Branches of Philosophy

Metaphysics

• It seeks to what is real

• Branch of philosophy that goes beyond the realms of science

• Questions the existence of spiritual beings, nature of universe, life after death

Metaphysician

Their task is to explain that part of our experience which we call unreal in terms of what we call real

Thales

• The first known metaphysician

• Claims that everything we experience is water (reality)

Ontology
Natural Theology
Universal Science

Main branches of metaphysics

Ontology

The study of being or existence

Natural Theology

The study of God and Creation

Universal Science

The study of first principle

Ethics

• Explores the nature of moral virtue and evaluates human actions

• Study of the nature of moral judgements

• It insists that obedience to moral law be given a rational foundation

• Seeks to address questions about how we should live our lives, how we define proper conduct

Philosophical ethics

Attempts to provide account of our fundamental ethical ideas

Practical Knowledge

The one does not only knows the rules of right living, but one lives them

Virtue

An awakening of the seeds of good deeds that lay dormant in the mind and heart of a person

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

• An African-American who wanted equal rights for the blacks

• His philosophy uses the same process as Hegel’s dialectic

Epistemology

Deals with nature, sources, limitations, and validity of knowledge

Belief

An acceptance that something is true/exist

Truth

The idea that one beliefs are in accordance with reality or objective facts

Justification

Why one has good reason for holding that beliefs?

Induction

• Gives importance to particular things, seen, heard, and touched

• Forms general ideas throughh the examination of particular facts

Empiricism

The view that knowledge can be attained only through sense experience

Empiricist

Advocates of induction method

Deduction

• Gives importance to general law from which particular facts are understood or judged

• Theory first then observation

Rationalist

Advocates of deduction method

Reasoning

The concern of the logician

Logike

• Comes from the Greek words

• Coined by Zeno, the Stoic

• A treatise (formal) on matters pertaining to the human thought

Logic

• Branch of philosophy that deals with reasoning

• It does not provide us knowledge of the world directly and does not contribute directly to the content of our thoughts.

Artistotle

The first philosopher to devise a logical method

Aesthetics

The science of the beautiful in its various manifestations – including the sublime, comic, tragic, pathetic, and ugly.