The Basic Principles of Life Philosophy - Essay Example

Running Head: [Philosophy of Life]         Philosophy of Life Regis   Philosophy of Life Introduction The word philo-sophy is the composition of two Greek words, ‘Philo’ meaning ‘love’ and ‘sophia’ meaning wisdom that literally translates to love of wisdom. Hence, in literal meaning it refers to the study that is pursued for the love towards wisdom. Only this definition does not do justice to what philosophy is all about and it is no wrong to say that in fact there is not precise definition to it. However, there is one way to look at it and that is through the eyes of the philosophers themselves. Yet another way to look at it is the various perceptions attach to it in our daily use of language. On one hand, while it tends to highlight a person’s idea or view point about a certain topic, on the other hand it is also used a way of positioning someone’s idea or concept to be too complicated by saying that ‘so and so is becoming philosophical about it’. In the former sense, philosophy is a term that is synonymous to a general outlook about something or someone, whereas in the latter sense it depicts a passive attitude towards life and not taking it as it comes (Stewart and Blocker, 2005). A general account of philosophy refers it to be a study of deep-seated problems pertaining to matters such as existence, knowledge, reason, mind, value, language, morality, reality and truth (Teichmann and Evans, 1999). This translates in to two approaches to philosophy, one that is more formal in sense and the other much informal. The former formal sense accentuates an intellectual attempt and incorporates a number of fields within its sphere. These are metaphysics, logic, ethics, epistemology, as well as philosophy of religion and political philosophy. The latter informal sense implies it as a way of life, resolving inquiries regarding meaning of life and emphasizing significance of existence. It is of imperative to understand and note that philosophy is different from other ways of looking at these inquiries because of the kind of approach it entails, that is methodical and its dependency on logical disputes (Quinton, 1995). The following sections provide a brief account of few major fields of philosophy. These are metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of Religion, philosophy of Art and Political Philosophy. Metaphysics In the broadest sense, metaphysics is that branch of philosophy, which refers to the study of “nature of reality” and “being”. Metaphysics is interested in studying the fundamental nature of reality: either natural or supernatural, either visible or invisible, either physical or nonphysical: either existent or non-existent (Fumerton, 2006). The history of metaphysics is chains back to Aristotle. In fact, the word metaphysics has its indirect derivation by the title of fourteen books of Aristotle related to this area of study. Metaphysician or Metaphysicist is the person who studies metaphysics. Nevertheless, it took centuries for philosophers to decide the scope of study of a metaphysician. Until the seventeenth century, “metaphysics was defensibly defined as ‘being as such’, ‘first causes of things’ and ‘which does not change’” (Audi, 2003). Conversely, after that the metaphysicians showed a change in their policy. Problems and topics that Aristotle, his followers and medieval thinkers would have assumed to be belonging to physics were now being studied under the umbrella of Metaphysics. That also marks the division of metaphysics into two branches of Ontology and Cosmology (Norris, 2005). Cosmology deals with the determining the order of reality and ontology studies the nature of existence, being and reality as well as the limits of reality. Theology is yet another branch of metaphysics that is devoted to the study of Gods (Jay Wood, 1998). A metaphysician would most commonly be seen arguing and researching over the questions and topics related to the existence of God, determinism and free will, reality, truth, relation of mind and body, constraints of space and time, necessity and possibility, religion and spirituality, identity and change, cause and effect, objects and their properties, composition of objects etc. Epistemology “Epistemology or theory of knowledge is concerned with the examination concerning the questions related with knowledge and justifies belief, its scope, limitations, nature, etc” (Inwagen, 1998). It deals with questions such as, what are the necessary conditions of knowledge. What are its sources? What is its structure and limitations? Is knowledge possible? What are the possible sources of validation of the knowledge? Can we assume knowledge as a justified belief? How can we distinguish between truth and fabrication? (Audi, 2003). Philosophers are of diverse opinions and answers over the above-mentioned questions. Worth mentioning, is the question of sources of knowledge that has led to the development of many schools of thought in epistemology (Loux, 2002). Empiricists argue that knowledge can be acquired through experience, mind is like a blank slate and humans have only access to the ideas of things; however, rationalists dispute that knowledge can only be acquired through reason. Intuitionists believe that the only reliable source of knowledge is intuition and knowledge is something personal (Inwagen, 1998). However, authoritarians are sure that knowledge is always posses by some authority and only that authority can transfer or validate the knowledge. In addition, traditions and cultures, which are surrounding anyone also affects it (Norris, 2005). Immanuel Kant in this regard proposed his idea of transcendental idealism. According to this school of thought, the process of acquiring knowledge beings with experience that makes up the substance of the knowledge and the process ends up with reasoning by which the content is structured. He was of the idea that we can only know “how things appear” but nor “how things are in themselves” (Inwagen, 1998) Epistemology leads to the concepts of skepticism (the belief in impossibility of knowledge) and solipsism (the knowledge of ideas of your own self and the belief of non-existence of other minds) (Lowe, 1998). Ethics “The branch of ethics is also known as moral philosophy. This branch of philosophy studies the conceptions of Good and bad, right and wrong, justice and virtue for the society as a whole” (Frankena, 1973). Deriving from the word “ethos”, which is Greek word, ethics means a habit and in this sense, it refers to an external observable behavior (McGrade, Kilcullen, & Kempshall, 2001). However, morality studies are more inclined towards studying these concepts in individual and internal instances. “Major branches of ethics are meta-ethics, normative ethics, applied ethics, moral psychology and descriptive ethics” (Williams, 1985). Philosophers divide ethical theories into two distinct types. Deontological theories are those theories in which the place of actions at the top and they are given more importance than the consequences of those actions. On the other hand, teleological theories are those in which consequences are important rather than actions. Here ends justify the means (Frankena, 1973). Ethical philosophers also believe that ethical values can be both; internal and external. At the same time, these ethical values can be subjective or objective. Since ethical studies does not include the study of facts that is why whatever ethics studies, it empirical verification is not possible. Jeremy Bentham’s theory of hedonism is one of the most important in the field of ethics (Frankena, 1973). He argued that humans are driven by the elements of pleasure and pain, whatever is good for the greatest number must be considered as good and the hedonic calculus given by him in terms of intensity, length, scope, and certainty can measure pleasure and pain (McGrade, Kilcullen, & Kempshall, 2001). On the other hand, philosopher Epictetus, in his theory of stoicism refers the peace of mind as the greatest good and ethical value. He was of the idea that this peace of mind can be achieved can paying greater attention towards religious meditation rather than the worldly matters and for him this was the ultimate goal of ethics. Philosophy of Religion It is yet another branch of philosophy and it aims to inquire about religion. Although not confined, it ask questions regarding existence of God, religious language, prayer, miracles, problem of evil, prayer, interrelation of religion with ethics etc. It is imperative here to create a distinction between philosophy of religion and religious philosophy. While former relates to philosophical perspective ‘about’ religion, latter is the philosophical thinking that comes through inspiration and direction ‘from’ religion. The examples of latter include Christian philosophy and Islamic philosophy (Stephen, 1985). One of the major inquiries is about the existence of God and its significance, pondering over the question Does God Exist. In respond to which a number of arguments tend to present a logical framework of possibility of his existence. The three main arguments pertaining to it are the teleological argument, ontological argument and the cosmological argument (Stump and Murray, 1999). Extending on to it is a possible denial of God’s existence because of the existence of evil, generally regarded as the problem of evil that surrounds us without any doubt (Stump and Murray, 1999). Moreover, apart from miracles and prayer it also tries to make sense out of religious doctrines and practices. It also talks about soul, revelation as well as morality and its religious foundation (Stump and Murray, 1999). Aesthetics and Political philosophy “Aesthetics is the sub discipline of axiology (a branch of philosophy), and it deals with study of nature, beauty music and art” (Margolis, 1987). For many initial years, aesthetics was a study under which came the dimensions of epistemology and ethics but after the theories and ideas of Kant it was widely considered as distinguished branch in philosophy (Lippman, 1988). Philosophers under this area of study try to answer questions like the nature of beauty, why do we find certain things as beautiful, how we can make judgments about the beauty and taste of any thing etc (Margolis, 1987). As mentioned above that Kant is considered as the most influential of all philosophers in the area of aesthetics so it is important to study that how he approached the subject. In his idea, pure beauty has four aspects: objectivity, disinterest of spectator, freedom from concepts and necessary. Kant was of the view that beauty or sublime does not lie within an object, is not a property of the object but are the ways, or approaches in which subject views them. He also added that judgments about art, taste, beauty etc are “subjective” and “universal” in nature. In addition, he also divided aesthetic responses into “beauty” and “sublime” (Lamarque & Olsen, 2004). Political philosophy is the study of or theory of legal rights, government, freedom, equality, societal make up etc. It tries to answer the questions of the reality of nations and governments. What are their jobs and their constraints? Why should an individual comply with laws of the government? What should be source of the derivation of laws? Should they be natural or man made? Who is the one who can be called as above the law? Can we separate the religious and legal authority from each other? Which one of these should be preferred? Are intentions and moral values are of any importance while making political decisions? When the government may act against the will of citizens? (Gunnell, 1986). Political philosophy has been under spot light right from the time of Plato in the Greek empire. Plato’s famous work in this respect was “the Plato’s republic” which was then followed by the ideas of Aristotle and others (Knowles, 2001). Philosophers argue that every political system has two basic assumptions of freedom and equality within the society. Political philosophers have gone on to divide freedom into negative and positive freedom (Hunt, 1990). Almost all the western philosophers have defined these two as the key stones for any political system. In contrast, eastern philosophers have paid more attention towards ethical concepts for politics and have identified maintaining ethical standards as the prime job for any government (Strauss, 1988). Political philosophers have led to the development of many theories and approaches. Theories of holism and individualism argue that either the society is important as a whole or it is important to view the benefits of each individual. The holists argue that the “society as a whole is greater than sum of all the individuals in the society”, however, individualists view the statement as wrong and consider the opposite as true (Knowles, 2001). Other political views include socialism, liberalism, environmentalism, conservatism, anarchism, Majoritarianism, Progressivism etc. Conclusion Conclusively, while metaphysics talks about the “nature of reality” and “being”, epistemology concerns the examination of inquiries relating knowledge and justifies belief, its scope, limitations, nature etc. While moral philosophy is all about the conceptions of Good and bad, right and wrong, justice and virtue for the society as a whole, aesthetics is the study of nature, beauty music and art. While Philosophy of Religion brings out inquiries about religion and related themes such as God, miracles, prayer, problem of evil etc., political philosophy is the study of or theory of legal rights, government, freedom, equality, societal make up etc. Hence, this is clearly observable that Philosophy entails in itself a wide ocean of diverse disciplines all however focusing in their own capacity to bring out inquiries about the existence, truth, knowledge, and their relationships with art, aesthetics, politics, religion etc. in order make an intellectual endeavor towards understanding and comprehending better about the minute details of life and world. References Anton, John Peter, Kustas, George L., & Preus, Anthony. (1971). Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy: Aristotles ethics. SUNY Press. Audi, R. (2003). Epistemology: A contemporary introduction to the theory of knowledge. Routledge. Evans, C. Stephen. (1985). Philosophy of Religion: Thinking about Faith. InterVarsity Press. 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