Philosophy An Overview Introductions What is Philosophy Any

Philosophy An Overview

Introductions

What is Philosophy? Any Ideas? In essence: Why?

Because we can question everything, there’s philosophy of pretty much everything • • • Mathematical philosophy/logic Philosophy of science Philosophy of art/aesthetics Philosophy of history Philosophy of physics Philosophy of law There’s even philosophy of philosophy, but we will get to that in a bit

Three Parts of the World • African Philosophy • Eastern Philosophy • Western Philosophy Western universities will typically focus on western philosophy, but most programs will have courses that cover works by African and Eastern philosophers

Three Branches In Western philosophy, there are three main branches of philosophy which serve as the foundation for nearly all other disciplines: • Metaphysics • Epistemology • Ethics

What things are (essential properties of things) Metaphysics • Ontology: Focused on categorizing everything, “substances” instead of conditions • Phenomenology: Focused on how things appear; first-person perspective

Epistemology What we know • Separation of belief from truth • Also covers skepticism and how we derive knowledge (i. e. empiricism vs. rationalism/experience vs. reason)

Ethics (AKA Moral Philosophy) What we ought to do • Right vs. Wrong, what to give value to and how much • Applied ethics: How do we practically apply our ethical considerations • Metaethics: What is ethics? What are the foundations of morality?

Speaking of Meta… Meta=self-referential: what is thing? • Metaethics=what are ethics? Philosophy of ethics • Metametaphysics=what is metaphysics? Philosophy of metaphysics • Metaphilosophy=what is philosophy? Philosophy of philosophy • I told you we would get to it!

Fourth branch-Logic Philosophy at its most formal • Symbolic logic-teaches how to prove arguments structurally and systematically • Deeply intertwined with math and mathematical proofs, logic is also a branch of mathematics • Different from the other three due to its formality, but it is absolutely essential because for philosophy due to its use in argumentation

A Couple Thought Experiments The Trolley Problem

Ship of Theseus

History of philosophy Three periods (everything comes in threes!): • Ancient philosophy (~600 BC-500 AD) • Medieval philosophy (~500 AD-1500 AD) • Modern philosophy (~1500 AD-now)

Who started it? Thales Anaximander Pre-Socratic Philosophers Anaximenes

Socrates Changed philosophy from attempts to find a physical science into the abstract discipline we have to day

Famous student: Plato

Descartes “I think therefore I am” Mind-body problem

Analytic Philosophy vs. Continental Philosophy Argument starting in 18 th-Early 19 th century Analytic: Focusing on breakdown Continental: Focusing on synthesis

Cool Alive Modern Philosophers Edmund Gettier Shelly Kagan Christine Korsgaard

College! A few thoughts: • Philosophy is a lot of fun if you’re into it, but it’s much harder to get into when you have no idea what it is • The best way to get a feel of it is to read, or watch videos if that’s your kind of thing (it’s definitely my kind of thing) Any questions?