this world.
Classical period. After the pre-Socratics, Athens became the capital of
philosophy and the focus of philosophers shifted from nature to morality and politics.
Socrates (470-399 BCE) was one of the more influential philosophers of antiquity
although he left no written works, we know his teachings thanks to the works of Plato
(428-348 BCE), one of his followers. Plato wrote dialogues and in most of them
Socrates appeared as one of the interlocutors. Finally Aristotle (384-322 BCE), one of
the main philosophers of all time, was a disciple of Plato, but he later drifted apart from
his doctrine. Both Plato and Aristotle discussed questions like appearance and reality,
virtue and justice, but Aristotle also dealt with the movements of planets and biology.
Hellenistic philosophy (stoicism, Epicureanism, scepticism and roman thought).
"At the close of the fourth century before Christ there arose the schools of the Stoics,
the Epicureans, and the Sceptics. In them we seem to find a somewhat new conception
of philosophy philosophy appears as chiefly a guide to life." (ITP) Salient thinkers of
Hellenistic philosophy are Epicurus (241-270 BCE, Epicureanism), Lucio Anneo
Seneca (4 BCE - 65 ACE, stoicism) and Pyrrho (365-275 BCE, scepticism).
Neoplatonism. System of doctrine which arose in the third century after Christ,
Plotinus undertook to give an account of the origin, development, and end of the whole
system of things, with a mystical interest in the beyond.
I.3.2. Medieval philosophy (IV XIV)
"In the Middle Ages there gradually grew up rather a sharp distinction between
those things that can be known through the unaided reason and those things that can
only be known through a supernatural revelation." (ITP) During that period philosophy
is subordinated to theology and religious faith became one of the central questions.
Patristic philosophy. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is the main exponent of
Patristics, early Christian thinkers who attempted to interpret rationally and spread the
Christian religion.
Arab and Jewish philosophy. Along with Christian philosophy, Arab and Jewish
philosophy arouse, Averroes (1126-1198) and Maimonides (1135-1204) preserved
Greek culture, translated it and enriched it with new scientific contributions and
philosophical reflections.
Scholasticism. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) is the more influential philosopher
and theologian of scholasticism, his principal interest was to harmonize faith and reason
given that both are prepared and legitimated to reach the same truth, even though they
are of a different nature.
Nominalism. William of Ockham's (1287-1347) nominalism is a radical
turnaround in philosophy considering that no ideas or universal concepts exist by
themselves.
I.3.3. Modern philosophy (XVII XIX)
The Modern Era opens with the Renaissance of the Greek and Latin culture and
the emergence of humanism. In that period also takes place the Scientific Revolution and

the birth of modern science. Philosophy acquires a marked interest for epistemology and
determining the foundations and limits of knowledge, two great philosophical trends
appear:
Rationalism. This tradition considers that true knowledge arises and develops
from reason. Its main exponents are Ren Descartes (1596-1650) G. W. Leibniz (16461716) and Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677).
Empirism. This tradition defends that true knowledge is acquired through the
senses and experience. Its main exponents are John Locke (1632-1704), George
Berkeley (1682-1753) and David Hume (1711-1776).
Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is a cultural movement of intellectuals
emphasizing reason rather than tradition in order to reform society and advance
knowledge through the scientific method. It was a revolution in human thought which
lead to political revolutions and the end of the Ancient Regime. Salient enlightened
thinkers were J. J. Rousseau (1712-1778) and one of the greater philosophers of all
times, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who tried to reconcile rationalism and empiricism,
and reason with religious belief, individual freedom and political authority.
Idealism. Kant's work contained basic tensions that would shape German
idealism. According to Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) history is the unfurling of the
Spirit in the World through time.
I.3.4. Contemporary philosophy (XIX present day)
Even though there are many differences between all its trends, contemporary
philosophy is characterized by strong criticism and an attitude of suspicion and
denouncement, as it is especially clear in the anti-idealist reaction of Arthur
Schopenhauer (1788-1860), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Karl Marx (18181883). Those authors will be highly influential in 20 th Century thinkers, as will be other
19th philosophical traditions such as Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology, Jeremy
Bentham and John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, Auguste Comte's Positivism and
Charles Sanders Peirce and William James's Pragmatism.
The main philosophical schools of the 20th Century are:
Analytic philosophy (Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, Putnam) claims that most
philosophical questions come up from a wrong interpretation of language, so
philosophy has to analyze and clarify it.
Existentialism (Heidegger, Sartre) is characterized by the idea that existence
precedes essence and is inherently absurd besides each person's commitment.
The Frankfurt school (Adorno, Marcuse, Habermas), built upon Freud and
Marx, proposes a radical criticism to technology, science, consumerism and mass
culture, all of which dehumanizes our society.
Hermeneutics (Gadamer, Ricoeur) defends that human events and procedures
can not be known through an objective description but they require an inevitably
subjective interpretation.
Postmodernism (Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Rorty) emphasizes the interdetermination and contingency of social and historical phenomena with each other and
with the cultural values and biases of perspective, leading to radical relativism and
skepticism.

Bibliography:
Robert C. Solomon & Kathleen M. Higgins. The Big Questions. A short introduction to philosophy (TBQ).
Wadsworth: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2006.
Plato. Apology of Socrates (AS).
Simon Blackburn. Think. A compelling introduction to philosophy (T). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
George Stuart Fullerton. An introduction to philosophy (ITP). Project Gutenberg, 2005.
Bertrand Russell. The problems of philosophy (PP).

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