Before study philosophy every time remember what Socrates said: “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”. Philosophy is not a science in strict sense of term, It cannot give you ready-form and closed-end answers, It can rather inspire and direct you to find them on your own. Study various philosophical schools, get familiar with different philosophical traditions, then forget them all and find your own way.
1. Etymology of Philosophy.
The word “philosophy” comes from the Greek “philo” (“love”) and “sophia” (“wisdom”), that is it is combination of two words, which literally means “love of wisdom”. The introduction of the terms “philosophy” and “philosopher” (“lover of wisdom”) has been ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras (6-th BC). At that time “philosopher” was understood as a word which is contrasted with “sophist” (“wise men”). Pay attention that we have already two “social groups”, one of which is “sophist”, who considers himself as a wise man, a professional teacher capable of teaching others, and another is ‘philosopher”, who names himself not a wise man, not a professional teacher, but only a man who is interested in wisdom. What is the difference between being a wise man and being not a wise man, but only interested in wisdom? The fundamental difference is that if you consider yourself as a wise man, you believe that you know everything, that is what you know is absolutely true and can never be false, but if you consider yourself as only a “lover of wisdom” (a man who is interested in wisdom), you think that you know something, and what you know is relatively true and can be false, or can be changed. Is it possible that anybody holds the absolute truth? See what said the Jaina Darsana, one of the ancient Indian philosophical school about it: Every philosophical position has its truth and we should try to combine them all, because a thing has infinite aspects. What does it mean to have infinite aspects? The Jainas explained it analogous to the story of seven blind men who upon seeing an elephant describe the elephant on the basis of the part (the trunk, the ears, the tail) of the elephant they had touched. Each judgement is partially true and it is only partial knowledge. These partial cognition need to be combined into a total knowledge of the object, not by putting them together as “p and q and r …”, but as alternatives (p or q or r), each valid from a point of view. Be careful when you say a “point of view”. It does not mean mere subjectivity, or what you believe is partially true. It is an objective point of view and your subjective experience does not contain enough objectivity everytime that can be named as knowledge (truth).
2. The major sub-disciplines of Philosophy.
Philosophy is not an easy subject to define. Its etymology is obvious – the love of wisdom, but unhelpful to someone who wishes to understand what the discipline of philosophy is about. In order to understand what is philosophy a bit more, let’s consider its major sub-disciplines. There four of them:
1) Logic – the search for well-justified rules of reasoning;
2) Ethics – concerns itself with right and wrong, good and bad, justice and injustice, in the conduct of individuals and states. It has close connection with philosophy of politics and philosophy of law. However, the supreme determining factor in all considerations will obviously be the ultimate end of man, whatever this may be.
3) Epistemology (or the theory of knowledge) – the inquiry into nature, extent and justification of human knowledge. It adresses ddressestions:
- What is knowledge?
- How is knowledge acquired?
- To what extent is it possible for a given subject or entity to be known?
4) Metaphysics – a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and thwe world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attemps to answer two basic questions:
- What is there?
- What is it like?
Metaphysics has got several branches:
a) Ontology – comes from Greek “onto” which means “being, that which is”, present participle of the verb “be”, and “logia” (“science”, “study”). Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence, and reality as well as the basic categories of being and their relations. Traditionally, ontology deals with questions such as
- What entities exist or can be said to exist?
- How much entities can be grouped and subdivided according to similarities and differences?
- What is existence?
- What features are essential, as opposed to merely accidental attributes of a given object?
- When does an object go out of existence, as opposed to merely changing?
b) Cosmology – the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all phenomena in space and time. Historically, it had quite a broad scope and in many cases was founded in religion. However, in modern times it addresses questions about the Universe which are beyond the scope of the physical sciences and it is distinguished from religious Cosmology. Modern metaphysical cosmology tries to address questions such as
- What is the origin of Universe? What is its first cause? Is its existence necessary?
- What are the ultimate material components of the Universe?
- What is the ultimate reason for the existence of the Universe? Does the Cosmos have a purpose?
3. Why philosophy?
If you ask why people seek knowledge at all, in any science, we shall detect two main impelling motives. The first of these is simply the desire to know. The natural feeling of wonder, astonishment, which accompanies our perception of things and events, prompts us to seek their causes, to discover the reasons which will make them intelligible to us and enable us to understand them. Most people, if not all, are interested at least metaphysical issues such as Creator/origin of the Universe and life, birth and rebirth, afterdeath, etc. and in most cases find answer to them in religion. However, religion is based on mere belief, there cannot be any doubt what is written in the Holy Book (e.g. Koran, Bible, etc.), that is why you cannot argue any dogma there. In religion belief plays decisive role, but in philosophy justification. In other words without justification no belief can be true in philosophy and you are free to choose your belief and method to justify it. Such kind of philosophy can be named as Speculative or Theoretical Philosophy. Unlike it, the second kind of philosophy can be named as Practical Philosophy. It means that we also seek knowledge in order to use it for the guidance of our conduct in life, for the orientation of our activities, for the improvement of our condition. Of course, we can only relatively distinguish Practical Philosophy from Theoretical Philosophy. To be exact, according to the degree in which Philosophy fulfills ulterior purposes, or is sought for these purposes it may be described as practical; in the degree in which it serves no ulterior end, or Is sought for no ulterior end, other than that of perfecting our minds, it may be described as theoretical (speculative). Of course this latter purpose is in itself a highly practical purpose, because it maybe not directly, but indirectly influence to all sides of our daily life.
4. Being, existence and reality (Ontology).
The question of being, in philosophy, has been a central topic of metaphysics. Philophers often suppose a certain sense of being as primary, and from it derive other senses of being as secondary. So, even if they use the same word “is”, the meaning of being is different, depending upon what it is that “is”: sensible material beings, values and norms, mathematical objects, quality, time, space, God, etc. Inquires into being often contrast it with its reciprocal concept, and the meaning of being varies accordingly. Paired sets include: being and beings, being and becoming, being and appearance, being and existence, being and essence, being and thought, etc. How to approach the question of being is determined by the style of thought, philosophical approach, or methodology.
a) being and becoming
Being, when it is contrasted with becoming, means immutability, permanence, or constant. The only real being is what is immutable and permanent; becoming, that is what is in a state of flux is illusory and impossible, that is why it is non-being.
b) being, phenomena and appearance
Being, when it is contrasted with phenomena, means true reality in contrast to mere appearances or what appears to sense perception. For instance, Plato (428 – 348 B.C.) inquired into the true reality of being in contrast to what appears to our five senses. For him, the true reality of being has permanent, immutable ideas, which intellect alone can grasp, through sense experience ideas cannot be known. Those who see the absolute, eternal and immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion only. In that context Plato distinguishes “knowledge” from “opinion”. Opinion is of the world presented to the senses, whereas knowledge is of a super-sensible eternal world of ideas. For instance, opinion is concerned with particular beautiful things, e.g. beautiful tragedies, music, pictures or women, but knowledge is concerned with beauty in itself. Things are beautiful by virtue of the idea of beauty which is true reality. What appears to our five senses is less real, temporal appearance and what we have with respect to appearance is not knowledge, but only opinion. Let’s connect Plato’s theory of ideas to the question what is philosophy andwho is a philosopher? As we said before, according to the etymology of term a philosopher is a lover of wisdom. But it is not the same thing as a lover of knowledge, in the sense In which an inquisitive man may be said to love knowledge; vulgar curiosity does not make a philosopher. The definition is therefore amended: the philosopher is a man who loves the “vision of truth”. But what is this vision? According to the analogy above a philosopher is only a man who loves beauty (ideas) itself, but not only particular things (appearance). The man who only loves appearance is dreaming, whereas the man who knows absolute ideas is wide awake.
c) being and beings
Being, when it is contrasted with beings, means to distinguish between God as “being from itself” (primary being) and particular creatures as “beings derived from another” (secondary being). In Medieval theology only God is understood as uncaused cause, that is, only God doesn’t need any cause in order to be, while others need external cause to be. So only God is a primary being, others are only derivative from it.
d) Being and thought
Being, when it is contrasted with thought, means the objective reality that is outside of the cognitive subject. Thought refers to ideas in the mind and being refers to spatio-temporal, extra-mental existence. The contrast of being and thought appeared within the question of how ideas and thoughts in the mind can be a real representation of the objective reality which exists outside of the mind.
e) Being, existence and essence
In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. History shows a rather complex relationship between being and existence. The classical Greek equivalent of the English verb “be” was “einai”, but there seems to have been no classical Greek equivalent of the English verb “exist”. When Greek philosophers wanted to express the concept of existence, they did so only in predicative form – “S is P”, where S (subject) is a name of any object, P (predicate) is any property of this object, e.g. “Socrates is a wise man”, accordingly “Socrates” is S and “wise man” is P. According to it, “X exists” was expressed as “X is something”; it means that if any X has some Y, then X must exist, and vice versa. It was only in the Middle Ages that the Latin word “exsistere” was made from a combination of “ex” (“out of”) and “sistere” (“to come to stand”) to mean “to exist”, “to appear”, or “to emerge”. But using it, Medieval Christian philosophers such as St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) meant “that a thing exists”, but not “what a thing is”, in that way distinguished what is naked to the eyes from what is hidden from the eyes. In that context the concept of “existentia” (“existence”) was established as a technical term contrasted with “essentia” (“essence”), an abstract form of the presumed present participle of “esse” (“to be”). While essence apparently meant “what a thing is”, existence meant “that a thing exists”, as it is said before. According to Thomas Aquinas, the essence and existence of each contingent, finite creature are distinct, while the essence and existence are identical within God, who is therefore pre-eminent over the world. As it is seen, a differentiation between being (essence) and existence has strong religious influence, that is, God causes each finite creature to “exist” with its “essence” and each finite creature express some part of God’s being, or if it can be said, in essence of each finite creature is hidden some part of God’s being. It also comes from Islamic philosophy that distinguishes wujud (existence) from mahiat (essence). However, many analytic philosophers in the 20-th century such as Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) believed that being and existence are identical, that is, that what there is, is precisely what exists. It is basically so-called “actualism”, and it maintains that there is no kind of being beyond actual existence. The identity of being and existence also means that every predicative proposition can be translated into an existential one without changing meaning. For example, adding “exists” to a “wise man” to give the complete sentence “a wise man exists” has the same effect as joining “some man” to “wise” using copula (to be) to say “some men are wise”. So, the “exists” of the existential proposition takes the place of the copula. This is the basis of the dominant position in modern Anglo-American analytic philosophy that generally can be characterized as not being influenced by religious thought.
Philosophical Papers 