|
Philosophy has almost as many definitions as there have been philosophers, both as a subject matter and an activity, and no simple definition can do it justice. The issue of the definition of philosophy is thus a controversial subject that is nowadays tackled by Metaphilosophy (or the philosophy of philosophy). The word is derived from the ancient Greek words philo-, to love or to befriend, and -sophia, wisdom. Modern usage of the term is much broader; the concept of philosophy encompasses all of knowledge and all that can be known, including the means by which such knowledge can be acquired. However, in the contemporary English-speaking academic world, the term is often used implicitly to refer to analytic philosophy and, in non-English speaking countries, it often refers implicitly to a different, European strain, continental philosophy.
The ancient Greeks organized the subject into five basic categories: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics. This organization of the subject is still largely in use in Western philosophy today.
RELATED PORTALS:
|
| editBranches of Philosophy |
Philosophy ponders the most fundamental questions humankind has been able to ask. These are increasingly numerous and over time they have been arranged into the overlapping branches of the philosophy tree:
- Logic: What makes a good argument? How can I think critically about complicated arguments? What makes for good thinking? When can I say that something just does not make sense? Where is the origin of logic?
- Epistemology: What are the nature and limits of knowledge? What is more fundamental to human existence, knowing (epistemology) or being (ontology)? How do we come to know what we know? What are the limits and scope of knowledge? How can we know that there are other minds (if we can)? How can we know that there is an external world (if we can)? How can we prove our answers? What is a true statement?
- Metaphysics: What sorts of things exist? What is the nature of those things? Do some things exist independently of our perception? What is the nature of space and time? What is the relationship of the mind to the body? What is it to be a person? What is it to be conscious? Does God exist?
- Ethics: Is there a difference between ethically right and wrong actions (or values, or institutions)? If so, what is that difference? Which actions are right, and which wrong? Do divine commands make right acts right, or is their rightness based on something else? Are there standards of rightness that are absolute, or are all such standards relative to particular cultures? How should I live? What is happiness?
- Aesthetics: What is art? What is beauty? Is there a standard of taste? Is art meaningful? If so, what does it mean? What is good art? Is art for the purpose of an end, or is "art for art's sake?" What connects us to art? How does art affect us? Is some art unethical? Can art corrupt or elevate societies?
- Philosophy of Language: How are sentences composed into a meaningful whole, and what are the meanings of the parts of sentences? What is the nature of meaning? (What exactly is a meaning?) What do we do with language? How do we use it socially? (What is the purpose of language?) How does language relate to the mind, both of the speaker and the interpreter? How does language relate to the world? (Courtesy of the Philosophy of Language wikipedia page)
- Political philosophy: Are political institutions and their exercise of power justified? What is justice? Is there a 'proper' role and scope of government? Is democracy the best form of governance? Is governance ethically justifiable? Should a state be allowed? Should a state be able to promote the norms and values of a certain moral or religious doctrine? Are states allowed to go to war? Do states have duties against inhabitants of other states?
|
|
| editSelected Philosopher |
|
Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 Trier, Germany – March 14, 1883 London) was an immensely influential German philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary organizer of the International Workingmen's Association. While Marx addressed a wide range of issues, he is most famous for his analysis of history in terms of class struggles, summed up in the opening line of the introduction to the Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle."
Marx's thought was strongly influenced by:
Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically and discern tendencies of history and the resulting outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx concluded, therefore, that a communist revolution is inevitable. However, Marx famously asserted in the eleventh of his Theses on Feuerbach that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it", and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world. Consequently, most followers of Marx are not fatalists, but activists who believe that revolutionaries must organize social change.
|
|
| editWestern philosophical schools of thought |
| Agnosticism - Alexandrian school - Analytic philosophy - Anarchism - Atheism - Cambridge Platonists -Capitalism - Cartesian doubt - Christian philosophy - Coherentism - Consequentialism - Contextualism - Contractualism - Continental philosophy - Communism - Critical theory - Cynics - Deconstructionism - Deep Ecology - Deism - Deontology - Egoism - ecosophy - Empiricism - Epicureanism - Ethical egoism - Existentialism - Extropianism - Foundationalism - Frankfurt School - Hegelianism - Hermeneutics - Humanism - Idealism - Integral theory - Islamic philosophy - Jewish philosophy - Liberalism - Logical positivism - Marxist philosophy - Materialism - Modernism - Mysticism - Neoplatonism - Nihilism - Objectivism - Phenomenalism - Phenomenology - Postmodernism - Pragmatism - Psychological egoism - Rationalism - Realism - Relativism - Reliabilism - Platonism - Scholasticism - School of Brentano - Scotism - Situated ethics - Situational ethics - Skepticism - Solipsism - Sophism - Spiritism - Stoicism - Theology - Transcendentalism - Theism - Thomism - Transhumanism - Utilitarianism - Young Hegelians - Verificationism - Vienna Circle - Virtue ethics - Western philosophy |
|
| editEastern and other philosophical schools of thought |
| African philosophy - Ayyavazhi - Buddhism - Confucianism - Eastern philosophy - Ethiopian philosophy - Hinduism - Jainism - Karma - Legalism - Maoism - Shinto - Islamic philosophy - Sufism - Taoism - Kyoto School - Baul - Zoroastrianism |
|
| editReference links |
|
|
|
| editThings you can do |
WikiProject Philosophy task list
- German Idealism and almost all the articles related to it need to be either rewritten or expanded, because a wikipedia user called Lestrade has, among other things, taken it upon himself to imbue each page with bias in favour of Schopenhauer, who he attempts to present as having the last say in everything. This is a terrible thing to do, because German Idealism is such an important period in philosophy, whose influence is still strongly felt today.
- Protected Values first section confuses right action and values and needs a copy edit, moving and wikifying
- Ludwig Wittgenstein is having its FA status reviewed due to a couple of concerns. Help save Ludwig! See Wikipedia:Featured article review/Ludwig Wittgenstein for requirements for retaining FA status.
- Quality (philosophy) needs a more clear explanation.
- Socratic dialogues could do with some tidying and clarification. See the talk page for one suggested change.
- Problem of universals: The introductory definition is (perhaps) fixed. But, the article is poor. Check out the German version.
- Teleology: the article is shallow and inconsistent.
- Existentialism: the quality of this article varies wildly and is in desperate need of expert attention.
- Star of Sophia Vote for or nominate someone you think is deserving!
- Analytic_philosophy This is a very major topic, but still has several sections which are stubs, and several topics which are not covered.
- Inverse (logic) This article makes me wish that there were a fail grade on the quality scale. Someone should rewrite it.
Vote | Larry's Text | stubs | edit this list | discuss these tasks | Category:Philosophy | Portal:Philosophy | RFC | Deletion | Requested articles | Noticeboard | Discussion
|
|
|
| editGeneral topics of Philosophy |
- Philosophy - main article on Philosophy, leads to many others.
|
|
| editDid you know... |
- ...that Francisco de Vitoria, a Spanish Renaissance Roman Catholic theologian, was the founder of the tradition in philosophy known as the School of Salamanca?
- ...that a 2001 discovery of lost manuscripts by Spanish philosopher and writer Ramon Llull showed that he had indeed discovered the Borda count and Condorcet criterion, and as a result he has been called the father of computation theory?
- ...that although the paradox, Buridan's ass, is named after French priest Jean Buridan, it had already been previously stated in De Caelo by Aristotle?
- ...that besides being a philosopher, Gottfried Leibniz was an engineer, lawyer, philologist, sinophile, and a famed mathematician who invented calculus?
|
|
| editSelected Philosophy article |
| Kalam (علم الكلم)is one of the 'religious sciences' of Islam. In Arabic the word means "discussion", and refers to the Islamic tradition of seeking theological principles through dialectic. A scholar of kalam is referred to as a mutakallam (Muslim theologian; plural mutakallamin).
The original scholars of kalam were recruited by Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (d. 873) for the House of Wisdom under the Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad. They collected, translated, and synthesised everything that the genius of other cultures had accumulated before undertaking to augment and expand it. From their translations of Greek, Iranian, and Indian works they formed the basis of Muslim falsafa (philosophy) in the 9th and 10th centuries.
|
|
| editFields of Philosophy |
|
|
|
| editLists of philosophical topics |
|
|
|
| editMiscellaneous |
|
|
|
| editPhilosophy WikiProjects |
|
|
|
|
