Viewed in this way Philosophy is part of the activity of human growth and thus an integral, essential part of the process of education. Philosophy and education have as a common goal the development of the total intellect of a person, the realization of the human potential.
What type of thought is Philosophy? Philosophy is thought which is critical and comprehensive. Terms are not totally reducible to others and. As on issue leads into another, as reality as experienced is One, so too is thought about such actual human affairs revelatory of the interconnection of issues and the underlying unity.
Such thought attempts to show how the principles of explanation and basic categories of any conceptual schema are applicable throughout the breadth and depth of human experience. Such Philosophic thought at its most abstract levels reveals the basic insights into every area of life. Such philosophic thought attempts to develop a concordance of ideas, values and distinctions in order to answer fundamental questions and to present the most critically formulated conceptual framework and world-view with which all subsequent thought would work and help to evaluate and reformulate.
It is at such times that the most truly practical thing to have is a theory. Theories help to analyze, explain, and assist in planning. At such times it becomes practical to question assumptions, beliefs, current presuppositions, common sense, ideas and the efficacy of current practices and it is only from the perspective of philosophic thought that such an inquiry can take place. It is speculative in considering problems which only highly abstract thought presents.
It is speculative in developing truly presbyopic perspectives and concerns. It is speculative in considering ultimate metaphysical issues, pursuing the most critical formulation of principles held to govern thought and action, and furthering mathematical and logical inquiry in its attempt to further the progress of human thought and the improvement of the human condition. Philosophy and Cultural Differences. Different individuals have different perspectives. Existing within a definite time-space location, they share in the basic wealth of a given culture.
They participate in the process of civilization. They have been in part determined in what they will think and do by what is at their disposal to work with and what has gone before to make them what they are. Individuals add to their inheritance their own uniqueness which is centered in their valuational acts. Philosophers are no different from others in regard to their cultural perspectives. Philosophers differ in their conclusions. They build upon what has come before. They react to it and criticize it.
They draw from the total wealth of their given civilization and all others they have knowledge of. Philosophers differ in what they end up with, however, they share in a common pursuit and they do so by their attempt to pursue inquiry in a definite manner, i. Philosophy and other forms of Thought. While the Philosophical mode of thought exists along side of those of Religion, Science and Art it is distinct from them and influences each of them and in part responds to developments within each of these fields or dimensions of human experience.
While Religion offers a comprehensive view of all aspects of human life , it is a view which is uncritically formulated and does not itself encourage or tolerate criticism of the fundamental tenets of faith or the principle applications of those basic beliefs to the affairs of everyday life. Science, on the other hand, is quite critical in the evaluation of hypotheses and theories but it lacks the comprehensive nature of philosophic thought.
The various branches of scientific inquiry have not as yet demonstrated that they are capable of being welded into a single comprehensive view of all reality built upon a single coherent set of basic principles or laws. Art remains as a discipline capable of demonstrating, representing and encouraging values but it is not a discipline of thought at all least of all one that is characterized by the critical and comprehensive features of philosophical thought.
I hope that you have been able to detect these features of philosophic thought although there are obstacles that most of you have encountered such as 1 the brevity of the treatment given each philosopher examined during this semester, 2 the rather small number of passages and works read and 3 the inexperience of class members with reading and analyzing philosophical treatises. Even so each student should have come to appreciate that Philosophy as an activity and a tradition of thought involves a good deal more than the common usage of the term in popular discourse would intimate.
As an academic discipline philosophy is much the same. To make such a pursuit more systematic academic philosophy is traditionally divided into major areas of study.
At its core the study of metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, of what exists in the world, what it is like, and how it is ordered. In metaphysics philosophers wrestle with such questions as:. Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It is primarily concerned with what we can know about the world and how we can know it.
Typical questions of concern in epistemology are:. The study of ethics often concerns what we ought to do and what it would be best to do. In struggling with this issue, larger questions about what is good and right arise. So, the ethicist attempts to answer such questions as:. To this end philosophers employ logic to study the nature and structure of arguments. Logicians ask such questions as:. So, a significant part of philosophy is its history, a history of answers and arguments about these very questions.
In studying the history of philosophy one explores the ideas of such historical figures as:. What often motivates the study of philosophy is not merely the answers or arguments themselves but whether or not the arguments are good and the answers are true. Moreover, many of the questions and issues in the various areas of philosophy overlap and in some cases even converge.
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