What Is Philosophy And Why Should Anyone Study It?

According to Merriam-Webster (2016), philosophy is “an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs” (para. 1). Most people have a philosophy that is either a vague, general idea or a distinct guiding principle that is based on beliefs relevant to the individual, to their patients, families, communities, and colleagues. The beliefs that comprise a person’s philosophy influence the choices that person makes. Many base their choice of profession on their beliefs, thereby ensuring that the principles of their career are consistent with their personal expectations. For example, getting a job or taking actions that are inconsistent with someone’s beliefs is one of the causes of stress and burnout. Therefore, it is healthy for individuals to clarify their philosophy to help guide them to make choices and to live a life consistent with their

To begin, it is important to understand and analyze what philosophy is and ultimately what a philosophical question is. Philosophy is a quest after knowledge. Philosophy is the action of thought and analysis, in fact, it is a pretty unique type of

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.

Metaphysics, Morals, Social, and the Political philosophy's are four major philosophical areas of inquiry. Learning about the historical development of each school of thought, who the main contributors were, and what the primary issues are in each field. Increases the knowledge and understanding of the culture and its philosophy.

The term “philosophy” means the love of wisdom, and those that study philosophy attempt to gain knowledge through rationality and reason. 1 Socrates, the father of ancient philosophy, once stated “the unexamined life is not worth living”. This is the most important part of life and it is need to find purpose and value in life. If a person chooses to live their life without examination, their life would lack value and they would be unhappy. They would also be ignorant to the effects of their choices on themselves and the people around them.

Furthermore, I believe philosophy will help me to think critically when tackling challenging conceptual problems from different angles. For example, the original position argument by Rawls exemplifies

A philosopher is a person who is has learned philosophy and in words by definition I am a philosopher. I started this course not knowing what I would be learning and the simple title of the course was intimidating. I thought, am I going to be capable of understanding what great philosophers once debated? Religion is a huge issue I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to overcome since a lot of philosophers didn’t believe in God. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to separate my idea of life and viewing it as an intellectual philosopher. I thought that every idea wouldn’t have proof and that the only proof we had was the bible. The bible was the only piece of proof that I knew and that everything else wouldn’t be sufficient enough to make me change

Before reading this article, my initial thoughts of philosophy was to be reflective about everyday life and look beyond our mundane activities to find purpose or answer questions such as life’s meaning. In Pojam’s What is Philosophy?, he describes philosophy as the love of wisdom as a result of knowledge from examining the most important parts of reality. Pojam explains a person must use reason, sense of perception, imagination and intuition to analyze and construct arguments and theories. Although most of these skills are used in my other classes, I have not isolated these skills and further hone them to philosophical inquiry. Some observations I noticed is that we would be focusing on many readings and we would have a lot of discussion about

Philosophy is an umbrella term which is primarily focused on answering several fundamental questions, including: Where did we come from, why do we die and most commonly, what is the meaning of life? There are many avenues through which philosophers structure their search for meaning and purpose in life, with perhaps the most common viewpoint being through the lenses of religion. German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, took a different approach and searched from the stance of existentialism. Through this, he discovered that human beings have distanced themselves from the basic nature of being, and eventually constructed his philosophy of life around authenticity, in an attempt to wake humanity up to the fleeting nature of existence.

With the notion of philosophy and the studying of philosophy it is well known that it is powerful and dangerous. Philosophy has many reasons for its importance such as how to understand your ideas, the origin of your ideas, how to contrast arguments. Philosophy can also help you defend arguments, read it, build your position and understand it. Philosophy is used for the betterment of the world, gender, race, civilization, town, state, country, etc. But in order to practice philosophy you need parrhesia and you need philosophy to practice parrhesia, they come hand in hand with each other. There have been many imperative philosophers that gave us the knowledge and foundation for our study of

It is normal to underestimate the power of philosophy. It is a social science that has lost influence in the 21st Century because many do not understand how this science can help humans achieve true happiness. Though philosophy is a heavy subject, it is the science with the most results regarding human nature and knowledge. Philosophy offers guidance to understand human behavior as well as to question our presence and our real role in society. It is one of the leading social sciences because many world leaders have tried to grasp it and understand the meaning of it thus showing how important it is to study philosophy. Nevertheless, not only should world leaders study philosophy but also everyone should be aware of the different

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.

Reading Maritain’s article you quickly find out that his thesis is that we in fact need philosophy. Society cannot function properly without philosophy. Throughout the whole reading there are supporting statements for us needing philosophy to function. Maritain describes a philosopher as “a man who is in search of wisdom”, and also states “society cannot do without philosophers”. Both of these statements are

Philosophy, mother of all sciences, is one of the oldest disciplines known to man. It is an approach wherein man tries to address questions about life, existence, truth, knowledge, and so much more. It is the first attempt to make sense of things we are constantly encountering. Through philosophy, we are able to produce breakthroughs in different aspects of human thinking.

Doing philosophy as many philosophers demonstrate over time and in the present is to simply question the understanding of what is known and not known or accepted and unaccepted. This is to say, that philosophers must question all aspects of life and all the surrounding dimensions of the world. In doing so, the philosopher is trying to grasp a firmer or different understanding of the truth that is either presently or not presently known; whether comforting or not comforting. One of the world’s most famous and original philosophers Socrates, had a student named Plato who explains this very concept of philosophy in the “Allegory of the Cave” when describing what it would be like for the newly free prisoner to realize the actual true reality in which the prisoner lives in. “[The prisoner would] be pained and dazzled and unable to see whose shadows [the prisoner had] seen before”, but the prisoner would now see reality more clearly than previously seen before. (Plato) Though the prisoner’s revelation seems to be uncomforting, Plato follows this newly sorrowful seen reality by asserting that the prisoner’s next steps in continuing would be to “see the sun, not images of it in water or some alien place, but the sun itself, in its own place, and be able to study it.” (Plato) The prisoner could now expand on this new realization of reality and allow this new view to further carry the prisoner to future and further understandings of reality and its