DOING PHILOSOPHY

OBJECTIVES

1. To reflect on the meaning of philosophy.

2. To define philosophy and its significance to language instruction
3. To develop critical thinking.

RELATED LEARNING EXPERIENCE

(Brain Storming) The Teacher solicits from students their answer on What Philosophy
Is? The teacher writes on the board students’ answer. To process students’ answer,
the teacher begins his lecture on the meaning and relevance of philosophy in
language instruction.

WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

At its simplest, philosophy (from the Greek , meaning the love of wisdom) is
the study of knowledge, or "thinking about thinking", although the breadth of what it
covers is perhaps best illustrated by a selection of other alternative definitions:

 the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what
sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what
counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct
principles of reasoning (logic) (Wikipedia)
 investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or
values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods (American
Heritage Dictionary)
 the study of the ultimate nature of existence, reality, knowledge and goodness,
as discoverable by human reasoning (Penguin English Dictionary)
 the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and
ethics(WordNet)
 the search for knowledge and truth, especially about the nature of man and his
behaviour and beliefs (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary)
 the rational and critical inquiry into basic principles (Microsoft Encarta
Encyclopedia)
 the study of the most general and abstract features of the world and
categories with which we think: mind, matter, reason, proof, truth, etc.(Oxford
Dictionary of Philosophy)
 careful thought about the fundamental nature of the world, the grounds for
human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct (The Philosophy
Pages)

As used originally by the ancient Greeks, the term "philosophy" meant the pursuit
of knowledge for its own sake, and comprised All areas of speculative thought,
including the arts, sciences and religion.
Philosophical questions (unlike those of the sciences) are usually foundational
and abstract in nature. Philosophy is done primarily through reflection and does not
tend to rely on experiment, although the methods used to study it may be
analogous to those used in the study of the natural sciences.

In common usage, it sometimes carries the sense of unproductive or frivolous

musings, but over the centuries it has produced some of the most important
original thought, and its contribution to politics, sociology, mathematics, science
and literature has been inestimable. Although the study of philosophy may not yield
"the meaning of life, the universe and everything", many philosophers believe that it
is important that each of us examines such questions and even that an unexamined
life is not worth at it is important that each of us examines such questions and even
that an unexamined life is not worth living. It also provides a good way of learning
to think more clearly about a wide range of issues, and its methods of analyzing
arguments can be useful in a variety of situations in other areas of life.

Philosophy is such a huge subject that it is difficult to know how to break it down
into manageable and logical sections. Perhaps the most basic overall split at the
highest level is geographical, between Eastern Philosophy and Western Philosophy
(with, arguably, African Philosophy as a possible third branch).
Philosophy can be divided into five branches which address the following
questions:

Metaphysics Study of existence What's out there?

Epistemology Study of How do I know
Knowledge about it?
Ethics Study of Action What should I do?
Politics Study of Force What actions are
permissible?
Aesthetics Study of Art What can life be
like?

At the root is Metaphysics, the study of existence and the nature of existence.
Closely related is Epistemology, the study of knowledge and how we know about
reality and existence. Dependent on Epistemology is Ethics, the study of how man
should act. Ethics is dependent on Epistemology because it is impossible to make
choices without knowledge. A subset of Ethics is Politics: the study of how men
should interact in a proper society and what constitutes proper. Aesthetics, the
study of art and sense of life is slightly separate, but
depends on Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of existence,
being and the world. Arguably, metaphysics is the foundation of philosophy: Aristotle
calls it "first philosophy" (or sometimes just "wisdom"), and says it is the subject that
deals with "first causes and the principles of things".
It asks questions like: "What is the nature of reality?", "How does the world exist, and
what is its origin or source of creation?", "Does the world exist outside the mind?",
"How can the incorporeal mind affect the physical body?", "If things exist, what is
their objective nature?, "Is there a God or many gods, or no god at all)?"
Originally, the Greek word "metaphysika" (literally "after physics") merely indicated
that part of Aristotle's oeuvre which came, in its sequence, after those chapters
which dealt with physics.
Later, it was misinterpreted by Medieval commentators on the classical texts as that
which is above or beyond the physical, and so over time metaphysics has effectively
become the study of that which transcends physics.
Aritstotle originally split his metaphysics into three main sections and these remain
the main branches of metaphysics:
Ontology (the study of being and existence, including the definition and classification
of entities, physical or mental, the nature of their properties, and the nature of
change)
Natural Theology (the study of God, including the nature of religion and the world,
existence of the divine, questions about the creation, and the various other religious
or spiritual issues)
Universal Science (the study of first principles of logic and reasoning, such as the law
of non contradiction)
Metaphysics has been attacked, at different times in history, as being futile and
overly vague, particularly by David Hume, Immanuel Kant and A.J. Ayer. It may
be more useful to say that a metaphysical statement usually implies an idea
about the world or the universe, which may seem reasonable but is ultimately
not empirically verifiable, testable or
provable.
Existence and Consciousness
Existence (the fact or state of continued being) is axiomatic (meaning that it does not rest
upon anything in order to be valid, and it cannot be proven by any "more basic" premises)
because it is necessary for all knowledge and it cannot be denied without conceding its truth
(a denial of something is only possible if existence exists). "Existence exists" is therefore an
axiom which states that there is something, as opposed to nothing.
Consciousness is the faculty which perceives and identifies things that exist. In his famous
formulation "Cogito ergo sum" ("I think therefore I am"), Rene Descartes argued that
consciousness is axiomatic, because you cannot logically deny your mind's existence at
the same time as using your mind to do the denying.
However, what Descartes did not make clear is that consciousness is the faculty that
perceives that which exists, so it requires something outside of itself in order to function:
it requires, and is dependent upon, existence. The primacy of existence states that
existence is primary and consciousness is secondary, because there can be no
consciousness without something existing to perceive. Existence is independent of, makes
possible, and is a prerequisite of consciousness. Consciousness is not responsible for
creating reality: it is completely dependent upon reality.
Mind and Matter
Early debates on the nature of matter centered on identifying a single underlying principle
(Monism): water was claimed by Thales, air by Anaximenes, Apeiron (meaning "the
undefined infinite") by Anaximander, and fire by Heraclitus. Democritus conceived an
atomic theory (Atomism) many centuries before it was accepted by modern science.
The nature of the mind and its relation to the body has also exercised the best brains for
millennia. There is a large overlap here with Philosophy of Mind, which is is the branch of
philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental
properties and consciousness, and their relationship to the physical body.
In the 17th Century, Descartes proposed a Dualist solution called Substance Dualism
(or Cartesian Dualism) whereby the mind and body are totally separate and different: the
mental does not have extension in space, and the material cannot think.
Idealists, like Bishop George Berkeley and the German Idealist school, claim that material
objects do not exist unless perceived (Idealism is essentially a Monist, rather than Dualist,
theory in that there is a single universal substance or principle).
Baruch Spinoza and Bertrand Russell both adopted, in different ways, a dual-aspect theory
called Neutral Monism, which claims that existence consists of a single substance which in
itself is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects or
attributes.

In the last century, science (particularly atomic theory, evolution, computer technology and
neuroscience) has demonstrated many ways in which mind and brain interact in a physical
way, but the exact nature of the relationship is still open to debate. The dominant
metaphysic in the 20th Century has therefore been various versions of Physicalism
(or Materialism), a Monist solution which explains matter and mind as merely aspects of
each other, or derivatives of a neutral substance.
Objects and their Properties
The world contains many individual things (objects or particulars), both physical and
abstract, and what these things have in common with each other are called universals or
properties. Metaphysicians are interested in the nature of objects and their properties, and
the relationship between the two (see the sections on Realism and Nominalism).
The problem of universals arises when people start to consider in what sense it is possible
for a property to exist in more than one place at the same time (e.g. a red car and
a red rose). It seems clear that there are many red things, for example, but is there an
existing property of 'redness'? And if there is such a thing as 'redness', what kind of
thing is it? See the section on Realism for a further discussion of this.
Any object or entity is the sum of its parts (see Holism). The identity of an entity composed
of other entities can be explained by reference to the identity of the building blocks, and how
they are interacting. A house can be explained by reference to the wood, metal, and glass
that are combined in that particular way to form the house; or it could be explained in terms
of the atoms that form it (see the sections on Atomism and Reductionism).
Identity and Change
Identity is whatever makes an entity definable and recognizable, in terms of possessing a
set of qualities or characteristics that distinguish it from entities of a different type (effectively,
whatever makes something the same or different). Thus, according to Leibniz, if some object x
is identical to some object y, then any property that x has, y will have as well, and vice versa
(otherwise, by definition, they would not be identical).
Aristotle's Law of Identity (or the Axiom of Identity) states that to exist, an existent (i.e. an
entity that exists) must have a particular identity. A thing cannot exist without existing as
something, otherwise it would be nothing and it would not exist. Also, to have an identity
means to have a single identity: an object cannot have two identities at the same time or in
the same respect. The concept of identity is important because it makes explicit that reality has
a definite nature, which makes it knowable and, since it exists in a particular way, it has no
contradictions (when two ideas each make the other impossible).
Change is the alteration of identities, whether it be a stone falling to earth or a log burning
to ash. For something to change (which is an effect), it needs to be acted on (caused) by a
previous action. Causality is the law that states that each cause has a specific effect, and
that this effect is dependent on the initial identities of the agents involved.
We are intuitively aware of change occurring over time (e.g. a tree loses a leaf). The Ancient
Greeks took some extreme positions on the nature of change: Parmenides denied that
change occurs at all, while Heraclitus thought change was ubiquitous.
Currently there are three main theories which deal with the problem of change:
Mereological Essentialism assumes that an object's parts are essential to it, and therefore
that an object cannot persist through any change of its parts.
Perdurantism holds that objects are effectively 4-dimensional entities made up of a series of
temporal parts like the frames of a movie (it treats the tree, then, as a series of tree-stages).
Endurantism, on the other hand, holds that a whole object - and the same object - exists at
each moment of its history, (so that the same tree persists regardless of how many leaves
it loses).
Space and Time
A traditional Realist position is that time and space have existence independent from the
human mind. Idealists, however, claim that space and time are mental constructs used
to organize perceptions, or are otherwise unreal.
Descartes and Leibniz believed that, without physical objects, "space" would be
meaningless because space is the framework upon which we understand how physical
objects are related to each other. Sir Isaac Newton, on the other hand, argued for an
absolute space ("container space"), which can continue to exist in the absence of
matter. With the wor of Sir Albert Einstein, the pendulum swung back to relational
space in which space is composed of relations between objects, with the implication that it
cannot exist in the absence of matter.
Although Parmenides denied the flow of time completely in ancient times, echoed more
recently by the British Idealist J.M.E. McTaggart (1866 - 1925), much debate in both
philosophy and physics has centred on the direction of time ("time's arrow"), and
whether it is reversible or symmetrical. As for whether objects persist over time, then
the endurantism / perdurantism dichotomy described above applies.
Religion and Spirituality
Theology is the study of God and the nature of the Divine. This is sometimes considered
a whole separate branch of philosophy, the Philosophy of Religion. It asks questions like:
Does the Divine intervene directly in the world (Theism), or is its sole function to be the
first cause of the universe (Deism)?
Is there one God (Monotheism), many gods (Polytheism) or no gods (Atheism or
Humanism), or is it impossible to know (Agnosticism)?
Are God and the universe identical (Pantheism, Monism) or are they different
(Panentheism, Dualism)?
Does religious belief depends on faith and revelation (Fideism), or on reason (Deism)?
Within Western Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion, and theology in general, reached it
peak with Medieval Christian schools of thought like Scholasticism.
Necessity and Possibility
A necessary fact is true across all possible worlds (that is, we could not imagine it to be
otherwise). A possible fact is one that is true in some possible world, even if not in the
actual world. This idea of possible worlds was first introduced by Gottfried Leibniz,
although others have dealt with it in much more detail since, notably the American analytic
philosopher David Lewis (1941 - 2001) in his theory of Modal Realism.
The concept of necessity and contingency (another term used in philosophy to describe
the possibility of something happening or not happening) is also central to some of the
arguments used to justify the existence or non-existence of God, notably the
Cosmological Argument from Contingency
Abstract Objects and Mathematics
some philosophers hold that there are abstract objects (such as numbers, mathematical
objects and fictional entities) and universals (properties that can be possessed by
multiple objects, such as "redness" or "squareness"), both of which which are outside
of space and time and/or are causally inert.
Realism, best exemplified by Plato and his Platonic Forms, teaches that universals really
exist, independently and somehow prior to the world.
On the other hand, (Nominalism), holds that there is really no such thing as abstract
objects, which really exist only as names, because a single object cannot exist in multiple
places simultaneously.
Moderate Realism, as espoused by Aristotle among others, tries to find some middle
ground between Nominalism and Realism, and holds that there is no realm as such in
which universals exist, but rather they are located in space and time wherever they
happen to be manifest. Conceptualism, the doctrine that universals exist only within
the mind and have no external or substantial reality, is also an intermediate solution.
Other positions such as Formalism and Fictionalism do not attribute any existence to
mathematical entities, and are anti-Realist.
The Philosophy of Mathematics overlaps with metaphysics in this area.

Determinism and Free Will

Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition,
decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences.
Thus, there is at any instant only one physically possible future, and no random,
spontaneous, mysterious or miraculous events ever occur.
This posits that there is no such thing as Free Will, where rational agents can exercise
control over their own actions and decisions. Incompatibilists (or Hard Determinists)
like Baruch Spinoza, view determinism and free will as mutually exclusive. Others,
labelled Compatibilists (or Soft Determinists), like Thomas Hobbes, believe that the
two ideas can be coherently reconciled.
It should be noted that Determinism does not necessarily mean that humanity or
individual humans have no influence on the future (that is known as Fatalism), just that
the level to which human beings have influence over their future is itself dependent
on present and past.
Cosmology and Cosmogony

Cosmology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all
phenomena in space and time. Historically, it was often founded in religion; in modern
use it addresses questions about the world and the universe which are beyond the
scope of physical science. Cosmogony deals specifically with the origin of the universe,
but the two concepts are closely related.
Pantheists, such as Spinoza, believe that God and the universe are one and the same.
Panentheists, such as Plotinus, believe that the entire universe is part of God, but that
God is greater than the universe. Deists, such as Voltaire, believe that God created
the universe, set everything in motion, and then had nothing more to do with it.

Major Doctrines
Under the heading of Metaphysics, the major doctrines or theories include:
Agnosticism Nihilism
Atheism Objectivism
Atomism Panentheism
Deism Pantheism
Determinism Phenomenology
Dualism Physicalism
Essentialism Pluralism
Existentialism Polytheism
Fideism Realism
Idealism Reductionism
Intellectualism Relativism
Materialism Solipsism
Monism Subjectivism
Monotheism Theism
Naturalism Voluntarism
Nominalism
EPISTEMOLOGY

Epistemology is the study of the nature and scope of knowledge and justified belief.
It analyzes the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth,
belief and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as
well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. It is essentially about issues having
to do with the creation and dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry.

Epistemology asks questions like: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?",

"What do people know?", "What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge?",
"What is its structure, and what are its limits?", "What makes justified beliefs justified?",
"How we are to understand the concept of justification?", "Is justification internal or external

to one's own mind?"

The kind of knowledge usually discussed in Epistemology is propositional knowledge,
"knowledge-that" as opposed to "knowledge-how" (for example, the knowledge that
"2 + 2 = 4", as opposed to the knowledge of how to go about adding two numbers).

What Is Knowledge?

Knowledge is the awareness and understanding of particular aspects of reality. It is the

clear, lucid information gained through the process of reason applied to reality. The
traditional approach is that knowledge requires three necessary and sufficient conditions
, so that knowledge can then be defined as "justified true belief":

 truth: since false propositions cannot be known - for something to count as

knowledge, it must actually be true. As Aristotle famously (but rather confusingly)
expressed it: "To say of something which is that it is not, or to say of something
which is not that it is, is false. However, to say of something which is that it is, or
of something which is not that it is not, is true."
 belief: because one cannot know something that one doesn't even believe in,
the statement "I know x, but I don't believe that x is true" is contradictory.
 justification: as opposed to believing in something purely as a matter of luck.

 The most contentious part of all this is the definition of justification, and there
are several schools of thought on the subject: Accordin to Evidentialism, what
makes a belief justified in this sense is the possession of evidence - a belief is
justified to the extent that it fits a person's evidence.
 Different varieties of Reliabilism suggest that either: 1) justification is not
necessary for knowledge provided it is a reliably-produced true belief; or
2) justification is required but any reliable cognitive process (e.g. vision) is
sufficient justification.
 Yet another school, Infallibilism, holds that a belief must not only be true and
justified, but that the justification of the belief must necessitate its truth, so that
the justification for the belief must be infallible.

Another debate focuses on whether justification is external or internal:

 Externalism holds that factors deemed "external" (meaning outside of the

psychological states of those who are gaining the knowledge) can be conditions
of knowledge, so that if the relevant facts justifying a proposition are external then
they are acceptable.
 Internalism, on the other hand, claims that all knowledge-yielding conditions are
within the psychological states of those who gain knowledge.

 As recently as 1963, the American philosopher Edmund Gettier called this traditional
theory of knowledge into question by claiming that there are certain circumstances in
 which one does not have knowledge, even when all of the above conditions are
met (his Gettier-cases). For example: Suppose that the clock on campus (which
keeps accurate time and is well maintained) stopped working at 11:56pm last night,
and has yet to be repaired. On my way to my noon class, exactly twelve hours later

I glance at the clock and form the belief that the time is 11:56. My belief is true,
of course, since the time is indeed 11:56. And my belief is justified, as I have no
reason to doubt that the clock is working, and I cannot be blamed for basing beliefs
about the time on what the clock says. Nonetheless, it seems evident that I do not
know that the time is 11:56. After all, if I had walked past the clock a bit earlier or
a bit later, I would have ended up with a false belief rather than a true one.

How Is Knowledge Acquired?

Propositional knowledge can be of two types, depending on its source:

 a priori (or non-empirical), where knowledge is possible independently of, or

prior to, any experience, and requires only the use of reason (e.g. knowledge of
logical truths and of abstract claims); or
 a posteriori (or empirical), where knowledge is possible only subsequent,
or posterior, to certain sense experiences, in addition to the use of reason
(e.g. knowledge of the colour or shape of a physical object, or knowledge
of geographical locations).

Knowledge of empirical facts about the physical world will necessarily involve perception,
in other words, the use of the senses. But all knowledge requires some amount of
reasoning, the analysis of data and the drawing of inferences. Intuition is often believed
to be a sort of direct access to knowledge of the a priori.

Memory allows us to know something that we knew in the past, even, perhaps, if we no
longer remember the original justification. Knowledge can also be transmitted from one
individual to another via testimony (that is, my justification for a particular belief could
amount to the fact that some trusted source has told me that it is true).

There are a few main theories of knowledge acquisition:

 Empiricism, which emphasizes the role of experience, especially experience

based on perceptual observations by the five senses in the formation of ideas,
while discounting the notion of innate ideas. Refinements of this basic principle led
to Phenomenalism, Positivism, Scientism and Logical Positivism.
 Rationalism, which holds that knowledge is not derived from experience, but
rather is acquired by a priori processes or is innate (in the form of concepts)
or intuitive.
 Representationalism (or Indirect Realism or Epistemological Dualism), which
holds that the world we see in conscious experience is not the real world itself,
but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal
representation.
  Constructivism (or Constructionism), which presupposes that all knowledge
is "constructed", in that it is contingent on convention, human perception
social experience.

What Can People Know?

The fact that any given justification of knowledge will itself depend on another belief for
its justification appears to lead to an infinite regress.

Skepticism begins with the apparent impossibility of completing this infinite chain of
reasoning, and argues that, ultimately, no beliefs are justified and therefore no one
really knows anything.

Fallibilism also claims that absolute certainty about knowledge is impossible, or at

least that all claims to knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken. Unlike Skepticism,
however, Fallibilism does not imply the need to abandon our knowledge, just to
recognize that, because empirical knowledge can be revised by further
observation, any of the things we take as knowledge might possibly turn out to be false.

In response to this regress problem, various schools of thought have arisen:

 Foundationalism claims that some beliefs that support other beliefs are
foundational and do not themselves require justification by other beliefs
(self-justifying or infallible beliefs or those based on perception or certain a priori
considerations).
 Instrumentalism is the methodological view that concepts and theories are
merely useful instruments, and their worth is measured by how effective they
are in explaining and predicting phenomena. Instrumentalism therefore denies
that theories are truth-evaluable. Pragmatism is a similar concept, which holds
that something is true only insofar as it works and has practical consequences.
 Infinitism typically takes the infinite series to be merely potential, and an individual
need only have the ability to bring forth the relevant reasons when the need arises.
Therefore, unlike most traditional theories of justification, Infinitism considers an
infinite regress to be a valid justification.
 Coherentism holds that an individual belief is justified circularly by the way it fits
together (coheres) with the rest of the belief system of which it is a part, so that
the regress does not proceed according to a pattern of linear justification.

Foundherentism is another position which is meant to be a unification of foundationalism

and coherentism.

Major Doctrines

Under the heading of Epistemology, the major doctrines or theories include:

Constructivism Logical Positivism (Logical Empiricism)
Deconstructionism Ordinary Language Philosophy
Empiricism Phenomenalism
Externalism Positivism
Fallibilism Pragmatism
Foundationalism Rationalism
Historicism Representationalism
Holism Scientism
Internalism Skepticism
Instrumentalism Verificationism

Ethics
What is Ethics?

Ethics is the branch of study dealing with what is the proper course of action
for man. It answers the question, "What do I do?" It is the study of right and
wrong in human endeavors. At a more fundamental level, it is the method by
which we categorize our values and pursue them. Do we pursue our own
happiness, or do we sacrifice ourselves to a greater cause? Is that foundation
of ethics based on the Bible, or on the very nature of man himself, or neither?
Why is Ethics important?
Ethics is a requirement for human life. It is our means of deciding a course of
action. Without it, our actions would be random and aimless. There would be
no way to work towards a goal because there would be no way to pick
between a limitless number of goals. Even with an ethical standard, we may
be unable to pursue our goals with the possibility of success. To the degree
which a rational ethical standard is taken, we are able to correctly organize
our goals and actions to accomplish our most important values. Any flaw in
our ethics will reduce our ability to be successful in our endeavors.
What are the key elements of a proper Ethics?
A proper foundation of ethics requires a standard of value to which all goals
and actions can be compared to. This standard is our own lives, and the
happiness which makes them livable. This is our ultimate standard of value,
the goal in which an ethical man must always aim. It is arrived at by an
examination of man's nature, and recognizing his peculiar needs. A system of
ethics must further consist of not only emergency situations, but the day to
day choices we make constantly. It must include our relations to others, and
recognize their importance not only to our physical survival, but to our well-
being and happiness. It must recognize that our lives are an end in
themselves, and that sacrifice is not only not necessary, but destructive.

Basics
Life as the Moral Standard
Morality is a Guide to Living
Reason is Man's Means of Survival
Values
Virtue
Self-Interest
Harmony of Interests
Specifics
Self Reliance / Independence
Productiveness
Integrity
Honesty
Pride
Justice
Benevolence
Rationality
Technicalities
Metaphysical Justice
Free Will
Courage
Trader Principle

Aesthetics (Esthetics)
What is AESTHETICS (Esthetics)?
Esthetics is the study of art. It includes what art consists of, as well as the
purpose behind it. Does art consist of music, literature, and painting? Or does
it include a good engineering solution, or a beautiful sunset? These are the
questions that aimed at in esthetics. It also studies methods of evaluating art,
and allows judgments of the art. Is art in the eye of the beholder? Does
anything that appeals to you fit under the umbrella of art? Or does it have a
specific nature? Does it accomplish a goal?
Why is Esthetics important?
Art has existed through all of recorded human history. It is unique to humans
because of our unique form of thinking. Its importance is based on this nature,
specifically, man's ability to abstract. Art is a little understood tool of man to
bring meaning to abstract concept. Esthetics is important because it delves
into the reason why art has always existed, the burning need of mankind
through the ages to see the world in a different, clear way. It further evaluates
art by the standard of human life, and whether it accomplishes the job of
satisfying man's intellectual needs, or whether it tends to hurt or make worse
those needs.
What are the key elements of a proper Esthetics?
Art is a selective recreation of reality. Its purpose is to concretize an
abstraction to bring an idea or emotion within the grasp of the observer. It is a
selective recreation, with the selection process depending on the value
judgments of the creator. These value judgments can be observed and
evaluated via the field of ethics.
Basics
Man's need for art.
Art
Sense Of Life
Specifics
Literature
Painting
Sculpture
Music
Technicalities
Drama
Dance
Song

STUDENT ACTIVITY:
Define and explain the following: Philosophy, Metaphysics, Epistemology,
Ethics, Politics, Aesthetics.