The Branches of Philosophy

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is really only an extension of a fundamental

and necessary drive in every human being to know what is real.
The question is how to account for this unreal thing in terms of
what you can accept as real. Thus, a very big part of the
metaphysician's task is to explain that part of your experience,
which we call unreal in terms of what we call real.

In our everyday attempts to understand the world in terms of

appearance and reality, we try to make things comprehensible by
simplifying or reducing the mass of things we call appearance to a
relatively fewer number of things we call reality.

For instance, for Thales," a Greek philosopher, everything

is water. He claims that everything we experience is water—
which we call "reality." Everything else is "appearance." We then
set out to try to explain everything else (appearance) in terms of
water (reality). Clouds, for example, or blocks of ice do not look
like water, but they can be explained in terms of water. When
water evaporates, it becomes a cloud, and when water freezes,
it becomes ice.
 Both the idealist and the materialist metaphysical theories
are similarly based on unobservable entities: mind and matter.
We can see things made of matter such as a book or a chair,
but we cannot see the underlying matter

Although we can experience in our mind thoughts, ideas,

desires, and fantasies, we cannot observe or experience the
mind itself that is having these thoughts, ideas, and desires. It is
this tendency to explain the observable in terms of the
unobservable that has given metaphysics a bad name to more
down-to-earth philosophers.

Plato, Socrates' most famous student, is a good example of

a metaphysician who draws the sharpest possible contrast
between reality and appearance. Nothing we experience in the
physical world with our five senses is real, according to Plato.
Reality, in fact, is just the opposite. It is unchanging, eternal,
immaterial, and can be detected only by the intellect. Plato calls
these realities as ideas of forms. These are meanings which
universal, general terms refer to, and they are also those things
we are talking about when we discuss moral, mathematical, and
scientific ideals.

Ethics

How do we tell good from evil or right from wrong? Ethics is the
branch of philosophy that explores the
nature of moral virtue and evaluates
human actions.
Ethics is generally a study of the
nature of moral judgments.
Philosophical ethics attempts to
provide an account of our fundamental
ethical ideas. Whereas religion has
often motivated individuals to obey the
moral code of their society, philosophy
 is not content with traditional or habitual ethics but adopts a critical
perspective. It insists that obedience to moral law be given a rational
foundation. the thought Of Socrates, we see the beginning of a
transition from a traditional, religion-based morality to philosophical
ethics (Landsburg 2009).

Epistemology

Specifically, epistemology deals with nature, sources, limitations,

and validity of knowledge (Soccio, 2007). Epistemological questions
are basic to all other philosophical inquiries. Epistemology explains:
(1) how we know what we claim to know; (2) how we can find out
what we wish to know; and (3) how we can differentiate truth from
falsehood. Epistemology addresses varied problems: the reliability,
extent, and kinds of knowledge; truth; language; and science and
scientific knowledge.

How do we acquire reliable knowledge? Human knowledge may

be regarded as having two parts.
1. On the one hand, he sees, hears, and touches; on the other hand,
he organizes in his mind what he learns through the senses.
 Philosophers have given considerable attention to questions
about the sources of knowledge. Some philosophers think that
the particular things seen, heard, and touched are more
important. They believe that general ideas are formed from the
examination of particular facts. This method is called induction,
and philosophers who feel that knowledge is acquired in this
way are called empiricists (e.g., John Locke). Empiricism is the
view that knowledge can be attained only through sense
experience. According to the empiricists, real knowledge is
based on what our sight, hearing, smell, and other senses tell us
is really out there, not what people make up in their heads.

2. Other philosophers think it is more important to find a general law

according to which particular facts can be understood or judged. This
method is called deduction; its advocates are called rationalists (e.g.,
Rene Descartes). For instance, what distinguishes real knowledge
from mere opinion, in the rationalist view, is that real knowledge is
based on the logic, the laws, and the methods that reason develops.
The best example of real knowledge, the rationalist holds, is
mathematics, a realm of knowledge that is obtained entirely by reason
that we use to understand the universe (Soccio, 2007).

A newer school, pragmatism, has a third approach to these

problems. Pragmatists, such as William James and John
Dewey, believe that value in use is the real test of truth and
meaning. In other words, the meaning and truth of an idea are
tested by its practical consequences.
Logic

Reasoning is the concern of

the logician. This could be
reasoning in science and
medicine, in ethics and law, in
politics and commerce, in sports
and games, and in the mundane
affairs of everyday living. Varied
kinds of reasoning may be used,
and all are of interest to the
logician.
The term "logic" comes from the Greek word logike and
was coined by Zeno, the Stoic (c.340—265BC). Etymologically,
it means a treatise on matters pertaining to the human thought.
It is important to underpin that logic does not provide us
knowledge of the world directly, for logic is considered as a tool,
and, therefore, does not contribute directly to the content of our
thoughts. Logic is not interested in what we know regarding
certain subjects. Its concern, rather, is the truth or the validity of
our arguments regarding such objects.

Aristotle was the first philosopher to devise a logical method.

He drew upon the emphasis on the "universal" in Socrates,
negation in Parmenides and Plato, and the reduction to the absurd
of Zeno of Elea. His philosophy is also based on claims about
propositional structure and the body of argumentative techniques
(e.g., legal reasoning and geometrical proof).

Aristotle understood truth to mean the agreement of

knowledge with reality; truth exists when the mind's mental
representations, otherwise known as ideas, correspond with
things in the objective world. Logical reasoning makes us certain
that our conclusions are true, and this provides us with accepted
scientific proofs of universally valid propositions or statements.
Since the time of Aristotle, the study of lies or fallacies has been
considered an integral part of logic.
 Zeno of Citium is one of the successors of Aristotle. He is
also the founder of a movement known as Stoicism, derived
from the Greek Stoa Poiki/e (Painted Porch). The Painted Porch
referred to the portico in Athens where the early adherents held
their regular meetings. Other more influential authors of logic
then are Cicero, Porphyry, and Boethius, in the later Roman
Empire; the Byzantine scholar— Philoponus and Al-Farabi,
Avicenna, and Averroes in the Arab world.

Even before the time of Aristotle down to the present, the

study of logic has remained important. We are human beings
possessed with reason. We use it when we make decisions or
when we try to influence the decisions of others or when we are
engaged in argumentation and debate. Indeed, a person who
has studied logic is more likely to reason correctly than another,
who has never thought about the general principles involved in
reasoning.

Aesthetics

When humanity has

learned to make something
that is useful to them, they
begin to plan and dream how
to make it beautiful What
therefore is beauty? The
establishment of criteria of
beauty is the function of
aesthetics, Aesthetics is the
science of the beautiful in its various manifestations— including
the sublime, comic, tragic pathetic, and ugly. To experience
aesthetics, therefore means whatever experience has relevance
to art, whether the experience be that of the creative artist or of
appreciation. As a branch of philosophy, students should
consider the importance of aesthetics because of the following:
It vitalizes our knowledge. It makes our knowledge of the
world alive and useful We go through our days picking up a
principle as fact/ here and there, and too infrequently see how
they are related It is the part of a play, a poem, or a story to give
us new insight, to help us see new relationship between the
separated items in our memories.

It helps us to live more deeply and richly. A work of art—

whether a book, a piece of music, painting, or a television show
— helps us to rise from purely physical existence into the realm
of intellect and the spirit, As a being of body and soul, a human
being needs nourishment for his higher life as well as his lower.
Art, therefore, is not something merely like or applied but
something of weight and significance to mankind. It is what
Schopenhauer meant when he said, "You treat work of art like a
great man. Stand before it and wait patiently until it deigns to
speak.” (Scruton et. Al, 1997)

It brings us in touch with our culture. Things about us change

rapidly today that we forget how much we owe to the past. We
cannot shut ourselves from the past any more than we can shut
ourselves off geographically from the rest of the world. It is
difficult that the problems of human life have occurred over and
over again for thousands of years. The answers of great minds in
the past to these problems are part of our culture.