PHILOSOPHY- MIDTERMS 2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS (5 DIFFERENT

CHARACTERISTICS)
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY
(ETYMOLOGY) EASTERN TRADITIONS WESTERN TRADITIONS
-Philosophia literally means “Love of Wisdom” Represented as spiritual Materialistic
-Philia means love and Sophia means wisdom. (toward mysticism and (about the external world)
-Sustained inquiry into the principles and idealism)
presuppositions of any inquiry or field of inquiry (Refusing to ascribe to
reality and value natural
PRE-ANCIENT HISTORY world)
-Early philosophers (Pre-Socratic) blame poets, Homer Introverted Extroverted
and Hestoid for filling people’s heads with fanatic tales (Search for truth it moves (Cultivates conscious life to
about gods and goddesses. form outer world to inner increase awareness of the
-Socrates was charged of impiety, refusing to bow to the self) world)
gods, strengthened the case for philosophical pursuit of
Does not have the Tended to separate things
truth through reason. tendency to separate (e.g. body and soul, matter
(e.g. doctrine of no soul, and form, heaven and earth)
BEGINNING OF PHILOSOPHY
reincarnation)
WHERE & WHEN: Seaport town in Miletus, across
More than a collection More of information
Argen sea from Athens. Around 585 BCE
of information (thesis-antithesis-synthesis)
WHY: Moved toward a more specific way of thinking.
(visionary wisdom)
HOW:
(knowledge for
WHO: Thales 6th century BCE. He risked thinking about
transformation)
the world outside the erratic moods of the Divine
Thinks in cycle Thinks in linear way
Olympians.
(It is essence is awareness
of unity and interrelation
4 BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY
of things and events)
1. EPISTEMOLOGY
(there is oneness)
-Greek words- “episteme (knowledge) and logos (a
word, idea, reason)”
- Theory of knowledge
REASONS THAT LEAD US TO PHILOSOPHIZING
- Studies the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge
(WHY DO WE PHILOSOPHIZE?)
and belief.
1. Wonder – Realize something is strange behind
2. AXIOLOGY
the things that we ordinarily perceive.
-Greek words- “axios (worthy) and logos (science)”
2. Doubt – Tried to prove philosophy with
-Theory of Value
exactness if mathematics.
-Collective term for ethics and aesthetics
3. Grenzsituation- One may not be ablt to control
-aesthetikos- sense of perception;
but we can make sense and give deeper
ethos-character
meaning.
3. METAPHYSICS
4. Metaphysical uneasiness- Beyond the physical
-Greek words- “ta meta ta physika (works after the
(external) more of internal.
Physics)”
-Explaining the fundamental nature of being and the PERIOD OF THE WESTERN PHILOSOPHY
world that compasses it. ANCIENT PERIOD
4. LOGIC WHAT: Cosmocentric
-Greek- logike (reasoning art) WHEN: Mid-600B.C.E.-529 A.D.
-Latin- logica WHO:
-Old French- logique 1. Progatoras- He concluded that “the person is the
-Science and art of correct thinking ultimate standard of all judgements that he/she
-The sudy of the methods and principles used to make. That our knowledge is measured by what
distinguish correct from incorrect reasoning. we perceive.
2. Gorgias – Denied that there is any truth at all.
Nothing exists and if it exists it is
incomprehensible and if not incomprehensible
cannot be communicated.
3. Socrates – Introduced the concept of “soul and
psyche”
4. Plato – Introduced the tripartite soul. Rational,
spiritual and appetitive. Soul originates from the
world of Pure Forms; true, good and beautiful.
5. Aristotle- Man as the rational animal. “Soul”-
form that which makes man human
“Body”- matter that which receives the form
6. Epicurus- He said that philosophy is the
medicine of soul
7. Skeptics- 3 groups of people who search for
truth. The dogmatists
8. Plotinus – Developed a theory about God as the
source of all things as that to which people must
return.
MEDIEVAL PERIOD
WHAT: Theocentric, about God and religion
WHEN: From the fall of the Western Roman Empire
in the 5th Century C.E. to the Renissance in the 16th
Century
HOW: Introduction of Plotinus to the Gods.
WHO:
1. St. Agustine- “Divine Illumination” We are
created in such ay that only God, the infinite,
can give us ultimate satisfaction or happiness. To
love God is indispensable requirement for happiness.
2. St. Thomas Aquinas – “Man being created in
God’s image and likeness “God creates ex nihilo out
of nothing. That the soul being spiritual cannot
die while the body being material dies.
1. Simon de Beauvoir –Woman is defined by man,
relative to or in terms of man, and exists in
man’s world.
2. Carol Gilligan- She criticizes the methodologies
and conclusions by philosophers and
psychologists regarding woman’s conception of
selfhood. Woman’s highest level of maturity is
attained when she redresses the imbalance by
seeing herself as an equal to others.
3. Nel Noddings- “virtues are way of articulating a
uniquely female conception of morality” Argues that
our intellectual heritage was not only formed by
men but reflects a male way of looking at the
world which happens even in ethics.
4. Annette Baier –ethics of trust. Insigts of both men
and women.
5. Luce Irigaray- exual difference does not exist.
True sexual difference would not require that
men and women are equally able to achieve
subjectivity.

MODERN PERIOD
WHAT: Anthropocentric
WHEN: 17th century-early 19th century
HOW: Influenced by progress and success of science
1. Rene Descartes- Progressive as science and
mathematics of his time, hit upon the cognito.
Concerned with problem of intellectual certainty.

CONTEMPORARY PERIOD
WHAT: Post Modern
WHEN: Late 19th century to present
HOW: Reaction against dialectal rationalism of
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
WHO:
1. Soren Kierkegaard – Reserved the term
“existentialism” for individual human being.
Meaning human began to turn themselves as the
role authority for their standards and values. A
protest against “tyranny of universal”

FEMINISIM
WHAT:
WHEN: 1949
HOW: It is the advocacy of women’s right on the
basis of equality of the sexes.
WHO: