Chapter 1: Introduction

Philosophy

Department of Civics and Ethical Studies

Mettu University
May, 2022
Mr. Gadisa M.
 Meaning and Nature of Philosophy
 It is the study of general and fundamental problems

 existence, justice, knowledge, validity

 truth, beauty, law, mind, and language.

 It is a rational and critical ways to answer

fundamental questions through an intensive
application of reason
 It involves reason, rational criticism, examination,

and analysis
 Define etymologically as ‗love of wisdom‘.

 As a pursuit of wisdom, philosophy refers to

 the development of critical habits,

 the continuous search for truth,
 the questioning of the apparent

 What contents philosophy has are not the specific

subject matters, but issues, which are universal

 But philosophy is not incomprehensible.
 The best way to understand philosophy is to

philosophize;{doing in serious} i.e., to be

confronted with philosophical questions.
 Socrates “Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and

philosophy begins in wonder”.{ To think decide what is true}

 We all think and reflect in our own way about

issues that matter us most.

 Thinking alone cannot make us philosophers.
 Etymologically, philosophy comes from Greek
words: philo and sophia, -love and wisdom-, “love of
wisdom”.
 Anyone who raises questions, such as
 Does God exists? What is reality?
 What is the ultimate source of Being?

 Seeking wisdom is essences of philosophy .

 Nevertheless, all wisdoms are not philosophy.

What do you think is the wisdom that philosophers
seek?
 The wisdom that philosophers seek is not the wisdom of

the expertise or technical skills

 As Socrates, wisdom consists of a critical habit and

eternal vigilance about all things and a

reverence{respect} for truth. {Careful to notice any signs}
 So, philosophy, as a pursuit of wisdom, is,
 the development of critical habits,
 the continuous search for truth,
 the questioning of the apparent{seems to be real}.
 The philosophical enterprise, as Vincent Barry, is

“an active imaginative process of formulating

proper questions and resolving them by rigorous
{carefully}, persistent {continuous} analysis”.
 so, philosophy is a rational and critical enterprise

that formulate & answer fundamental questions

through an intensive application of reason.
 Philosophy is an activity.
 It is not something that can be easily mastered or
learned in schools.
 A philosopher is a great philosopher, because what
he did it.
 It is not his theory,
 but his extraordinary ability to critically think,
 to conceptualize, to analyze,
 to compare, to evaluate, and
 to understand- i.e., to philosophize- that makes him so.
 what makes someone a great philosopher is not the
produced philosophy, but his/her outstanding ability
to philosophize.
 Basic Features of Philosophy
 Philosophy is a set of views or beliefs about life and the
universe, which are often held uncritically

 We refer to this meaning as the informal sense of

philosophy or ―having a philosophy.
 Usually when a person says ―my philosophy is, he
or she is referring to an informal personal attitude to
whatever topic is being discussed
 Philosophy is a process of reflecting on and criticizing

our most deeply held conceptions and beliefs.

 Philosophy is a rational attempt to look at the world as a

whole.

 Philosophy seeks to combine the conclusions of the

various sciences and human experience into some
kind of consistent worldview.
 Philosophy‘s task is to give a view of the whole, a life
and a worldview, and to integrate the knowledge of
the sciences with that of other disciplines to achieve a
consistent whole.
 Philosophy is the logical analysis of language and the

clarification of the meaning of words and concepts

 The aim of philosophy is to expose confusion and

nonsense and to clarify the meaning
 Philosophy is a group of perennial problems that interest

people and for which philosophers always have sought

answers
 Core Fields of Philosophy
 1} Metaphysics

 studies the ultimate nature of reality or existence.

 It deal with issues of reality, God, freedom,
soul/immortality, and other related issues.
 is derived from the Greek words “meta” means
(beyond or after) and physika, means (―physics).
 Refers those things after the physics.

 Metaphysical questions may be divided into four

 i) Cosmological Aspect: The study of theories about the origin,
nature of the universe
 How did the universe originate and develop?
 Did it come about by accident or design?

 ii) Theological Aspect: religious theory that deals with

conceptions of and about God.
 Is there a God? If so, is there one or more than one?
 What are the attributes of God?

If God is both all good and all powerful, why does evil exist?
 iii) Anthropological Aspect: deals with the

study of human beings

 What is the relation between mind and body?
 Is mind more fundamental than body, with body
depending on mind, or vice versa?
 What is humanity‘s moral status? Are people
born good, evil, or morally neutral?
 iv) Ontological Aspect: the study of the nature

of existence, or what it means for anything to

exist.
 Is basic reality found in matter or physical energy
 Is it composed of one element
 Is this reality friendly, unfriendly, or neutral toward
humanity?
 2} Epistemology: Studies about the nature, scope,
meaning, and possibility of knowledge.
 It deals with issues of knowledge, opinion, truth.

 Derived from the Greek words episteme, meaning

―knowledge, and logos, ―study of.

 is the study of the nature, source, of knowledge.

 What is true? and ―How do we know?

 Thus, epistemology covers two areas: the content of
thought and thought itself.
 {kanetu}.

 Seeks answers to fundamental issues.

 One is whether reality can even be known.

 Skepticism is the position claiming that people

cannot acquire reliable knowledge and that any

search for truth is in vain
 Expressed by Gorgias, the Greek Sophist who

asserted that nothing exists, and that if it did, we

could not know it.
 Agnosticism{ a person who is not sure whether or not God exist }.

 Is a profession of ignorance in reference to the existence

or nonexistence of God.
 A second issue foundational to epistemology is whether

all truth is relative, or whether some truths are absolute.

 Is all truth subject to change or relative?
 Is there Absolute Truth or eternally and universally?.
 whether knowledge is subjective or objective?
A} Sources of knowledge

 A major aspect of epistemology relates to the

sources of human knowledge.

 If one accepts the fact that there is truth and

even Truth in the universe, how can human

beings comprehend such truths?
 How do they become human knowledge?
 (knowledge obtained through the senses).

 1} Empiricism

 Empirical knowledge appears to be built into the very

nature of human experience.
 Thus, when individuals walk out of doors on a spring
day and see the beauty of the landscape, hear the
song of a bird, feel the warm rays of the sun, and
smell the fragrance of the blossoms, they ―know
that it is spring tsadey
 The existence of sensory data cannot be denied.
 Most people accept it uncritically as representing
reality.
 The danger of naively embracing this approach is that
data obtained from the human senses have been
demonstrated to be both incomplete and
undependable.
 Fatigue, frustration, and illness also distort and limit
sensory perception.
 In addition, there are sound and light waves that are
inaudible and invisible to unaided human perception.
 {all bhr should base reason {bemekenat}}

 2} Rationalism: reasoning, thought, or logic is the

central factor in knowledge

 in emphasizing humanity‘s power of thought and
the mind‘s contributions to knowledge.
 The sensations and experiences humans are the
raw material of knowledge
 These sensations must be organized by the mind
into a meaningful system.
 {ability to think sth by using ur feeling than fact } semet

 3} intuition: immediate feeling of certainty.

 has been claimed under varying circumstances as a source of both
religious and secular knowledge.
 Its weakness is that it does not appear to be a safe method of
obtaining knowledge when used alone.
 It goes astray very easily and may lead to absurd claims unless it
is controlled by or checked against other methods of knowing. I
 advantage of being able to bypass the limitations of human
experience
 {magalate}.

 4} Revelation

 has been of prime importance in the field of religion.

 It differs from all other sources of knowledge

because it presupposes a transcendent supernatural

reality that breaks into the natural order.
 Christians believe that such revelation is God‘s

communication concerning the divine will.

 {Everything}

 It is important of being an omniscient source of

information that is not available through other

epistemological methods.
 But , the distortion of revealed truth can occur in

the process of human interpretation.

 Its disadvantage is it must be accepted by faith

and cannot be proved or disproved empirically.

 {To make sth holy}
 5} Authorit:
 is accepted as true because it comes from experts or
has been sanctified over time as tradition.
 In the class, source of information is some authority,
such as a textbook, teacher, or reference work.
 Civilization would certainly stagnate if people refused
to accept any statement unless they personally
verified it through direct, firsthand experience.
 if it is built upon a foundation of incorrect
assumptions, then such knowledge will surely be
distorted.
 3}Axiology
How much sth
 Axiology is the study or theory of value. is worth

 It is from two Greek words- ―Axios, ―value, worth,

and ―logos, ―reason/ theory/ symbol /

science/study of.
 Axiology is the philosophical study of value.
 What is a value?
 Where do values come from?
 How do we justify our values?
 Axiology deals with the above and related issues

of value in three areas.

 A} Ethics: is a science that deals with the
philosophical study of moral principles, values,
codes, and rules, which may be used as standards
for determining what kind of human conduct/action
is said to be good or bad, right or wrong.
 Normative Ethics is the studies that attempt to study

and determine precisely the moral rules, principles,

standards and goals by which human beings might
evaluate and judge the moral values of their conducts,
actions and decisions.
 It can be Teleological,Deontological &Virtue ethics.

 Meta-ethics deals with investigation of the meaning of

ethical terms.
 Moral Intuitionism, Moral Emotivism Moral Prescriptivism,

and Ethical Relativism are the main examples of

metaethical studies.
 Applied Ethics is a normative ethics that attempts to

explain, justify, apply moral rules, principles, standards,

and positions to specific moral problems, such as capital
punishment, euthanasia, abortion, adultery, animal right.
 B} Aesthetics. Aesthetics is the theory of

beauty.
 It studies about the particular value of our

artistic and aesthetic experiences.

 What is art? What is beauty?
 What is the relation between art and beauty?
 C} Social/Political Philosophy.

 studies about of the value judgments operating

in a civil society, be it social or political.
 The following are some of its questions
 What form of government is best?
 What economic system is best?
 What is justice/injustice?
 4}Logic

 Logic is the study of principles of right reasoning.

 It deals with formulating the right principles of

reasoning; and developing scientific methods of

evaluating the validity and soundness of arguments.
 What is an argument; What does it mean to argue?
 What makes an argument valid or invalid ?  What is a
sound argument?
 Importance of Learning Philosophy

 The unexamined life is not worth living” Socrates, .

 Philosophy provides students with the tools they

need to critically examine their own lives as well as

the world in which they live.
 There are maintenance and actualizing needs.

 Means the physical and psychological needs: food,

shelter, security, social interaction.

 Actualizing needs associated with self-
fulfillment, creativity, self-expression,
realization of one‘s potential, and being
everything one can be.
 Philosophy, can assist us to actualize
ourselves by promoting the ideal of self-
actualization
 characteristics of self-actualization

 1) Intellectual and Behavioral Independence:-

 This is the ability to develop one‘s own opinion and

beliefs.
 As a result, we can learn how to develop and integrate
our experiences, thoughts, feelings, and actions for
ourselves, and thus how to be intellectually and
behaviorally independent.
 2 Reflective Self-Awareness:-
 Philosophy helps us to intensify our self-awareness
by inviting us to critically examine the essential
intellectual grounds of our lives.
 3) Flexibility, Tolerance, and Open-Mindedness:- by
studying philosophical perspectives we can
understand the evolutionary nature of intellectual
achievement and human thought
 we become more tolerant, open-minded, more
receptive, and more sympathetic to views that
contend or clash with ours
 4) Creative and Critical Thinking: - ability to
develop original philosophical perspective on
issues and to engage them on a deeper level.
 From the study of philosophy, we can learn
how to refine our powers of analysis, our
abilities to think critically, to reason, to
evaluate, to theorize, and to justify.
 5) Conceptualized and well-thought-out value
systems in morality, art, politics
 studying philosophy provides us with an
opportunity to formulate feasible evaluations of
value; and thereby to find meaning in our lives.