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Philosophy

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Philosophy. Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[1][2] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.[3] In more casual speech, by extension, "philosophy" can refer to "the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group".[4] The word "philosophy" comes from the Ancient Greek φιλοσοφία (philosophia), which literally means "love of wisdom".[5][6][7] The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and "philosophy" has been ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras.[8] Areas of inquiry Philosophy is divided into many sub-fields.

These include epistemology, logic, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics.[9][10] Some of the major areas of study are considered individually below. Epistemology Rationalism is the emphasis on reasoning as a source of knowledge. Logic. Philosophy of Death | Yale Philosophy Lecture. Outline of philosophy. The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to philosophy: Philosophy – study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.[1][2] It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions (such as mysticism, myth, or the arts) by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.[3] The word "Philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia (φιλοσοφία), which literally means "love of wisdom".[4][5][6] Core areas of philosophy[edit] The core areas of philosophy are: Major fields of philosophy[edit] Other than the core areas, there are several fields of study formally within philosophy.

History of philosophy[edit] Ancient philosophy[edit] Axial Age Western philosophy[edit] Eastern philosophy[edit] Contemporary philosophy[edit] Philosophical theories[edit] Major traditions in philosophy[who?] Anarchism (see also: Outline of anarchism)Eastern philosophyMarxism. Philosophy & Epistemology. Philosophy. Philosophy of perception. Do we see what is really there? The two areas of the image marked A and B, and the rectangle connecting them, are all of the same shade: our eyes automatically "correct" for the shadow of the cylinder.

The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world.[1] Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or metaphysical views. Categories of perception[edit] We may categorize perception as internal or external. Internal perception (proprioception) tells us what is going on in our bodies; where our limbs are, whether we are sitting or standing, whether we are depressed, hungry, tired and so forth.External or Sensory perception (exteroception), tells us about the world outside our bodies. The philosophy of perception is mainly concerned with exteroception. Scientific accounts of perception[edit] See also[edit] Philosophy of religion. Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion, including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of religious vocabulary and texts, and the relationship of religion and science.[1] It is an ancient discipline, being found in the earliest known manuscripts concerning philosophy, and relates to many other branches of philosophy and general thought, including metaphysics, logic, and history.[2] Philosophy of religion is frequently discussed outside of academia through popular books and debates, mostly regarding the existence of God and problem of evil.

The philosophy of religion differs from religious philosophy in that it seeks to discuss questions regarding the nature of religion as a whole, rather than examining the problems brought forth by a particular belief system. It is designed such that it can be carried out dispassionately by those who identify as believers or non-believers.[3] [edit] Aquinas. Philosophy of mind. A phrenological mapping[1] of the brain – phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the brain Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind–body problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as one key issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body, such as how consciousness is possible and the nature of particular mental states.[2][3][4] Mind–body problem[edit] Our perceptual experiences depend on stimuli that arrive at our various sensory organs from the external world, and these stimuli cause changes in our mental states, ultimately causing us to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant.

Arguments for dualism[edit] Philosophy of language. Philosophy of science. Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions concern what counts as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth. There is no consensus on many central problems in philosophy of science, including whether science can reveal the truth about unobservable things and whether scientific reasoning can be justified at all. In addition to these general questions about science as a whole, philosophers of science consider problems that apply to particular sciences such as biology or physics. Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to reach conclusions about philosophy.

Today, some thinkers seek to ground science in axiomatic assumptions such as the uniformity of nature. Introduction[edit] History[edit] Epistemology. Branch of philosophy concerning knowledge In these debates and others, epistemology aims to answer questions such as "What do people know? ", "What does it mean to say that people know something? ", "What makes justified beliefs justified? ", and "How do people know that they know? "[4][1][5][6] Specialties in epistemology ask questions such as "How can people create formal models about issues related to knowledge?

" (in formal epistemology), "What are the historical conditions of changes in different kinds of knowledge? " (in historical epistemology), "What are the methods, aims, and subject matter of epistemological inquiry? " Etymology[edit] The title of one of the principal works of Fichte is 'Wissenschaftslehre,' which, after the analogy of technology ... we render epistemology.[10] The word was first used to present a philosophy in English by Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier in 1854. Historical and philosophical context[edit] Contemporary historiography[edit] Knowledge[edit] Logic. Logic (from the Ancient Greek: λογική, logike)[1] is the branch of philosophy concerned with the use and study of valid reasoning.[2][3] The study of logic also features prominently in mathematics and computer science. Logic is often divided into three parts: inductive reasoning, abductive reasoning, and deductive reasoning.

The study of logic[edit] The concept of logical form is central to logic, it being held that the validity of an argument is determined by its logical form, not by its content. Traditional Aristotelian syllogistic logic and modern symbolic logic are examples of formal logics. Informal logic is the study of natural language arguments. Logical form[edit] Main article: Logical form Logic is generally considered formal when it analyzes and represents the form of any valid argument type. This is called showing the logical form of the argument. Second, certain parts of the sentence must be replaced with schematic letters. From an observed surprising circumstance from. Metaphysics.

Metaphysics is a traditional branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world that encompasses it,[1] although the term is not easily defined.[2] Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:[3] Ultimately, what is there? What is it like? Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" (Latin scientia) simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. Etymology[edit] However, once the name was given, the commentators sought to find intrinsic reasons for its appropriateness. Central questions[edit] Cosmology and cosmogony[edit] Metaphysical Cosmology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all phenomena in space and time.

[edit] [edit] Ontology. Philosophical study of being and existence When used as a countable noun, the words ontology and ontologies refer not to the science of being but to theories within the science of being. Ontological theories can be divided into various types according to their theoretical commitments. Monocategorical ontologies hold that there is only one basic category, but polycategorical ontologies rejected this view.

Hierarchical ontologies assert that some entities exist on a more fundamental level and that other entities depend on them. Flat ontologies, on the other hand, deny such a privileged status to any entity. Etymology[edit] onto- (Greek: ὄν, on;[note 1] GEN. ὄντος, ontos, 'being' or 'that which is') and -logia (-λογία, 'logical discourse').[3][4] While the etymology is Greek, the oldest extant records of the word itself is a Neo-Latin form ontologia, which appeared in 1606 in the Ogdoas Scholastica by Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus), and Overview[edit] Particulars and universals[edit] Identity[edit] D. Reality. Not to be confused with Realty. Philosophers, mathematicians, and other ancient and modern thinkers, such as Aristotle, Plato, Frege, Wittgenstein, and Russell, have made a distinction between thought corresponding to reality, coherent abstractions (thoughts of things that are imaginable but not real), and that which cannot even be rationally thought.

By contrast existence is often restricted solely to that which has physical existence or has a direct basis in it in the way that thoughts do in the brain. Reality is often contrasted with what is imaginary, delusional, (only) in the mind, dreams, what is false, what is fictional, or what is abstract. At the same time, what is abstract plays a role both in everyday life and in academic research. The truth refers to what is real, while falsity refers to what is not. Related concepts World views and theories Certain ideas from physics, philosophy, sociology, literary criticism, and other fields shape various theories of reality.

Being Perception. Existence. Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality in general, as well as of the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology deals with questions concerning what entities exist or can be said to exist (for instance: "Does UDFj-39546284 exist? "), and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences. A lively debate continues about the existence of God. Epistemology studies criteria of truth, defining "primary truths" inherently accepted in the investigation of knowledge. Materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter, that all things are composed of material, and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions.

Etymology[edit] Historical conceptions[edit] Early modern philosophy[edit] Predicative nature[edit] Semantics[edit] Modern approaches[edit] Being. As an example of efforts in recent times, Heidegger (who himself drew on ancient Greek sources) adopted German terms like Dasein to articulate the topic.[1] Several modern approaches build on such continental European exemplars as Heidegger, and apply metaphysical results to the understanding of human psychology and the human condition generally (notably in the Existentialist tradition). By contrast, in mainstream Analytical philosophy the topic is more confined to abstract investigation, in the work of such influential theorists as W. V. O. Quine, to name one of many. One most fundamental question that continues to exercise philosophers is put by William James: "How comes the world to be here at all instead of the nonentity which might be imagined in its place? The substantial being[edit] Being and the substance theorists[edit] and reiterates in no uncertain terms:[4] "Nothing, then, which is not a species of a genus will have an essence – only species will have it ....

" St. Becoming (philosophy) In philosophy, the concept of becoming was born in eastern ancient Greece by the philosopher Heraclitus of Hephesus, who in the Sixth century BC, said that nothing in this world is constant except change and becoming. His theory stands in direct contrast to Parmenides, another Greek philosopher, but from the italic Magna Grecia, who believed that the ontic changes or "becoming" we perceive with our senses is deceptive, and that there is a pure perfect and eternal being behind nature, which is the ultimate truth. In philosophy, the word "becoming" concerns a specific ontological concept, which should not be confused with the process philosophy, the latter indicating a metaphysical doctrine of theology.

Heraclitus (c. 535 - c. 475 BC) spoke extensively about becoming. Shortly afterwards Leucippus of Miletus similarly spoke of becoming as the movement of atoms. Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromata, v, 105). Similar: Plutarchus (De animae procreatione, 5 p, 1014 A) concerning Heraclitus: Online A. Natural theology. Natural theology is a branch of theology based on reason and ordinary experience. Thus it is distinguished from revealed theology which is based on scripture and religious experiences of various kinds; and also from transcendental theology, which is based on a priori reasoning.

The related term Physico-theology describes a theology based on the constitution of the natural world. This often proceeds by invoking the need for a designer. One of the first examples of this approach to theology was the fifth of St. Key proponents[edit] From the 8th century AD, the Mutazilite school of Islam, compelled to defend their principles against the orthodox Islam of their day, looked for support in philosophy, and were among the first to pursue a rational Islamic theology, called Ilm-al-Kalam (scholastic theology).

St. There are various ways to analyze the theories of natural theology. Notes[edit] ((reflist)) Later examples[edit] William Derham (1657–1735), was a friend and disciple of John Ray. Universal science. Theological Science. First principle. Law of noncontradiction. Political philosophy. Axiology. Ethics. Meta-ethics. Aesthetics.

Philosophers & Intellectuals