Intro to PHILO

What is Philosophy (all about)?

-Etymologically, which is just a fancy way of saying this is what it literally translates to, means “love of wisdom” [‘philo’ meaning ‘love’
and ‘sophy’ from the word ‘sophia’ meaning wisdom]

-Lexical definition, or what a dictionary would say, is that it is “A field of study concerned about abstract notions and concepts”

--Some people consider it “a way of living or a looking at the world” “A belief system”

All of them are, in varying degrees, correct answers, and yet again all of them are inadequate to be the one definition of philosophy.
Because if you give a definition of what philosophy is, then it defeats the purpose of asking what philosophy is…

Well that’s a bummer because even up to now, philosophers can’t make up their minds on what Philosophy actually is. So we turn
to the next question: WHAT IS PHILO ALL ABOUT?

The answer? EVERYTHING. Logic. Reality. Language. Religion. Politics. Anime. Batman. Aesthetics. Donuts Ethics. Society. Dog
training. Existence. Law. Etc. Anything can be a subject in philosophy.
In a nutshell, philosophy deals with questions. What kinds of questions? We’ll get to that in a moment.

We all know ‘philosophy’ comes from two Greek words: philo(love) & sophia(wisdom). The term “philosopher” was coined by
Pythagoras, some dead Greek dude who had a thing for numbers, you know him, you hate him for his theorem. Pythagoras preferred
to regard himself as a “philosopher” over being called a “sophist”. What’s a sophist?

In Ancient Greece, a bunch of so-called ‘smart’ people called themselves “Sophists”. These guys were nothing but glorified tutors
of people who wanted a seat in government. They were typical know-it-all’s claiming that they had all the answers in the world.

Until they Socrates. This guy was dope, the OG philosopher. He just went on and on asking about stuff. Whenever you answered he’ll
just ask you about your answer to make you think twice about your answer. So you just sit there thinking “Why did I answer that?”
Surprise. Philosophy is about asking questions about questions that make us think about more questions about REALITY!!

His catchphrase: “I know that I do not know” which was basically him calling himself an idiot which made more people think he was
actually the wisest. *Good job Socrates, you just invented reverse-psychology.*

Also sad news, the government wanted him dead for asking questions a lot. They accused him of poisoning the youth, also known as
sedition.

Any way, wanna hear about how philosophy started? No? Too bad, because you’ll still hear it. The first question that philosophers had to
answer was: What’s the source of everything? Or what is everything made of?

A long time ago, a guy named Thales got so bored he looked a great body of water and he saw that it was everywhere; in rivers, in his
sweat, in all living bodies, so he came up with the answer: WATER.

But then his student, Anaximader, comes up and gives a different answer. He called his answer “The Boundless or The Infinite” but
never got to fully explain it. Its just described as “that which has no boundaries”.

Then a third philosopher named Anaximenes thought that AIR was the source of everything.

For a dude named Heraclitus, FIRE was the source of everything. Then we got Zeno who was thinking about ways to explain that
concepts such as motion and change were nothing more than illusions.

These people are what we regard to be Pre-Socratic philosophers.

Socratic Philosophers a.k.a. The Big Three

Socrates

You already know him as the Father of Philosophy. He didn’t do much, or write anything at all. He was just good at asking
questions and this he called the Socratic Method or Elenchus.

PlatoThis guy was Socrates’ star pupil and his master was a huge part of most of his writings. In the Early stage of his writings, he
would write about the dialogues Socrates would have with other people. But it the Later stage, he would use Socrates as the
mouthpiece of his own philosophical thoughts.

AristotleAristotle was Plato’s student. He and his master never saw eye to eye on philosophical matters but they both treated each
other’s view with respect.

PLATO VS. ARISTOTLE on Essences1

Plato argued that the essence of everything exists in a perfect non-physical world, The World of Forms/Ideas. He argued that
everything that we see here in the physical world is just an imperfect representation or a copy of the perfect form/idea.Aristotle
argued otherwise. He said that the essence of an object is within the object. Take for example a chair. A chair is a chair because it was
designed to be a chair, and it serves the purpose of being a chair. Not because it is a representation of the idea of a chair.

1 Essence is “that which makes a thing what it fundamentally is.” Without it, it ceases to be that thing.
Consider a folding knife, without the blade, it ceases to be a folding knife. The blade is the essence of a folding knife.
In philosophy, the act of discourse is done through what is called dialectic. A form of dialogue between thinkers proposing a thesis, an
antithesis, and conducting a synthesis of their ideas.

A thesis is a knowledge claim. An antithesis is a negation of said knowledge claim.

Synthesis is the act of battling out a thesis and antithesis, to form a new more refined thesis.

~So you know about the story of 6 blind dudes groping an elephant? That’s an analogy to what is known as Partial Perspective. That’s
the problem with a partial view on philosophy. You can only see a part of the problem.

Remember the movie Now You See Me? ‘The closer you look, the less you’ll see.’ This is kind of the same thing. If you only look at
certain aspects, you won’t see the big picture.

Knock knock! Here comes the contender, Holistic Perspective. This view makes you look at the bigger picture. This is good, now you
see the bigger picture. You can now tackle the problem as a whole.

Philosophy has always been associated with the “think outside the box” notion of thinking. What if I told you that there’s another way?
A better way?

Most people would think that the box

The is as simple as that, and therefore
thinking “outside” it is enough
Box

But a philosophical problem ain’t just a 2D box. To just ‘think outside the box’ is a partial perspective in approaching the philosophical
problem. Treat the problem as a 3-dimensional object. Think outside the box. Think through the box.

Think about a coin and treat it as a philosophical problem. How many ways can you perceive the coin? One? Two? Three?

There are infinite ways to view a coin depending on its positioning, its rotation on its axis, the degree of its tilt, etc. Now that is the
holistic view of perceiving a philosophical problem.

Lesson 2

Now y’all might think that Philo started out in Greece from a bunch of dead dudes asking questions about the universe and stuff. But
guess what homies, the Chinese and Indians did it first.

It’s more proper to state that WESTERN Philo started out in Greece.

So what about the philosophy of the Chinese and Indians? They represent the origins of EASTERN Philo.

What’s so different about them? The way they approached philosophy and the questions they asked.

What Makes A Question Philosophical?

Just like any of us, a philosopher starts with the little things in life.
What will I eat for dinner? What movie should I watch later? What course do I want to pursue in college? These are normal questions we
ask ourselves. But these are personal questions, they are not (yet) philosophical questions.

A simple question may become philosophical when it gives birth to even more profound questions. When we start asking deeper
questions about the bigger things in our lives and beyond it, that’s philosophical. When we start asking deeper questions about the
things we experience as humans, that’s philosophical.

In a way, a question can be considered philosophically deep when it really makes you think more than you usually would.
Consider the Chicken Vs. Egg exercise. It looked easy, it looked stupid. But when you really think about it, it was a philosophical
question.

Because of how our world operates today, we rarely have time to stop and think about the bigger picture. Most people would consider
philosophical questions such as “What does it mean to be truly happy?” as something of a waste of time.

This is because trying to find the answers to philosophical questions entail a commitment to openness. Openness to what? To new
possible answers; new perspectives, new beliefs that may be contradictory to the ones you were taught.

Liberation from Dogmatism

One of the aims of philosophy is to liberate a person from dogmatism. But wait, what do the words ‘liberation’ and ‘dogmatism’ mean?

Liberation comes from the Latin word “liberatus” which means “to be set free [from something] ”

Dogmatism is the systematic belief in a dogma; A dogma is an established belief that is authoritative and/or unwarranted, it is not to be
disputed or doubted. Ex. Superstitions. (A sense of close-mindedness)

Try to remember the discussion you had with your group.

Holism and Reductionism

These are two approaches in philosophy.

Holism = To understand a concept, we must look at it as a whole, rather than its individual components.

Reductionism = Every complex concept is just the summary of its component parts, so you understand a concept by defining its
individual properties separately.
Branches of Philosophy

Traditionally, there are 5 main branches of philosophy. Namely these are:

Logic = the study of the correctness of argumentation and systematic flow of valid reasoning

Metaphysics = the study on the nature of reality, its fundamental questions, and what is beyond (meta) the physical realm

Aesthetics = study on the nature of beauty and the philosophy of art

Ethics = the study of morality, moral virtues, the correctness of actions, how we should act

Epistemology = the study of the nature of knowledge, how we learn, what we can know, what counts as knowledge, etc.

Later on new fields of inquiry sprouted.

Philosophy of the Mind = What is the nature of thought? Where does the mind exist? What is consciousness?

Philosophy of Law = focuses on what the law is and what it ought to be

Philosophy of Religion = what is the nature of faith? What is the nature of God?

Philosophy of Science =what counts as science, can we know everything through science, etc.

Philosophy of Language =how is it possible for ‘words’ to have ‘meaning’

Semiotics = study of how signs and symbols function in our lives

Philosophy of Politics or Political Philosophy = what is the right way to govern? What is the best way of governance?

There are also Schools of Thought in philosophy or we generally know them as -ism’s.

Here some of them.

Rationalism =Knowledge is gained through reason alone.

Empiricism = Knowledge is gained through experience.

Dualism = The mind is separate from matter.

Skepticism = We can never be completely certain of knowledge.

Nihilism = An extreme form of skepticism; nothing in the world has a real existence; also the rejection of all values

Absolutism = There is an absolute truth or reality.

Relativism = Truths and notions of reality are relative.

Determinism = Everything in the world is causally determined by previous events.

Humanism = Humans can lead happy meaningful lives without dogma or religion

Utilitarianism = Moral actions are weighed based on their usefulness in maximizing happiness for the greatest number of people.

Existentialism = The individual is solely responsible for giving his or her life meaning.

Theism = Belief in the existence of God, or of a god.

Atheism = Belief that there is no God

Deism = Reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that a supreme being
created the universe, and that this supreme being doesn’t dwell in this world.

Pragmatism = a school of thought, mainly considered to be under Philo of language, where words have meaning depending on how
we use them