FORMAL DEFINITON

the study of ideas about knowledge, truth, the nature and meaning of life
ETYMOLIGICAL DEFINITION

The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek word "philosophia," which combines the
words "philo" meaning "love of" and "sophia" meaning "wisdom."Some common
etymological definitions of philosophy are "love of wisdom" or "love of knowledge."

What is the essence of philosophy

To me, it's the use of the human desire to know more about the world and the curiosity
that we naturally posses. Philosophers are just people who decide to speak these
unsolved questions out loud instead of keeping them bottled inside. Each and every one
of us can be called philosophers, because there is no defined answer to many of the
mysteries of life - so each and everyone's point is valid :) Hope this helps :) x

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend
as little as possible on external things.
Certainly no definition of philosophy is needed to perform it, but you are free to make an
attempt at one. You can probably come to a conclusion that will satisfy you, but not
everyone else.
The essence of philosophy for me, individually, is that I don't want or need a definition of
it, it works well the way it is. For me, it needs no explanations. That is satisfying enough
for me, because I find the inspection of a concept that works is only going to break it.
Take religion for example, inspect that with any sort of intense questioning and your
beliefs will probably be damaged because of it. Yet Religion helps billions of
unquestioning people live their daily lives.
My point is, when I said it needs no explanation, I was speaking for myself. If you want a
more satisfying answer, go do the work to get it.

 Logic is the attempt to codify the rules of rational thought. Logicians explore the
structure of arguments that preserve truth or allow the optimal extraction of knowledge
from evidence. Logic is one of the primary tools philosophers use in their inquiries; the
precision of logic helps them to cope with the subtlety of philosophical problems and the
often misleading nature of conversational language.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge itself. Epistemologists ask, for instance,
what criteria must be satisfied for something we believe to count as something we know,
and even what it means for a proposition to be true. Two epistemological questions I
discuss elsewhere on this site are the question of how we can know the future will be
like the past, and the question of how we can be sure about anything at all.
Metaphysics is the study of the nature of things. Metaphysicians ask what kinds of
things exist, and what they are like. They reason about such things as whether or not
people have free will, in what sense abstract objects can be said to exist, how it is that
brains are able to generate minds, and whether or not there is a god.
Axiology is an umbrella term for different studies that center upon the nature of
different types of value.6 These different studies include aesthetics, which investigates
the nature of such things as beauty and art; social philosophy and political philosophy;
and, most prominently, ethics, which investigates both the nature of right and wrong and
the nature of good and evil. Ethics asks theoretical questions about the foundations of
morality, such as whether right and wrong should be understood in aconsequentialist or
deontological way, but also asks practical questions about the fine details of moral
conduct, such as how much moral consideration one ought to give to non-human
animals.

Speculative philosophy doesn't need to build up from first principles. It iswhat people
feel is right for them and therefore decide to adopt it. Practicalphilosophy concerns with
resolving arguments from first principles

DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY
It is true that many subjects that once belonged to philosophy--such as physics,
chemistry, and psychology--have broken off to become independent disciplines.
This has not, however, left philosophy with no material with which to work. There
are certain basic issues that have belonged to philosophy from the beginning and
that are still its major concerns. These include the nature of the universe, the
possibility of knowledge, the correct use of reason, the standards of justice, and

the qualities of beauty. These problems are the subject matter of the five
branches of philosophy--metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, and
aesthetics.
Metaphysics is a word coined almost accidentally. It is the title given to a book
written by Aristotle after he had completed his 'Physics', and it was placed
immediately afterward in the body of his writings. Whereas 'Physics' deals with
the observable world and its laws, 'Metaphysics' is concerned with the principles,
structures, and meanings that underlie all observable reality. It is the
investigation, by means of pure speculation, of the nature of being--of the cause,
substance, and purpose of everything. Metaphysics asks: What are space and
time? What is a thing and how does it differ from an idea? Are humans free to
decide their fate? Is there a first cause, or God, that has made everything and put
it in motion?
Because the answers to such questions cannot be arrived at by observation,
experience, or experiment, they must be products of the reasoning mind. Such
matters are very close, in fact, to the province of religion and in Asia the answers
to these questions are normally put in a strictly religious framework. In much
20th-century Western philosophy, metaphysics has been dismissed as pointless
speculation that can never achieve positive results. Nevertheless, metaphysics
has many defenders who still explore notions put forward by Plato and Aristotle.
Epistemology means "theory of knowledge." It is derived from the Greek
episteme, meaning "knowledge," and logos, which has several meanings,
including "theory." Whereas metaphysics is concerned with the underlying nature
of reality, epistemology deals with the possibilities and limits of human
knowledge. Basically it tries to arrive at a knowledge of knowledge itself. It is also
a speculative branch of philosophy and tries to answer such questions as: Is the
world as people perceive it the basic reality, or do people perceive only
appearances (or phenomena) that conceal basic reality? What are the boundaries
between reason and knowledge, on the one hand, and what some thinkers call
the illusions deriving from metaphysics? What is the basis for knowledge? Is it
observation, experience, intuition, or inspiration? Or is there some other basis?
Knowledge may be regarded as having two parts. There is, first of all, what one
sees, hears, touches, tastes, and smells. Next there is the way these perceptions
are organized by the mind to form ideas or concepts. The problem of
epistemology is based on how philosophers have understood the relationship of
the mind to the rest of reality.

For the average person, common sense says that there is a real world of
perceivable objects. These objects can be analyzed and understood with a high
degree of accuracy. Philosophers have not been able to let the matter rest there.
Plato taught that the real world consisted of universal ideas. The world that
people actually see is given form by these ideas and is thus less real because it is
always changing, but the ideas are eternal and unchangeable.
Opponents of Plato have claimed that the ideas were nothing more than names
people have attached to the objects they perceive. Names of individual objects
and of classes of objects are merely ways of organizing perceptions into
knowledge. Thus people see one animal they decide to call "cat." All similar
animals are called "cats," and a whole category of animals is thereby named
without any reference to eternal ideas or forms.
Some 18th-century British philosophers, the empiricists, made a sharp division
between the mind and everything else. The most radical of these teachers, David
Hume, carried this division to its logical conclusion and declared that it was
impossible to prove the existence of a real world. Everything known, he said,
depends on perception, but perception can never get any evidence outside itself
to verify anything. Real knowledge, in his eyes, became completely impossible to
achieve.
Immanuel Kant met the challenge posed by Hume by saying there was a real
world. Its underlying nature cannot be known--only the appearances of
everything (which he called phenomena) can be perceived. Humans, however,
impose a form of reality on the world by the way they organize their thoughts
about it. They thus impose an order on their world through categories created by
the mind.
From Plato to Kant and beyond, these are some of the ways that the complex
issue of epistemology has been addressed. When the conclusions of nuclear
physicists are taken into account--especially their studies on atomic particles-the problem of the reality of the material world and how much can be known
about it is confronted with new challenges.
Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with human behavior, morality, and
responsibilities of people to each other and to society. Because ethics plays such
a large part in the way people live, it has always been a subject of great interest.
Some thinkers have asserted that there are definite, knowable standards for
human behavior. Others deny this and say that decisions should be based mostly

on the situation in which one finds oneself. They are relativists--they say ethical
decisions are related to specific circumstances.
This branch of philosophy is very close to religion. A large part of the Bible, for
instance, is made up of wisdom literature, which is chiefly practical philosophy
with a religious foundation. On the basis of ethics, Aristotle developed his
'Politics'. He moved from explaining how individuals could have a good life to
how a good society should be built.
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty, the
arts, and taste (or appreciation). The term is derived from the Greek word
meaning "sense perception." The basic question for aesthetics is: How do
humans judge what is beautiful? Is it a reasoned assessment, or is it merely an
emotional preference?
Furthermore, do aesthetic judgments have any relationship to moral or scientific
judgments? In conclusion then, aesthetics seeks to lay foundations for criticism
in the arts, or it tries to show that such foundations are impossible.
Other approaches. Approaches to philosophy other than dividing it into five areas
may be taken. It is possible to divide philosophy into two types: speculative and
practical. Speculative is from the Latin verb meaning "to look at." Basically it
means to ponder a subject and arrive at conclusions.
Metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics are speculative approaches to
philosophy. Their conclusions can never be verified. Logic is an attempt to guide
thinking, and as such it is a tool of speculative philosophy. Ethics, however, is
often called practical philosophy. It attempts to arrive at guidelines for behavior
based on what is the best outcome for individuals or for society. It seeks to
present a workable approach to conduct and mutual obligations. It also seeks to
answer the questions, What is happiness? and What is a good life?
If ethics is practical philosophy, it is reasonable to assume that politics and
economics fall into the same category. It is possible to form idealistic theories
about both, but they are so closely identified with human behavior that their
practical nature is always in the foreground. What really works becomes more
significant than what someone says should work.
There is still another way to look at the work of philosophers. Some have been
system builders. They have sought to analyze everything and fit all their ideas
into one comprehensive way of understanding the world. They want answers to

every question. Examples of such thinkers include Thomas Aquinas, Georg

Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Karl Marx. They created essentially closed systems
of thought.
Other philosophers have taken the opposite approach, analyzing every separate
piece of evidence and trying to explain it on its own terms. This was the direction
taken by Aristotle, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell, among others.
Cosmology (from the Greek , kosmos "world" and -, -logia "study of"), is
the study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. Physical
cosmology is the scholarly and scientific study of the origin, evolution, large-scale
structures and dynamics, and ultimate fate of the universe, as well as the scientific
laws that govern these realities.[1] Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of
beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions
of creationand eschatology.

Anthropology is the study of various aspects of humans within societies of the past
and present.[1][2][3] Social anthropology andcultural anthropology,[1][2][3] studies the norms
and values of societies. Linguistic anthropology studies how language affects social
life. Biological or physical anthropology[1][2][3] studies the biological development of
humans..

Aesthetics, or the philosophy of art, is the study of beauty and taste. It is about
interpreting works of art and art movements or theories. The term aesthetic is also used
to designate a particular style, for example the "chess aesthetics", the "japanese
aesthetics".

Rational Philosophy.
ITS DIVISION.
Rational Philosophy is divided into Logic, Ideology, and Criteriology. -- AS rational
philosophy considers entities in respect to the knowledge which we have of them, it
ought (1) to investigate the laws which govern the intellect, the instrument by which we
know; (2) to treat of ideas, the means by which we know; (3) to determine the value of
the knowledge acquired by the intellect. Hence rational philosophy is divided into three
principal parts: 1. Logic, or the science of the laws of thought; 2. Ideology, or the
science of ideas; 3. Criteriology, or the science of the criteria of certitude.

Logic.
DEFINITION OF LOGIC. -- ITS UTILITY. -- ITS DIVISION.
1. Logic is the science of the laws which the intellect must obey in order to
acquire readily and surely the knowledge of truth. -- The human mind in its search
after truth is subject to laws imposed on it by its very nature. The ascertainment of these
laws constitutes Logic. Logic is a science rather than an art, because it considers the
laws of the mind in their intrinsic principles and general applications, and is not confined
to an enumeration of practical rules.{2}
2. Logic is of great utility for advancing in the cognition of truth, for guarding
against error, and acquiring proficiency in any science whatever. -- As Logic
habituates the intellect to classify and co-ordinate knowledge, it gives us great facility for
progressing still further in the acquisition of truth; moreover, by familiarizing the mind
with the nature and structure, as also the artifices, of reasoning, it enables us easily to
discern the vices of a sophism and the false appearances by which error seeks to
seduce the mind. Finally, it is evident that, as the sciences can advance only by means
of reasoning, nothing is more conducive to their progress and easy acquisition than
Logic, which is, in fact, the science of reasoning itself.
3. Logic is divided into three princpal parts: the first investigates the nature and
laws of reasoning; the second expounds the general conditions of science; the
third determines the general rules of method. -- The object of logic is reasoning; but
in reasoning three things may be considered: the nature of reasoning, the end of
reasoning, which is science, and, lastly, the process or method followed to reach this
end more easily. Logic, therefore, is divided into three parts, corresponding to the three
aspects under which reasoning may be considered.

Social philosophy is the study of questions about social behavior and interpretations of
society and social institutions in terms of ethical values rather than empirical relations.
[1]
Social philosophers place new emphasis on understanding the social contexts for
political, legal, moral, and cultural questions, and to the development of novel
theoretical frameworks, from social ontology to care ethics to cosmopolitan theories of
democracy, human rights, gender equity and global justice. [2

Political philosophy, or political theory, is the study of topics such

as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal

code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what, if anything,
makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why,
what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a
legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.
In a vernacular sense, the term "political philosophy" often refers to a general view, or
specific ethic, political belief or attitude, about politics, synonymous to the term "political
ideology".
Political philosophy is considered by some to be a sub-discipline of political science;
however, the name generally attributed to this form of political enquiry is political theory,
a discipline which has a closer methodology to the theoretical fields in the social
sciences (like economic theory) than to philosophical argumentation (like that of moral
philosophy or aesthetics).

Ethics or moral philosophy is the branch of philosophy that involves systematizing,

defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.[1] The
term ethics derives from the Ancient Greek word ethikos, which is derived from
the word ethos (habit, "custom"). The branch of philosophy axiology comprises the
sub-branches of ethics and aesthetics, each concerned with values.[2]
As a branch of philosophy, ethics investigates the questions "What is the best way for
people to live?" and "What actions are right or wrong in particular circumstances?" In
practice, ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality, by defining concepts such
asgood and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of
intellectual enquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral
psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.

Logic (from the Ancient Greek: , logike)[1] originally meaning the word, or what is
spoken, (but coming to mean thought orreason) is generally held to consist of the
systematic study of the form of arguments. A valid argument is one where there is a

specific relation of logical support between the assumptions of the argument and its
conclusion. (In ordinary discourse, the conclusion of such an argument may be signified
by words like 'therefore', 'hence', 'ergo' and so on.) The form of an argument type is a
schematic way of representing what is common to all arguments of that type.
There is no universal agreement as to the exact scope and subject matter of logic (see
'Rival conceptions of logic', below), but it has traditionally included the classification of
arguments, the systematic exposition of the 'logical form' common to all valid
arguments, and the study of fallacies and paradoxes. Historically, logic has been
studied in philosophy (since ancient times) and mathematics(since the mid-1800s), and
recently logic has been studied in computer science, linguistics, psychology, and other
fields.