Introduction to Philosophy

Introduction to Philosophy

A. Meaning of PhilosophyB. Goals of PhilosophyC.Scope of PhilosophyD. Importance of PhilosophyE.Philosophical MethodsF.Divisions of PhilosophyG.Relation to the other DisciplineH. Nature of ReligionI. Nature of RealityJ.Nature of Value

Course Outline

A. Meaning of Philosophy

Back to course outline

1. Common Definition

1. Philosophy of life-a person overall theory or outlook. Keep thinking/think and excess.

Rene Descartes-“cogito ergo sum” (Latin), meaning “I think Therefore I Exist”

2. Business Philosophy-the way we ran/manage our own business.

3. Motto/Slogan- the philosophy of the owner

Motto-is for personal only not intended for majority.Slogan-intended for the majority.Motto and Slogan- theory of a simple minded person.Philosophy- synonyms to outlook/viewpoint



Etymology- or etymological definition of Philosophy-derived for Greek words etimos and logos

Etimos-root, origin, cause, basis, historyLogos-studyEtymology-study of the history of the word

Philosophy comes from the Geek Words Philia and Sofia.Sofia-wisdomPhilia-love, desire for, interest inPhilia and Sofia join by Pythagoras-600 B.C.

Episteme-means knowledgeWisdom-defining deeply, wise, according to etymology

-is an awareness of something which is basic.-knowledge of the basic principle.

Knowledge-is only a million formation-simple data that comes from the outside that pass to our

senses. Back to course outline

2. EtymologyA. Meaning of Philosophy

Connotation- is an indirect explanation of a situation, event, person, circumstance, or thing by considered to be right-It implies an attempt to discover the most general and yet underlying principle of things. Experience-the different aspect or dimension of life that we are always examining.


3. ConnotationA. Meaning of Philosophy

3 Categories:

1. Intellectual/Mental Experience2. Physical or Material Experience3. Spiritual or Divine Experience


4. Physical, mental, spiritual experiences


Concrete Definition- the exact explanation of a situation, event, person

Philosophy is a systematic and comprehensive study of truth about life, about the universe, and everything including events, relationships, and experience.


5. Concrete DefinitionA. Meaning of Philosophy

Philosophers’ definition-arises out of wonder, out of curiosity, out of desire to learn, and to understand things.-According to the Philosopher, Philosophy is a process of analysis, criticism, interpretation and speculation

Analysis-if we know how to synthesis and antithesis.Synthesis- put idea together or event of the same characteristic.Antithesis- remove from or put it out, removing ideasCriticism- is a process of commenting or giving a judgment, even if its positive or negative.Interpretation-demonstration of ideas.Speculation-being satisfied. Back to course outline

6. Philosophers’ definitionA. Meaning of Philosophy

B. Goals of Philosophy


1. Philosophy tries to discover the nature of truth as well as the nature of knowledge.

Nature- the essence, quality, attribute of a particular situation, event, or thing.

Nature of Truth- factors that make a particular situation is true. -product of fantasy.

Factors that makes something true: -It must have an opposite -perceivable (things which has an opposite) -encourage us to believe -it has always an appearance or reality. -It may also be a product of fantasy.

Nature of Knowledge-just a product of truth, produces ability.



Knower---know ability----known

Know-it is to be perceivedKnower-the ability to perceive/perceiverTruth-source of knowledgeKnow ability-connect the know and knower. Product of knowledge



2. It searches for what is basic value and of importance in life.

Priority-that is the most important thing/ value in life.

3. Philosophy examines the relationship between individuals and the society as well as humanity and nature.

4. Wisdom-main goal of PhilosophyBack to course outline


C. Scope of Philosophy


nature of the universe

-totality of everything

Universe-consists of concrete and non-concrete things

Non-concrete-it includes emotion



standard of justice and conduct of lifeconduct-analysis of right and wrong

justice-process of giving what is due and receiving something that is due.

Standard- basis for our action for something to be done.

Standard of Justice-a norm applied for everybody

Injustice-given what is not due.

Morality- the recognition of right or wrong

Behavior-actualization of conduct manifestation of right or wrong

Manner- way or mode of expressing of right or wrong



validity of knowledgeValidity-in accordance with the majority

Acceptable to the majority

concrete application of reasonreason-act of the mind.-expression of right thinking-if there is no reason, there is no application



criteria of beautyBeauty-conditions that brings drive, interests,

desirability, attraction, appeal to our senses.

relationship between languages and thoughtLanguage-expression of thought or product of though

Thought- root, causes, source of language.



Kinds of Language

-Oral Language-Written Language-Sign Language-Body Language-Electronic Language- combination of sign and written language



D. Importance of Philosophy


•People can clarify what they are believing

Rejection of Philosophy-is an act of philosophizing

•We can be stimulated to think of ultimate question

Ultimate question-question appearing i the last part of out awareness

•Philosophy promises us better understanding of ourselves

•It helps the student to systematize and evaluate the uses of information that he or she seeks from various sources.


D. Importance of Philosophy

E. Philosophical Methods


Logical and speculative reasoning-common tool of philosophy

Reasoning-is a explanation of a permission or denial.

Speculative-to look for more things/ideas to influence others.

Logical-means being to correct

Correct-must be valid and true

Analysis-most outstanding tool of philosophy



Reflection-is the voice within us

-the examination of ourselves, most serious tool of philosophy-the spiritual tool of philosophy

Discernment-is listening to the spirit of god and voice of holy spirit

Mediation-thinking about something i relation to god.

Contemplation-putting yourself in center of universe



F. Divisions of Philosophy


Classifications:

Pure Philosophy- is not based on observation but purely based on the mind

Applied Philosophy-compilation on ideas based on observation on practical aspects.

1. Systematic Philosophy



A. Theoretical Philosophy-thoughts produced by intellectual that cannot put into practice and cannot help to develop our analysis.

B. Practical Philosophy-is based on opinions on theories (that are purely based on the mind put into practice.Comes from ethic-come from Greek word Ethos which means character or behavior, conduct, attitude, manner or value.


Category of Pure Philosophy


•Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science.

•Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.

•Someone who studies metaphysics would be called either a "metaphysician“ or a "metaphysicist".

•The word derives from the Greek words μετά (metá) (meaning "beyond" or "after") and φυσικά (physiká) (meaning "physical"), "physical" referring to those works on matter by Aristotle in antiquity. The prefix meta- ("beyond") was attached to the chapters in


A.1. MetaphysicsF. Divisions of Philosophy

Ontology(from the Greek ὄν, genitive ὄντος: of being <neuter

participle of εἶναι: to be> and -λογία, -logia: science, study, theory) 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, and how such entities can be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.



Cosmology

(from Greek κοσμολογία - κόσμος, kosmos, "universe"; and -λογία, -logia, "study") is the study of the Universe in its totality, and by extension, humanity's place in it. Though the word cosmology is recent (first used in 1730 in Christian Wolff's Cosmologia Generalis), study of the universe has a long history involving science, philosophy, esotericism, and religion.



Epistemology (from Greek ἐπιστήμη - episteme-, "knowledge, science" + λόγος, "logos") or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:

What is knowledge?How is knowledge acquired?What do people know?How do we know what we know?Why do we know what we know?


A.2. EpistemologyF. Divisions of Philosophy

The term theodicy comes from the Greek θεός (theós, "god") and δίκη (díkē, "justice"), meaning literally "the justice of God," although a more appropriate phrase may be "to justify God" or "the justification of God". The term was coined in 1710 by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in a work entitled Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal ("Theodicic Essays on the Benevolence of God, the Free will of man, and the Origin of Evil").


A.3. Theodicy


The division of philosophy into a practical and a theoretical discipline has its origin in Aristotle's moral philosophy and natural philosophy categories. In Sweden and Finland courses in theoretical and practical philosophy are taught separately, and are separate degrees. Other countries may use a similar scheme--some Scottish universities, for example, divide philosophy into logic, metaphysics, and ethics--but in most universities around the world philosophy is taught as a single subject.


B. Practical PhilosophyF. Divisions of Philosophy

Logic, from the Greek λογική (logiké) is defined as "The formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning".

Logic is the art of conforming one's thoughts to the Law of Identity. In one respect, thoughts have to conform to the Law of Identity, as does everything else. This has to do with the nature of thoughts. Ideas have a different nature than memories, which are different from emotions. In this respect, all thoughts conform to the Law of Identity.


B.1. LogicF. Divisions of Philosophy

Aesthetics (also spelled æsthetics or esthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature." Aesthetics is a sub discipline of axiology, a branch of philosophy, and is closely associated with the philosophy of art. Aesthetics studies new ways of seeing and of perceiving the world

Aesthetics is the study of art. It includes what art consists of, as well as the purpose behind it.


B.2. AestheticF. Divisions of Philosophy

Semantics is the study of meaning. The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation.

The word is derived from the Greek word σημαντικός (semantikos), "significant", from σημαίνω (semaino), "to signify, to indicate" and that from σήμα (sema), "sign, mark, token".

In linguistics, it is the study of interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts. Back to course outline

B.3. SemanticsF. Divisions of Philosophy

Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is (meta-ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations (applied ethics), how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology), and what moral values people actually abide by (descriptive ethics).

Ethics is the branch of study dealing with what is the proper course of action for man. It answers the question, "What do I do?" It is the study of right and wrong in human endeavors. At a more fundamental level, it is the method by which we categorize our values and pursue them.


B.4. EthicsF. Divisions of Philosophy

G. Relation to the other Discipline


1. Philosophy and Science

Science-studies the natural phenomena and all the phenomena

of the society.-Study outward and more on demonstrations and experimentation-cannot study itself.-has attained a definite and tested knowledge of many matters.-resolve disagreement

Philosophy of Science-study of science itself.-study of something inward.


G. Relations to the other Discipline

Differences:Philosophy-make a disagreement -comparable to different fields of studies -because of philosophy, we are motivated to think more. It demonstrate than there is the existence of god. -It is inquiring the existence of everything

Similarities:-They both answer questions-both share a significant role-they both seek to discover the truth-both of them satisfy our curiosity-both of them provoke further questions



Relationship:-because of religion there is philosophy-philosophical questions are based on religion-more on emotion

Religious questionsA philosopher of religion does not ask "What is God?",

for such is a complex question in that it assumes the existence of God and that God has a knowable nature. Instead, a philosopher of religion asks whether there are sound reasons to think that God does or does not exist.


2. Philosophy and Religion


Still, there are other questions studied in the philosophy of religion. For example: What, if anything, would give us good reason to believe that a miracle has occurred? What is the relationship between faith and reason? What is the relationship between morality and religion? What is the status of religious language? Does petitionary prayer (sometimes still called impetratory prayer) make sense? Are salvo-lobotomies (lobotomies performed to keep believers from sinning) moral actions?



Existence of GodArguments for and against the existence of God have

been proposed by scientists, philosophers, theologians, and others. In philosophical terminology, "existence-of-God" arguments concern schools of thought on the epistemology of the ontology of God.

A wide variety of arguments exist which can be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical, or subjective. Although rarely studied scientifically given the generally held belief of religion and science as non-overlapping magisterial, the question of the existence of God is subject to lively debate both in philosophy— the philosophy of religion being almost entirely devoted to the question — and in popular culture.



Concern of Religion

The one-word answer for "What is hidden at first, but then revealed by loose cognition?" is "determinism" or "Fatedness", not "unity" or "consciousness". The word "determinism" lends itself better to having these ideas attached, than the word "unity" or "love" or "consciousness" or "enlightenment". Enlightenment amounts to determinism, more than enlightenment is unity or consciousness.



H. Nature of Religion


A religion is an organized approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendent quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth. It may be expressed through prayer, ritual, meditation, music and art, among other things. It may focus on specific supernatural, metaphysical, and moral claims about reality (the cosmos and human nature) which may yield a set of religious laws, ethics, and a particular lifestyle. Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and religious experience.


1. DefinitionH. Nature of Religion

EtymologyIt comes form the latin word re which means “back,

again” and ligare which means “to bind”The word religion is derived from Latin "religio" (what

attaches or retains, moral bond, anxiety of self-consciousness, scruple) used by the Romans, before Jesus Christ, to indicate the worship of the demons.The origin of "religion" is debated since antiquity. Cicero said it comes from "relegere" (to read again, to re-examine carefully, to gather) in the meaning "to carefully consider the things related to the worship of gods".



Denotation Religion is a moral virtue indication relation and duties of god.

Common (e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Islam)Judaism- “promotion of humanity” is their way of philosophy

Taakh-secret book of Judaism

Toah-first part of Taakh

Christianity-have a different miracles, love is their philosophytanakh= +old testament=new testament/bible

Buddhism-equality-the summary of religion of BuddhismThe summary of their practical book which is “tripitaka”-secret

book of BuddhismBack to course outline


Sidhartha Gautama-“budda” which means the enlightened one

Brahmanisn and Hinduism-materialistic religion

Castle system-s rich person can only deal to another rich one.

Islam- Islamic religion-they are feeling humiliated

Mohammed-“the last prophet” according to the Muslims

Qur’an (Koran) secret book of Islam, essence of Qur’an is brotherhood.



Like the definition of religion, the construction of religious history is a task fraught with ideological implications. Early studies of religions were often written to imply that the author's own religion was the most accurate. Even in a secular history, to imply that religion "progresses" towards better understanding of reality makes a value judgment about past religions; likewise, to consider religion an essentially social construction with no transcendent meaning denies the claims of every religious authority.


2. OriginH. Nature of Religion

I. Nature of Reality


There is a saying that “truth is stranger than fiction” and this certainly applies to the nature of reality, because in the light of increasing evidence, what we have accepted to be the ‘truth’ about our everyday reality is much more like the ‘fiction’ of our everyday reality.

Our most basic understanding of ‘reality’ is that we are born, we live, and we die. But for many of us this is not enough; we instinctively ‘feel’ that there is more to life than just producing the next generation of humanity and trying to do our best in our allotted ‘three score years and ten’.



Science and religion have been at loggerheads for hundreds of years in their attempts to prove their worldview as the correct one. Despite each gaining the upper hand from time to time, they both divide reality into two, the ‘physical’ and the ‘spiritual’. In truth, neither of them has provided a satisfactory explanation of the human experience, nor have they been able to unite to form a single, all-encompassing worldview.



It is therefore obvious that there is something drastically wrong with the prevailing scientific and religious worldviews; with the common understanding of the so-called ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual’ worlds and the general explanations provided by either science or religion.

The quest to find answers for our modern times has been taken up by the ‘new science’ of quantum physics. Discoveries of the last 100 years have taken physicists investigating the quantum world to new understandings that are truly astounding.



J. Nature of Value


1. Schematic Circle of Value

There are three usual positions advocated ethical values could be:

Objective: depending only on the object of inquiry, and hence independent of what we think, hope or expect to find

Subjective: Depending on the subject doing the inquiring Intersubjective: Depending on agreement between

subjects


J. Nature of Value

Axiology (from Greek ἀξίᾱ, axiā, "value, worth"; and -λογία, -logia) is the study of quality or value. It is often taken to include ethics and aesthetics — philosophical fields that depend crucially on notions of value — and sometimes it is held to lay the groundwork for these fields, and thus to be similar to value theory and meta-ethics. The term was first used in the early 20th century by Paul Lapie, in 1902, and E. von Hartmann, in 1908.


J. Nature of Value

2. Axiology, Ethics, Aesthetics

Ethics (also known as moral philosophy) is a branch of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality is (meta-ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), how a moral outcome can be achieved in specific situations (applied ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology).


EthicsJ. Nature of Value

Aesthetics (also spelled æsthetics or esthetics) is commonly known as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature." Aesthetics is a subdiscipline of axiology, a branch of philosophy, and is closely associated with the philosophy of art. Aesthetics studies new ways of seeing and of perceiving the world.


AestheticsJ. Nature of Value

-END-

Education

Introduction to Philosophy