The Basic Principles of Life Philosophy - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages While philosophy tends to highlight a person’s idea or viewpoint 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 into 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 the philosophy of religion and political philosophy. The latter informal sense implies it as a way of life, resolving inquiries regarding the meaning of life and emphasizing the 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 a few major fields of philosophy. These are metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion, philosophy of Art, and Political Philosophy.

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). ...Download file to see next pagesRead More