UNIT I: PHILOSOPHY AND THE HUMAN PERSON

The first unit will bring you to the appreciation and understanding of the world of Philosophy and how it
is being done. Here, you will learn about philosophy and its relation and significance to you as a human
person. The chapters in this unit will further bring you to a deeper sense of what this subject is all about.
After this unit, it is expected that you should be able to show an understanding of the activity of doing
philosophy of the human person as an embodied being in his environment.

LESSON 1: DOING PHILOSOPHY

Lesson 1 provides an introduction of philosophy. The essential questions that this lesson would address
are:
1. Why is it important to understand the nature of philosophy?
2. Can any discipline develop and flourish without philosophy?
3. What are the characteristics of a philosophical question?
4. How do philosophers differ from scientists?

Topics:
1. The Meaning and Importance of Philosophy
2. A Brief History of Philosophy and Its Traditional Branches
3. Holistic Perspective and Partial Point of View

At the end of this chapter, you can:

 Define philosophy through how it is done.
 Differentiate wisdom from knowledge and opinion.
 Explain the branches of philosophy.
 Show an understanding of the history of philosophy.
 Recognize some significant philosophers in history.
 Distinguish a holistic perspective from a partial point of view.
 Identify human activities that emanate from deliberate reflection.
 Realize the value of philosophy in obtaining a broad perspective on life.
 Do a philosophical reflection on a concrete situation from a holistic perspective.

THE MEANING AND IMPORTANCE OF PHILOSOPHY

What is Philosophy? The word philosophy is derived from philosophia (φιλοσοφία) which is a
combination of the Greek terms philos (love) and sophia (wisdom). Thus, philosophy means
“love of wisdom”.

Where does the term first used? The use of the term philosophy is attributed to Pythagoras as he is
said to be the first to use it when he differentiated the three classes of people who attend the
ancient Olympic Games as:

1. Lovers of gain,
2. Lovers of honor,
3. Lovers of wisdom.

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According to Pythagoras, the third class of people is the best kind who goes to the games as
they are spectators who seek to arrive at the truth. They neither seek profit (as represented by
the first class of people who sells their wares for money) nor compete in the games for honor (as
represented by the second class of people). He called this class of people philosophers.

Since philosophers agree that there is a lack of a general agreement to how philosophical
subjects are defined, philosophy becomes an ongoing activity because there may be many and
varied answers to fundamental questions.

When considered as an academic discipline, what is philosophy?

 Philosophy is the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence
(Oxford Dictionary, 2016).

 Philosophy is study of the nature of reality and existence, of what it is possible to know,
and of right and wrong behavior, or a particular set of beliefs of this type (Cambridge
Dictionary, 2016).

 Philosophy is the study of the basic ideas about knowledge, truth, right and wrong,
religion, and the nature and meaning of life (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2017)

Why is philosophy important? The value of philosophy cannot be measured by its ability to arrive
at a definitive answer, since it cannot claim to ascertain truth on some fundamental questions.
However, the value of philosophy is in this uncertainty because every time one philosophizes
and seeks answers, it opens the person to a wider perspective of the possible answers which are
devoid of dogmatism but are results of deliberate activity involving reason. If one is limited to
his or her prejudices and beliefs, his or her capacity to see the broader perspective which
philosophizing offers is considerably reduced. Philosophizing will motivate you to dig deeper
into what you believe and seek whether what you conceive about who you are or what the
world is are based on something more substantial than simply passed on by authority.

Engaging in philosophy means engaging in contemplation. This reflective activity is denying

who you are, what you believe, and what you value. Remaining in the belief that you hold what
is certain and definite means closing yourself to other possibilities which may broaden your
perspectives. Because what you believe in are probably practical and based on experience,
philosophical inquiry will show you that it is also valuable to contemplate on greater objects of
inquiry free from personal or narrow aims.

As Socrates once claims, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Philosophical inquiry is the
venue for pursuing an examined life by reflecting upon issues and problems in life which are
philosophical in nature. This way, you will gain a deeper and broader perspective about how
you live, what you live for, and why you live—not because of the definitive answers but though
the process of reflecting and contemplation and inquiry.

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Bertrand Russel’s description of philosophy best characterizes why it has to be pursued:

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no
definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions
themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our
intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against
speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy
contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the
universe which constitutes its highest good.
- Bertrand Russel, The Problems of Philosophy

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

How did philosophy developed? For younger readers and those with short attention spans, here is
an abbreviated and simplified history of Western Philosophy. The explanations are
necessarily simplistic.

Pre-Socratic Philosophy

Western Philosophy, by which we usually mean everything apart from the Eastern
Philosophy of China, India, Japan, Persia, etc., really began in Ancient Greece in about the 6th
Century B.C. Thales of Miletus is usually considered the first proper philosopher, although he
was just as concerned with natural philosophy (what we now call science) as with philosophy
as we know it.

Thales and most of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers (i.e. those who lived before Socrates)
limited themselves in Metaphysics (enquiry into the nature of existence, being and the world).
They were Materialists (they believed that all things are composed of material and nothing else)
and were mainly concerned with trying to establish the single underlying substance the world
is made up of (a kind of Monism), without resorting
to supernatural or mythological explanations. For instance, Thales thought the whole universe
was composed of different forms of water; Amaximenes concluded it was was made
of air; Heraclitus thought it was fire; and Anaximander some unexplainable substance usually
translated as "the infinite" or "the boundless".

Another issue the Pre-Socratics wrestled with was the so-called problem of change, how things
appear to change from one form to another. At the extremes, Heraclitus believed in an on-going
process of perpetual change, a constant interplay of opposites; Parmenides, on the other hand,
using a complicated deductive argument, denied that there was any such thing as change at all,
and argued that everything that exists is permanent, indestructible and unchanging. This might
sound like an unlikely proposition, but Parmenides's challenge was well-argued and was
important in encouraging other philosophers to come up with convincing counter-
arguments. Zeno of Elea was a student of Parmenides, and is best known for his
famous paradoxes of motion (the best known of which is that of the Achilles and the Hare),

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which helped to lay the foundations for the study of Logic. However, Zeno's underlying
intention was really to show, like Parmenides before him, that all belief
in plurality and change is mistaken, and in particular that motion is nothing but an illusion.

Although these ideas might seem to us rather simplistic and unconvincing today, we should
bear in mind that, at this time, there was really no scientific knowledge whatsoever, and even
the commonest of phenomena (e.g. lightning, water freezing to ice, etc) would have
appeared miraculous. Their attempts were therefore important first steps in the development of
philosophical thought. They also set the stage for two other important Pre-
Socratic philosophers: Empedocles, who combined their ideas into the theory of the four
classical elements (earth, air, fire and water), which became the standard dogma for much of the
next two thousand years; and Democritus, who developed the extremely influential idea
of Atomism (that everything is composed of tiny, indivisible and indestructible building blocks
known as atoms, which form different combinations and shapes within the surrounding void).

Another early and very influential Greek philosopher was Pythagoras, who led a rather bizarre
religious sect and essentially believed that all of reality was governed by numbers, and that its
essence could be encountered through the study of mathematics.

Classical Philosophy

Philosophy really took off, though, with Socrates and Plato in the 5th - 4th Century B.C. (often
referred to as the Classical or Socratic period of philosophy). Unlike most of the Pre-
Socratic philosophers before him, Socrates was more concerned with how people
should behave, and so was perhaps the first major philosopher of Ethics. He developed a
system of critical reasoning in order to work out how to live properly and to tell the difference
between right and wrong. His system, sometimes referred to as the Socratic Method, was to
break problems down into a series of questions, the answers to which would gradually distill a
solution. Although he was careful to claim not to have all the answers himself, his constant
questioning made him many enemies among the authorities of Athens who eventually had
him put to death.

Socrates himself never wrote anything down, and what we know of his views comes from
the "Dialogues" of his student Plato, perhaps the best known, most widely studied and
most influential philosopher of all. In his writings, Plato blended Ethics, Metaphysics, Political
Philosophy and Epistemology (the theory of knowledge and how we can acquire it) into
an interconnected and systematic philosophy. He provided the first real opposition to
the Materialism of the Pre-Socratics, and he developed doctrines such as Platonic
Realism, Essentialism and Idealism, including his important and famous theory of
Forms and universals (he believed that the world we perceive around us is composed of
mere representations or instances of the pure ideal Forms, which had their own
existence elsewhere, an idea known as Platonic Realism). Plato believed that virtue was a kind
of knowledge (the knowledge of good and evil) that we need in order to reach the ultimate

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good, which is the aim of all human desires and actions (a theory known
as Eudaimonism). Plato's Political Philosophy was developed mainly in his famous "Republic",
where he describes an ideal (though rather grim and anti-democratic) society composed
of Workers and Warriors, ruled over by wise Philosopher Kings.

The third in the main trio of classical philosophers was Plato's student Aristotle. He created an
even more comprehensive system of philosophy than Plato,
encompassing Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics, Metaphysics, Logic and science, and his work
influenced almost all later philosophical thinking, particularly those of the Medieval period.
Aristotle's system of deductive Logic, with its emphasis on the syllogism (where a conclusion,
or synthesis, is inferred from two other premises, the thesis and antithesis), remained the
dominant form of Logic until the 19th Century. Unlike Plato, Aristotle held that Form and
Matter were inseparable, and cannot exist apart from each other. Although he too believed in a
kind of Eudaimonism, Aristotle realized that Ethics is a complex concept and that we cannot
always control our own moral environment. He thought that happiness could best be achieved
by living a balanced life and avoiding excess by pursuing a golden mean in everything (similar
to his formula for political stability through steering a middle
course between tyranny and democracy).

Other Ancient Philosophical Schools

In the philosophical cauldron of Ancient Greece, though (as well as

the Hellenistic and Roman civilizations which followed it over the next few centuries), several
other schools or movements also held sway, in addition to Platonism and Aristotelianism:

Sophism (the best known proponents being Protagoras and Gorgias), which held
generally relativistic views on knowledge (i.e. that there is no absolute truth and two points of
view can be acceptable at the same time) and generally skeptical views on truth and morality
(although, over time, Sophism came to denote a class of itinerant intellectuals who taught
courses in rhetoric and "excellence" or "virtue" for money).

Cynicism, which rejected all conventional desires for health, wealth, power and fame, and
advocated a life free from all possessions and property as the way to achieving Virtue (a life
best exemplified by its most famous proponent, Diogenes).

Skepticism (also known as Pyrrhonism after the movement's founder, Pyrrho), which held that,
because we can never know the true inner substance of things, only how they appear to us (and
therefore we can never know which opinions are right or wrong), we should suspend
judgment on everything as the only way of achieving inner peace.

Epicureanism (named for its founder Epicurus), whose main goal was to
attain happiness and tranquillity through leading a simple, moderate life, the cultivation
of friendships and the limiting of desires (quite contrary to the common perception of the word
"epicurean").

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Hedonism, which held that pleasure is the most important pursuit of mankind, and that we
should always act so as to maximize our own pleasure.

Stoicism (developed by Zeno of Citium, and later espoused by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius),
which taught self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions in order
to develop clear judgment and inner calm and the ultimate goal of freedom from suffering.

Neo-Platonism (developed out of Plato's work, largely by Plotinus), which was a

largely religious philosophy which became a strong influence on early Christianity (especially
on St. Augustine), and taught the existence of an ineffable and transcendent One, from which
the rest of the universe "emanates" as a sequence of lesser beings.

Medieval Philosophy

After about the 4th or 5th Century A.D., Europe entered the so-called Dark Ages, during which
little or no new thought was developed. By the 11th Century, though, there was a renewed
flowering of thought, both in Christian Europe and in Muslim and Jewish Middle East. Most of
the philosophers of this time were mainly concerned with proving the existence of God and
with reconciling Christianity/Islam with the classical philosophy of Greece
(particularly Aristotelianism). This period also saw the establishment of the first universities,
which was an important factor in the subsequent development of philosophy.

Among the great Islamic philosophers of the Medieval period were Avicenna (11th century,
Persian) and Averröes (12th century, Spanish/Arabic). Avicenna tried to reconcile
the rational philosophy of Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism with Islamic theology, and also
developed his own system of Logic, known as Avicennian Logic. He also introduced the
concept of the "tabula rasa" (the idea that humans are born with no innate or built-in mental
content), which strongly influenced later Empiricists like John
Locke. Averröes's translations and commentaries on Aristotle (whose works had been
largely lost by this time) had a profound impact on the Scholastic movement in Europe, and he
claimed that Avicenna's interpretations were a distortion of genuine Aristotelianism.
The Jewish philosopher Maimonides also attempted the same reconciliation of Aristotle with
the Hebrew scriptures around the same time.

The Medieval Christian philosophers were all part of a movement called Scholasticism which
tried to combine Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology and semantics (the theory of meaning) into
one discipline, and to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical
philosophers (particularly Aristotle) with Christian theology. The Scholastic method was to
thoroughly and critically read the works of renowned scholars, note down any disagreements
and points of contention, and then resolve them by the use of formal Logic and analysis
of language. Scholasticism in general is often criticized for spending too much time discussing
infinitesimal and pedantic details (like how many angels could dance on the tip of a needle,
etc.).

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St. Anselm (best known as the originator of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God
by abstract reasoning alone) is often regarded as the first of the Scholastics, and St. Thomas
Aquinas (known for his five rational proofs for the existence of God, and his definition of
the cardinal virtues and the theological virtues) is generally considered the greatest, and
certainly had the greatest influence on the theology of the Catholic Church. Other
important Scholastics included Peter Abelard, Albertus Magnus, John Duns Scotus and William
of Ockham. Each contributed slight variations to the same general beliefs - Abelard introduced
the doctrine of limbo for unbaptised babies; Scotus rejected the distinction
between essence and existence that Aquinas had insisted on; Ockham introduced the important
methodological principle known as Ockham's Razor, that one should not multiply arguments
beyond the necessary; etc.

Roger Bacon was something of an exception, and actually criticized the

prevailing Scholastic system, based as it was on tradition and scriptural authority. He is
sometimes credited as one of the earliest European advocates of Empiricism (the theory that the
origin of all knowledge is sense experience) and of the modern scientific method.

The revival of classical civilization and learning in the 15th and 16th Century known as
the Renaissance brought the Medieval period to a close. It was marked by a movement away
from religion and medieval Scholasticism and towards Humanism (the belief that humans
can solve their own problems through reliance on reason and the scientific method) and a new
sense of critical enquiry.

Among the major philosophical figures of the Renaissance were: Erasmus (who attacked many
of the traditions of the Catholic Church and popular superstitions, and became the intellectual
father of the European Reformation); Machiavelli (whose cynical and devious Political
Philosophy has become notorious); Thomas More (the Christian Humanist whose
book "Utopia" influenced generations of politicians and planners and even the early
development of Socialist ideas); and Francis Bacon (whose empiricist belief that truth
requires evidence from the real world, and whose application of inductive reasoning,
generalizations based on individual instances, were both influential in the development of
modern scientific methodology).

Early Modern Philosophy

The Age of Reason of the 17th Century and the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th Century (very
roughly speaking), along with the advances in science, the growth of religious tolerance and the
rise of liberalism which went with them, mark the real beginnings of modern philosophy. In
large part, the period can be seen as an on-going battle between two opposing
doctrines, Rationalism (the belief that all knowledge arises from intellectual and deductive
reason, rather than from the senses) and Empiricism (the belief that the origin of all knowledge
is sense experience).

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This revolution in philosophical thought was sparked by the French philosopher and
mathematician René Descartes, the first figure in the loose movement known as Rationalism,
and much of subsequent Western philosophy can be seen as a response to his ideas. His method
(known as methodological skepticism, although its aim was actually to dispel Skepticism and
arrive at certain knowledge), was to shuck off everything about which there could be even a
suspicion of doubt (including the unreliable senses, even his own body which could be merely
an illusion) to arrive at the single indubitable principle that he possessed consciousness and was
able to think ("I think, therefore I am"). He then argued (rather unsatisfactorily, some would
say) that our perception of the world around us must be created for us by God. He saw
the human body as a kind of machine that follows the mechanical laws of physics, while
the mind (or consciousness) was a quite separate entity, not subject to the laws of physics,
which is only able to influence the body and deal with the outside world by a kind of
mysterious two-way interaction. This idea, known as Dualism (or, more specifically, Cartesian
Dualism), set the agenda for philosophical discussion of the "mind-body problem" for centuries
after. Despite Descartes' innovation and boldness, he was a product of his times and never
abandoned the traditional idea of a God, which he saw as the one true substance from which
everything else was made.

The second great figure of Rationalism was the Dutchman Baruch Spinoza, although his
conception of the world was quite different from that of Descartes. He built up a strikingly
original self-contained metaphysical system in which he rejected Descartes' Dualism in favour
of a kind of Monism where mind and body were just two different aspects of a single
underlying substance which might be called Nature (and which he also equated with a God of
infinitely many attributes, effectively a kind of Pantheism). Spinoza was a
thoroughgoing Determinist who believed that absolutely everything (even human behaviour)
occurs through the operation of necessity, leaving absolutely no room for free will and
spontaneity. He also took the Moral Relativist position that nothing can be in itself either good
or bad, except to the extent that it is subjectively perceived to be so by the individual (and,
anyway, in an ordered deterministic world, the very concepts of Good and Evil can have little
or no absolute meaning).

The third great Rationalist was the German Gottfried Leibniz. In order to overcome what he
saw as drawbacks and inconsistencies in the theories of Descartes and Spinoza, he devised a
rather eccentric metaphysical theory of monads operating according to a pre-established divine
harmony. According to Leibniz's theory, the real world is actually composed of eternal, non-
material and mutually-independent elements he called monads, and the material world that we
see and touch is actually just phenomena (appearances or by-products of the underlying real
world). The apparent harmony prevailing among monads arises because of the will of God (the
supreme monad) who arranges everything in the world in a deterministic manner. Leibniz also
saw this as overcoming the problematic interaction between mind and matter arising
in Descartes' system, and he declared that this must be the best possible world, simply because
it was created and determined by a perfect God. He is also considered perhaps the most

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important logician between Aristotle and the mid-19th Century developments in modern
formal Logic.

Another important 17th Century French Rationalist (although perhaps of the second order)
was Nicolas Malebranche, who was a follower of Descartes in that he believed that humans
attain knowledge through ideas or immaterial representations in the mind.
However, Malebranche argued (more or less following St. Augustine) that all ideas actually
exist only in God, and that God was the only active power. Thus, he believed that what appears
to be "interaction" between body and mind is actually caused by God, but in such a way that
similar movements in the body will "occasion" similar ideas in the mind, an idea he
called Occasionalism.

In opposition to the continental European Rationalism movement was the equally loose
movement of British Empiricism, which was also represented by three main proponents.

The first of the British Empiricists was John Locke. He argued that all of our ideas, whether
simple or complex, are ultimately derived from experience, so that the knowledge of which we
are capable is therefore severely limited both in its scope and in its certainty (a kind of
modified Skepticism), especially given that the real inner natures of things derive from what he
called their primary qualities which we can never experience and so never know. Locke,
like Avicenna before him, believed that the mind was a tabula rasa (or blank slate) and that
people are born without innate ideas, although he did believe that humans have
absolute natural rights which are inherent in the nature of Ethics. Along
with Hobbes and Rousseau, he was one of the originators of Contractarianism (or Social
Contract Theory), which formed the theoretical underpinning
for democracy, republicanism, Liberalism and Libertarianism, and his political views influenced
both the American and French Revolutions.

The next of the British Empiricists chronologically was Bishop George Berkeley, although
his Empiricism was of a much more radical kind, mixed with a twist of Idealism. Using dense
but cogent arguments, he developed the rather counter-intuitive system known
as Immaterialism (or sometimes as Subjective Idealism), which held that underlying reality
consists exclusively of minds and their ideas, and that individuals can only directly know
these ideas or perceptions (although not the objects themselves) through experience. Thus,
according to Berkeley's theory, an object only really exists if someone is there to see or sense it
("to be is to be perceived"), although, he added, the infinite mind of God perceives everything
all the time, and so in this respect the objects continue to exist.

The third, and perhaps greatest, of the British Empiricists was David Hume. He believed
strongly that human experience is as close are we are ever going to get to the truth, and
that experience and observation must be the foundations of any logical
argument. Hume argued that, although we may form beliefs and make inductive
inferences about things outside our experience (by means of instinct, imagination and custom),

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they cannot be conclusively established by reason and we should not make any claims to certain
knowledge about them (a hard-line attitude verging on complete Skepticism). Although he
never openly declared himself an atheist, he found the idea of a God effectively nonsensensical,
given that there is no way of arriving at the idea through sensory data. He attacked many of the
basic assumptions of religion, and gave many of the classic criticisms of some of the arguments
for the existence of God (particularly the teleological argument). In his Political
Philosophy, Hume stressed the importance of moderation, and his work contains elements of
both Conservatism and Liberalism.

Among the "non-aligned" philosophers of the period (many of whom were most active in the
area of Political Philosophy) were the following:

Thomas Hobbes, who described in his famous book "Leviathon" how the natural state of
mankind was brute-like and poor, and how the modern state was a kind of "social
contract" (Contractarianism) whereby individuals deliberately give up their natural rights for
the sake of protection by the state (accepting, according to Hobbes, any abuses of power as
the price of peace, which some have seen as a justification for authoritarianism and
even Totalitarianism);

Blaise Pascal, a confirmed Fideist (the view that religious belief depends wholly
on faith or revelation, rather than reason, intellect or natural theology) who opposed
both Rationalism and Empiricism as being insufficient for determining major truths;

Voltaire, an indefatigable fighter for social reform thoughout his life, but wholly cynical of most
philosophies of the day, from Leibniz's optimism to Pascal's pessimism, and from Catholic
dogma to French political institutions;

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose discussion of inequality and whose theory of the popular
will and society as a social contract entered into for the mutual benefit of all (Contractarianism)
strongly influenced the French Revolution and the subsequent development
of Liberal, Conservative and even Socialist theory;

Adam Smith, widely cited as the father of modern economics, whose metaphor of the "invisible
hand" of the free market (the apparent benefits to society of people behaving in their own
interests) and whose book "The Wealth of Nations" had a huge influence on the development of
modern Capitalism, Liberalism and Individualism; and

Edmund Burke, considered one of the founding fathers of

modern Conservatism and Liberalism, although he also produced perhaps the first serious
defence of Anarchism.

Towards the end of the Age of Enlightenment, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant caused
another paradign shift as important as that of Descartes 150 years earlier, and in many ways this
marks the shift to Modern philosophy. He sought to move philosophy beyond the debate

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between Rationalism and Empiricism, and he attempted to combine those two apparently
contradictory doctrines into one overarching system. A whole movement (Kantianism)
developed in the wake of his work, and most of the subsequent history of philosophy can be
seen as responses, in one way or another, to his ideas.

Kant showed that Empiricism and Rationalism could be combined and that statements were
possible that were both synthetic (a posteriori knowledge from experience alone, as
in Empiricism) but also a priori (from reason alone, as in Rationalism). Thus, without the senses
we could not become aware of any object, but without understanding and reason we could not
form any conception of it. However, our senses can only tell us about the appearance of a thing
(phenomenon) and not the "thing-in-itself" (noumenon), which Kant believed was
essentially unknowable, although we have certain innate predispositions as to what exists
(Transcendental Idealism). Kant's major contribution to Ethics was the theory of the Categorical
Imperative, that we should act only in such a way that we would want our actions to become
a universal law, applicable to everyone in a similar situation (Moral Universalism) and that we
should treat other individuals as ends in themselves, not as mere means (Moral Absolutism),
even if that means sacrificing the greater good. Kant believed that any attempts to prove God's
existence are just a waste of time, because our concepts only work properly in the empirical
world (which God is above and beyond), although he also argued that it was not irrational to
believe in something that clearly cannot be proven either way (Fideism).

Modern Philosophy

In the Modern period, Kantianism gave rise to the German Idealists, each of whom had their
own interpretations of Kant's ideas. Johann Fichte, for example, rejected Kant's separation of
"things in themselves" and things "as they appear to us" (which he saw as an invitation
to Skepticism), although he did accept that consciousness of the self depends on the existence of
something that is not part of the self (his famous "I / not-I" distinction). Fichte's later Political
Philosophy also contributed to the rise of German Nationalism. Friedrich Schelling developed a
unique form of Idealism known as Aesthetic Idealism (in which he argued that only art was
able to harmonize and sublimate the contradictions between subjectivity and objectivity,
freedom and necessity, etc.), and also tried to establish a connection or synthesis between his
conceptions of nature and spirit.

Arthur Schopenhauer is also usually considered part of the German

Idealism and Romanticism movements, although his philosophy was very singular. He was a
thorough-going pessimist who believed that the "will-to-life" (the drive to survive and to
reproduce) was the underlying driving force of the world, and that the pursuit of happiness,
love and intellectual satisfaction was very much secondary and essentially futile. He
saw art (and other artistic, moral and ascetic forms of awareness) as the only way
to overcome the fundamentally frustration-filled and painful human condition.

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The greatest and most influential of the German Idealists, though, was Georg Hegel. Although
his works have a reputation for abstractness and difficulty, Hegel is often considered
the summit of early 19th Century German thought, and his influence was profound. He
extended Aristotle's process of dialectic (resolving a thesis and its opposing antithesis into
a synthesis) to apply to the real world - including the whole of history - in an on-going process
of conflict resolution towards what he called the Absolute Idea. However, he stressed that what
is really changing in this process is the underlying "Geist" (mind, spirit, soul), and he saw each
person's individual consciousness as being part of an Absolute Mind (sometimes referred to
as Absolute Idealism).

Karl Marx was strongly influenced by Hegel's dialectical method and his analysis of history.
His Marxist theory (including the concepts of historical materialism, class struggle, the labour
theory of value, the bourgeoisie, etc.), which he developed with his friend Friedrich Engels as a
reaction against the rampant Capitalism of 19th Century Europe, provided the intellectual
base for later radical and revolutionary Socialism and Communism.

A very different kind of philosophy grew up in 19th Century England, out of the British
Empiricist tradition of the previous century. The Utilitarianism movement was founded by
the radical social reformer Jeremy Bentham and popularized by his even more radical
protegé John Stuart Mill. The doctrine of Utilitarianism is a type of Consequentialism (an
approach to Ethics that stresses an action's outcome or consequence), which holds that the right
action is that which would cause "the greatest happiness of the greatest number". Mill refined
the theory to stress the quality not just the quantity of happiness,
and intellectual and moral pleasures over more physical forms. He counselled that coercion in
society is only justifiable either to defend ourselves, or to defend others from harm (the "harm
principle").

19th Century America developed its own philosophical traditions. Ralph Waldo
Emerson established the Transcendentalism movement in the middle of the century, rooted in
the transcendental philosophy of Kant, German Idealism and Romanticism, and a desire to
ground religion in the inner spiritual or mental essence of humanity, rather than in sensuous
experience. Emerson's student Henry David Thoreau further developed these ideas,
stressing intuition, self-examination, Individualism and the exploration of the beauty of
nature. Thoreau's advocacy of civil disobedience influenced generations of social reformers.

The other main American movement of the late 19th Century was Pragmatism, which was
initiated by C. S. Peirce and developed and popularized by William James and John Dewey. The
theory of Pragmatism is based on Peirce's pragmatic maxim, that the meaning of any concept is
really just the same as its operational or practical consequences (essentially, that something
is true only insofar as it works in practice). Peirce also introduced the idea of Fallibilism (that all
truths and "facts" are necessarily provisional, that they can never be certain but only probable).

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James, in addition to his psychological work, extended Pragmatism, both as a method for
analyzing philosophic problems but also as a theory of truth, as well as developing his own
versions of Fideism (that beliefs are arrived at by an an individual process that lies beyond
reason and evidence) and Voluntarism (that the will is superior to the intellect and to emotion)
among others. Dewey's interpretation of Pragmatism is better known as Instrumentalism,
the methodological view that concepts and theories are merely useful instruments, best
measured by how effective they are in explaining and predicting phenomena, and not by
whether they are true or false (which he claimed was impossible). Dewey's contribution
to Philosophy of Education and to modern progressive education (particularly what he
called "learning-by-doing") was also significant.

But European philosophy was not limited to the German Idealists. The French sociologist and
philosopher Auguste Comte founded the influential Positivism movement around the belief
that the only authentic knowledge was scientific knowledge, based on actual sense
experience and strict application of the scientific method. Comte saw this as the final phase in
the evolution of humanity, and even constructed a non-theistic, pseudo-mystical "positive
religion" around the idea.

The Dane Søren Kierkegaard pursued his own lonely trail of thought. He too was a kind
of Fideist and an extremely religious man (despite his attacks on the Danish state church). But
his analysis of the way in which human freedom tends to lead to "angst" (dread), the call of
the infinite, and eventually to despair, was highly influential on
later Existentialists like Heidegger and Sartre.

The German Nietzsche was another atypical, original and controversial philosopher, also
considered an important forerunner of Existentialism. He challenged the foundations
of Christianity and traditional morality (famously asserting that "God is dead"), leading to
charges of Atheism, Moral Skepticism, Relativism and Nihilism. He developed original notions
of the "will to power" as mankind's main motivating principle, of
the "Übermensch" ("superman") as the goal of humanity, and of "eternal return" as a means of
evaluating one’s life, all of which have all generated much debate and argument among
scholars.

Contemporary Philosophy

20th Century philosophy has been dominated to a great extent by the rivalry between two very
general philosophical traditions, Analytic Philosophy (the largely, although not
exclusively, Anglophone mindset that philosophy should apply logical techniques and be
consistent with modern science) and Continental Philosophy (really just a catch-all label for
everything else, mainly based in mainland Europe, and which, in very general
terms, rejects Scientism and tends towards Historicism).

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An important precursor of the Analytic Philosophy tradition was the Logicism developed
during the late 19th Century by Gottlob Frege. Logicism sought to show that some, or even all,
of mathematics was reducible to Logic, and Frege's work revolutionized modern
mathematical Logic. In the early 20th Century, the British logicians Bertrand Russell and Alfred
North Whitehead continued to champion his ideas (even after Russell had pointed out
a paradox exposing an inconsistency in Frege's work, which caused him, Frege, to abandon his
own theory). Russell and Whitehead's monumental and ground-breaking book, "Principia
Mathematica" was a particularly important milestone. Their work, in turn, though, fell prey
to Kurt Gödel's infamous Incompleteness Theorems of 1931, which mathematically proved
the inherent limitations of all but the most trivial formal systems.

Both Russell and Whitehead went on to develop other philosophies. Russell's work was mainly
in the area of Philosophy of Language, including his theory of Logical Atomism and his
contributions to Ordinary Language Philosophy. Whitehead developed
a metaphysical approach known as Process Philosophy, which posited ever-changing subjective
forms to complement Plato's eternal forms. Their Logicism, though, along
with Comte's Positivism, was a great influence on the development of the important 20th
Century movement of Logical Positivism.

The Logical Positivists campaigned for a systematic reduction of all human knowledge down
to logical and scientific foundations, and claimed that a statement can be meaningful only if it is
either purely formal (essentially, mathematics and logic) or capable of empirical verification.
The school grew from the discussions of the so-called "Vienna Circle" in the early 20th Century
(including Mauritz Schlick, Otto Neurath, Hans Hahn and Rudolf Carnap). In the 1930s, A. J.
Ayer was largely responsible for the spread of Logical Positivism to Britain, even as its
influence was already waning in Europe.

The "Tractatus" of the young Ludwig Wittgenstein, published in 1921, was a text of great
importance for Logical Positivism. Indeed, Wittgenstein has come to be considered one of the
20th Century's most important philosophers, if not the most important. A central part of the
philosophy of the "Tractatus" was the picture theory of meaning, which asserted that thoughts,
as expressed in language, "picture" the facts of the world, and that the structure of language is
also determined by the structure of reality. However, Wittgenstein abandoned his early work,
convinced that the publication of the "Tractatus" had solved all the problems of all philosophy.
He later re-considered and struck off in a completely new direction. His later work, which saw
the meaning of a word as just its use in the language, and looked at language as a kind
of game in which the different parts function and have meaning, was instrumental in the
development of Ordinary Language Philosophy.

Ordinary Language Philosophy shifted the emphasis from the ideal or formal
language of Logical Positivism to everyday language and its actual use, and it saw traditional
philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings caused by the sloppy use of words in a

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language. Some have seen Ordinary Language Philosophy as a complete break with, or reaction
against, Analytic Philosophy, while others have seen it as just an extension or another stage of
it. Either way, it became a dominant philosophic school between the 1930s and 1970s, under the
guidance of philosophers such as W. V. O. Quine, Gilbert Ryle, Donald Davidson, etc.

Quine's work stressed the difficulty of providing a sound empirical basis where language,
convention, meaning, etc., are concerned, and also broadened the principle of Semantic
Holism to the extreme position that a sentence (or even an individual word) has meaning only
in the context of a whole language. Ryle is perhaps best known for his dismissal
of Descartes' body-mind Dualism as the "ghost in the machine", but he also developed the
theory of Philosophical Behaviourism (the view that descriptions of human behaviour need
never refer to anything but the physical operations of human bodies) which became the
standard view among Ordinary Language philosophers for several decades.

Another important philosopher in the Analytic Philosophy of the early 20th century was G. E.
Moore, a contemporary of Russell at Cambridge University (then the most important centre of
philosophy in the world). His 1903 "Principia Ethica" has become one of the standard texts of
modern Ethics and Meta-Ethics, and inspired the movement away from Ethical Naturalism (the
belief that there exist moral properties, which we can know empirically, and that can
be reduced to entirely non-ethical or natural properties, such as needs, wants or pleasures) and
towards Ethical Non-Naturalism (the belief that there are no such moral properties). He pointed
out that the term "good", for instance, is in fact indefinable because it lacks natural properties in
the way that the terms "blue", "smooth", etc, have them. He also defended what he
called "common sense" Realism (as opposed to Idealism or Skepticism) on the grounds
that common sense claims about our knowledge of the world are just as plausible as those
other metaphysical premises.

On the Continental Philosophy side, an important figure in the early 20th Century was the
German Edmund Husserl, who founded the influential movement of Phenomenology. He
developed the idea, parts of which date back to Descartes and even Plato, that what we
call reality really consists of objects and events ("phenomena") as they are perceived or
understood in the human consciousness, and not of anything independent of human
consciousness (which may or may nor exist). Thus, we can "bracket" (or, effectively, ignore)
sensory data, and deal only with the "intentional content" (the mind's built-in mental
description of external reality), which allows us to perceive aspects of the real world outside.

It was another German, Martin Heidegger (once a student of Husserl), who was mainly
responsible for the decline of Phenomenology. In his ground breaking "Being and Time" of
1927, Heidegger gave concrete examples of how Husserl's view (of man as a subject confronted
by, and reacting to, objects) broke down in certain (quite common) circumstances, and how
the existence of objects only has any real significance and meaning within a whole social
context (what Heidegger called "being in the world"). He further argued that existence was

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inextricably linked with time, and that being is really just an on-going process
of becoming (contrary to the Aristotelian idea of a fixed essence). This line of thinking led him
to speculate that we can only avoid what he called "inauthentic" lives (and the anxiety which
inevitably goes with such lives) by accepting how things are in the real world,
and responding to situations in an individualistic way (for which he is considered by many
a founder of Existentialism). In his later work, Heidegger went so far as to assert that we have
essentially come to the end of philosophy, having tried out and discarded all the possible
permutations of philosophical thought (a kind of Nihilism).

The main figurehead of the Existentialism movement was Jean-Paul Sartre (along with his
French contemporaries Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and Maurice Merleau-Ponty). A
confirmed Atheist and a committed Marxist and Communist for most of his
life, Sartre adapted and extended the work of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl and Heidegger,
and concluded that "existence is prior to essence" (in the sense that we are thrust into
an unfeeling, godless universe against out will, and that we must must then establish
meaning for our lives by what we do and how we act). He believed that we always
have choices (and therefore freedom) and that, while this freedom is empowering, it also brings
with it moral responsibility and an existential dread (or "angst"). According to Sartre,
genuine human dignity can only be achieved by our active acceptance of this angst and despair.

In the second half of the 20th Century, three main schools (in addition to Existentialism)
dominated Continental Philosophy. Structuralism is the broad belief that all human activity and
its products (even perception and thought itself) are constructed and not natural, and that
everything has meaning only through the language system in which we operate. Post-
Structuralism is a reaction to Structuralism, which stresses the culture and society of
the reader over that of the author). Post-Modernism is an even less well-defined field, marked
by a kind of "pick'n'mix" openness to a variety of different meanings and authorities
from unexpected places, as well as a willingness to borrow unashamedly from previous
movements or traditions.

The radical and iconoclastic French philosopher Michel Foucault, has been associated with all of
these movements (although he himself always rejected such labels). Much of his work
is language-based and, among other things, he has looked at how certain underlying conditions
of truth have constituted what was acceptable at different times in history, and how
the body and sexuality are cultural constructs rather than natural phenomena. Although
sometimes criticized for his lax standards of scholarship, Foucault's ideas are
nevertheless frequently cited in a wide variety of different disciplines.

Mention should also be made of Deconstructionism (often called just Deconstruction), a theory
of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity and truth,
and looks for the underlying assumptions (both unspoken and implicit), as well as
the ideas and frameworks, that form the basis for thought and belief. The method

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was developed by the Frenchman Jacques Derrida (who is also credited as a major figure
in Post-Structuralism). His work is highly cerebral and self-consciously "difficult", and he has
been repeatedly accused of pseudo-philosophy and sophistry.

MAJOR BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY

What are the major branches of Philosophy? Philosophy covers a wide range of subjects. The
following are the traditional major branches of philosophy.

Ethics

Ethics, which is derived from the Greek term ethos, meaning “moral philosophy,” is
concerned about human conduct. As a normative study, it deals with norms or standards of
right and wrong applicable to human conduct. As a normative study, it deals with norms or
standards of right and wrong applicable to human behavior. It is considered as prescriptive as it
prescribes what people ought to do rather than describes what people do. A philosopher
engaged in ethics is concerned in finding out what norms or standards of human behavior lead
to ends or goals which are desirable or undesirable. His evaluation and analysis are directed
toward knowing whether there are higher human ends that may be considered as the chief end
of man. What constitutes this end is analyzed through the nature of a human being and his
moral and social virtues in relation with others.

The systematic reflections in ethics will lead to an understanding of the concept of right and
wrong and conceptions about morality which affects one’s actions toward others. Thus, ethics
helps people prioritize their values.

Aesthetics

Aesthetics comes from the Greek work aisthetikos which means “sensitive” or
“perceptive”. In this branch of philosophy, the philosopher is concerned with the analysis of
aesthetic experience and the idea of what is beautiful. The analysis is directed toward the nature
of aesthetic judgment, standards of beauty, and the objectivity of these standards in response to
the questions raised about the meaning of aesthetic experience.

In aesthetics, philosophers analyze whether beauty is based on utility, experience, form,

pleasure, or expression. For example, if you look at a painting or any kind of artwork, what are
your bases of judgment to say that it is beautiful? How does a panel of judges decide who wins
a beauty pageant? How are painting priced?

Epistemology

Epistemology comes from the Greek word epistēmē which means “knowledge”; thus,
this branch of philosophy deals with various problems concerning knowledge. Among the
major concerns in epistemology are the origin of knowledge—whether empiricism (given by
experience) or rationalism (given by the mind prior to experience)—and the verification or

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confirmation of knowledge. Other highly specialized problems in this branch of philosophy
include the distinction between belief and knowledge, the nature of truth, the problems of
perception, the external world, and the meaning and other minds.

For example, determining whether there is an objective truth and investigating the bases
of certainty are among the specific problems tackled in epistemology. Thus, epistemology can
be helpful in making judgments such as in the courts of law.

Logic

Logic is the branch of philosophy that looks into whether there are rules or principles
that govern reasoning. As a study of reasoning, logic incorporates the analysis of the methods of
deduction and induction to provide the rules on how people ought to think logically. Knowing
the rules of logic gives a person the techniques to create sound arguments and avoid fallacious
reasoning. Logic also increases one’s ability to reason correctly and distinguish irrational
reasoning.

Metaphysics

Metaphysics literally means “after physics”. Early Greek philosophers claimed that it is
the study of the nature of reality. This branch of philosophy analyzes whether everything is
material, and if life, energy, and mind are its different manifestations. Metaphysicians reflect on
the subject of appearances (how something looks by how it appears) and reality (that which
actually is).

Some examples of specific questions that metaphysicians reflect upon are the following:

 What is the meaning of life?

 What is the purpose of life?
 Does God exist?

Thus far, you are introduced to some of the areas that philosophy is concerned with. Each
branch informs you on how reflection and analysis may be used in the discourse of topics and
issues which concern humans. Your understanding of these concepts and philosophical inquiry
and reflection will also allow you to clarify what you believe in, value, and recognize as the
source or basis of your actions.

Branch of Philosophy Concern Question

Ethics Study of Action What ought I do?
Metaphysics Study of Existence What is being?
Epistemology Study of Knowledge What can I know?
Aesthetics Study of Art What is beautiful?
Logic Study of Reasoning What is correct inference?

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HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE AND PARTIAL POINT OF VIEW

At this point, you might be overwhelmed by the ideas already presented. What you
were introduced to seems to be fragmented. You may also be asking, “What’s in it for me?” A
beginner in philosophy like you will have an effective understanding only if you can make
sense of the different perspective; distinguish them from a partial point of view, and develop a
holistic perspective to see the whole or bigger picture. This manner will give you the value of
philosophizing.
What you experienced in the previous discussions gives you a perspective of what
philosophy is based on how it is done by the different philosophers and the common notions or
characterizations of it. The discussion on each philosopher and the specific concerns each
inquired about gave you partial points of views on the nature of philosophy. On the other hand,
the synthesis of these partial points of views gave you a holistic perspective of philosophy.
The etymology of philosophy (i.e., “love of wisdom”) gives you a clue on how to
philosophize. When you love, you try to know everything about that which your love is
directed to. At first, you might be interested in knowing the material or physical manifestations
of that thing, but as your love for it grows deeper, you would want to know more about it. Like
being a lover, a philosopher takes into account every detail—the partial points of view—in
order to make a synthesis and develop a holistic perspective. Hence, to philosophize is to take
part in activities which do not only give you a partial point of view but a holistic perspective
emanating from reflections and analysis.

LESSON SUMMARY

We started this unit with people who might have philosophies of their own, including yourself.
That means, you are already philosophizing, in the same manner as persons of other walks of
life (soldiers, teachers, political leaders, engineers, doctors, your trivia-loving neighbor) are
already philosophizing. In the most basic sense, you have philosophies. Moreover, you are
asking questions and though you might not vividly realize it, you are perhaps asking yourself
why you are even asking questions, why you believe in the things that you believe in, and how
others might view issues in the question. In doing so you are being philosophical. As such, you
do not have to be a professional philosopher to be philosophical. As the lesson discussed in
various ways, philosophy can refer to the ordinary sense of guideline or code, or to the precise
sense of an academic discipline, or to the broader sense of the activity of disciplined and critical
reflection of things. Most thinkers we have today are not strictly philosophers: they are also
sociologists, cognitive scientists, astrophysicists, psychologists, mathematicians, among others.
This is not surprising: it is part and parcel of the discipline of philosophy that philosophically-
minded persons continually asking questions about philosophy itself, and about our collective
ways of thinking.

So in this lesson we have talked about having philosophies and how this is similar to be being
philosophical, in the sense that having a general guideline for life (or a specific activity or aspect
thereof) and being philosophical both involve purposes and methods. We have also described
being philosophical in terms of adopting a deliberate and careful way of looking at thinking
about things, in that philosophical reflection involves us being more aware of what might be
hidden assumptions and unquestioned fundamental reasons behind our points of view and the
issues involved in them. We have seen that philosophy as a discipline (that is, a careful, rational,

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and willingly critical method of exploring claims and alternative claims), with philosophers
throughout time asking the kind of questions that are both old and continually renewed. They
are raised again and again because these questions matter to us as individuals who are also
parts of different, larger, intertwining wholes. Philosophy is thus both personal (it involves our
very engagement and efforts) and human in the collective sense. Finally, because philosophical
reflection involves points of views, philosophizing therefore requires the skill of seeing from
different perspectives and thus being open to questions and uncertainties.

References:

Angier, Natalie. The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. New York: First
Mariner Books, 2008.
Jaspers, Karl. Way to Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, Ralph Manheim (trans.). New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1957.
Kessler, Gary E. Voices of Wisdom: A Multicultural Philosophy Reader. Belmont, California:
Wadsworth, 1992.
Kolak, Daniel and Raymond Martin. Wisdom Without Answers: A Brief Introduction to
Philosophy, 5th ed. California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002.
Podjman, Louis and James Fieser (eds.). Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary
Readings, 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Soccio, Douglas J. Archetypes of Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy, 6th ed. California:
Thomson Wadsworth, 2007.

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