WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

PREPARED BY: YOHANNES E.

(ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF
PHILOSOPHY AT JIMMA
UNIVERSITY
THE UNIT SEEKS TO ANSWER
THE FF QUESTIONS
What is Philosophy?
Who is a philosopher?
What sort of activities do you think are philosophical?
Why philosophy?
What is the nature of philosophy?
What makes philosophy peculiar from science, psychology
and religion?
WHY INTRODUCING
PHILOSOPHY?
 Logic is both a field of study and an instrument
As a field of study, it deals with the study of arguments
and the principles and methods of right reasoning.
o As an instrument
we can use to formulate our own rational arguments and
 critically evaluate the soundness of others‘ arguments.
GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND ITS
ORIGIN
 Mesopotamians and Egyptians contemplated how the natural
world around them worked.
 Early Greeks(time of Homer, c 800 BCE used mythological
stories to explain the natural world.
 7th century BCE – Greeks looked for new more practical
explanations.
CONT.
“Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy
begins in wonder”. Socrates
WHY DEFINING PHILOSOPHY
IS
1. SO has
Philosophy DIFFICULT?
no any specific subject matter.
It may deal with every dimension of human life and can raise questions in
any field of study or endeavor.
2. Philosophy pursues questions rather than answers.
Philosophy cannot be defined to recourse to some accepted tenets, beliefs,
and established class of propositions.
3. Philosophy changes historically both in respect to its content and its
character.
 Historical variety- over the centuries it has assumed very different
forms(wisdom, science, art, piety, critique, analysis, linguistic game,
literary genre) and has been practiced in very d/t settings (market places,
temple, monastery, studio, university, institute, conference, the internet).
Overriding notion- mental activity.
ETYMOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY
The word ‘philosophy’ is derived from the Greek

philia
and

sophia
PYTHAGORAS (C. 570 – C.
495 BC)
CON.
 In ancient Greece, there were many wise-men and sages,
who claimed to have all sorts of knowledge.

 Pythagoras was the first to call himself a philosopher –

not someone who knows, but someone who loves
knowledge, and the pursuit of it.
According to him, men and women of the world could be
classified into 3 groups:
1. those that love pleasure
2. those that love activity
3. those that love wisdom
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO
LOVE (PURSUE) WISDOM?
 wisdom is the goal
•What is wisdom?
 the comprehensive grasp of a subject (global perspective);
Ability to make good decisions or arrive at a new understanding.
To pursue or love something implies that you don’t currently
possess it.
 the philosopher is an intermediate position b/n wisdom and
lack of wisdom.
 WORKING DEFINITION
 Philosophy is the study of general and
fundamental questions: existence, knowledge,
values, reason, mind, and language.

 Philosophy is the rational attempt to understand

and answer fundamental questions
CONT.
Philosophy is:
(a) is the attempt to acquire knowledge
(b) by rational means
(c) about topics that do not seem amenable to empirical
investigation.
Condition
(a) distinguishes philosophy from creative disciplines such as
literature or music.
(b) distinguishes philosophy from mysticism and some varieties of
religion.
(c) distinguishes philosophy from the empirical sciences.
THE TWO SIDES OF PHILOSOPHY:
CONSTRUCTIVE AND CRITICAL
 Philosophy has a constructive side, for it
attempts to formulate rationally defensible
answers to certain fundamental questions
concerning the nature of reality, the nature of
value, and the nature of knowledge and truth.
 critical side is manifested when it deals with
giving a rational critic, analysis, clarification,
and evaluation of answers given to basic
metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological
questions.
 CONT.
 philosophy is an activity. It is not something that
can be easily mastered or learned in schools. There
are materials in other disciplines you learn from A-
Z and master it, but
 You learn philosophy by doing it (philosophize)
 A philosopher is a great philosopher, not because
he mastered philosophy, but because he did it
 You do philosophy rather than learn about it.
1.2 BASIC FEATURES OF
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy: Common definition
I. Philosophy is a set of views or beliefs about life
and the universe, which are often held
uncritically.
 Some people are said to “have” a philosophy
(“well, my philosophy is…”)

 Usually a personal attitude about some topic in

discussion.
WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS: DOING
Philosophy is a process of reflecting and critically
examining our most deeply held beliefs.

 Doing Philosophy is about being open-minded, tolerant, and willing

to examine a subject without prejudice

 Doing Philosophy involves argument, analysis, and reflection

CONT.
III. Philosophy is a rational attempt to look at the world as a
whole.
Philosophy is a rational attempt to look at the world
in a general way

 Philosophical Ideas are typically not taken from a single world-

view, or from a single approach, but with a more wide-scoped view
 Philosophical Theories are not those of the empirical sciences
(physics, chemistry, etc.), or the social sciences (psychology, etc.) –
but they may use some of these as resources.
TOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY

IV. Philosophy is the logical analysis of language and the

clarification of the meaning of words and concepts.
 To Do Philosophy we must be critical of our definitions,
concepts, and ideas

 Doing Philosophy involves thinking logically and consistently:

using critical reasoning to better understand something
PHILOSOPHICAL TOPICS
V. Philosophy involves a group of perennial
questions and problems that are fundamental and
universal
 How can I Know anything?
 What is Truth?
 What is Right and Wrong?
 What is Life and Why am I here?
 Why is there Anything at all?
 The content
of
philosophy

Metaphysics Epistemolog Axiology

y
1.3.1 METAPHYSICS
Metaphysics is the study of “reality”

What is Causation?
What is Time?
What is the Mind?
What is Existence?
Is everything Physical?
Does God exist?
 PARMENIDES (515 BC)
“ONLY ONE THING EXISTS – THE UNIVERSE – AND IT
NEVER CHANGES, AS CHANGE IS IMPOSSIBLE
 Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753)

“The material world does not exist, only Minds and God exists”
 David Hume (1711 – 1776)
“Nothing ever causes anything else to happen – causation is an
invention of the mind”
CONT.
Here are some of the questions that Metaphysics primarily deals with:
What is reality?
 What is the ultimately real?
What is the nature of the ultimate reality?
Is it one thing or is it many different things?
 Can reality be grasped by the senses, or it is transcendent?
 What makes reality different from a mere appearance?
 What is mind, and what is its relation to the body?
 Is there a cause and effect relationship between reality and appearance?
 Does God exist, and if so, can we prove it?
Are human actions free, or predetermined by a supernatural force?
 What is human being? A thinking mind? A perishable body? Or a combination of both?
 What is time?
 What is the meaning of life?
CONT.
It deal with issues of reality, God, freedom,
soul/immortality, the mind-body problem, form and
substance relationship, cause and effect relationship, and
other related issues.
Metaphysicians seek an irreducible foundation of reality or
the first principles.
Thales (624-560 BC)- water
Anaximander (610-545 BC)-infinite element
Anaximenes (570-500 BC)- Air
Metaphysical questions are the most basic to ask
 CONT.
Metaphysical questions may be divided into four subsets or
aspects.
Cosmological Aspect: study of theories about the origin,
nature, and development of the universe as an orderly system.
Questions such as ―
How did the universe originate and develop?
Did it come about by accident or design?
Does its existence have any purpose?
CONT.
II Theological Aspect: Theology is that part of religious theory that
deals with conceptions of and about God.
Is there a God? If so,
is there one or more than one?
What are the attributes of God?
If God is both all good and all powerful, why does evil exist? If
God exists,
what is His relationship to human beings and the ‘real‘ world of
everyday life?
 CONT.
III Anthropological Aspect: Anthropology deals with the study of
human beings and asks questions like፡
What is the relation between mind and body?
Is mind more fundamental than body, with body depending on mind,
or vice versa?
What is humanity‘s moral status? Are people born good, evil, or
morally neutral?
To what extent are individuals free?
Do they have free will, or are their thoughts and actions determined by
their environment, inheritance, or a divine being?
Does each person have a soul? If so, what is it?
CONT.
iV Ontological Aspect: Ontology is the study of the nature of existence, or
what it means for anything to exist. Several questions are central to
ontology:―
Is basic reality found in matter or physical energy (the world we can sense),
or is it found in spirit or spiritual energy?
Is it composed of one element (e.g., matter or spirit), or two (e.g., matter
and spirit), or many?
Is reality orderly and lawful in itself, or is it merely orderable by the human
mind?
Is it fixed and stable, or is change its central feature?
Is this reality friendly, unfriendly, or neutral toward humanity ?
1.3.2 EPISTEMOLOGY
Epistemology is the “study of knowledge”

What are the sources of Knowledge? (sources)

Where does genuine kgn come from or how do we know?

What is the nature of Knowledge? (nature)

Is there a real world outside the mind? And If so, can we know
it? The question of appearance Vs reality.
How can we Know when we Know? (validity)
Is our knowledge valid? How do we distinguish truth from
error?
WHAT IS KGN? WHAT IT
MEANS
o
TO KNOW?
Knowledge requires three necessary and sufficient
conditions; truth, belief and justification.
o Knowledge is “a justified true belief” (JTB). Plato
S knows that P if and only if:
(1) S believes that P
(2) P is true
(3) S is justified I believing that P
GETTIER OBJECTION ON JTB
CONT.
The following are among the questions/issues with which Epistemology deals:
What is knowledge?
 What does it mean to know?
 What is the source of knowledge? Experience? Reason? Or both?
 How can we be sure that what we perceive through our senses is correct?
What makes knowledge different from belief or opinion?
 What is truth, and how can we know a statement is true?
 Can reason really help us to know phenomenal things without being
informed by sense experiences?
 Can our sense experience really help us to know things beyond our
perception without the assistance of our reasoning ability?
What is the relationship and difference between faith and reason?
DO WE KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL?
odo we in fact know anything at all about the external world?
•What do you know for sure?
oSkepticism: we can never really know anuthing about the
external world. We can never be certain about the external
world, although we can have enough evidence get by from
practical stand points
•Religious agnosticism, a profession of ignorance in reference
to the existence or nonexistence of God.
•Cognitivism (dogmatism)
•Yes. We can know things about the external world.
CONT.
The other issue is the relativity and absoluteness of truth;
whether all truth is relative, or whether some truths are
absolute.
CONT.
4 Source of knowledge:
1. Empirical kgn: based on demonstrable, objective facts
determined through observation and/or experimentation.
2. Logical kgn: arrived at by reasoning from “point A”
(which is accepted) to “point B” (the new knowledge)
3. intuitive kgn: based on feelings rather than conscious
reasoning or sense experience.
4. Authoritative kgn: based on information received from
people, books, a supreme being, etc.
Rene Descartes
(1596-1650)

“The only thing

we can truly
know is that we
exist”
 John Locke (1632-1704)

“There is no Knowledge, except the knowledge from

our senses and science”
 Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716)
“Only our Minds can discover Real, Eternal Truth”
THEORIES OF TRUTH
1. Correspondence: our beliefs must correspond with the world and facts.
Correspond ideas with facts or external reality.
o Problem: you never experience reality as it is. You only experience it as your mind
shapes it.
2. Coherent: belief is true if it coheres with our other beliefs.
fits within our web of belief.
3. Pragmatic: truth is what works
truth is what is useful to believe and has practical value in our life.
E.g “F=MA” because it works.
Truth is tentative- no absolutes
measured by workability
EMPIRICISM
knowledge obtained through the senses.
Sensory knowing for humans is immediate and universal, and
in many ways forms the basis of much of human knowledge.
Does sensory data represent reality?
Fatigue, frustration, and illness also distort and limit sensory
perception.
In addition, there are sound and light waves that are inaudible
and invisible to unaided human perception.
The advantage: open to both replication and public
examination.
 RATIONALISM
 Reason, thought, logic is the source of human
knowledge.
 In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view
that regards reason as chief source and test of
knowledge.
 For rationalist, the senses alone cannot provide
universal, valid judgments that are consistent with one
another.
 Sensory perceptions are raw materials for knowledge.
 These sensations must be organized by the mind into
meaningful systems before they become knowledge.
CONT.
 Less extreme position; claims that people have the power to
know with certainty various truths about the universe that
the senses alone cannot give.
 Extreme position claims that humans are capable of
arriving at irrefutable knowledge independently of sensory
experience.
ESSENTIAL THESES OF
RATIONALISM
To be a rationalist is to adopt at least one of the following thesis.
• the intuition/deduction thesis
• the innate knowledge thesis
• the innate concept thesis
The intuition/deduction thesis

o Intuition and deduction provide us with knowledge a priori-

knowledge gained independently of sense experience.
o Whereas we just ‘see’ intuited propositions to be true, deduction
is a process of deriving valid conclusions from intuited
propositions.
TRUTHS KNOWABLE BY
INTUITION/DEDUCTION
 Some rationalists take mathematics to be knowable by
intuition/deduction; 2+5=7.
 For others, ethical truths fall under this category; it is wrong to
kill humans indiscriminately.
 Some include metaphysical claims; God exists, we have free
will, our mind and body distinct substances, every event must
have a cause.
the innate knowledge thesis

1) Claims that we have knowledge of some truths as part of our

rational nature.
2) Like intuition/deduction thesis, innate knowledge thesis asserts
the existence of knowledge gained apriori (independently of
experience).
3) The difference between them tests in the accompanying
understanding of how this apriori knowledge is gained.
• whereas intuition/deduction thesis cites intuition and subsequent
deduction reasoning as how we come to acquire such apriori
knowledge.
CONT.
4) Innate knowledge thesis offers our rational nature as how we
have such innate knowledge apriori.
• That is, for the innate knowledge thesis, our innate knowledge is
not learned through either sense experience or intuition and
deduction.
• It is just part of our rational nature as rational beings (it has, in
some way, been with us all along).
Note: experience may trigger a process by which we bring this
knowledge to consciousness, but the experiences do not provide us
with the knowledge itself.
CONT.
For some rationalists, we gained the knowledge in an earlier
existence.
For others, God provided us with it at creation.
Others say it is part of our nature through natural selection.
THE INNATE CONCEPT
THESIS
1. Claims that we have some of the concepts (ideas) we employ in
a particular subject area as part of our rational nature.
2. Some of our concepts (ideas) are not gained from experience.
3. Sense experience may trigger a process by which they are
brought to consciousness, experience does not provide the
concepts or determine the information they contain.
THE INDISPENSABILITY OF
REASON THESIS
o This thesis is not necessary to the rationalist thesis but generally
adopted by rationalists.
o It claims that experience cannot provide what we gain from
reason.
THE SUPERIORITY OF REASON
THESIS
o This thesis is not necessary for the rationalist thesis but also
generally adopted by rationalists.
o It claims that reason is superior than experience as a source of
knowledge.
INTUITION.
knowledge that is not derived from conscious reasoning or
immediate sense perception.
“immediate feeling of certainty”
 Source of many scientific breakthroughs have been initiated
by intuitive hunches( gut feelings) that were confirmed by
experimentation.
is not a safe method of obtaining knowledge when used alone.
It goes astray very easily and may lead to absurd claims.
 advantage of being able to bypass the limitations of human
experience.
REVELATION
 prime importance in the field of religion
 kgn by supernatural reality that breaks into the natural order.
 Adv. has the distinct advantage of being an omniscient source
of information that is not available through other
epistemological methods.
 The truth revealed through this source is believed by
Christians to be absolute and uncontaminated.
 Disad. it is generally realized that distortion of revealed truth
can occur in the process of human interpretation.
 it must be accepted by faith and cannot be proved or
disproved empirically.
AUTHORITY
 Truths that come from experts or has been sanctified
over time as tradition.
 Adv. Civilization would certainly stagnate if people
refused to accept any statement unless they personally
verified it through direct, firsthand experience.
 Disadv. if authoritative knowledge is built upon a
foundation of incorrect assumptions, then such
knowledge will surely be distorted.
1.3.3 AXIOLOGY
Axiology is the study or theory of value.
 The term Axiology stems from two Greek words-
―Axios, meaning ―value, worth, and ―logos,
meaning ―reason/ theory/ symbol / science/study
of.
 Hence, Axiology is the philosophical study of
value, which originally meant the worth of
something.
CONT.
Axiology asks the philosophical questions of values that deal with notions of what
a per-son or a society regards as good or preferable, such as:
 What is a value?
Where do values come from?
How do we justify our values?
 How do we know what is valuable?
What is the relationship between values and knowledge?
What kinds of values exist?
 Can it be demonstrated that one value is better than another?
Who benefits from values? And etc.
CONT.
Fields within axiology are; ethics, aesthetics and
social/political philosophy
1.3.4 ETHICS
Ethics, which is also known as Moral Philosophy, is the study of
morality
Ethics raises various questions including:
 What are right and wrong?

Are there Objective moral truths?

 How do Morals become Laws?

 Should we be Moral?
 ETHICS

Normative Applied
Meta ethics
ethics ethics

Attempts to explain,
Study and determine: Deals with investigation of
justify and apply moral
Moral rules, principles and the meaning of ethical
rules, principles and
standards whereby human terms, including a critical
standards to specific
conducts may be judged study about how ethical
controversial moral
statements can be verified.
problems.
 NORMATIVE ETHICS

Consequentiali
Deontology Virtue ethics
sm
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)

“What is Right is
What is Good for
the Greatest
Number of People”
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

“Moral Laws
are Eternal,
Rational, and
Universal”
 Friedrich Nietzsche (144-1900)
“Morality is Meaningless, Happiness and Goodness are Illusions”
1.3.5 AESTHETICS
Aesthetics is the theory of beauty.
 It studies about the particular value of our artistic and
aesthetic experiences.
It deals with beauty, art, enjoyment, sensory/emotional
values, perception, and matters of taste and sentiment.
CONT.
The following are typical Aesthetic questions:
What is art?
What is beauty?
What is the relation between art and beauty?
What is the connection between art, beauty, and truth?
 Can there be any objective standard by which we may judge the beauty of
artistic works, or beauty is subjective?
 What is artistic creativity and how does it differ from scientific creativity?
 Why works of art are valuable?
 Can artistic works communicate? If so, what do they communicate?
 Does art have any moral value, and obligations or constraints?
 Are there standards of quality in Art?
1.3.7 SOCIAL/POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
 Social/Political Philosophy studies about of the value
judgments operating in a civil society be it social or political.
 The following questions are some of the major
Social/Political Philosophy primarily deals with:
 What form of government is best?
 What economic system is best?
 What is justice/injustice?
 What makes an action/judgment just/unjust?
 What is society?
CONT.
 Does society exist? If it does, how does it come to existence?
 How are civil society and government come to exist?
 Are we obligated to obey all laws of the State?
 What is the purpose of government?
SCIENCE VS PHILOSOPHY
 Science is the methodical study of the universe in its various aspects
(physical, chemical, social, biological, mental).
Deal with questions that can be decided by experiment and observation.
It can attain a “definite body of truths” at least in some domains.
Scientific language is unequivocal and its propositions have unambiguous
reference.
Limitation of science
It cannot tell us what is beautiful, good, or just, what is the meaning of life,
and what we can hope for.
Science does not provide us evaluative and interpretive kgn.
Science doesn’t include full knowledge about itself.
IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING PHILOSOPHY
 What are the fundamental benefits of learning
philosophy?
The famous quotation from Socrates; “The unexamined
life is not worth living”.
CONT.
 Human needs: maintenance and actualizing needs.
 The former refers to the physical and psychological needs:
food, shelter, security, social interaction, and the like.
 The later: self-fulfillment, creativity, self-expression,
realization of one‘s potential, and being everything one
can be.
 Although philosophy may not necessarily lead to this sort
of self-actualization, it can assist us to actualize ourselves
by promoting the ideal of self- actualization.
CONT.
There are many characteristics
of self-actualization to whose
achievement studying philosophy
has a primordial contribution.
Here below are some of them.
CONT.
1) Intellectual
and Behavioral Independence:- This
is the ability to develop one‘s own opinion and
beliefs.
• the integration of experiences into a unified,
coherent, and systematic world views.
CONT.
2) Reflective Self-Awareness:- self-actualization
cannot be realized without a clear knowledge of
oneself and the world in which one lives.
• Philosophy helps us to intensify our self- awareness
by inviting us to critically examine the essential
intellectual grounds of our lives.
CONT.
3) Flexibility, Tolerance, and Open-Mindedness:-
• by studying different philosophical perspectives we can
understand the evolutionary nature of intellectual
achievement and the ongoing development of human
thought.
• As we confront with the thoughts of various philosophers we
can easily realize that no viewpoint is necessarily true or
false- that the value of any attitude is contextual.
• Finally, we become more tolerant, open-minded, more
receptive, and more sympathetic to views that contend or
clash with ours.
CONT.
4) Creative and Critical Thinking: -
• the ability to develop original philosophical perspective
on issues, problems, and events; and to engage them on a
deeper level.
• From the study of philosophy, we can learn
how to refine our powers of analysis,
our abilities to think critically,
to reason, to evaluate, to theorize, and to justify.
CONT.
5) Conceptualized and well-thought-out value systems in
morality, art, politics, and the like:
• studying philosophy provides us with an opportunity to
formulate feasible evaluations of value; and thereby to find
meaning in our lives.
 the quotation from Bertrand Russell “the value of philosophy lies not on
its certainty, but in its uncertainty”
 CONT.
 Free from imprisoned prejudices derived from:
 Common sense
From the habitual benefits of his age or his nation
From convictions which have grown up in his mind without
the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason
 Philosophy is able to suggest many possibilities w/c
enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of
custom.
 It keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar
things in unfamiliar aspects