Introduction to Philosophy

• Each branch of study has an area of focus or problems that it examines.
• Without unique areas of concern, the existence of many disciplines in universities would be unnecessary. Understanding other disciplines requires a knowledge of Philosophy
• Economics focuses on the production/distribution of goods/wealth, medicine on curing illnesses, and physics on natural phenomena/energy.
• Students should also understand how philosophy relates to other fields
• Philosophy is referred to as the "mother discipline".
• Disciplines such as Religion, Theology, Psychology, Psychiatry, Political Science, and Anthropology have gained autonomy through philosophical development, so they share many commonalities.
• Focus is required on the nature of philosophy, the philosophical method, and how it relates to other disciplines.

Philosophy as an Activity

• The term "philosophy" was coined by Pythagoras from the Greek words "philia" (love) and "sophias" (wisdom).
• Philosophy means "love of wisdom," and its essence is the pursuit of the love of wisdom.
• Pythagoras thought wisdom was exclusive to God, mortals can only "love" it, not possess it.
• Philosophy is the quest for wisdom, and a philosopher is a seeker of knowledge.
• It involves an ongoing process for comprehensive knowledge and an unquenchable desire to understand nature, reality, and the universe.
• Socrates preferred death to stopping the practice of philosophy, stating that "an unexamined life is not worth living".
• Philosophy examines life, nature, existence, and the universe.
• Philosophy is defined as the love of wisdom, is a human activity or exercise pursued in one's life journey through nature, beginning with wonder and discovering the extraordinary in the ordinary.
• Philosophy is an individual pursuit independent of academic study, while the latter is a systematic study in philosophy.

Philosophy as a Discipline

• Defining philosophy as the love of wisdom may not satisfy new philosophy students.
• An acceptable definition relates to philosophy's academic pursuit of comprehensive knowledge and how it differs from other disciplines is needed.
• The question "What is philosophy?" is a philosophical problem. Philosophers have differing definitions.
• Philosophy reflects upon itself differently than other disciplines.
• The question "What is philosophy?" is a philosophical question.
• The followers of Aristotle and Saint Thomas define philosophy as the science of things by their first causes, attainable by natural reason.
• Philosophy includes things in their first causes, ultimate causes, and the remotest causes on which immediate observations depend.
• It studies essences, derived from ideas through reasoning, seeking ultimate causes through human reasoning, unlike the physical sciences that use experiments.
• D.D. Raphael defines traditional philosophy as the critical evaluation of beliefs and rational grounds for accepting/rejecting beliefs.
• Philosophy is a systematic discipline seeking knowledge of things, including natural phenomena, beliefs, and the world, through critical evaluation and reason.

Nature and Method of Philosophy

• Understanding the nature/methods will aid understanding of how philosophy differs from other disciplines.
• Philosophy is rational, comprehensive, speculative, theoretical, and critical.

Philosophy and Reason

• The term philosophy is a rational enterprise and clarifies concepts/ideas for evaluation of things/knowledge/essences.
• It employs reason to reach causal relations and attain the universal, ultimate, ideal, and is universal because what one reaches through reasoning should be attainable by another universally.

Philosophy and Universality

• Universality is one of philosophy's most fundamental characteristics.
• It is universal and comprehensive because it studies reality in its comprehensive nature as a totality.
• Philosophy relates to everything as it deals with things in their totality.
• Philosophy deals with the concepts of education, fairness, and justice.
• Philosophy asks fundamental questions about daily life and existence, questioning what we take for granted.
• Philosophy seeks a rule, principle, or universal law guiding actions, asking general questions.
• The comprehensiveness of the philosophical quest makes it universal as whatever obtains as philosophical knowledge must be universalizable.
• Philosophy leaves particular knowledge to specific sciences. Philosophy is a universal and comprehensive science.

Philosophy and Speculation

• Philosophy begins with concrete reality, spurred by wonder and is not all about speculation.
• Philosophy explores something that overwhelms man, like the universe and goes beyond the concrete to understand the reality's causes.
• Philosophy doesn't stop at speculation, but evaluates hypotheses through logical reasoning, upholding or rejecting them based on rationality and justification.
• In speculation, notions of "theory" and "abstraction" are coupled, moving away from the concrete to find meaning/origin/causes.
• Moving beyond reality to arrive at the causes leads to abstraction
• True philosophy should relate to reality, or it becomes empty and the truths remain a matter of philosophizing.
• Speculative philosophy should not separate thought from reality.

Philosophy and Other Disciplines

• Philosophy is an activity or way of life and a discipline, the focus is on the nature of philosophy, its methods, relationship with other fields and how it relates to, and differs from other disciplines.

Philosophy and Science in General

• Philosophy is often described as the mother of all disciplines due to its historical role in the emergence of other fields.
• An adequate answer requires a clear understanding of the nature, mode and method employed by both.
• Science means "to know," but its meaning is knowledge arrived at through the questions of "how" and "why" in Latin
• Scientific knowledge is attained through understanding/investigation of nature, reason, and causes.
• Science is a system of knowledge focused on examining/observing the nature and causes of things.
• "How" and "Why" knowledge is attained by observation (empirical method) & experimentation (verification/demonstration).
• Philosophy can be considered a science if philosophy relates to these two
• Philosophy involves rational grounds for accepting or rejecting beliefs.
• Philosophy seeks knowledge of how/why contingent beings/realities can exist.
• Scientific knowledge investigates the "How" and "Why" of things.
• Philosophy is a science because its knowledge is also from "How" and "Why" for contingent beings/realities.
• Scientific knowledge is more than just knowing facts; it requires understanding the causes.

Philosophy and Physical Sciences

• Philosophy is a science in the original sense and examining its similarities with various specific sciences is important.
• Physical sciences concern themselves with observable phenomena and are also referred to as experimental/empirical sciences.
• Philosophy shares with these sciences the primary objective of seeking objective and certain knowledge through objective certitude about things and their causal relations.
• Both fields are concerned with knowledge of physical realities but differ in methods because philosophy relies more on rational means, while physical/experimental sciences rely on observation and experiment.
• Philosophy starts with observations but transcends physical phenomena for an ultimate cause.
• Philosophy is a transcendental science because it leads to metaphysics.
• Philosophy differs from physical sciences because it is the "science of all things" and seeks the essence and knowledge of the totality.
• Physical sciences deal with specific branches of knowledge, physics with forces/nature, chemistry with atoms/molecules, and medicine with diseases.
• Philosophy is the science of all things in their ultimate/first causes and the science of sciences.
• Philosophy is the absolute science seeking the "why" of its object, seeking explanations until it gets to the first cause beyond which no other causes exist .
• Physical sciences are approximative in their quest and content themselves with the approximate.
• Physical sciences often talk of a certain percentage of correctness, and approximate incalculable facts.
• Philosophy's search continues where full knowledge is lacking.
• The search for ultimate reason distinguishes philosophy from physical sciences.
• Physical sciences do not search beyond immediate/secondary causes, and their goal is to describe contingent reality which is different from the end goals of philosophy.
• Physical sciences are more descriptive and superficial than philosophy, which is explanatory.
• Philosophy remains a unique science, similar to physical sciences, but it can transcend phenomena.

Philosophy and Social Sciences

• Social Sciences study, investigate, and find theories using scientific methods.
• They strive to improve human conditions and solve societal problems through empirical studies.
• Social Sciences seek general explanations by analyzing antecedent factors.
• Many sciences have arisen from philosophical questioning.
• Social sciences owe philosophy as all disciplines once belonged to philosophy and gained autonomy. Social sciences maintain affinity by adopting the quest for knowledge similar to philosophy.
• Social sciences utilizes a methodology that remains within the domain of philosophy as in philosophy of science.

Philosophy and Religion/Theology

• Philosophy is often confused with religion/theology, and questions arise about the differences between them.
• Religious studies deal with the knowledge and understanding of religions and their beliefs/doctrines.
• Organized/non-organized religions such as animism are concerns of religious studies.
• Religion as a discipline studies organizations/associations with common beliefs and doctrines
• Theology deals with supernatural beings, their relationship with the universe, & knowledge of them.
• Both share a common object in belief/faith in the Almighty Supernatural Being.
• Religion/theology examines the patterns of religions, their organizations, beliefs, cultures, and traditions.
• Theology deals with who created the world, the creator's purpose, and prescriptions for salvation.
• Philosophy shares a common concern in seeking ultimate knowledge of the world, its nature/purpose.
• Religion/theology rely on revealed knowledge founded on faith.
• Philosophy seeks explanations through reason, considering unreasoned ideas about the universe as unphilosophical.
• Philosophy investigates the ultimate causes of natural phenomena, using reason it questions everything, including god
• Philosophy obtains truth/knowledge through reasoning, while religion/theology have doctrines/dogmas in scriptures.

Philosophy and Art

• Art refers to visual, auditory, verbal, mixed, literary, and non-literary forms and is considered in its general forms as expression, intuition, representation, imitation, and communication.
• There is consensus on art as "everything made by man as opposed to work of nature"
• Art uses objective reality in sounds, rhythms/words, lines=pictures, and harmony=sculpture.
• Art is expression/communication that conveys internal human experiences, the spirit of society and the mind/experiences/nature/thought/capacity of the artist.
• Art and philosophy may be about knowledge but the artist is not engaged in rational analysis.
• The artist produces and leaves the work to the audience for evaluation.
• Art conveys communication through emotions, experiences, thoughts, and intuition. Whereas philosophy seeks justification under reason.
• The philosopher seeks to arrive at ideas convincingly, while artists communicate their intuition, like religious poets communicating their perceptions or revelations.
• Art is similar to myth/religion in being about things beyond rational explanation and comprehension.
• Philosophy has a space for art, and philosophy of Arts/Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that is applied.

Conclusion

• Philosophy is the “love of wisdom”, is a discipline and systematic quest for knowledge of things in their first cause.
• Philosophy is about everything because it is the object of study and what accounts for the universality of philosophy.
• Every discipline is relates to philosophy and why it is referred to as the "Mother discipline".
• It is important to understand what philosophy is so we can understand philosophy in relation to other disciplines.
• Whenever we talk of "philosophy of" we are talking about use of philosophical methods like careful analysis of principal concepts or principles.
• Establish the truth or falsity of propositions, hypotheses, statements or assertions.