The Philosophy Book gnv64

Lychnos. Swedish Yearbook for the History of Ideas, 2006

De Gruyter eBooks, 2019

In 423BC, TheClouds,acomedy written by the ancientGreek playwright Aristophanes, was staged for the first time. The two main characters in the play, Strepsiades and his son Pheidippides, go to the Thinkery,animaginary school, in the hope that they might learn from the philosopher Socrates how to turn poor arguments into winning arguments, with the aim of beating their creditors in court.In the Thinkery,studentsare engaged in aseries of seemingly absurdand pointless activities, like inventing au nit of measurement for calculating the distance jumped by af lea (a flea'sf oot),a nd the exactc ause of the buzzingn oise of a gnat.T hen the philosophym aster Socrates makes his appearance, floating on to the stagei nabasket,s ot hat he can contemplate the sun. In the end, it is not Strepsiades,b ut onlyh is son Pheidippides who benefitsf rom Socrates' teaching-learning how to use dishonest speech to his own ends and even being influenced by Socrates to attack his father Strepsiades-something for which the now-learned Pheidippides is able to provide asupposedlyrational justification. In TheClouds,wealreadyfind all the classic stereotypes that are usually invoked to mock philosophya nd affirm its futility.P hilosophy is presented as a technique to win otherwise hopeless and meritless arguments thanks to conceptual tricks; philosophystudents loose time in pointless experiments that have no practical implications; the philosopher himself (in this case Socrates) effectively floats in the air with his head in the clouds, removed from concrete reality;a nd not onlydophilosophersnot do anything useful, but they influencey oungpeople to question sensiblecustoms and reasonable traditions, and encouragethem to rebel against authority.Twenty-three years after the first representation of The Clouds,t he real Socratesw as indeedf ound guilty of impiety and corruption of the youth, and sentenced to death. Attacks against philosophya nd, as ac onsequence, philosophers' attempts to defend themselvesa nd the discipline they practice, are as old as philosophy itself-which is to say, almostasold as Western culture. There is thus asense in which there is nothing new in increasingattacks that, in the past few years, have been directed against philosophy-attacksthat came from scientists, politicians, and public figures in general. It seems that every generation of philosophers is called to respond to such attacks, and justify their existenceo vera nd over again. From this point of view,t his volume can be considered as ar epetition of this ongoing and seemingly endless debate.

Philosophy, 2006

The overarching thesis of this essay is that despite the etymological relationship between the word ‘philosophy’ and wisdom—the word ‘philosophos’, in Greek, means ‘lover of wisdom’—and irrespective of the longstanding tradition of identifying philosophers with ‘wise men’—mainline philosophy, historically, has had little interest in wisdom and has been preoccupied primarily with knowledge. Philosophy, if we are speaking of the mainline tradition, has had and continues to have more in common with the natural and social sciences than it does with the humanities and liberal arts. In advancing this thesis, I divide the history of philosophy into three competing traditions: the mainline tradition of philosophy and two philosophical ‘countercultures,’ one conservative the other radical. At issue between these rival traditions is precisely the relative significance of knowledge and wisdom and their respective places in inquiry. I also provide an account of the distinction between knowledge...

Many ethical philosophers have helped to shape former and current ethics and education theory and practice. Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC), Plato (429 BCE-347 BCE), and John Dewy (1859-1952) are three such philosophers. Even though Aristotle was a student of Plato, he developed different theoretical ideas. Dewey studied ethical and educational theory, and his theories reflect some of Aristotle's ideas. In his virtue theory, Aristotle focused on virtues rather than human reasoning. Because human reasoning can be flawed, attention on virtues could give people the tools they needed for rightful actions, community living, and personal development (Wagner & Simpson, 2008). Plato, a moral realist, was another ethical philosopher, and the mentor of Aristotle. To Plato, ethics included reflection and judgment. Leaders see the truth and act (Wagner & Simpson, 2008). John Dewey was a pragmatist and proponent of practicing theory, not just speaking or writing about it. Pragmatists believe "that the good is established by reference to a problem set in the here and now…" (Wagner & Simpson, 2008. P. 42). The differing ideas of philosophers can be seen in current educational debates.

Philo-sophos as love of wisdom 1 Philosophy, philo sophos, as love of (explorations, research, investigations and the journey for and attempts to the realization and/or the attaining of ever greater degrees of) wisdom. This must be distinguished from seeking and obtaining more date, more information or mere factual knowledge. The emphasis is on obtaining ever greater insights and the endless search for achieving more subtle understanding of ourselves, our existence, behaviour and life0worlds or reality(ies)-for-us. Not developing insights and understanding for the sake of appearing, beiong or feeling more clever or a mere intellectual grasp of the meaning, nature and sense of phenomena, but insights and understanding that are aimed at and would assist the development and acquisition ever greater degrees of wisdom). 2 In this chapter I will begin to deal with distracting 'philosophical ' notions of philosophy and investigations-eg metaphysic, ontology, epistemology etc-ideas , concerns and interests that distract from the real purpose and rationale of philosophos, that lead to secondary , even irrelevant concerns and investigations, and thereby kills the real purpose of philosophos, of philosophizing. 3 As illustrated in previous chapters, the philosophical discourse has developed over the years into many domains and areas, while simultaneaously losing many topics that at one time was considered to be philosophical. Three major labels for what is thought to be philosophical subjects are metaphysics, ontology and epistemology. These major areas are the biggest culprits causing philosophers to be come distracted from the real goal, purpose, aim and rational of philosophy, namely the love of wisdom-and therefore the investigation of everything that might lead to the realization of this goal. 4 In previous chapters I mentioned some of the ideas and notions that have at some or other time, in the West, been considered to be understood under the idea of wisdom. It may or may not be possible to investigate and explore wisdom itself-in-itself?-directly and that it should, in the beginning at least, be researched by means of the investigation of other ideas or phenomena. One should however keep in one's mind the real reason for one's philosophical investigations so that one does not become so involved in the exploration of other ideas and topics that one become oblivious to one's real motive for philosophizing. 5 It is to be understood that an individual who is involved in philosophical investigations-with his main goal being to obtain always a greater degree of ever subtle wisdom-will ask questions about himself, his procedure, methods, techniques and methodology, about cognitive process involved in this investigation, about the nature of his inner realities as well as his external realities, life-worlds and reality (ies) for him. 6 It is in this process of investigating the nature of his cognition that he will begin to become interested in the working of his senses, perception, thinking, reasoning, imagination, knowing how and knowing that, memory, and other aspects of human consciousness. These and other aspects have traditionally been dealt with in the domain of epistemology. As research in this domain continued microscopic details concerning the nature and functioning of human knowing and knowledge seemed to be important for some individuals working in this domain. These include things such as what is the nature of knowledge, how do we know, what is understood by knowing, knowledge and related notions such as belief, what is truth, what is meaning, etc. Is this knowledge related to objects outside the human body, how do we conceive of things outside our body, do our ideas of such phenomena come first or are the phenomena thmselves primary? Are there different types of knowledge and statements, for example some that are eternal and unchanging, others that are relative and depend on experience. etc. What is the nature of such a priori knowledge and statements? how do they differ as analytic statemewnts from synthetic statements or Kantian mixtures of these two types of statements? 7 How do the individual or all human beings relate to or is situtaed in the world, nature, social worlds? Did this type of relate gradually develop and changed over centuries of human sapiens sapies development? did the human being develop during interaction with other humans, other species and 'the world'? In response to these questions philosophers from the pre-Wittgenstein et al presented us with all sorts of all-inclusive systems of human knowing, cognition and other aspects of epistemology. These are the ideas that came to be understood as philosophy-as the discourse of philosophy and the subject to be taught and studied as 'philosophy'.

As one digs into how philosophy emerges in the West, and how Reason began to rise in influence at the dawn of civilization (a feature which so notably marked the civilization of Ancient Greece and in turn is the marked characteristic of Western civilization to this day), it becomes evident that this philosophical movement represents not only a somewhat rebellious socio-political force in the region that in turn provides some of the philosophical and metaphysical underpinnings of monotheism as it evolves into Christianity, but it also has profoundly influenced the worldview of the West even to this day, providing the semantic and intellectual framework within which we view the world around us, and within which the branches of science and study exist even to this day. The ancient Greek philosophers were the first individual to challenge the truth of the mythologies that had so profoundly influenced the ancient civilizations of the East and West, and were the first people to begin to explore the nature of knowledge, what could be known, or perhaps better put what in fact could be known to be, itself, providing us with philosophical and intellectual frameworks which came to shape Western civilization for several thousand years and still remains a profound influence on how we approach knowledge, and scientific study today.

Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, 2015