Philosophy: The Key to a Happy and Meaningful Life
Philosophy is a discipline that teaches those who study how to live a happy and meaningful life and how to find the reality in any case how to live a happy and meaningful life. Philosophy is useful to students in a variety of ways. Some of the advantages of studying philosophy include the opportunity to improve one's ability to think, reason, and test concepts in a variety of circumstances. Philosophy can help students develop critical thinking skills. Students cultivate spiritual hunger by studying philosophy, with the aim of knowing and understanding whatever lies beyond the enigmatic veil of existence.
The Socratic Method of Teaching
Socratic method is known to be the most powerful and ancient methods of teaching. This method of teaching involves questioning students so that they develop critical thinking as they look for answers. Socratic method of teaching involves inquiring, analyzing, evaluation and synthesizing of thoughts and ideas. It is the most useful way for students to learn because engaging in this process of questioning and probing can put their thoughts in order. Asking them questions can help them get to know facts, the ways of acquiring knowledge and make value judgments. The method of asking questions help in bringing into sharper focus and to provide for a foundation for the answers the students are looking for.
Usefulness of Critical Thinking in the Analysis of a Philosophical Issue
Critical thinking involves evaluating the presented philosophical arguments. In this process, the thinker deliberately engages in rationalization and the examining of facts and reasons. Critical thinking will help students easily analyze the philosophical issue by employing rationality so that they are able to justify their views in a logical manner. This will also help students due to the skills they develop while engaging in philosophical thought and analysis that are essential for any individual in a democratic society. Critical thinking is, therefore, useful in the analysis process so as to reach at a conclusion and to take a position in the philosophical arguments presented.
Comparing and Contrasting Induction, abduction and Induction
Deduction refers to the process of reasoning basing on one or more premises so as to reach a reasonably certain conclusion of an argument. Normally, the conclusion is the main position defended in an argument that is mainly supported by the premises. In this reasoning method, the premises and conclusion bring about an argument. In deduction, an argument must employ a valid structure that ensures that the conclusion is true when the premises are true. In deductive reasoning, the arguments must be both valid and sound which implies that the premises must have correlation between them. On the other hand, induction refers to the process of reasoning where the premises are the source of the strong evidence for the truth of the conclusion. This implies that only when the strong evidence is provided so that the conclusion is considered to be true. Unlike deduction which is a very powerful reasoning method, induction is used in the daily basis. Abduction is a process of reasoning that involves studying facts and formulating a theory to provide the explanation for them. The only rationale in this reasoning method is that it is the only way of understanding things in the daily life.
Areas of Philosophy
There are main areas of philosophy discussed in the course. The main areas covered involve;
- Metaphysics: This is a very wide field that deals with the nature of existence that strives to answer questions about the reality of the world.
- Epistemology: This is the field that deals with the nature and foundations of knowledge. It employs knowledge based on logical study of ideas and terms based on observation and experience so as to develop arguments that justify belief and knowledge assertions.
- Aesthetics: This is the area that deals with envisioning and making conclusions about beauty. The key elements considered in aesthetics involve enjoyment, appreciation, and judgment of art and whatever it defines art.
- Ethics: This is the field that involves studying what is right and wrong. There are ethical theories in this field that provide a framework for evaluating human actions basing on their morality and consequences.
- Political philosophy: This is the area that deals with questions relating to the foundations, nature, and roles of government.
Compare and contrast Views on Materialism, Dualism and Idealism
Idealism is a view that suggests that ideas are things that are only real. This view is known as idealism. On the other hand, dualism refers to a view that recognizes reality as consisting of mind and body that have to interact with each other at some point so as to constitute a certain conclusion. Both views of idealism and dualism can make sense of the concept that thoughts, feelings, and intentions exist, but are distinct. The materialism view suggest that whatever it exist is a physical object. This view believes in the existence of materials only.
Nature of Universals and Particulars
Universals refer to the ideas and general concepts that are applied to several specific objects. On the other hand, particulars refer to the objects and individual things that people encounter in the world. Therefore, universals and particulars provide the relationship between ideas and objects. There are views pertaining to universals and particulars. The first view is known as Platonic realism. According to this view, ideas are real. This implies that they exist independently apart from our thoughts. They have inspirational existence apart from the particulars that participate in them. Plato suggested that the form is the essence of a thing and holds that the particulars are said to emulate and copy them in a defective way. The second view is that of Aristotle which is known as exaggerated realism. This view holds that universals are present in the particulars as part of what makes them alike. This implies that the particulars have universals within them. Therefore, ideas are in the physical objects, not in an isolated reality whereby the particulars are a combination of ideas and matter. The third view is known as conceptualism which holds that ideas are real though reliant upon a mind. Lastly is the view referred to as extreme nominalism that suggests that universals do not exist. On this view, ideas are considered as unreal objects. Therefore, only particulars are considered to be having existence.
Evaluation of Anaximander’s Views
Anaximander that offered his opinions regarding the nature of substance by stating that the primary substance is in fact limitless. His views indicate his doubtful nature whether any vital substance would exist in a visible pure form. It is evident that his views were correct. This due to the fact that, in the present day, no one can observes a primary substance anywhere in the world.
Evaluation of Pythagora’s Views
Pythagoras also offered his personal views regarding the nature of substance and he argued that the fact about reality is that it must be in numbers which never lie. I think his views were correct because his known today for his famous theorem which has proved to be useful and accurate.
Aristotle’s Causes
Aristotle’s causes refer to the right questions that must be asked with the purpose of seeking reality. The four right questions which Aristotle called the four causes include;
- What is it?
- What is it made of?
- How was it made or who made it?
- What is it for?
These questions are asked so as to find the truth about the reality and they have been used as a basis of the scientific method.
Rationalism and Empiricism
Rationalism and empiricism refer to different ways used to acquire knowledge. Rationalism is a way of obtaining knowledge by means of logic and reason whereas empiricism refers to ways of gaining knowledge through observation, inquiry, and experience. Rationalist claims that knowledge is gained through our minds. This implies that experience is not necessary for one to acquire knowledge. On the other hand, empiricist claims that experience is necessary for one to acquire knowledge. In this case, knowledge is believed to be gained only with the use of five senses.
Priori and Posteriori Knowledge
A priori knowledge refers to the knowledge that is acquired without experience and is necessary and must be true. On the other hand, a posteriori knowledge is the knowledge that is gained through experience. Therefore, priori knowledge is the analytic knowledge whereas posteriori knowledge is the synthetic knowledge.
Foundationalism and Coherentism
Foundationalism refers to the epistemic theory that suggests that the knowledge assertions must be grounded on the fundamental true beliefs that provide a base for all knowledge. On the other hand, coherentism is a substitute theory of rationalization to foundationalism. Unlike foundationalism, coherentism disagrees with the idea that there are primary initial beliefs and instead argued that most of the beliefs are acceptable by other believes. According to coherentism, the entire systems of beliefs are warranted by their coherence.
Pragmatic Theories of Truth and Correspondence Theories of Truth
The pragmatic theories of truth claim that truth is comparative. This implies that the truth is what is considered to be useful to believe by the individual. On the other hand, the correspondence theory of truth claims that a belief is considered to be true if and only if, it relates with something that is in existence in the world.
Implications of Godel’s Theorem
Gödel’s Theorem suggests that a system cannot be complete without contradictions. However, the reliability of axioms cannot be verified within that system. This means that In other words, in every system there is at least one truth that cannot be ascertained even if it is true. Godel’s Theorem also ruled out the possibility that a machine cannot be used to perform the tasks that only the human mind can perform.
