Lesson 1:

Philosop
hy
Summary:

What is Philosophy?
The term philosophy was coined in ancient Greece by the philosopher and
mathematician, Pythagoras. Pythagoras needed a term for a certain kind of
individual, one who prized truth and knowledge above all things. Accordingly, he
combined the ancient Greek terms for love (Philein) and wisdom (Sophia) to
produce Philosophos, one who loves wisdom. Philosophy, then, is the love of
wisdom. It’s not as though Pythagoras invented philosophy, of course. What he
was describing, our love of knowledge, of wisdom, has been with us perhaps since
we first began to think. But he did invent a term that has proved useful in
referring to this most basic and urgent of human abilities, the pursuit of
knowledge. That term is philosophy. Study of acquiring knowledge through
rational thinking and inquiries that involves in answering questions regarding the
nature and existence of man and the world we live in.
Philosophy is the logical analysis of language and the clarification of the
meaning of words and concepts. Philosophy deals with problems that require a
speculative rather than experimental approach. Conceptual analysis or logical
scrutiny of general ideas is (philosophy) vs. data gathering and experimentation is
(science).
Disciplines of Philosophy - Ontology (Theory of Being), Epistemology (Theory of
Knowledge), Axiology (Theory of Value), Ethics/Moral Philosophy (Theory of Right
Action), Aesthetics (Theory of Beauty/Art), Logic (Theory of correct inference).
According to some famous Philosophers like:

Socrates – The significance of "knowing oneself" is at the

heart of his worldview. Acceptance of ignorance, in other
words, is the first step toward knowledge acquisition.
However, knowledge is a virtue, whereas ignorance is a
vice. However, he believes that men's primary objective in
life is to find happiness. It inspires us to take action or avoid taking action. Things
that have the potential to negatively impact our life. As a result, a person can fully
understand herself by doing so. will be able to live happily ever after.
Plato - Plato was the student of Socrates and teacher of
Aristotle. He was called the Father of academy. According to
him, a person who is a follower of truth and wisdom will not
be tempted by vices and will always be
correct/moral/ethical. One well-known aspect of the
philosophy of Plato is the idea of forms. He believed that the
soul is divided into 3 different parts. Appetitive soul, Spirited
soul and Rational soul.
 ST. AUGUSTINE - a fourth century philosopher whose
groundbreaking philosophy infused Christian doctrine with
Neoplatonism. He follows the idea that God encompasses us
all, that everything will be better if we are with God. He
believed that God and his teachings affects various aspects in
life. He argues that skeptics have no basis for claiming to
know that there is no knowledge.

RENE DESCARTES - French philosopher, scientific theorist

and mathematician. He is known to be the proponent of the
"methodical doubt" (continuous process of questioning)
doubting, asking questions are part of one's existence. He
defined the roles of the mind and body to the notion of
one's existence and sense of self. He concluded that he
himself can be characterized in one manner above all others: his existence is
defined by thought. This view is famously expressed on the Discourse on Method
by the sentence I think, therefore l am.

JOHN LOCKE – An English philosopher and physician. He is the Father of Classical

Liberation. He defended the claim that men are by nature free and equal against
claims that God had made all people naturally subject to a monarch. He argued
that people have rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and property, that have a
foundation independent of the laws of any particular society. He works on the self
is most represented by the concept "tabula rasa" (blank slate).
 SIGMUND FREUD – An Austrian psychologist and
physician. The Father of psychoanalysis. Human
personality is complex and has more than a single
component. In his famous psychoanalytic theory, Freud
states that personality is composed of three elements
known as the Id - is the only component of personality
that is present from birth. the id is the source of all
psychic energy, making it the primary component of
personality.

The Ego - police or the mediator between id and super ego. Develops from the id
and ensures that the impulses of the id can be expressed in a manner acceptable
in the real world and ego is the component of personality that is responsible for
dealing with reality and the Super ego - tries to perfect and civilize our behavior. It
works to suppress all unacceptable urges of the id and struggles to make the ego
act upon idealistic standards rather that upon realistic principles. The superego is
present in the conscious, preconscious, and unconscious. These elements work
together to create complex human behaviors.

David Hume (1711-1776) is a Scottish philosopher,

historian, economist, and essayist known especially for his
philosophical empiricism and skepticism. Hume conceived
of philosophy as the inductive, experimental science of
human nature. Hume attempted to define how the mind
acquires knowledge by using the scientific method of
English physicist Sir Isaac Newton as a model and
elaborating on the epistemology of English philosopher
John Locke. He came to the conclusion that there can be no
theory of reality; there can be no knowledge of anything
other than experience. Despite the lasting influence of his theory of knowing,
Hume appears to have seen himself as primarily a moralist.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) - was a German philosopher

and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Kant's
comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and
aesthetics have made him one of the most influential figures in modern Western
philosophy. The notion of "transcendental idealism," which emphasizes a contrast
between what we can experience (the natural, observable world) and what we
cannot ("super-sensible" objects like God and the soul), lies at the heart of Kant's
system. We can only have knowledge of things we can experience, Kant claimed.
As a result, in response to the inquiry, "What can I learn?" "We can know the
natural, observable world," Kant responds, "yet we cannot have answers to many
of the deepest metaphysical concerns."
 Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) He was one of a group of
ordinary language philosophers in Britain who embraced
Ludwig Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical
problems. The behaviorist label has been used to several
of Ryle's theories in philosophy of mind. "The basic trend
of this book will surely, and harmlessly, be labeled as
'behaviorist,'" he writes in his best-known book, The
Concept of Mind (1949).

Paul Churchland - A Canadian philosopher whose focus

is on the idea that people should improve our
association and use of worth in identifying the self. The
action of our brain defines who we are. A person's
identity can be based on their brain's continual
movement (emphasized by Churchland and his wife in
the statement "the brain as the self"). He focuses on
"elimination materialism" as a philosophy, along with
understanding the different neurological pathways, how they work, and what
those movements mean.

Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961),

French philosopher and public intellectual, was the
leading academic proponent of existentialism and
phenomenology in post-war France. He is best
recognized for his groundbreaking work in the fields of embodiment, perception,
and ontology, but he also contributed a lot to art, history, language, nature, and
politics. Merleau-Ponty had been a central figure in the dissemination of
phenomenology, which he sought to integrate with Gestalt psychology,
psychoanalysis, Marxism, and Saussurian linguistics. He made his analysis focused
on existence, conceived as an act on the world, as this movement by which man is
involved in things and engages in a physical and social situation.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was an Italian

Dominican friar, philosopher, Catholic priest, and
Doctor of the Church. He is also known as the Doctor
Angelicus, the Doctor Communis, and the Doctor
Universalis within the scholasticism tradition, where
he was an incredibly popular philosopher, theologian,
and jurist. He was a leading proponent of natural
theology and the founder of Thomism, a school of
thought that encompassed both theology and philosophy. He claimed that God is
the source of both natural reason and faith light. He had a significant impact on
Western thought, and much of contemporary philosophy developed or resisted
his ideas, particularly in the areas of ethics, natural law, metaphysics, and political
theory.