The Branches of Philosophy

A. Ethics

How do we differentiate good from evil or right from wrong? What is the art of living morally? These basic questions were
asked by the ancient Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy that explores the nature of moral virtue and evaluates the morality and
virtue of human actions. Ethicists are the ones who study morality from the perspective of philosophy which appeal to logical
arguments to justify claims and positions involving morality. They use ethical theory in the analysis and deliberation of issues.

B. Metaphysics

In our daily desires to appreciate the world in terms of appearance and reality, we make effort to understand things
comprehensible and sensible in the ordinary way of understanding the world by simplifying or reducing the mass of things we
call appearance to a relatively fewer number of things we call reality.

Metaphysics is an extension of the fundamental and necessary drive in every human being to know what is
real. What is reality, why does reality exist, and how does it exists are just some of the questions pursued by metaphysics.

C. 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.

Importance of Aesthetics (Ramos, 2019)

1) It brings us in touch with our culture. Things about us change so rapidly nowadays that we forget how much we owe to
the past
2) It helps us live more deeply and richly. A work of art - whether a book, a piece of music, painting, or a television
show - helps us rise from purely physical existence into the realm of intellect and the spirit.
3) 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.

D. Logic
The term “logic” comes from the Greek word logike and was coined by Zeno the Stoic (c. 340-265 BC).
Etymologically, it means a treatise on matters pertaining to the human thought. Furthermore, logic is the study of correct
reasoning. 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.

E. Epistemology
Epistemology deals with the nature, sources, limitations, and validity of knowledge (Soccio, 2007).
Epistemological questions are basic to all other philosophical inquiries.

Epistemology explains:
(1) How do we know what we know;
(2) How can we find out what we wish to know; and,
(3) How can we differentiate truth from falsehood. Human knowledge may be regarded as having two parts, that is, empiricism
and rationalism.

Empiricism is the view that knowledge can be attained only through sense experience. On the contrary, rationalist view
emphasize that real knowledge comes from logic, laws, and methods that reason develops.

The best examples of real knowledge is mathematics, a realm of knowledge that is obtained entirely by reason that we use to
understand the universe (Soccio, 2007).