Introduction to Philosophy.
Philosophy - the great adventure of humanity’s effort to understand itself and its place in the universe.
For almost all of its history ‘philosophy’ had the general meaning of ‘rational enquiry’, though from the times of the Renaissance until the 19th century it meant ‘science’.
Contemporary philosophy include these areas of enquiry:
Epistemology
Metaphysics
Logic
Ethics
Aesthetics
The philosophy of mind and language
Political philosophy
Philosophical examinations of other fields
Epistemology - ‘theory of knowledge’ deals with the nature of knowledge and how it is acquired. It investigates the distinction between knowledge, belief and opinion.
Metaphysics - inquiries into the nature of reality. (What exists and what is its nature? Is there free will?, etc.)
These two are central to philosophy as a whole. Understanding the problems and questions of these two enquiries is basic to discussion in all other areas of philosophy.
Logic - the science of valid and sound reasoning - is a general instrument of philosophy, as mathematics is in science.
Ethics - as a subject in the philosophy curriculum, is an inquiry into the concepts and theories of what is good, of right and wrong, of moral choice and action. ‘Ethics’ comes from the Greek ethos meaning ‘character’.
Aesthetics - is an inquiry into art and beauty. (What is art? Is beauty objective or subjective?, etc.)
Philosophy of mind and language have been recently conjoined into a single overall enquiry. Philosophy of mind enquiries into the nature of mental phenomena and consciousness. Philosophy of language enquiries into how we attach meaning to sounds and marks in a way that enables communication and embodies thought.
Political philosophy - deals with the principles of social and political organization and their justification.
The history of philosophy - is an essential part of the field itself, because all these inquiries have evolved over time as - so to speak - a great conversation among thinkers in different centuries in different circumstances but nevertheless absorbed in the same fundamental questions.
Philosophical examination of the assumptions, methods and claims of other fields is what meant by such labels as ‘philosophy of science’, ‘philosophy of history’, and the like.
Philosophy is the attempt to make sense of things, to achieve understanding and perspective on the frontiers of all our endeavors.
“Une difficulté est une lumière. Une difficulté insurmontable est un soleil” : “A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty is a sun.”
Paul Valéry
Adapted from: The History of Philosophy, A. C. Grayling