An Invitation to Philosophy

Questioning the Fundamentals We Normally Take For Granted

The story of philosophy began in wonder. From the shores of the scattered Greek isles to the great
masses of lands in the orient, philosophy made its presence felt first among people who tried to figure
out an entirely novel and non-traditional channel in understanding particularly the origin and the
underlying principle of everything that is. This burning desire for a different approach to understanding
things was further fanned by an indifferent and unenlightened crowd who willingly and blindly accept
things as they appear or were presented to them and not so much as they really are.

Then Socrates, the first installment of the triumvirate of great thinkers of the ancients, put some
practical significance to philosophy by trying to investigate on the affairs of men. Bringing philosophy
‘down from the heavens’, he shifted the focus of the study from the external world around to man’s
inner life. This he did by shaking the Athenians off their whims and caprices sometimes in a disturbingly
‘gadfly-like’ manner. For preaching about what many years after his time turned out to be the truth,
Socrates was persecuted.

From where his master left off Plato picked up and wasted no time in doing so. He established the
fame and significance of philosophy writing voluminously about ideas, which bore influences that
reverberated into the modern world from politics to religion. Considered by many as the greatest
philosopher of all time, all other systems of thought that came after him were considered as mere
footnotes to his philosophies.

Aristotle laid down the foundation of all the other systems of knowledge through the craft that is
philosophy consequently earning it the reputation of being ‘the mother of all sciences.’ The scientific
dimension of philosophy was unveiled and proved a pivotal influence in succeeding ideas. Furthermore,
he made valuable contributions to the natural sciences, ethics, and politics and of course much more in
philosophy.

During the Middle Ages, philosophy found a very unlikely ally in theology or a staunch nemesis. The
church controlled politics and thought during the mediaeval and churchmen monopolized knowledge
and wisdom thereby pushing them in the frontlines in rational thinking. Doctors and Scholars of the
church like St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo embarked on the task of reconciling faith and
reason and came out with rationally remarkable conclusions. However, not everybody is convinced.
 The modern period saw the reasserting of philosophy as an entity independent from the influence of
the church. From a theo-centric approach, lovers of wisdom had their sights trained on the individual
‘consciousness’, in other words, man. Descartes inaugurated this revolution with his rationalist school
of thought and most future philosophies progressed along that line of influence either as an expansion
of Descartes’ thought system or a reaction against it. His famous ‘Cogito Ergo Sum’ remain among the
most often quoted phrases in the history of ideas.

The contemporary period was a time of confusion and turbulence defined by revolutions
unprecedented in the annals of history either political or economic. Various schools of thought in
philosophy emerged from the revolutionary theories of Marx, which at one point in our history served as
a bible to almost half of the world’s populations to the existentialist philosophies of Nietzsche which
continue to be adhered to in droves by individuals disgruntled with tradition and religion.

While thinkers continue to come and pass away their ideas remain well entrenched and deeply
embedded in the modern civilizations or in the lack of it and in the day to day affairs of individuals.
Admittedly, science has made strides by the gallops and bounds elevating humanity to greater heights.
But philosophy remained stuck in a quagmire of the same questions that have been asked since the time
of the pyramids or earlier. That is because these same queries continue to matter very much today.

Questions like “What is the ideal government?” or “What does it mean to be happy?” and maybe
perhaps “Where did we really come from?” are the very kind of questions that continue to have just as
much a bearing today as they did in the past.

But these same questions, their being fundamental notwithstanding, are likewise the same questions
that many of us still forget or chose not to ask ourselves about. Socrates warns that a life worthy of
living is that which is reflected upon, examined, otherwise we would just end up as the 21st century
counterparts of those that came before us who once believed or were made into accepting the position
that the earth was flat.

Meaning of Philosophy
Philosophy is derived from two Greek words philos and sophia which means respectively as love and
wisdom. Etymologically hence philosophy is the love or pursuit of wisdom, which include the search of
fundamental principles and aspects regarding our existence and experience. Philosophers therefore are
striving towards the basic understanding of whatever it is that exists, including ourselves. In addition,
they are trying to do this without making it a question of religious faith, or appealing to the say-so of an
authority. Many great philosophers have religious beliefs but as good philosophers, they do not support
their philosophical arguments with appeals to religion. A philosophical argument is one that carries its
own credentials with it, in the form of reasons: it asks you for your rational assent, not faith or
obedience. Philosophy tries to see how far reason alone will take us.

Since philosophers have an unwavering faith in the powers of reason, many of them believe that
being logical (read: makes sense) is a pre-requisite for something to exist or to be real. The modern
philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel argued that “The real is the rational and the rational is the
real.” Because of this premise, many philosophers dispute that God is not real because his existence is
not rationally sound. However, many great philosophers advanced the argument that either Logic can
prove the existence of the divine or that not all things that exist have to be logically explainable. The
consensus among philosophers now is that the existence of God cannot be proved. This is not, of
course, to say that he does not exist, but only that his existence is not something that can be rationally
demonstrated.

Many other definitions about philosophy were offered but for the purpose of uniformity, let us be
content with what is considered as among the more universally accepted definition of the subject: A
systematic study that investigates the ultimate causes of things known by the light of human reason
alone. One noteworthy contemporary thinker defined Philosophy as the ‘no man’s land’between
science and religion. Needless to say there is perennial friction between the generalizations of science
and the revelations of faith. Philosophy is sometimes antagonistic to both and sometimes blends
perfectly well with both systems. The Aristotelian tradition may serve as an appropriate mouthpiece to
the former and the latter could find a worthy spokesperson in Plato.

Philosophy is sometimes in the receiving end of accusations that it is an undertaking especially

reserved for those contemplating on cloud nine or ivory towers like the hermits of old. But basically
philosophy is about reflections on real-life experiences of man and the understanding of the world
around him. As such its themes are all-encompassing and unlimited covering topics from politics to
science to morality to love to the existence (or non-existence) of God to sports to economics, to
psychology and even to magic and mysticism. The list goes on ad infinitum.

Philosophers

What Others Say They Are:

Here is a collection of some famous quotes about philosophy and philosophers. There may be some
measure of truth to some of these passages while some of these quotes are mere results of a myopic
(read: short-sighted, narrow) understanding of the subject and its zealous followers.

Philosophers are like blind men in a dark room looking for a black cat.

Philosophers are like adults who persist on asking childish questions.

Philosophers don’t believe on things that they can see because they are too busy thinking about things
that they cannot see.

Philosophy is a route of many roads that comes from nothing and leads to nowhere.

It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth
men's minds about to religion.

All philosophy begins in doubt and wonder.

Thinkers ‘outside of the box’

Thinking outside the box (sometimes erroneously called “thinking out of the box” or "thinking outside
the square") is to think differently, unconventionally or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers
to novel or creative thinking.

This is sometimes called a process of lateral thought. The catchphrase, or cliché, has become widely
used in business environments, especially by management consultants and executive coaches, and has
spawned a number of advertising slogans. To think outside the box is to look further and to try not
thinking of the obvious things, but to try thinking beyond them.

Philosophers are thinkers outside of the box because they can see things others cannot see or things
that others refuse to see. When during the ancient times the Greeks would lose a war, the people
would attribute the debacle to the workings and machinations of the gods. When a ship capsized in the
course of her journey, it must have been because Poseidon (the Greek god of the seven seas) was
displeased or offended and consequently allowed or willed the tragedy to befall the unfortunate sailors.
Philosophers see it in another light. A war is lost because the soldiers are ill-equipped with weapons and
resources or because the military leaders are inept or corrupt. A ship capsized because the material it
was made of was not durable enough to withstand powerful storms or because the sailors are not
experienced sea-farers.

But it is a tragedy to know that because they spoke about the truth and preached against superstition,
philosophers were persecuted and judged differently. The most important example of this was the life
of Socrates and the discrimination he experienced simply because he questioned the very existence of
the established gods of ancient Greece (the Olympian family of gods and goddesses).

Philosophical Quotes

The unexamined life is not worth living.

—Socrates

Happiness is something final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end of all practical activities
whatever … Happiness then we define as the active exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect
goodness or virtue.

—Aristotle

Now laws are said to be just both from the end (when, namely, they are ordained to the common good),
from their author (… when the law does not exceed the power of the lawgiver), and from their form
(when, namely, burdens are laid on the subjects according to an equality of proportion).

—Saint Thoman Aquinas

There is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and
the mind is entirely indivisible.

—René Descartes
Love is pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause, and hatred pain accompanied by the
idea of an external cause.

—Spinoza

The effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it.

—David Hume

The very notion of what is called Matter or corporeal substance invloves a contradiction.

—George Berkeley

The understanding does not derive its laws (a priori) from, but prescribes them to, nature.

—Immanuel Kant

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community,
against his will, is to prevent harm to others.

—John Stuart Mill

There can be no difference anywhere that does not make a difference somewhere.

—William James

Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein
Fact is richer than diction.

—J. L. Austin

Existence precedes essence.

—Jean-Paul Sartre

Mythology vs Philosophy

Mythology provides supernatural explanations for the universe and creation.

"The basic theme of mythology is that the visible world is supported and sustained by an invisible
world." - Joseph Campbell

The early Greek, Pre-Socratic philosophers attempted to explain the world around them in more natural
terms. For example, instead of anthropomorphic creator gods, Anaxagoras thought the guiding principle
of the universe was nous 'mind'.

Such an explanation doesn't sound much like what we think of as philosophy, but the Pre-Socratics were
early philosophers, sometimes indistinguishable from natural scientists. Later philosophers turned to
other topics, like ethics and how to live. Even at the end of the Roman Republic, it would be fair to
characterize ancient philosophy as "ethics and physics" ["Roman Women," by Gillian Clark; Greece &
Rome, (Oct., 1981)].
Periods of Greek Philosophy:

The Greeks dominated philosophy for about a millennium. Jonathan Barnes, in Early Greek Philosophy,
divides the millennium into three parts:

The Pre-Socratics.

The period known for its schools, the Academy, Lyceum, Epicureans, Stoics and Skeptics.

The period of syncretism begins approximately 100 B.C. and ends in A.D. 529 when the Byzantine Roman
Emperor Justinian forbade the teaching of pagan philosophy.

Pre-Socratic Philosophy:

The first period begins with Thales’ prediction of a solar eclipse in 585 B.C. and ends in 400 B.C.
Philosophers of this period are called Pre-Socratic, somewhat misleadingly, since Socrates was a
contemporary. Others argue that the term "philosophy" inaccurately limits the sphere of interest of the
so-called Pre-Socratic philosophers.

Students of nature, the Pre-Socratics are credited with inventing philosophy, but they didn't work in a
vacuum. For instance, knowledge of the eclipse -- if not apocryphal -- may have come from contact with
Babylonian astronomers.

The early philosophers shared with their predecessors, the mythographers, an interest in the cosmos.
Parmenides was a philosopher from Elea who lived in the sixth century. He says that nothing comes into
being because then it would have come form nothing. Everything that is must always have been.
Here are some major differences in the outlook of the mythographers:

Myths are stories about persons.

Pre-Socratics looked for principles or other natural explanations.

Myths allow a multiplicity of explanations.

Pre-Socratics were looking for the single principle behind the cosmos.

Myths are conservative, slow to change.

To read what they wrote, you might think the aim of the Pre-Socratics was to knock down earlier theory.

Myths are self-justifying.

Myths are morally ambivalent.

-From "The Attributes of Mythic/Mythopoeic Thought"

Philosophers sought a rational order observable in the natural phenomena, where mythographers relied
on the supernatural.

Pre-Socratics Denied a Distinction Between Natural & Supernatural:

When Thales said "all things are full of gods," he wasn't so much singing the swansong of mythographers
or rationalizing myth as breaking new ground by, in Michael Grant's words, "... implicitly denying that
any distinction between natural and supernatural could be legitimately envisaged." The most significant
contributions of the Pre-Socratics were their rational, scientific approach and belief in a naturally
ordered world.

Philosophy vs. Science:

With the philosopher Aristotle, who valued evidence and observation, the distinction between
philosophy and empirical science began to appear. Following the death of Alexander the Great, kings
who controlled parts of his empire began to subsidize scholars who worked in areas like medicine that
would do them some good, while the philosophical schools of the Stoics, Cynics, and Epicureans were
not interested in empirical science. Michael Grant attributes the separation of science and philosophy to
Strato of Lampsacus (successor of Aristotle's successor), who shifted the focus of the Lyceum from logic
to experiment.
Science vs Philosophy

1.Philosophy and science are two studies and domains. Philosophy came first and became the basis for
science, formerly known as natural philosophy. Both studies have many branches or fields of study and
make use reasoning, questioning, and analysis. The main difference is in the way they work and treat
knowledge.

2.Another common element between the two studies is that they both try to explain situations and find
answers. Philosophy does this by using logical argumentation, while science utilizes empirical data.
Philosophy’s explanations are grounded in arguments of principles, while science tries to explain based
on experiment results, observable facts and objective evidence.

3.Science is used for instances that require empirical validation, while philosophy is used for situations
where measurements and observations cannot be applied. Science also takes answers and proves them
as objectively right or wrong.

4.Subjective and objective questions are involved in philosophy, while only some objective questions can
be related in science. Aside from finding answers, philosophy also involves generating questions.
Meanwhile, science is only concerned with the latter.

5.Philosophy creates knowledge through thinking; science does the same by observing.

Pre-Socratics May Have Been Rational Without Being Right:

As Barnes points out, just because the Pre-Socratics were rational, and presented supportive arguments,
doesn't mean they were right. They couldn't possibly all be right, anyway, since much of their writing
consists in pointing out inconsistencies of their predecessors' paradigms.