REVIEWER IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

(MIDTERM)

LESSON 1

Nature of Philosophy

What is Philosophy?

Philosophy seems to be profound subject matter. As a matter of fact have you ever wondered why
most philosophers are of the forefront of any science? In fact the philosophy is the mother discipline
out of which the other science emerges. What makes philosophy unique or different from the other
disciplines? During ancient times in Greek Iona, before the emergence of philosophy as a discipline,
any investigation regarding nature of things would be labeled as “phusis” or “nature”. Back then
there was no distinction between science, philosophy or religion. Thus, any investigation regarding
the nature of things is general falls under phusis.

Around 650 B.C, a man from a fishing village in Miletus, named THALES, started to diverge from
the mythological tradition and sought to answer questions like “What is that underlying substance
that reality is made of? How do things come to be, change and pass  away? Is there something that
remains amidst all these changes?

For Thales, the underlying substance that reality is made of must be WATER because water is
everywhere. It can change into solid, liquid or gas, it is observed as dew in the morning. It was even
believed that the sea was the father of all things. However the more important point to emphasize
here is that a man has dared to go against tradition for the first time, and assumed that it is within
man’s rational ability to abstract and explain reality.

NOTE: Mythological  -  relating to, based on, or appearing in myths or methodology.

 

The Major Sub-disciplines of Philosophy:

1. Epistemology- the philosophical study of knowledge:

2. Metaphysics -the philosophical study of reality:

*Ontology - What kinds of things actually exist?

*Philosophy of Mind - What is the nature of consciousness?

*Philosophy of Religion – What is the nature of God?

3. Axiology- the philosophical study of value:

Ethics - the philosophical study of morality:

Political Theory - the philosophical study of justice

Aesthetics - the philosophical study of beauty:

Philosophy of Literature –

Philosophy of Art –

Philosophy of Music –

4. Logic -the philosophical study of reason and arguments

5. History of Philosophy– the philosophical examination of the development of ideas.

People – what did philosophers of the past think about and why?

Ideas – how do ideas arise over time and influence the development of new ideas in the future?

TRIVIA: Do you know that the term philosophia was first use by PHYTAGORAS and his followers
around 531 B.C.? As early as 630 B.C., Thales already doing philosophy.

LESSON 2

Philosophy came from two Greek words: philo means “love” and sophia means “wisdom” which

were used by ancient Greeks to refer to “love of wisdom” and soon applied to the study of discipline
that uses human reason to investigate the ultimate, causes, reasons and principles which govern all
things. Thus, philosophers are people who engage in philosophy are lovers of wisdom.

 
THE BEGINNINGS OF DOING PHILOSOPHY

1. The Pre-Socratics

 The importance of the first group of philosophers known as the pre-Socratics should not be
underestimated. In fact many of the popular ideas today had their roots in pre-socratic
philosophy.
 It has been a very long journey since the beginning of Western Philosophy dating back to
630 B.C. in Melitus. Melitus, as a fishing village and center of trade and commerce in ancient
Greece, was the ideal place for the first practice of philosophy to emerge. It became the
melting pot of ideas from other cultures in other parts of the globe. Together with the
shrewdness of businessmen going in and out of Melitus, it was part of ordinary life to hear
people trying to voice out their opinion and convince others through argumentation that their
argumentation is the most plausible one.

THE PRE-SOCRATICS PHILOSOPHERS

 THALES
 ANAXIMANDER
 ANAXIMENES
 MAXIMUS
 PYTHAGORAS
 HERACLITUS
 PARMENIDES
 EMPEDOCLES
 ANAXAGORAS
 XENO
 LEUCCIPUS AND DEMOCRITUS
 EPICURUS

 
 

1.THALES- the most popular among the three which are Anaximenes and Anaximander, being the
father of Western Philosophy and regarded as one of the sages (wise men) of ancient Greece. He
believed that the main idea that fundamental substance or primary constituent of reality is water.

He was the first philosopher to assume that the earth is flat. Such that when you reach the edge of
the horizon, you will fall. He was shrewd businessman during his time. He was able to establish a
monopoly of the olive oil trade which took him to the African continent specifically in Egypt.

Teacher's Note: He became familiar with geometry and brought it to ancient Greece, thus becoming
also as Mathematician.

Considered also as an astronomer because he was credited to have successfully predicted an

eclipse.

2. ANAXIMANDER- (610-546 BC)- very good prose writer , he claimed that the fundamental
substance of reality is the infinite or the APEIRON – it has no precise characteristics or attributes, it
is ageless and eternal and encompasses all the worlds.

Teacher's Note: He believed that the earth is cylindrical and is suspended in space, was the first
philosopher to draw a map.

 
3. ANAXIMENES- he concluded that the fundamental substance must be AIR. Air holds our soul
together, it encompasses the whole world. He went back to the flat-earth theory, but unlike Thales
who did not give an exact shape of the earth, he gave a definite shape by claiming that the earth is
and other heavenly bodies are like saucers floating in the air. The earth is flat and round.

Quote of the Day: “An unexamined life is not worth living”

4. MAXIMUS used as well his observation and reasoning to provide causes for other natural
phenomena on earth. He said:

EARTHQUAKES were the result either of lack of moisture or super abundance of water.

LIGHTNING is caused by the violent separation of clouds by the wind.

RAINBOWS are formed when densely compressed air is touched by the sun.

5. PYTHAGORAS
He is the leader of a religious cult (PYTHAGOREANS). He treated philosophy as a WAY OF LIFE.

He said that Philosophy and religion  are connected and merged  into one. He considered
Philosophy and Mathematics as good for the purification of the soul. He believed that the primary
constituent or reality would be numbers. Anything could be explained through numbers.

Teacher's Note: In Mathematics, the Pythagorean Theorem is a fundamental relation in Euclidian

geometry among the three sides  of a right triangle. Its states that the squares the other two side.

LESSON 3

6. HERACLITUS- hewas known for the mystical nature of its philosophy  his idea of CHANGE.

He believed that the only thing that is permanent in this world as CHANGE. He said, “You cannot
step twice into the same rivers, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you. We step and do not
step into the same rivers, we are and are not.”
 

7. PARMENIDES – he leader of the Eleatic school from Elea in Southern Italy. His philosophical
idea is a contradiction of the idea of change from Heraclitus. He proposed that the only thing that is
permanent in this world is BEING. His idea that reality is being and that we are, therefore
interconnected.

8. EMPEDOCLES – he believed himself to be immortal and that he had magical powers. He was
known to have cured somebody who was comatose for 24 months. He was the proponent of the
notion that reality is made up of the four elements, earth, air, fire and water.

He is regarded as a pluralist because he had four elements as his fundamental substances that
reality is made of, instead of only one substance.

NOTE: Those philosophers who believed in just one element are considered as monist.
 

9. ANAXAGORAS– they believed that there NOT just one element that reality is made of. As a
matter of fact, for him, there as many seeds or elements as there are kinds of things. Thus, for him,
matter becomes infinitely divisible. Whenever you divide matter, each separated part will contain
elements of everything else.

Teacher's Note: Another important contribution of Anaxagoras is his idea about the “NOUS” or the
mind, which was conceived of as external but is infinite and is self-ruled and according to him, “mind
has the greatest strength and power over all things.”

10. ZENO – student and loyal follower of Parmenides, as expected he would pronounce and
reiterate the idea of Parmenides that reality is BEING. Thus, to strengthen the point that we are
interconnected as being, he went to prove this assumption by pronouncing that there is no motion.

11. LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS– contributed their idea that the ultimate substance that reality
is made of are ATOMS. Atoms which means inseparable or indivisible, must be the ultimate
constituent of matter.
 

12. EPICURUS– he said that philosophy could enable man to live a life of happiness, his views gave
rise to Epicureanism, a school of philosophy which believes the wisdom and simple living will result
in a life free of fear and pain.

THE TRIUMVERATE

 Socrates
 Plato
 Aristotle

SOCRATES – is being considered the foremost philosopher of ancient times. He did not claim to be
“wise” and merely considered himself a “midwife” that helped inquiring minds achieved wisdom. He
believed that philosophy could enable a man to live a life of virtue. He formulated the Socratic
method, which means of examining a topic by dividing a series of questions that let the learner
examine and analyze his knowledge.
 

PLATO – a student of Socrates, he wrote down his mentor’s teachings and incorporate some of his
ideas. His teachings and writings were considered the foundation of Western Philosophy.
His Dialectic, a method of inquiry were two opposing ideas are discussed in an attempt to arrive at
new knowledge. He founded the Academy, an institution of higher learning which was the first of its
kind in the Western world.

ARISTOTLE - is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, who made important contributions
to logic, criticism, rhetoric, physics, biology, psychology, mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, and
politics. He was a student of Plato for twenty years but is famous for rejecting Plato’s theory of
forms. He was more empirically minded than Plato and Plato’s teacher, Socrates.

Teacher's Note: As the father of western logic, Aristotle was the first to develop a formal system for
reasoning. He observed that the deductive validity of any argument can be determined by its
structure rather than its content, for example, in the syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man;
therefore, Socrates is mortal. Even if the content of the argument were changed from being about
Socrates to being about someone else, because of its structure, as long as the premises are true,
then the conclusion must also be true. Aristotelian logic dominated until the rise of
modern propositional logic and predicate logic 2000 years later.