Introduction to Philosophy: Etymology and Definitions

• The material is study material for the first partial exam for the "Introduction to Philosophy" course at the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD).
• The instructor for the course is Mtro. Francisco Amaury Pichardo Espinal.

Etymological Meaning of Philosophy

• The word "filosofía" comprises "filo" (love) and "sofia" (wisdom).
• Philosophy translates to "love of wisdom."
• Pythagoras, a Greek, was the first to use this term.

Definitions of Philosophy

• Philosophy is a doctrine using logical and methodical reasoning on abstract concepts like existence, truth, and ethics, based on science, characteristics, and cause-effect relationships of natural things like humans and the universe.
• Philosophy studies fundamental problems about existence, knowledge, truth, morality, beauty, mind, and language.

Material and Formal Object of Philosophy

• The material object consists of the topics that philosophy deals with.
• The material object of philosophy is reality, including its totality, the human being and society.
• The formal object is the approach to studying its material object.
• The formal object involves raising, analyzing, and reflecting on the ultimate and profound aspects of that material object, its origin, and its essence.

Place and Time Where Philosophy Emerged

• Philosophy emerged in Greece, specifically in Mileto, Asia Minor, in the 6th century BC.
• Philosophy began with the pre-Socratic period, led by Thales of Miletus.

Admiration/Wonder in the Rise of Philosophy

• Aristotle said that philosophy was born of admiration. The philosopher said people started thinking philosophically after realizing reality has logos, meaning, and rationality.
• Reality seems admirable because it is not chaotic but an ordered cosmos of beings following rational laws.
• This origin is multifaceted.
• Questions and knowledge arise from wonder.
• Critical examination and clear certainty are born from doubting what is known.
• The question of self arises from personal commotion and awareness of being lost.

Meaning of Myth from the Greek Conception

• Myths are fantastic stories explaining and giving meaning to fundamental aspects of human existence.
• These include world origin, human creation, nature, and natural phenomena.
• Myths have a religious, spiritual, or cosmological dimension.
• They can transmit teachings, lessons, or warnings.
• Greek Myths explain how the world was made, and how evil appeared in the world.
• Extraordinary actions of mythical characters are examples to follow.

Connection between Myths and Logos

• A myth is a traditional story referring to prodigious events, starring supernatural beings, seeking to explain an event or phenomenon.
• Myths offered explanations about natural phenomena and human behavior and social values.
• Logos can be translated as reasoning, thought, argumentation, or discourse using words or reason.
• Logos refers to argumentation through words, thought, or reason.
• Philosophically, the "Logos" is using reason and critical thinking to explain phenomena.

Differences and Similarities between Myth and Logos

• Both are ways to respond to all the questions presented by humanity.
• Both try to answer perplexity in the face of the universality of human and natural events.
• Myth:*
• Explains totality.
• Exists in all of humanity since it has the ability to narrate.
• Uses the imagination.
• Language is imaginative and fantastical.
• Personalizes the forces of nature.
• Nature depends on the will of gods and is chaotic.
• World has no laws or regularity, arbitrariness prevails.
• Appeals to the transcendent.
• Based on oral or written tradition.
• Logos:*
• Explains totality.
• Emerged in Greece in the 6th century BC, marking a before and after in human history.
• Uses reason and is tied to experience.
• Language is abstract and rational.
• Natural forces have no personal character.
• Nature has order and is characterized by necessity (cosmos).
• Physis is an ordered whole governed by laws.
• The law governing all real things is the arjé, the ultimate principle of what is real.
• Based on immanence.
• Tradition is not a criterion but on observation and rational consistency.

The Passage from Myth to Logos

• This expression regards the origin of philosophy as overcoming mythical and religious ways of thinking and the advent of rational thought encompassing philosophy and science.
• The Presocratics, dominated by curiosity and a critical attitude, pioneered what is known as "The Passage from Myth to Logos."

Meaning of ARJÉ or ARCHÉ from the Greek Conception

• Arché is a fundamental concept in ancient Greek philosophy that meant "beginning of the universe" or "first element of all things".
• It explains the universe's origin and consists a rational explanation with one or more substances.

The Allegory of the Cave

• Plato's allegory shows the state of our nature, concerning education or lack thereof.
• It also represents the state in which most people are in relation to knowing truth or ignorance.
• Prisoners represent most of humanity, enslaved by their ignorance, clinging to habits, opinions, prejudices, and false beliefs.
• These prisoners, like most people, think they know and are happy in their ignorance.
• They live in error, mistaking mere shadows of fabricated objects and echoes of voices for what is real and true.

Main Branches of Philosophy

• Metaphysics studies nature, structure, components, and fundamental principles of reality.
• Gnoseology, or theory of knowledge, studies the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge.
• Epistemology studies the nature, possibility, scope, and foundations of scientific knowledge.
• Logic studies the principles of demonstration and valid inference, fallacies, paradoxes, and the notion of truth.
• Ethics (moral philosophy) studies human behavior, right and wrong, good and bad, morality, virtue, happiness, and duty.
• Aesthetics studies the essence and perception of beauty.
• Political philosophy studies the concepts and logic behind political ideologies.
• The philosophy of language studies essential aspects of human language, its nature, its relationship to thought and the world, and its uses and limits.

Main Functions of Philosophy

• Critical Function:*
• Examines and questions the assumptions underlying beliefs and actions.
• Orients people to perceive social conditions as not natural, fixed, or eternal. Conceptual function:
• Provides a conceptual framework for understanding and articulating complex ideas.
• Develops critical thinking and communication skills.
• Reflective function:*
• Offers guidance for a reflective and meaningful life.
• Pedagogical function:*
• Teaches critical thinking.
• Prepares one for life and death.
• Anthropological function:*
• Studies reasoning, epistemology, and ontology to understand the world, science, and human nature.
• Proposes ethical models to achieve collective happiness and justice.

The Symbol of Philosophy

• The owl is associated with the Greek goddess Athena.
• The owl is a wise animal symbolizing the search for knowledge.
• The owl represents philosophy because it can be a solitary bird, has good vision in the dark, contemplates from above, and has 360-degree vision.
• Philosophy is a solitary pursuit, is a way the truth is clear, and it seeks to contemplate Truth, has a complete view of the things on its radar.

Philosophy and Religion

• Religion is a system of beliefs, customs, and symbols established around divinity or sacrality.
• Religions are doctrines made up of principles, beliefs, and practices on existential, moral, and spiritual issues.

Similarities between Philosophy and Religion

• Both seek a sense of transcendence.
• Both address common themes: good and evil, freedom, justice, and happiness.
• Both seek to answer fundamental questions about life and the meaning of existence.
• Both are part of the history and life of peoples.
• Both address issues related to the ethical conduct of individuals.

Differences between Philosophy and Religion

• Philosophy is a rational conception of the universe and life.
• Religion explains problems of the universe and life based on faith.
• Philosophy problematizes and questions everything and establishes doubt. Religion is strictly affirmative and dogmatic.
• Philosophy needs to convince rationally.
• Religion needs to convince through faith.
• Philosophy relies on human reason. Religion accepts the existence of divine reason.
• Philosophy originated in Greece in the 6th century BC.
• Religion is historically prior to all science and philosophy.

Relationship of Similarities and Differences Between Philosophy and Science

• Similarities:*
• Philosophy is the base for the development of the sciences.
• Both disciplines were born with the aim of understanding reality through reason.
• Both disciplines rely on evidence and arguments.
• Differences:*
• Science focuses on explaining how things happen.
• Philosophy focuses on why they happen.
• Philosophy focuses on abstract questions about existence, morality, truth, and reality.
• Science focuses on understanding and explaining natural phenomena and the observable world.
• Philosophy is more speculative and theoretical.
• Science is associated with experimentation and the manipulation of materials.
• Teleology or finality is essential in philosophy.
• Causality is essential in science.

Different Methods of Philosophy

• Dialectic Method:*
• Consists of developing argumentative philosophical concepts to extract consequences of contrary hypotheses.
• Its steps are thesis, antithesis, and synthesis and are based on negation, affirmation, and negation of negation.
• Plato and Friedrich Hegel are the main representatives.
• Hermeneutic Method:*
• A philosophical theory seeking meaning of texts, symbols, and cultural expressions.
• Understanding is viewed as circular, not linear.
• Dilthey, Gadamer and Schleiermacher are main representatives.
• Socratic Method:*
• It is a philosophical method based on dialogue and questioning to seek truth.
• It consists of asking questions to guide people's thinking towards self-reflection and critical thinking.
• The "Mayéutica" involves extracting from within the psyche what the interlocutor knows but is not aware of.
• Socrates is the primary representative.
• Phenomenological Method:*
• Understands the study of phenomena.
• Investigates phenomena as given to consciousness and studies structures that receive and shape subjective experience.
• Husserl and Heidegger mainly developed this method.
• Cartesian Method:*
• Created by French philosopher René Descartes.
• A thought process of seeking truth through doubt and reason.
• Four fundamental steps: Doubt (methodical doubt), Analysis, Synthesis, and Verification

First Philosophers

• The philosophers tried to understand the beginning of the world.
• The philosophers were interested in cosmology, geometry and nature.
• They proposed the concept of arché (arjé) to get closer to the reflections on the origin of the Universe.
• Arché, reference to that unknown element was the base of all things and formed the entire Universe in the end.

Philosophers

• Tales de Mileto:*
• The philosopher thought that water was the main element of the world and the Universe.
• The arché was water because the world came from water, and it was essential for life.
• Tales de Mileto provoked movement and transformation.
• Tales de Mileto is regarded as the first philosopher due to his pursuit of truth, while using reason, surpassing the tales from the time.
• Anaximandro:*
• Aimed to find an explanation about the material elemental that made up the universe and created the term ápeiron,which referred to the Unlimited or the infinite.
• According to Anaximandro, lo ápeiron, was the first main element than compounded everything from stones to stars.
• Anaxímenes:*
• Less convinced by the complex explanation from his teacher, Anaximandro, Anaxímenes thought the arkhé had to be element "aire" (air).
• Air, through physical processes like rarefaction and condensation, has to be in control to create everything.
• Pitágoras de Samos (569 a.С. – 475 а.С.):*
• Pythagoras thought the universe was based on principles of mathematics and numbers.
• The essence of everything was numbers (Arjé).
• Also, Pythagoras stated that the soul was immortal and that it went through a cycle of reincarnation.
• He lived a life based on purity, moderation and contemplation.
• Heráclito:*
• The main idea is that everything is in constant change and nothing remains the same.
• "No one can bathe twice in the same river," that is his idea.
• For Heráclito, "fire" represents the main principle of all things (árje).
• Fire represents constant change and transformation.
• Parménides de Elea:*
• The expression that he is very known for is: “Ser is and No-Ser is not”.
• His primary idea is that Ser is single, infinite, unmovable and un-divisible.
• He said that change is only an apparition.
• To him, the natural element of the universe is ser (árje).
• Empedocles:*
• Empedocles assured everything in the universe was made of 4 unchanged and constant components. Which is Tierra (Earth), Agua (Water), Aire (Air), and Fuego (Fire).
• Those components never appear nor disappear.
• He thought Nature's change was the result of 2 opposites. Which were Amor / Love and Odio /Hate.
• Anaxágoras:*
• He stated a particle had to have the potential structure, that all tiny particles had infinite potential which were known as “homeomerias” (cosmic seeds) which were in charge in the Nous.

Classical Greek Philosophers

• SÓCRATES (469-399 a.C.):*
• The teacher of Plato and regarded as an important influence in western thought and history.
• Socrates's dialogue created critical ways of thinking and created a doubt of what had been accepted as evident.
• Socrates's philosophy was characterized as the pursue for moral perfection and of truth.
• Socrates's thoughts:*
• Two Socrates's expressions: “I only know that I know nothing” (the true teaching is to acknowledge the own ignorance). “Know yourself” (the best magic of all is human).
• Socrates method: Mayéutica, (it's a method to look for more information through questions.)
• Socrates would encourage thoughts, to think, investigate and explore new ways to approach real life problems.
• Knowledge and kindness is the proper way of obtaining justice.
• He said, "There's really only one type of evil that exists in our world, and that's just ignorance,”
• Ethics and morality were very important, he said we must regard the cities laws. “It's better to suffer injustice than to come it.”
• A proper citizen should find the laws with virtue and always prioritize justice.
• Be loyal to the morals and principles, even if dying.
• PLATÓN (427-347 a.C.):*
• Socrates student.
• Founded the Academia (where political sciences and mathematics were taught).
• His most important contributions were his Teoria delas Ideas (Ideas theroy), Epistemiologia (Epistemiology) knowledge vs opinion, and Political and ideal theory.
• Plato's thoughts:*
• "Ideas Theory":
  • There are 2 worlds that exist.
  • Ideas from the world exist and are very abstract.
  • Everything is linked as one.
  • World Sensitive (copy that is imperfect).
  • Eternal.
• Platonico Dualismo:
  • Said that the human was formed in two ways. Which were Body and soul;
  • The soul is eternal and is found at the Ideas World;
  • Body is sensible but is going to perish.
  • True knowledge is a remembrance of life past.
• Epistemiology:*
• There are two phases. Which are
• Doxa (imperfect sense).
• and Episteme (true knowledge with reason to discover).
• He thought of society was based with political theories. Which are:
  • Gobernantes: (rulers) - which are like philosophers y think well
• Guerreros : Warriors, they protect the area
• Productores :Producers that take care of the market and the lands.
• Aristóteles (384-322 aC):*
• His knowledge goes over many themes.
• Metaphysics, Ethics and political theories.
• His way of thinking marked the base of western thought.
• Aristóteles thoughts:*
• His theory was called Hilemorfismo.
• Every aspect of the word can be compounded with two concepts known as form and material.
• That is the way of life.
• Lógica and method of thoughts.
• Aristóteles is the father of logic. Said something can be true if it has a conclusion:
• Metafísica aristotélica:*
  • Aristóteles explain the motion and change through the concept of act, and power that one might have. “every change can occur if one uses the power to create an act”
• Acto is now.
• Potencia is what happens in the future.
• Ethics and happiness.
  • The ultimate goal for this world is happiness (eudamonia) and can be achieve through virtue.
  • You will be in the mid point of power to have true value. La "Causa del Ser"
  • All things exist and had a purpose. Those are known as the cuatro causas (four causes):
• What something is (stone)
• The shape of it.
• What produce it.
  • The propose.
• *El "Primer Motor Inmóvil”**:
  • Said everything moves due to the concept “motor de primer inmóvil” which made an act of influence, but withought getting touched.
  • That concept evolved in the Middle age as God, concept.