Philosophy

The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence,

especially when considered as an academic discipline.
Philosophy is an academic discipline that exercises reason and logic in an
attempt to understand reality and answer fundamental questions about knowledge,
life, morality and human nature. The ancient Greeks, who were among the first to
practice philosophy, coined the term, which means love of wisdom. Those who
study philosophy are called philosophers. Through the ages, philosophers have
sought to answer such questions as, what is the meaning and purpose of life? How
do we know what we know? Does God exist? What does it mean to possess
consciousness? And, what is the value of morals?

Six main branches of philosophy, each with their own unique focus:
Metaphysics: the nature of reality and the universe.
Epistemology: the study of knowledge and how it is acquired.
Logic: how to develop valid arguments; includes mathematical logic.
Ethics: the study of right and wrong and how people should live.
Politics: the study of government, citizen rights and political obligations.
Aesthetics: beauty, art and artistic perception.
At the root is Metaphysics, the study of existence and the nature of existence. Closely related is
Epistemology, the study of knowledge and how we know about reality and existence. Dependent
on Epistemology is Ethics, the study of how man should act. Ethics is dependent on
Epistemology because it is impossible to make choices without knowledge. A subset of Ethics is
Politics: the study of how men should interact in a proper society and what constitutes proper.
Esthetics, the study of art and sense of life is slightly separate, but depends on Metaphysics,
Epistemology, and Ethics.
Western Philosophy
Refers to philosophical thinking in the Western or Occidental world,
(beginning with Ancient Greece and Rome, extending through central and Western
Europe and, since Columbus, the Americas) as opposed to Eastern or Oriental
philosophies (comprising Indian, Chinese, Persian, Japanese and Korean
philosophies) and the varieties of indigenous philosophies.
There are 4 common ways in which Western Philosophy can be usefully broken down or organized:

By Branch / Doctrine

By Historical Period

By Movement / School

By Individual Philosophers

Oriental Philosophy (and Religion)

The group of religions treated in the following article includes those of Egypt,
Babylonio-Assyria, Persia, India, and China (in geographical enumeration from west
to east).
Logic
The study of the principles of reasoning, especially of the structure of
propositions as distinguished from their content and of method and validity in
deductive reasoning.
Sometimes a distinction is made between informal logic and formal logic. The
term "informal logic" is often used to mean the same thing as critical thinking.
Sometimes it is used to refer to the study of reasoning and fallacies in the context
of everyday life. "Formal logic" is mainly concerned with formal systems of logic.
These are specially constructed systems for carrying out proofs, where the
languages and rules of reasoning are precisely and carefully defined. Sentential
logic (also known as "Propositional logic") and Predicate Logic are both examples of
formal systems of logic.
Logic is the art which directs the act of reason, by which art a man may
precede in the act of reason in an orderly manner, with ease, and without error.
Logic examines three acts of the reason:

Simple Apprehension: the act by which the intellect knows an essence

(what a thing is), and produces a concept;
Judgment: the act by which the intellect affirms or denies the truth of
something, putting together or dividing apart concepts;
Reasoning: the act whereby the intellect compares two concepts with one
third concept, and perceives whether the two concepts go together.

Idea
Any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding,
awareness, or activity.
In philosophy, ideas are usually construed as mental representational
images of some object. Ideas can also be abstract concepts that do not present as
mental images. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental
ontological category of being.
Simple Apprehension
Is the grasp of a concept. A concept is also called an idea, a species, an
intelligible form, and a mental word. A concept has an extension, which is the group
of things included under the concept. A singular concept is the concept of one
individual, for example, your concept of President Abraham Lincoln. A universal
concept extends to a whole class of things. The more features (or notes) included in
a universal concept, the narrower its extension. A transcendental concept is one
that applies to anything that exists, for example being, thing, unit, distinct, good,
true, beautiful. A concept by itself is not true or false, just as a single word is not
true or false. A concept is a sign of a thing, just as a spoken word is a sign of a

concept, and through the concept the spoken word is a sign of the thing. A concept
is not merely a sensation stored in the mind, but is an immaterial act of
understanding.