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. Aesthetics. "Aesthetician" redirects here. For a cosmetologist who specializes in the study of skin care, see Esthetician. More specific aesthetic theory, often with practical implications, relating to a particular branch of the arts is divided into areas of aesthetics such as art theory, literary theory, film theory and music theory. An example from art theory is aesthetic theory as a set of principles underlying the work of a particular artist or artistic movement: such as the Cubist aesthetic.[6] Etymology[edit] The word aesthetic is derived from the Greek αἰσθητικός (aisthetikos, meaning "esthetic, sensitive, sentient"), which in turn was derived from αἰσθάνομαι (aisthanomai, meaning "I perceive, feel, sense").[7] The term "aesthetics" was appropriated and coined with new meaning in the German form Æsthetik (modern spelling Ästhetik) by Alexander Baumgarten in 1735.
Aesthetics and the philosophy of art[edit] Aesthetics is for the artist as Ornithology is for the birds.— Barnett Newman[8][9] Epistemology. Philosophical study of knowledge The school of skepticism questions the human ability to attain knowledge while fallibilism says that knowledge is never certain. Empiricists hold that all knowledge comes from sense experience, whereas rationalists believe that some knowledge does not depend on it. Coherentists argue that a belief is justified if it coheres with other beliefs. Foundationalists, by contrast, maintain that the justification of basic beliefs does not depend on other beliefs. Separate branches of epistemology focus on knowledge in specific fields, like scientific, mathematical, moral, and religious knowledge.
Early reflections on the nature, sources, and scope of knowledge are found in ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese philosophy. Epistemology explores how people should acquire beliefs. Knowledge is an awareness, familiarity, understanding, or skill. Knowledge contrasts with ignorance, often simply defined as the absence of knowledge. . Major schools of thought [edit] Ethics. The three major areas of study within ethics are:[1] Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determinedNormative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of actionApplied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do in a specific situation or a particular domain of action[1] Defining ethics[edit] The word "ethics" in English refers to several things.[6] It can refer to philosophical ethics—a project that attempts to use reason in order to answer various kinds of ethical questions.
[citation needed] It can also be used to describe a particular person's own, idiosyncratic principles or habits.[7] For example: "Joe has good ethics. " [edit] Main article: Meta-ethics Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics. The ontology of ethics is about value-bearing things or properties, i.e. the kind of things or stuff referred to by ethical propositions. 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. By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from 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] Determinism and free will[edit] [edit] Social philosophy. 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] Subdisciplines[edit] Social philosophy, ethics, and political philosophy all share intimate connections with other disciplines in the social sciences.
In turn, the social sciences themselves are of focal interest to the philosophy of social science. The philosophy of language and social epistemology are subfields which overlap in significant ways with social philosophy. Relevant issues in social philosophy[edit] Some of the topics dealt with by social philosophy are: Social philosophers[edit] See also[edit] Political philosophy. Umberto Eco. The Name of the Rose. The Name of the Rose is the first novel by Italian author Umberto Eco. It is a historical murder mystery set in an Italian monastery in the year 1327, an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory. First published in Italian in 1980 under the title Il nome della rosa, it appeared in English in 1983, translated by William Weaver.
Plot summary[edit] The aedificium's labyrinth Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and his novice Adso of Melk travel to a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological disputation. Characters[edit] Primary characters William of Baskerville—main protagonist, a Franciscan friarAdso of Melk—narrator, Benedictine novice accompanying William At the monastery Outsiders Major themes[edit] Title[edit] Much attention has been paid to the mystery of what the title of the novel refers to. Perhaps this is a deliberate mis-translation. Allusions[edit] To other works[edit]
Semiotics. Semiotics frequently is seen as having important anthropological dimensions; for example, Umberto Eco proposes that every cultural phenomenon may be studied as communication.[2] Some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science, however. They examine areas belonging also to the life sciences – such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take signs or sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics (including zoosemiotics).
Syntactics is the branch of semiotics that deals with the formal properties of signs and symbols.[3] More precisely, syntactics deals with the "rules that govern how words are combined to form phrases and sentences".[4] Terminology[edit] Ferdinand de Saussure, however, founded his semiotics, which he called semiology, in the social sciences: History[edit] Formulations[edit] Branches[edit] Notes. Scholasticism. Syllogism. A syllogism (Greek: συλλογισμός – syllogismos – "conclusion," "inference") is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two or more propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. In its earliest form, defined by Aristotle, from the combination of a general statement (the major premise) and a specific statement (the minor premise), a conclusion is deduced.
For example, knowing that all men are mortal (major premise) and that Socrates is a man (minor premise), we may validly conclude that Socrates is mortal. Syllogistic arguments are usually represented in a three-line form (without sentence-terminating periods): All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal The word "therefore" is usually either omitted or replaced by the symbol "∴" Early history[edit] From the Middle Ages onwards, categorical syllogism and syllogism were usually used interchangeably. Aristotle[edit] Medieval Scholarship[edit] Boethius John Buridan. Reader-response criticism. Although literary theory has long paid some attention to the reader's role in creating the meaning and experience of a literary work, modern reader-response criticism began in the 1960s and '70s, particularly in America and Germany, in work by Norman Holland, Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser, Hans-Robert Jauss, Roland Barthes, and others.
Important predecessors were I. A. Richards, who in 1929 analyzed a group of Cambridge undergraduates' misreadings; Louise Rosenblatt, who, in Literature as Exploration (1938), argued that it is important for the teacher to avoid imposing any "preconceived notions about the proper way to react to any work"; and C. S. Types[edit] One can sort reader-response theorists into three groups: those who focus upon the individual reader's experience ("individualists"); those who conduct psychological experiments on a defined set of readers ("experimenters"); and those who assume a fairly uniform response by all readers ("uniformists").
Individualists[edit] Some[who?] Postmodernism. Artistic, cultural, and theoretical movement Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements. It emerged in the mid-20th century as a skeptical response to modernism, emphasizing the instability of meaning, rejection of universal truths, and critique of grand narratives. While its definition varies across disciplines, it commonly involves skepticism toward established norms, blending of styles, and attention to the socially constructed nature of knowledge and reality.
The term began to acquire its current range of meanings in literary criticism and architectural theory during the 1950s–1960s. In opposition to modernism's alleged self-seriousness, postmodernism is characterized by its playful use of eclectic styles and performative irony, among other features. Critics claim it supplants moral, political, and aesthetic ideals with mere style and spectacle. According to scholar Louis Menand, "Postmodernism is the Swiss Army knife of critical concepts. Jorge Luis Borges. Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges, KBE (Spanish: [ˈxorxe ˈlwis ˈβorxes] In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland, where he studied at the Collège de Genève.
The family travelled widely in Europe, including stays in Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955 he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by his works being available in English, by the Latin American Boom and by the success of García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.[6] Writer and essayist J.
Life and career[edit] Early life and education[edit] Jorge Luis Borges in 1921 At nine, Jorge Luis Borges translated Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince into Spanish. Early writing career[edit] Later career[edit] Jorge Luis Borges in the 1940s.