Philosophy - Part 1 Chapter 1

These are just my personal memo. I am studying philosophy as a hobby.

The information shown on this blog may not be accurate.

(I may misunderstand what books say.)

Don’t read my blog to learn about philosophy.

Part 1: The nuts and Bolts of Philosophy

Chapter 1: The Big Picture

Why ask Why

The fact is, philosophy is unavoidable. You live you life according to idea and assumptions about what the world is like that you picked up along the way.

If you are not satisfied with the way things are as you think you should be – and who is? – you might want to rethink your idea about what reality is all about. This rethinking is precisely what philosophers have been doing over the centuries.

For example, many people used to think that whenever anything bad happened, the gods must be angry. They thought their gods wanted them to show their loyalty and obedience by making big sacrifices, even of their own children. Gradually, however those people with more philosophical turn of mind began questioning this assumption. Maybe the gods would be just as happy if we let our children live? Such and idea involved a whole rethinking of what life, God, and human nature are all about – just the kind of rethinking  philosophers do.

“Know yourself” by Plato

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Bu Socrates

You Are What You Think

The Thinker, it can do some pretty important things. In particular, it can help you think about thinking.

A Slice of Life

Philosophy consists of all kind of thinking, including the social sciences, natural science, math, and religious thinking.

Is You Ism or Is You Ain’t My Philosophy?

Lexicon: a lexicon is a specialized vocabulary, or group of words, used by a particular group of people and not shared by most every one else (jargon).

An Ism: an ism is a system of belief, or a way of thinking that considers certain ideas to be true or important while, inevitably, leaves our other ideas.

Some popular isms within philosophy:

Sophism, skepticism, stoicism, scholasticism, mysticism, Taoism, empiricism, rationalism, idealism, naturalism, materialism, pragmatism, existentialism, antidisestablishmentarianism, to name a few.

What’s more, philosophers have developed subdivisions within philosophy to deal with the deep questions they like to ask.

The main subdivisions have to do with being, knowing and acting.

Lexicon:

Ontology is the study of being or existence.

Ontologists want to now what we mean when we say something exists.

Epistemology is the study of knowing.

Epistemologists want to know what we mean when we say we know something.

Ethics is the study of moral and social behavior.

Ethical philosophers want to know what it means to be a person and how people can and should act.

How the Parts Fit Together

Ontology (being), epistemology (knowing), ethics (acting), you can think these three different subjects separately. But they all work together to make philosophy want it is. Different philosophies place different emphasis on these subjects.

For example, Plato’s epistemology and ethics are derived from his ontology. This simply means that his ideas about knowing and about how we should act are based on his ideas about existence.

Rene Descartes bases his ideas about being and acting on his ideas about knowing

Both Plato and Descartes are different from a post-structuralist philosopher like Michel Foucault, who believes that being and knowing depend on how people act.

These three branches (subdivisions) of philosophy work together and it has taken some philosophical thinking to see them as separate. For example, one of the main things that distinguished the earliest philosophy from the myths the Greeks used to explain reality was the philosophical awareness that ontology, or existence, is not simply a cosmic reflection of ethics, or how people act. Whereas the myths presented reality as completely involved in, and centered around, human behavior, the first philosophers saw ontology, or existence, independently from human action.

This insight had led to new questions and answers about how people fit in with the rest of reality, and how human knowledge affects this relationship.

■  Whether you know it or not, you’ve got a philosophy. This is because you can’t help but define reality for yourself.

■  Sort out your ideas as well as those of others, and decide which of them have meaning for you.

■  Philosophy consists of all kinds of thinking, including the social sciences, natural science, math, and religious thinking.

■  Three main branches of philosophy are ontology (being), epistemology (knowing), and ethics (acting).