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The world in which we live will not let us rest. It keeps prodding us,
challenging us with problems to be solved, and demanding that we act wisely
or be destroyed by the forces which inhabit our world. In this way experiences
are born hungers and satisfactions, pains and pleasures, sights, feelings,
sounds, and a host of others.
Your philosophy, then, is the meaning which the world has for you. It is your
answer to the question, "Why?" Having fitted your experiences into a whole,
having related them to each other, you say of the world. This is the way things
fit together. This is the world as I understand it. This is my philosophy."
Your philosophy and the philosophy of those whose names appear in books of
Philosophy differ only in that the latter use more experiences in weaving their
patterns, those patterns which satisfy them, and are more careful and
thorough in fitting their experiences into a pattern. Theirs is a more
complete, more all-inclusive pattern, more logical, more consistent, more
accurate.
SAPERATING
Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge
it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of
the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the
grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be
maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its
attempts to provide definite answers to its questions.
The Philosopher
As told by Cicero, the story is that, in a conversation with Leon, the ruler of
Phlius, in the Peloponnesus, he described himself as a philosopher, and said
that his business was an investigation into the nature of things.
The philosopher is a lover of wisdom, one who seeks wisdom for its own sake
and not for any other motive, for a person who seeks a certain thing for some
other motive loves the motive more than the thing sought. Philosophy is,
strictly speaking, knowledge sought for its own sake, for the sheer love of
truth. In the Protrepticus, Aristotle holds that it is by no means strange that
philosophic wisdom on first sight should appear to be devoid of immediate
practical usefulness and, as a matter of fact, might not at all prove to be
advantageous. For we call philosophic wisdom not advantageous in a practical
sense of the term, but good. It ought to be pursued, not for the sake of
anything else, but rather exclusively for its own sake. For as we journey to
the games at Olympia for the spectacle itself for the spectacle as such is
worth more than much money and as we watch the Dionysia not in order to
derive some material profit from the actors as a matter of fact, we spend
money on them and as there are many more spectacles we ought to prefer to
great riches: so, too, the viewing and contemplation of the universe is to be
valued above all other things commonly considered to be useful in a practical
sense. For, most certainly, it would make little sense were we to take pains to
watch men imitating women or slaves, or fighting or running, but not think it
proper to view or contemplate, free of all charges, the nature and true reality of
everything that exists.
PROBLEMS
What are the great philosophic problems which puzzle all of us, and which the
great philosophers throughout the ages have sought to answer? We find that
there are ten major problems which have always challenged thinking men and
women.
The first of these problems is: What is the nature of the universe? Did this
universe come into being through an act of divine creation or is it the result of
a gradual process of growth? Of what substance or substances is the universe
created? How does the universe change?
The second problem is: What is mans place in the universe? Is the human
individual the crowning achievement of a growing and creating universe, or is
he a mere speck of dust in unlimited space? Does the universe care for you and
me, or are we of no more concern than a grain of sand on a vast beach? Can we
mould the universe to our liking, or will it eventually destroy us?
The third great problem is: What is good and what is evil? How are we to
know the good from the evil? Has some divine power set standards of good and
evil for all times, or are good and evil matters of the local culture? Is good in
the very nature of things, or is it something which we can decide for ourselves?
How can we distinguish good from evil?
A fourth problem is: What is the nature of God? Is God a being very much
like man who governs the universe, or is He a spirit which pervades
everything? Is God all-powerful, all-good, and all-just, or is He just another
individual who has little more power or insight than you and I?
A fifth problem is related to the question of Fate versus free will? Are we free
individuals who can make our choices and determine our actions without let or
hindrance, or are we determined by a fate over which we have no control? Can
we determine tomorrow in any significant sense, or is it all determined for us
from the beginning of time?
The sixth problem is concerned with the Soul and immortality. What is the
soul about which we have heard so much? Is it of such a nature that it lives
after the death of the body, or does it die with the body? Is there a future life in
which good is rewarded and evil punished, or does death mark the end of
everything?
A seventh problem consists of man's questions about Man and the state* Is
the state a human creation which has been brought into being to serve man, or
is it something that has divine origin? Are the rulers of states given their power
by those they rule or by God? Does man have a right to rebel against his rulers
and create a new kind of state? What is the best form of state and what is the
worst?
The eighth problem is that of Man and education. What is education? Why
do we have a system of education and why do we send our children to school?
Who shall control education, the people or the state? Is education designed to
make free men or to make men who will serve blindly an all-powerful state?
The ninth problem has to do with Mind and matter. Which is superior, mind
or matter? Is matter a creation of mind, or is mind merely another kind of
matter? Can mind be superior and free from matter, or is it so tied up with
matter that it is doomed? Is matter the source of all evil in the universe? How
can mind remain pure and at the same time inhabit a body?
And the tenth problem is concerned with Ideas and thinking. Where do we
get our ideas? Are they inherent in the very nature of our minds, or do they
come to us from outside the mind? What are the laws of thinking? How can we
be sure that our thinking is correct? Is thinking significant in the universe or is
it a mere sham?
THE VALUE
If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of
philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of
those who study it. It is in these effects, therefore, if anywhere, that the value
of philosophy must be primarily sought. Thus utility does not belong to
philosophy.
If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest
possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a
valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at
least as important as the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of
the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are
not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is
not a waste of time.
Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a
value --perhaps its chief value -- through the greatness of the objects which it
contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting
from this contemplation.
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy does begin where acceptance ends, when we try to understand
life more deeply and ask why things are the way they are. Did the world and
everything in it come about by chance, or is there an underlying purpose to our
being?
And a man who is puzzled and wonders thinks himself ignorant. Hence, even
the lover of myth in a sense is a lover of wisdom or a philosopher, for the myth,
too, is composed of wonders. Therefore, since men philosophized in order to
escape from ignorance, they were pursuing knowledge or science in order to
know, and not for any utilitarian purpose...Evidently, then, we do not seek this
kind of knowledge for the sake of any other advantage...we pursue it as the
only free science, because it exists for its own sake.
The human person yearns for truth. He is naturally inclined to this end by
the fact that he is a rational being. Philosophy is a quest for a profound
knowledge about reality that goes above and beyond (but not against)
spontaneous, common sense knowledge. A certain knowledge about reality,
including certain ultimate truths, can be attained by man even without having
recourse to philosophical, scientific reasoning, so long as he is not corrupted
by false ideologies and erroneous philosophies that go against the certainties of
common sense such as absolute idealism and Marxism which negate, for
example, the principle of non-contradiction, a self-evident truth. The natural
spontaneous knowledge of man, uncorrupted by such positions and by bad
moral habits which tend to blind man from a correct perception of reality,
is indeed capable of affirming the existence of the things in the world around
him, of being certain of the immortality of his own soul and of the souls of
other people around him (whom he affirms as really existing), and of
acknowledging the reality of a First Cause of the universe. Some basic
convictions of spontaneous knowledge include: the fact that one thing
cannot be another thing; the consciousness of ones own identity; the fact
that there exist other human persons who are similar to oneself ; the fact
that there are living beings and non-living beings; that there is such a
thing as death, that man becomes old and dies; the fact that there is a
distinction between reality and a dream; the fact that there are just
actions and unjust actions; the fact that man can tell the truth or tell a lie;
that fact that life is a value, something that is desirable; and that fact that man
has free will. The list of these convictions can, of course, go on. The various
philosophical systems that go against the certainties of spontaneous common
sense knowledge (such as the systems of rationalism, monism and idealism)
should be held suspect. If a philosopher, for example, tells you to doubt that
extra-mental reality exists or that a cat and a man are really one substance, he
should be reprimanded for such a brazen defiance of common sense.
Now we must determine what the material and formal objects of philosophy
are, for though philosophy is a universal science, and because of this is the
chief among the human sciences, it possesses its own distinctive nature and
object, in virtue of which it differs from the other human sciences.
But in order to know what the material and formal objects of philosophy are we
must first know what is meant by the material and formal objects of a science.
Paul Glenn explains that the object of a science is its scope, its field of
investigation, its subject matter. Further, it is the special way in which it does
its work in its field, or it is the special purpose which guides it in its work. Thus
the object of any science is two-fold. The subject-matter, the field of inquiry, is
the material object of the science. The special way, or purpose, or end-inview,
which a science has in dealing with its subject-matter or material object is the
formal object of that science. Many sciences may have the same material object,
for many more or less independent inquiries may be prosecuted in the same
general field. But each science has its own distinct and distinctive formal object
which it shares completely with no other science. That is why this object is
called formal; it gives formal character to the science; it makes the science just
what it is formally or as such. To illustrate all this. Many sciences deal with the
earth under one aspect or another. Such, for example, are geology, geodisy,
geography, geonomy, geogony, and even geometry. All these sciences study the
earth; they have therefore the same material object. But no two of these
sciences study the earth in the same special way or with the same special
purpose.
Geology studies the earth in its rock formations; geodisy studies the earth in its
contours; geography studies the earth in its natural or artificial partitions;
geonomy studies the earth as subject to certain physical laws; geogeny studies
the earth to discover its origins; geometry in its first form was a study of the
earth in its mensurable bulk and its mensurable movements. Thus, while all
these sciences have the same material object, each of them has its own formal
object. If two sciences were to have the one identical formal object, they would
not really be two sciences at all, but one science. It is manifest that a science is
formally constituted in its special character by its formal object; it is equally
manifest that a science is distinguished from all other sciences by its formal
object. In sum, the material object is the subject matter, while the formal
object is the special way in which that subject matter is studied.
Philosophy, being the universal and supreme human science, studies all
reality. All things make up the material object of this science. What is the
formal object of philosophy, the aspect under which it views this material
object? Its formal object is all things in their ultimate causes and first principles.
Philosophy, then, has for its object all things, all reality, but in all things and
all reality it investigates only the ultimate causes and first principles. The other
human sciences, on the other hand, have for their material object some
particular area of being, of which they investigate only the secondary causes or
proximate principles. In light of this one can say that, of all the sciences in the
natural order, philosophy is by far the most sublime. It is the supreme and
most profound of all the sciences that investigate reality by the light of human
reason alone. Philosophy is wisdom in the strictest sense for it falls within
the ambit of wisdom to study the highest causes.
To philosophize is to wonder about life about right and wrong, love and
loneliness, war and death.
It is to wonder creatively about freedom, truth, beauty, time and a thousand
other things.
What do we really know? What is real? Does life have a meaning? Do you
have free will?
These are just a few philosophical questions, there are hundreds more. They
are called philosophical questions because they cant be answered once and
for all and have occupied philosophers for almost three thousand years.
Philosophy is the activity of seeking wisdom. In Greek, which was the first
language of Western philosophy, philosophy means love of wisdom. One loves
wisdom by trying to figure out what it is. There are many ways human beings
seek wisdom, including art, religion, and lived experience. Philosophy is
distinct because it seeks wisdom.
Philosophy is the development of these ideas, the attempt to work them out
with all their implications and complications. It is the attempt to see their
connections and compare them with other peoples viewsincluding the classic
statements of the great philosophers of the past. It is the effort to appreciate
the differences between ones own views and others views, to be able to argue
with someone who disagrees and resolve the difficulties that they may throw in
your path.
To philosophize is
to explore life.
It especially means breaking free
to ask questions.
It means resisting
easy answers.
How it began?
IN the sixth century B.C. something stirred into life on the cosmopolitan coast
of Asia Minor that has had a profound significance for civilization. Men began
to ask questions that had never been asked before. They began to ask what
the world was made of and how it originated.
As far as our records show, this kind of speculation was without precedent.
Both the Egyptians and the Babylonians had studied mathematics,
astronomy, and medicine. They had made surprising progress in these
subjects, although the results were expressed in an occult terminology. But
such subjects had been hitherto studied by priests in sacred colleges. They
had to be fitted into the framework of a religious cosmology. For laymen to
venture an opinion on these deep matters was an innovation.
There is no evidence that the priestly caste ever debated the question of how
the world came into existence. It would scarcely have occurred to them that the
problem might be solved by the use of reason. They were satisfied that they
knew the answers. They were guardians and interpreters of a sacred canon.
The discovery that the origin and meaning of life were questions that might
be solved by rational discussion constitutes a landmark in human history.
Only a very few individuals were conscious of it; for the masses in those
turbulent times life went on exactly as before. Nevertheless, the first blow for
liberation had been struck. Man had begun to ask those questions which not
only enriched his own consciousness, but ultimately led to control over the
forces of nature.
The search started, not merely for information, but for understanding.
" Much learning does not bring understanding," said Heraclitus. And by
understanding he meant, "Nothing else but the exposition of the way in which
the universe works."Knowledge of this kind could not be derived from
traditional beliefs, as most people supposed." One must not act and talk like
those reared with the narrow outlook,' As it has been handed down to us.'"
Thus a rent was made in the blanket of superstition that had hitherto stifled
free inquiry. A new wind was blowing across the world. Men were
beginning to look at the world with new eyes. They discovered problems
that seemed capable of solution by this new and exciting method, by observing
and reasoning. Before long this pursuit of wisdom was exalted into the highest
possible activity; and those who used the new, intellectual instrument were
called "lovers of wisdom" philosophers.
Science is thus the offspring of philosophy; but so far from devouring its
parent, as it becomes more mature science turns again to philosophy for
guidance. Hence we find that physics, the most advanced of the sciences, is
becoming increasingly philosophical. But even if every question about the
working of the universe could be appropriated by a particular science, there
would still be the question of how science itself works. It has been suggested
that science interrogating itself, fashioning a science of science, may well be
the last province left to philosophy. But the prospect is merely an academic
possibility, because we are never likely to reach finality. The philosopher can be
assured of a place as the critic of concepts, though he may have to give up
constructing world systems.
It had been a tremendous leap forward when the Greeks discovered that
some problems could be solved by intelligent discussion.
Philosophical study of the natural world gave rise to the physical sciences of
our day: physics, astronomy, geology, biology, and chemistry.
Philosophical study of the human world gave rise to the social sciences of
psychology, history, political science, sociology, and anthropology, as well as
linguistics and cognitive science.
Does philosophy only deal with the big questions about life and the
universe?
Not all philosophical work is about important questions. Some of it may seem
absurd to non-philosophers. For example, how is the mind connected to the
body? Most of us know that if we want to raise our right arm and we are not
paralyzed, it is the easiest thing in the world to dowe just decide to do it and
the arm goes up. But ever since the work of the seventeenth-century
philosopher Ren Descartes (15961650), philosophers have argued
passionately among themselves about the right way to describe the connection
between the mind and the body.
The human world includes human beings, their values, experience, minds,
ethics, societies, government, cultures, and human nature itself.
Philosophy of course occurs in all cultures and daily life; but Western
Philosophy is a distinct way of thinking that consists of hypotheses and
generalizations about what philosophers believe is important in the natural
and human worlds. Western philosophers have not been focused on stories of
the origins of peoples nor on events in time, like historians, and neither are
they focused on individual lives, like biographers. Instead, they have sought to
view events and lives in general and abstract ways that can tell us what is true
of categories or kinds of events, and individual lives.
Everyone at some time thinks about general matters that do not have easy
answers: Is there a higher purpose to life? Is there life after death?
What is the most important thing in a human life? Do I have free
will? Young children naturally ask why questions that drive their parents
into philosophical answers, whether they realize it or not.
Both philosophy and religion address the issue of God, though philosophy does
not concern itself exclusively with God as religion does. Philosophy tends to
concentrate more on the ideas in religion. Depending on the extent and power
of religious ideas in the cultures in which they lived, philosophers have had
different degrees of relation to theology. For example, when the Catholic
Church was the dominant institution in Europe during the medieval period,
philosophers such as Thomas Aquinas (c. 12251274) devoted most of their
work to questions related to God.
Ancient Greek philosophers, who were later known as pagans, were less
interested in religion, and by the eighteenth century Enlightenment, much of
philosophy was secular. This secularization of philosophy was partly the result
of David Humes (17111776) skeptical writings about both the practice of
religion and the existence of God. Nineteenth and twentieth century
philosophers developed the field as a form of secular inquiry that does not
require religious commitment.
To philosophize
is to seek in oneself
the courage to ask
painful questions.
Whats the difference between the practice of philosophy and the subject
of philosophy?
Did the study of some of the sciences get their start in philosophy?
Yes. Until the end of the seventeenth century, the physical sciences were
called Natural Philosophy, and until the nineteenth century there were no
social sciences. Social science work was done under the name of philosophy.
Many sciences have their roots in philosophical debates. Western science
began with the Pre-Socratics in the seventh century B.C.E. The Pre-Socratics
were the first Westerners in recorded history to think about the world using
reason instead of myth. Much later, Western science got another big boost from
Isaac Newton (16431727), who practiced what was then called natural
philosophy and persists to this day as physics.
There are similar origins in the social sciences: ideals of government and
forms of governmenttopics now falling into the category of political science
were first theorized by philosophers such as Plato (c. 428c. 348 B.C.E.),
Aristotle (384322 B.C.E.), Thomas Aquinas (c. 12251274), Thomas Hobbes
(15881679), John Locke (16321704), and John Stuart Mill (18061873).
Karl Marx (18181883), who is credited with developing the theoretical
foundation of communism and socialism, modified the ideas of philosopher
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (17701831).
the thinkers of Pre-Socratic Greek brought about one of the most significant
revolutions we know of, one that set the Western world on a path thatwith
minor and not so minor deviationsit has followed ever since. What they did,
to put it boldly and over simply, was to invent critical rationality and
embody it in a tradition; for the theories they advanced, whether on the
nature and origins of the cosmos or on ethics and politics, were not offered as
gospels to be accepted on divine or human authority but as rational products
to be accepted or rejected on the basis of evidence and argument: do not listen
to me, Heraclitus says, but to my account. Every university and college, every
intellectual discipline and scientific advance, every step toward freedom and
away from ignorance, superstition, and enslavement to repressive dogma is
eloquent testimony to the power of their invention. If they had not existed, our
world would not exist.
As we weigh and consider the ideas and evaluate the arguments contained in
the following pages, we will find ourselves thinking about the ultimate
structure of reality, about the mind, about the nature of knowledge and
scientific theorizing, about ethical values, and about the best kind of
society for people to live in. Some of what we uncover we will no doubt find
congenial; some we will want to criticize or reject. But as long as evidence and
argument remain our touchstone, we will be joining in the enterprise that these
philosophers both invented and did so much to develop. In the process, we will
be to some degree becoming what some of them thought was the best thing to
befully rational human beings.
This may sound attractive, but it may also seem one-sided, so it is perhaps
important to add that the critical rationality vital to successful theorizing,
while it is recommended as a very important ingredient in the best kind of life,
is certainly not all that is recommended to us by these philosophers. For many
of them, a successful life is one in which all the elements in our characters
needs, desires, emotions, and beliefs are harmoniously integrated and in
which we ourselves are harmoniously integrated with others into a flourishing
society that is itself in harmony with the larger world of which it is a part.
Moreover, many of the Greek philosopherslike their fellow poets and
tragediansrecognized that there were profoundly nonrational elements in the
world: the same Heraclitus who asks us to listen to his account also reminds
us that The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither speaks nor conceals, but
gives a sign; Socrates, the patron saint of rational self-scrutiny, is also a holy
man, a servant of Apollo. Indeed, one of the most attractive features of Greek
philosophy is its inclusivity, its manifest wish to see the world whole and see it
right. Few contemporary philosophers offer us such all encompassing visions of
ourselves and our world as we find in Plato and Aristotle; few have the audacity
to reach as far or as wide as the great Pre socratics. That is not, surely, the
only reason to make friends with these splendid thinkers, but it is,
nonetheless, one major reason why they have never lost their power to
challenge, inspire, and enlighten those who do befriend them.
Philosophy and God
Man can arrive at a knowledge that God exists apart from faith either through
a spontaneous or pre-scientific knowledge or through a philosophical
reasoning which is scientific and metaphysical. Regarding this spontaneous
knowledge of Gods existence, Etienne Gilson writes: There is a sort of
spontaneous inference, wholly un technical but entirely conscious of its own
meaning, in virtue of which every man finds himself raised to the notion of a
transcendent Being by the mere sight of nature in its awesome majesty.
In a fragment from one of his lost works, Aristotle himself observes that men
have derived their notion of God from two sources, their own souls and the
orderly motion of the stars. However this may be, the fact itself is beyond
doubt, and human philosophies are belatedly discovering the notion of
God....As a matter of fact, mankind does have a certain notion of God; for
centuries after centuries men without any intellectual culture have obscurely
but powerfully felt convinced that the name God points out an actually existing
being, and even today, countless human beings are still reaching the same
conviction and forming the same belief on the sole strength of their personal
experience.
Divisions of Philosophy
Speculative philosophy is philosophical knowledge for its own sake and not
geared towards our own profit and improvement, which is the task of practical
philosophy. Speculative philosophy is divided into three main parts: 1.
philosophy of nature (which contains the philosophy of inanimate nature or
cosmology, and the philosophy of animate nature or the philosophy of living
beings, of which philosophical anthropology is a part) ; 2. philosophy of
mathematics ; and 3. metaphysics (which has three main parts: general
metaphysics, gnoseology or philosophy of knowledge, and philosophy of God or
natural theology).
Metaphysics: the most general questions and answers about the nature of
reality, what physical things are, what relations exist between different kinds of
things, and the connections between the mind and the world.
Ancient philosophy: the birth of Western philosophy from about 800 B.C.E. to
400 C.E.; it is composed mostly of Greek and Roman thought before
Christianity.
Schools of Philosophy
DANGER
REFERENCES
What is real?
What is truth?
What is knowledge?
What is the good?
What is justice?
Is the mind something separate from the body?
Are we free or our our actions determined by that over which we no longer have any
control or influence?