Introduction to Philosophy

• Philosophy originates from ancient cultures' early mythological and religious concepts, as well as the rise of Greek civilization.
• Greek or classical philosophy developed between the end of the 6th century and the beginning of the 3rd century.
• The pre-Socratic or Cosmological Period focused on nature and the cosmos.
• The Anthropological Period centers on human reality.
• Prominent Greek philosophers include Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle (SPA).

Philosophy Defined

• Philosophy is a set of ideas that aim to explain reality through logical and reasoned thinking
• Philosophy is derived from "philos" (love) and "sophia" (wisdom), meaning love of wisdom.
• Philosophy was initially an encompassing knowledge of reality but later diverged into science and philosophy, where science studies the world and philosophy studies thought
• Various branches of philosophy emerged based on what was being studied.
• Magical thinking explains everything through divine personalities, leading to systems of beliefs, myths, and religions.

Beliefs

• Beliefs are a state of mind where an individual accepts something as true without evidence.
• An example of a belief is "If you help others, you will receive help when you need it."
• A belief is an idea that a person accepts as true, even if it cannot always be proven with facts.

Myth

• Myth, or "mythos," refers to fables or legends, contrasting with "logos" (reason).
• Myths describe events that cannot be explained by human experience, occurring in other times as works of gods and supernatural beings.
• Myths serve as a way of thinking to explain the reasons behind events, offering a foundation for providing explanations.

Culture

• Culture originated in Rome during Cato's time, referencing the cultivation of the land
• Culture refers to a social group's collective knowledge, beliefs, and behavioral norms.
• High culture includes productions of fine arts and humanities.
• Durkheim defines culture as a system of shared beliefs and practices that unite a church.
• Philosophical thought began using observation, reflection, and deduction to address questions of existence; which led to the emergence of science, which distinguished religious thought from reason in science.
• Reason is the ability to recognize and question concepts.
• The realm of reason is secular.

Science

• Science is a body of knowledge gained through systematic observation and reasoning, from which general principles and laws are deduced.
• The objective of science is to seek truth as objectively as possible, using the scientific method.
• All sciences are defined by their material object (what they study) and formal object (perspective or point of view).
• Philosophy is a universal science whose material object is all of reality, aiming to find ultimate causes.
• The development of philosophical thought and the sciences originated in Greece, but according to Westerners, systems of thought arose worldwide.

Aristotle's Division of Knowledge

• Aristotle divided knowledge into:
  • Physics (nature)
  • Metaphysics (beyond physics).
• Knowledge of practical sciences was separated into natural sciences, social sciences, physics, alchemy, and politics.

Fields of Philosophical Knowledge

• Ontology or Metaphysics
• Cosmology
• Anthropology
• Gnoseology
• Logic
• Ethics
• Aesthetics

Schools of the Cosmological Period

• Ionian-Milesian
• Eleatic
• Atomist
• Pythagorean

Figures From the Schools of the Cosmo Period

• Ionian-Milesian: Thales of Miletus, Anaximander, Anaximenes
• Eleatic: Parmenides, Heraclitus
• Pythagorean: Pythagoras
• Atomist: Democritus, Leucippus, Anaxagoras

Thales

• Arjé (the origin or principle) is water, as no living being can survive without it.
• Seeds-humidity-development
• The earth floats in a body of water.

Anaximander

• The principle of everything is apeiron, something opposed to matter, indefinite, indeterminate, and infinite.
• Proposed opposites between two elements: air and fire.

Anaximenes

• Arjé is air, the breath of the world.
• He revisited opposites, suggesting two principles: condensation and rarefaction.
• Earth is suspended in the air.

Parmenides

• Arjé is "Being".
• A precursor to ontology or metaphysics
• Importance of the differences between what is and is not.

Heraclitus

• "Everything changes, nothing remains"
• Reality arises from the transition of entities from one contrary to another.
• Logos: things in constant change.
• Material is not perceived as a being or anything we sense
• Reality is only perceived through reason.

Pythagoras

• Pythagoreanism
• Arjé: Numbers
• Conceived man as a duality of body and soul, believing in transmigration (reincarnation), with the body as a material world.

Democritus

• Founder of atomism; atoms are essentially identical, indivisible, eternal, and indestructible, found in perpetual motion within infinite emptiness.
• They vary in size and shape, and there is no separation; they have a compact unity.

Leucippus

• Atoms are separated; the world is formed by emptiness and the movement of these atoms.
• Atoms are brilliant and spherical.

Anaxagoras

• Minute particles of all substances are eternal and called homeomerias.
• Empedocles: Four principles: fire, earth, water, and air.
• Two external forces drive movements: love (union) and discord (separation).
• Sophists were cultured travelers who promoted a cultural movement that appealed to young people.
• "Sophist" comes from "sophos" (wise).
• Sophism is creating logical reasonings.
• Prominent sophists included Protagoras and Gorgias.
• Sophists focused on social and political issues.
• The cosmological period ends and the anthropological period begins.

Schools of the Anthropological Period

• Socrates initiates a shift in focus to human actions, justice, living well, and goodness
• Socrates practiced and taught maieutics and dialectics (dialogue and reflection) to question ideas and reach truth by recognizing error.
• Socrates advocated for ethical principles of wisdom and virtue, known as ethical intellectualism.

Plato’s Philosophy

• Prominent texts include the Dialogues of Plato, which recounts the dialogues of Socrates.
• Plato establishes that the real world is the world of intangible realities, which he called "ideas," where things are as their true essence dictates.
• One must detach from the material world to understand Plato's philosophy.
• What is real is explained through what is beyond the senses.
• In Plato's system of thought, only the world of ideas is genuinely real. What we perceive with our senses distances us from things and their true essence, and is therefore unreal.
• Anamnesis is how knowledge is remembered, not acquired
• Proposes a political system tied to virtue.
• Advocates for a governing aristocracy.
• Suggests social classes.
• Believes women and men should have equal rights and education.

Aristotle’s Philosophy

• Experience is the only way to obtain true knowledge.
• Texts include treatises on logic, physics, and eudaimonic ethics
• Aristotle founded the Lyceum, a school known as "The Peripato".
• He is considered the founder of logic.
• He studied the methodology for studying sciences.
• He termed his inductive method of premises "syllogism".
• The Aristotelian being is the primary substance with material and formal components.
• Aristotle distinguished between being in act and being in potential.
• Developed the theory of Hylomorphism: every body consists of matter and form.
• Matter contains the form and provides individual characteristics, perceived through the senses.
• Wrote treatises on eudaimonism, ethics of happiness and virtue.
• Conceives the state as responsible for providing the means necessary for the welfare of the people.
• Aristotle considers women destined for domestic work.