PHILOSOPHY Flashcards
- originally meant “love of wisdom”
- is also defined as the science that
by natural reason studies all things and the
first causes or the highest principles of all things.
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy Came from two Greek words:
- Philo means “to love”
- Sophia which means “wisdom.”
● It is an organized body of knowledge
● It is systematic
● It follows certain steps or employs certain procedures
SCIENCE
● It uses the philosopher’s natural capacity to think or
human reason or the so-called unaided reason.
● Study of all things
● It makes philosophy distinct from other sciences
because it is not one dimensional or partial
● A philosopher does not limit himself to a particular
object of inquiry
● Philosophy is multidimensional or holistic
NATURAL LIGHT OF REASON
First cause or highest principles
- Principle of Identity
- Principle of Noncontradiction
- Principle of excluded middle
- Principle of sufficient reason
● It is an extension of a fundamental and
necessary drive in every human being to
know what is real.
● A metaphysician’s task is to explain that
part of our experience which we call unreal
in terms of what we call real.
● We try to make things comprehensible by
simplifying or reducing the mass of things
we call appearance to a relatively fewer
number of things we call reality.
Metaphysics
He claims that everything we experience is water (“reality”) and everything else is “appearance.”
○ We try to explain everything else (appearance) in terms of water (reality).
Thales
○ Their theories are based on unobservable entities: mind and matter.
○ They explain the observable in terms of the
unobservable
Idealist and Materialist
Nothing we experience in the physical
world with our five senses is real.
● Reality is unchanging, eternal, immaterial,
and can be detected only by the intellect.
● ____ calls these realities aside as of forms.
Plato
● It explores the nature of moral virtue and
evaluates human actions.
● It is a study of the nature of moral
judgments.
● Philosophical ethics attempts to provide an
account of our fundamental ethical ideas.
● It insists that obedience to moral law be
given a rational foundation
Ethics
To be happy is to live a virtuous life.
★ Virtue is an awakening of the seeds of good
deeds that lay dormant in the mind and
heart of a person which can be achieved
through self-knowledge.
★ True knowledge = Wisdom = Virtue
★ Courage as virtue is also knowledge
Socrates
● It deals with nature, sources, limitations, and
validity of knowledge.
● It explains:
i. how we know what we claim to know.
ii. how we can find out what we wish
to know.
iii. how we can differentiate truth
from falsehood.
● It addresses varied problems: the reliability,
extent, and kinds of knowledge; truth;
language; and science and scientific
knowledge.
Epistemology
Sources of Knowledge?
I. Induction
II. Deduction
III. Pragmatism
● Whatever is; whatever is not, is not. Everything
is its own being, and not being is not being.
● Ex: A is A. Facts are facts. A human person is a
human person.
- Principle of Identity
● It is impossible for a thing to and not to be at
the same time.
● Ex: if A is A, then the rest cannot be A
● Facts are facts, facts cannot contain lies
because it is a fact.
- Principle of Noncontradiction
● a thing is either is or is not; between being and
not being, there is no middle ground.
● Ex: White is white, black is black. Yes or no. Either
you are pro or anti
- Principle of excluded middle
● Nothing exists without sufficient reason for its being and existence.
- Principle of sufficient reason
● gives importance to particular things seen, heard, and touched
● forms general ideas through the examination of particular facts
Induction
● gives importance to general law from which particular facts are understood or judged
Deduction
● the meaning and truth of an idea are tested by its practical
consequences.
Pragmatism
– advocates of induction method.
● _______ is the view that
knowledge can be attained only
through sense experience.
Empiricist
– advocates of deduction method
● For a ______, real knowledge is
based on the logic, the laws, and
the methods that reason
develops.
Rationalist
● Reasoning is the concern of the logician.
● It comes from the Greek word logike, Coined
by Zeno, the Stoic (c.340–265BC), which
means a treatise on matters pertaining to
the human thought.
● It does not provide us knowledge of the
world directly and does not contribute
directly to the content of our thoughts.
● It is not interested in what we know
regarding certain subjects but in the truth or
the validity of our arguments regarding such
objects.
Logic
● First philosopher to devise a logical method
● Truth means the agreement of knowledge
with reality.
● Logical reasoning makes us certain that our
conclusions are true
Aristotle
● It is the science of the beautiful in its various manifestations – including the sublime, comic, tragic, pathetic, and ugly.
○ It vitalizes our knowledge. It makes our knowledge of the world alive and useful.
○ It helps us to live more deeply and richly. A work of art helps us to rise from purely physical existence into the realm of intellect and spirit.
○ It brings us in touch with our culture. The answers of great minds in the past to the great problems of human life are part of our culture.
Aesthetics
● A German philosopher who argues that our tastes and judgments regarding beauty work in connection with one’s own personal experience and culture.
● Our culture consists of the values and beliefs of our time and society.
Hans-Georg Gadamer
What is the Importance of Doing Philosophy?
- Philosophy can be applied in day-to-day activities and perspectives. Because it involves an evaluative process, doing philosophy allows a person to make better decisions and act according to situations with the help of various philosophical skills.
- It enables reflective thinking, which greatly influences a person’s view of life, challenges, and relationships.
- It directs how a person will perceive these factors in life and how they will be faced.
- Wisdom is always gained when philosophy is applied to formulating conclusions about a certain concern.
Methods of Philosophy
- Truth
- Knowledge
- Facts
- Claim
Philosophers often grapple with the concept of ___. ___ lies at the heart of any inquiry and is a fact that has been verified.
Truth
According to Abella (2016), it is important to clarify ___ before we discuss truth, as knowing is the gateway to determining what is true. ____ is defined as the clear awareness and understanding of something.
Knowledge
