Statement Of Purpose For Graduate Study

Philosophy is not just the intellectual activity that people engage in, but it is a subject matter worth studying. The word philosophy comes from two words; philein which means love and soph wisdom, having this in mind, philosophy can be defined as the love of wisdom. Philosophy is not a single subject which is unified but it can be subdivided into small fields that include logic, ethics, political, aesthetics, epistemology and metaphysics and other small groupings. Philosophy has continued to change over the years and this paper will intelligently discuss various changes that have happened in different subfields of philosophy. The paper will also document the implications that these changes has brought in the field of philosophy.

In the text “An Invitation to Philosophy” written by Bryan Magee, Magee defines two branches of philosophy based on two fundamental questions of philosophy, discusses the importance of reason in philosophy, and explains the difference between asking questions and the beguining of ‘doing’ philosophy.

Philosophy is defined by Webster as "Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline" or "Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods." This essay is a general look at those who pursued that intellectual means, those who investigated, even those who reasoned Reason. Because volumes could be written and this is a rather quick, unworthy paper: apologizes.

Having discussed what philosophy is, we now consider why it is important to study philosophy. We will divide our discussion into 2 parts: (1) Why is it important for all persons in general and (2) Why is it specifically important for Christians to study philosophy? We begin, in true philosophic fashion, by examining the question itself: what we do mean by philosophy being important and we introduce the idea of the philosophic mindset. We then examine 5 reasons why it is important for all persons to adopt the philosophic mindset. We will end by providing an overview of the different branches of philosophy.

As Virgil stated so many years ago, history is a cyclical phenomenon. The experiences of one age tend to be repeated in future generations. Knowing that, we should not be surprised to find the seeds of modern styles and philosophies sprouting in earlier ages.

"Man's ideas and philosophy are like twinkles in the night sky, where as God's understanding and wisdom shines brighter than the biggest suns, 24 a day for eternity, collectively across the universe." ~ Jon Barnes

In Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche argues philosophy is a mere self-serving vanity on the part of historical philosophers. Their explanations and truth-seeking are only their deepest desires of how they wish things to have originated from. In this paper, I will try to explain what Nietzsche thought philosophers were doing when constructing their theories and why his argument is a good one.

In the essay, Russell presents the study of philosophy as a valuable undertaking, even though it does not directly help the whole world or increase one’s material wealth. The value is to be found for the student of philosophy herself or himself. This value is primarily found in the intellectual development that is available for those who undertake the study philosophy. They can escape narrowness, dogmatism, and narrowness as they become citizens of the world, with enriched intellectual capacities. Russell concludes with the idea that the mind becomes enlarged through the study of philosophy.

Philosophers are part of history, caught in its movement; creators perhaps in some measure of its future, but also assuredly creatures of its past.-John Dewey

documents, many of the holes in the philosophy of the time must be filled with

I was bustling about when I heard a knock at the side of my door. I looked up to see Philosophy. “Thanks for coming, Philosophy,” I said. “I appreciate it.” “It wasn’t any trouble for me.” Replied Philosophy, “Many people seem to believe that I have no use in the world anymore.” “Now…” She said walking to a chair. “You had said that you needed to discuss why one should read the Bible.” I nodded. “For school,” I said.

When Wolfgang Spohn became the managing editor of the new Erkenntnis he referred to its first eight volumes as "a historically singular document, signaling a new era in philosophy with great enthusiasm and optimism" (Spohn, 1990:1). But sixty years after the founding of Erkenntnis it is really difficult to be so enthusiastic about analytic philosophy when one notices the decline of logical empiricism, the bewildering specialization within philosophical inquiry, and contemporary disorientation and eclecticism in philosophy. These

In “The Value of Philosophy”, Bertrand Russell— “an important social critic and one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century”—refutes the idea of philosophy being pointless and a waste of time (The Value of Philosophy). Although philosophers have not agreed on one exact definition for this branch of knowledge, philosophy is generally understood as an “academic discipline” which aims to cover a variety of topics through arguing, inquiring, assuming, and “testing arguments for weakness” in order to gain knowledge and grasp a better sense of life (Lectures 1-2, Package). Russell makes strong arguments for philosophy being beneficial, especially when one is open to seeking a deeper understanding of life and why the universe operates the way that it does. Despite philosophy’s inability to definitively answer the questions that it seeks to understand, in Russell’s opinion, it holds a great amount of value—one of those values being uncertainty.

The purpose Russell had for writing this article is to justify the value that he places on philosophy, and through this convince others to see the same. If he can succeed in this, he is spreading the good and influence of philosophy “for others than students of philosophy (Russell).”

As I was attempting to brain storm for this assignment, I ran out of ideas so I decided to read the prompt again and again for inspiration and hopefully some new ideas. That is when I realized that the prompt itself had the answer that I was looking for. My answer was sitting there waiting for me in the last sentence of the prompt, “The question whether Philosophy is still necessary or not remains an intriguing question, triggering different position.” Philosophy is still necessary in our modern and scientific world today because Philosophy is the intriguing question that is triggered by several events in different positions in our daily lives. In our fast paced world today, people sometimes tend to want answers all the time without even having to ask questions and unfortunately, technology, media and social media have made that possible.