Originality Of Philosophy Essay, Research Paper

Originality of Philosophy

Feb.25.1997

What is philosophy? What does a philosopher really do? Questions like

these can be answered in a review of Philosophy Now. What can possibly be

answered…..questions which have them. And what is it that

philosophers study? Generally, most philosophers study questions in which there

is no rational or justifiable answer. And the type of articles in the magazine

are very interesting because they elighten the reader to question the answers.

Some of the articles in this issue are ?Bakunin: Anarchist or Antichrist??, ?

Practical Solipsism?, ?Introduction to Ontology?, ?Orwell and Philosophy?, some

other brief articles, an Internet page, and even some classifieds. The overall

view of this magazine was very intellectual and professional because it did not

contain any advertising throughout the magazine. The articles are more in the

manner meant for either philosophers or someone in school studying Philosophy,

or even anyone interested in a very different approach to society.

An idea in the article ?Practical Solipsism? reads: ?Solipsism – the

idea that only I exist and that you, and all other material things in the world

are mere figments of my imagination – is one of those peculiar notions that make

everybody realize just how barmy philosophers truly are.? Philosophy is often

translated as the love of wisdom or the love of truth. One way to get a vague

idea as to what philosophy is about is to dissect the subject and investigate

its skeleton. there are many branches in philosophy. Metaphysics is?(after-

physics, after Aristotle’s book of physics.)?, and has questions about the

nature of time, categories of existence, including god. Epistemology asks what

is knowledge? what is the difference between knowledge, belief and opinion? Can

we really know anything? How could we know that we did? Logic questions the

truth and even now employs a sort of algebra which is used to crunch logical

problems. There is Philosophy of mind, which asks questions about the human

mind, how it thinks, and how is it related to the body. Ethics is like how are

we living, what is good and bad, what is unethical, and what is happiness.

Aesthetics asks mostly about beauty and how to define it. In particular though,

there is political philosophy, and it asks questions like What would Utopia be

like? Is Utopia possible? How should social life be organized? In my opinion

this philosophy is not one related to our government but is very interesting to

me. As I was reading, many questions arose about our society and what I thought

should be changed. Another Article that I went over was called ?Ontology for

Beginners? and it was discussing the branch of metaphysics which examines the

nature and categories of existence. What is the difference really existing and

only appearing to exist? Does the external world really exist? Do other people

really exist? In what sense do numbers exist? To an inexperienced child these

questions may never arise, but as one grows older questions similar to these

arise. Some of the categories of existence are listed also. Realism is

basically the theory that the other world exists independently of us. Idealism

is the belief that the world and all it contains is all some sort of strange

exotic dream.

There is another very popular part of Idealism known as ?Brain in a Vat?.

?you think you are wandering around the world, seeing, feeling, talking to

people. But suppose that, following a horrific accident, the doctors removed

your brain, put it in a vat of nutrient fluids and kept it alive. Suppose that

to keep you sane they hooked up the severed nerve endings of your brain to some

very expensive medical equipment and then fed you with signals that your brain

interpreted as sights, sounds, smells and so on. The question is, would you

were just a brain in a vat at all, if the illusion was perfect, and they didn’t

tell you? How would you know? How do you know that the world out there really

exists? The category of Relativism deals with the idea that there are many ways

in which to see the world. It all depends on your point of view. There are so

many more and even everyday a new category could be added.

The articles contained in this issue of Philosophy Now contains a very

descriptive overview of philosophy. This makes it even easier for any person to

commit him or herself to reading, because it goes over the fundamental

principals and categories of philosophy. Basically, any person from sixth grade

on could read this journal.

Bibliography:

Philosophy Now Issue 16 Autumn 1996

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