Introduction to Philosophy
Humble Beginnings
Credits: Liam Ayathan (The Shrimp)
Hey everyone, welcome to The Average Thinker! We wanted this page to serve as a jumping off point for anyone interested in religion, history or philosophy! For this first post we will go through the main four branches of philosophy. The content for this article is derived from Florida State University and Crash Course Philosophy #1 So please check them out as well! In general, Philosophy is an activity that people undertake to better understand themselves, the world they live in and their own relationship to the world as well as to each other.
Brief History of Philosophy
Western ideals of philosophy can be traced backed to ancient Greece at around 500 BCE (of course philosophical thought has existed since the dawn of man but it was only truly formalized with the Greeks). Philosophy is derived from the word Philosophia which means “the love of wisdom” and combines two older Greek words, Philos and Mythos which mean “Science” and “Story Telling” respectively. Initially, Philosophy was lumped as the academic study of anything. However, overtime Studies that dealt with more empirical pursuits were labelled as the Sciences. Philosophy as we know now it was then centered around a way of thinking about questions.
Metaphysics
The first branch of Philosophy is Metaphysics which deals with questions related to the nature of reality, of what exists in the world and how it is ordered.
Is there a God?
What is Truth?
Is there Free Will?
Epistemology
The second branch of Philosophy is Epistemology which is primarily concerned with what we can know about the world and how we can know it.
What is knowledge?
Do we know anything at all?
Value Theory
The third branch of Philosophy is value theory which involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea or something else entirely. The two main approaches are Ethics and Aesthetics.
Value Theory (Ethics)
Ethics is associated with the Study of how humans should live with each other and evaluates human conduct. In light of these conundrums, larger questions about what is good and right arise.
What is good? what makes actions or people good
Value Theory (Aesthetics)
Aesthetics is rooted in concern with the nature and appreciation of art, beauty and good taste. It has also been defined as a critical reflection on art, culture and nature.
What is a work of art?
Why do we find certain things beautiful?
Logic
The fourth main branch of Philosophy is Logic, which is a means to study the nature and structure of arguments that are posed to Philosophical questions.
What constitutes “good” or “bad” reasoning
How do we determine whether a given piece of reasoning is good or bad?
Closing Thoughts
Now that you have a broad overview of the different branches of philosophy, let us unpeg how one can sharpen a philosophical mindset.
First, you can employ the principle of charity to understand an argument put forth to you in its most logically interpretation. Second, you must critically evaluate that said argument; try as much as possible to destroy what you know about a particular view of the world.
Only when you challenge your understanding of how people see the world, can you decide for yourself if their view is worth having. Success is knowing how to think and reason which is a stepping stone to forming your own view of the world.
What motivates the study of philosophy is not merely the answers or arguments themselves but whether or not the arguments are good and the answers are true.
“Scientia ipsa potentia est” - Knowledge itself is power