1. What is Philosophy? Flashcards
What is philosophy and why do we need it?
Everyone has a philosophy of life but…
not every philosophy of life is adequate.
What is philosophy?
Philosophy, Alvin Plantinga has remarked, is just thinking hard about something. If that is the case, then doing good philosophy will be a matter of learning to think well. Philosophy is the attempt to think hard about life, the world as a whole, and the things that matter most in order to secure knowledge and wisdom about these matters. Accordingly, philosophy may be defined as the attempt to think rationally and critically about life’s most important questions in order to obtain knowledge and wisdom about them. There is no airtight definition for philosophy, nevertheless, three features of philosophy help us understand what it is. The term philosophy means love of wisdom, and philosophy is an attempt to think rationally and critically about life’s most important questions. Moreover, philosophy is a second-order discipline. Finally, there are several first-order areas of philosophy itself, such as logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and value theory.
What is a worldview?
An ordered set of propositions that one believes, especially propositions about life’s most important questions. Philosophy can help someone form a rationally justified, true worldview. Philosophy is constructive because it attempts to provide synoptic vision; that is, it seeks to organize all relevant facts into a rational system and speculate about the formation and justification of general worldviews.
Philosophy often functions as a second order discipline. What is a second order discipline?
A discipline that asks presuppositional, normative, conceptual, and integrative questions of another discipline or field of study and studies the coherence, consistency, justification or effectiveness of the results and presuppositions of another discipline or field of study. For example philosophers might study biology, anthropology, law, astronomy, or neurology in just such a way. Philosophers ask normative questions about other disciplines (e.g., questions about what one ought and ought not believe in that discipline and why), analyze and criticize the assumptions underlying it, clarify the concepts within it, and integrate that discipline with other fields. The justification of the assumptions of any discipline, including philosophy, is largely a philosophical matter. Philosophers ask and seek to answer presuppositional, normative, conceptual, and integrative questions about other fields of study. Thus by its very nature philosophy is, perhaps, the most important foundational discipline in the task of integrating Christian theology with other fields of study. Because philosophy operates at a presuppositional level by clarifying and justifying the presuppositions of a discipline, philosophy is the only field of study that has no unquestioned assumptions within its own domain. In other words, philosophy is a self-referential discipline, for questions about the definition, justification, and methodology of philosophy are themselves philosophical in nature.” “Philosophers keep the books on everyone, including themselves. The justification of the assumptions of any discipline, including philosophy, is largely a philosophical matter.
As a second order discipline, what are some questions philosophers might ask about biology?
Is there an external world that is knowable and, if so, how does one know it? What is life, and how does it differ from non life? How should someone form, test, and use scientific theories and laws? Is it morally permissible to experiment on living things? When biologists talk about information in DNA, how should we understand this talk? How does the biological notion being a member of the kind Homo sapiens relate to the theological notion of being made in the image of God or to the metaphysical notion being a person with legal/moral rights?
Why is philosophy especially well suited for integrating Christian theology with other fields of study?
Because philosophy often acts as a second order discipline specializing in the relationship between, and integration of, separate fields of study.
What are the four main first-order parts of philosophy?
- Logic
- Epistemology
- Metaphysics
- Value Theory (Including Ethics and Aesthetics)
What is logic?
The branch of philosophy that investigates the principles of right reasoning and focuses on questions such as when a conclusion can legitimately be drawn from premises and why.
What is epistemology?
The study of knowledge and justified belief (e.g., What is knowledge? Can we have it? How do we know things and justify our beliefs? What are the kinds of things we can know?
What is metaphysics?
The study of being or reality (e.g., What does it mean for something to exist? What are the ultimate kinds of things that exist? What is a substance? What is a property? Is matter real? Is mind real? What are space, time, and causation? What is linguistic meaning?
What is value theory?
The study of value such as ethical or aesthetic value. What does it mean to say something is right or wrong, beautiful or ugly? How do we justify our beliefs in these areas?
Seven reasons why philosophy is crucial to Christian universities, evangelization, churches, and the development of robust Christian lives:
The quick answer:
- Defending the faith.
- Arguing for the faith.
- Reflects the image of God and how we are to love God with our entire being, which includes the mind and surely we are to use our unique rational god like nature in the service of our greatest commission.
- Dispels theological confusion and error.
- Philosophy helps you in virtually every area of life from conflict resolution to morality.
- It promotes harmony within the church and projects strength and respectability for the church to the outside world.
- It assists us in having a coherent and consistent worldview to help consistently and coherently apply our values to the world and to live internally consistent and coherent lives.
the longer answer:
- for its centrality to apologetics. When an objection against Christianity comes from some discipline of study, that objection almost always involves the use of philosophy.
- For its centrality in polemics
- Abstract reasoning is often identified in some way as an expression of the image of God in us and we are commanded to love God with all of our minds and throughout the Bible we are reminded to use our minds responsibly and critically. Humans are commanded to love God with all of their minds (Mt 22:37). You can’t say this about Muslims.
- Philosophy dispels confusion related to, clarifies, and shows the coherence of, theological doctrines and truth claims found in revelation. It can also extend Biblical teaching, principles, and values clearly into issues and areas where the Bible is not explicit by providing conceptual categories and analysis that fit the situation and preserve the tenor and substance of biblical teaching. For example, several areas currently under discussion in medical ethics (active/passive euthanasia, genetic screening, withholding artificial food and hydration, artificial insemination) are not explicitly mentioned in Scripture.
- Philosophical study itself can aid someone in the pursuit of truth in any other area of life, increase spiritual discipline, dispel confusion and other roadblocks or unexpected challenges to faith, develop the skills of framing issues, solving problems, learning how to weigh evidence and eliminate irrelevant factors, cultivating the ability to see important distinctions instead of blurring them, etc. The discipline of philosophical study also aids in the development of virtues and values such as a desire for truth, honesty with data, an openness to criticism, self-reflection, and an ability to get along non defensively with those with whom we differ. Study is itself a spiritual discipline, and the very act of study can change the self.
- The discipline of philosophy can enhance the boldness and self-image of the Christian community in general. Historically, philosophy has been the main discipline that has aided the church in its intellectual relationship with unbelievers and this emboldens evangelists and promotes harmony within the church.
- Moral and intellectual integrity. In order for any Christian worldview, including our self-identity, to be coherent, unfragmented, and evangelistically relatable to the society we live in, our experiences of the world and the facts or rational propositions about the world that we observe or adopt must be blended and unified with, or at least be interactive with, Christian teachings and values. The very act of such worldview formation is philosophy. It might as well be done consciously and methodically. Integration occurs when one’s theological beliefs, primarily rooted in Scripture, are blended and unified with propositions judged as rational from other sources into a coherent, intellectually adequate Christian worldview. In other words, if integrity is important for our health and our walk with God, then so is philosophy. A person grows to maturity to the extent that he or she becomes an integrated, unfragmented self, and one of the ways to become an integrated person is to have the various aspects of one’s intellectual life in harmony. If Smith believes one thing in church and another thing in the lab or office, he will to that extent be a fragmented, dichotomized individual wherein Christ can dwell only in a shrinking religious compartment of his life. What’s more, if you don’t understand and are not aware of philosophical principles, you won’t notice when the values of the world encroach upon or conflict with your own values and even behaviors. As a result, you slowly but surely drift in the direction the world is going. As C.S. Lewis said, “Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.” And that bad philosophy will not only be present outside of the church, but within it as well whether those weaponizing it realize it or not and whether they are aware of the damage they are causing or not.
The history of the church reveals that philosophy has always played a crucial role in the nurture of believers and in the proclamation of a Christian worldview in general and the gospel in particular. The first universities in Europe were, of course, Christian, and the study of philosophy was considered of central importance to the health and vitality of the university and the Christian life.
If you argue against this, you have to use philosophy to do it.
When Christians say that human depravity has made the mind so darkened that the noetic effects of sin render the human intellect incapable of knowing truth:
Writers of scripture often appeal to the rational capacities of sinners and unbelievers with evidence, logic, and with language and concepts familiar to them.
Proof that the fall brought about the perversion but not the elimination of our rational faculties is found in the fact that the writers of Scripture often appeal to the mindset of unbelievers by citing evidence on behalf of their claims, using logical inferences in building their case, and speaking in the language and thought forms of those outside the faith.
Give examples of normative questions that philosophy asks and seeks to answer
What should we believe? What is right and wrong? What should we do and how should we live? What is real and true? How do we know?
“Philosophy asks normative questions (What ought one believe and why? What ought one do and why?), it deals with foundational issues (What is real? What is truth? What can humans know? What is right and wrong? Do right and wrong exist? What are the principles of good reasoning and evidence evaluation?), and it seeks knowledge of what some phenomenon must be in all possible worlds, not what may happen to be the case in this actual world.”
List five ways philosophy comes in handy when evaluating other disciplines
- Philosophy is better suited for delineating the boundaries and limits of any given discipline than the respective discipline. Philosophy can also draw the most accurate line between where philosophy ends and this discipline in its uniqueness actually begins.
Philosophy can make clear that an issue thought to be a part of another discipline is really a philosophical issue (Principles about science and theology are not the same as principles of science and theology.). - Philosophy clarifies and either supports or opposes the foundational prepositions of any given field.
Philosophy undergirds other disciplines at a foundational level by providing clarity, justification for or arguments against the essential presuppositions of that discipline. - Philosophy can challenge or support theories and claims internal to any given field or discipline. Philosophy provides external conceptual problems for other disciplines to consider as part of the rational appraisal of theories in those disciplines (and vice versa). This can happen for example, when a theory in a certain discipline conflicts with a rationally founded or defended theory in philosophy. An example would be how the oscillating universe theory that postulates that the past was beginningless and actually infinite conflicts with the philosophical principle that history cannot cross an actual infinite number of events throughout the past to reach the present moment. Another example would be how free will arguments and arguments which affirm moral responsibility count against sociological, economic, or psychological theories that are deterministic in nature. Such examples show that philosophical considerations are relevant to the rationality of theory-assessment in other disciplines.
- Philosophy can clarify concepts, argument forms, and other cognitive issues internal to a field. An example is the definition of “fittest” in describing the process of evolution as the survival of the fittest. Scientists have famously been unable to adequately define what they mean and many resort to the circular definition that the fittest are those who survive. Or sometimes they will disguise the circularity by describing those species that survive and insisting that the descriptions of the creatures or types of creatures that survive breaks the former chain of circularity in pointing to those creatures that survive. However that still conflates mechanisms with overall results. The overall results have many properties. The question is still left unanswered as to which obvious properties possessed by the survivors, if any, are the mechanisms that drive evolution or the specific results evolution intends. Another example is when sociologists claim that all of one’s views are determined by nonrational factors and thus are not to be trusted, they don’t really believe that because if they did believe that then they couldn’t believe that. When philosophy is brought to bear on questions of this sort, the result may be that the theory in question is problematic because it involves an internal contradiction or is somehow self-refuting.
- Philosophy can facilitate accurate communication and comparisons between separate disciplines by providing a common language or conceptual grid wherein two disciplines can be directly related to one another and integrated. For example, philosophy can clarify the similarities and differences between a common language definition of a word and an operational definition of the same word. Many times journalists or social or political commentators will haphazardly use an operational term from a specialized field in a newspaper or magazine article as if it accurately corresponded to common language concepts of the word. Furthermore the commentator will often try to extract a moral normative “ought” from an operational “is” in order to make an appeal to authority when all he is actually accomplishing is bad philosophy.
