A Very Brief and General Introduction to Philosophy

A. PRELIMINARY

Philosophy is often assumed to be complicated concepts and high-level

technical languages and so it is tough to be comprehended. There are also
pressumption identifying it with wisdom quotes. These impressions at least give
rise to the notion that philosophy is a deep discussion of an object. In addition,
philosophy also seems beautiful and wise, but unreachable. Nevertheless, the
discussion of philosophy is not always considered important. Philosophy is
considered not providing practical aspects of life. For example, engineering and
natural sciences have provided technologies making an easier life for society.
The social sciences offer us human relations models in the togetherness with
each other. Meanwhile, philosophy only produce noetic abstractions, without
any reals. Karl Marx criticized the philosophy (of Idealism) - in Theses on
Feuerbach XI, "Philosophers only interpret the world, but the most important
thing is to change it." From the facts mentioned, questions arising then, viz:

1. Are these assumptions true?

2. What is the importance of studying philosophy?

3. What is philosophy?

B. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY

[The sub-theme gives a beginning insight of philosophy]

1. Philosophising

Etymologically, philosophy is originated from the Greek word ‘υίλος’ (phílos)

meaning ‘loving’ and σουία (sophia) which means wisdom, so that philosophy
means "loving wisdom". The question arising from this etymological definition is
‘what does it mean ‘loving wisdom’? Love cannot be called love except of
accompanied by action so that philosophy can be interpreted as an activity as a
proof of loving. Human is differed from animal regarding to the ability of
thinking as an action to be wise. However, thinking activities are still considered

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abstract activities. How can we recognise that someone is thinking? Physically,
someone can be considered thinking when they are still and silent, without any
significant movement and voice. Even so, it could be that someone extrinsically
seems like he is thinking, even though actually is daydreaming. There must be a
clear border between thinking and daydreaming.

Rene Descartes (Renatus Cartesius), a French philosopher and the Father of

Modernism, gave a very famous quote, "cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I
am). The quote is not in an existential sense or means that thinking as an
indicator of existence. Cogito is an expression of hesitation about everything or
also hereinafter known as skepticism. According to Descartes, the truth must
be continuously explored and not taken for granted. Even for the most obvious
truth, there are worth questions to be posed to reach the depths of wisdom.
Asking is a form of hesitation and also, it is the appearance of thinking.

However, if everything is questioned, then what is the certainty as the basis for
thinking? One thing that is certain when people question everything is "that I
am thinking" (cogito). The importance of problem formulation in all scientific
research shows us how the philosophy of cogito then becomes a centre of
philosophical scientific thinking activity.

The activity of questioning embodying of the thought process indicates an

unlimited capacity of mind because of insofar as something can be questioned,
then it is able to be thought. Bernard Lonergan said that the limitlessness of the
human mind is a transcendent ability beyond the physical. He reconciled the
debate between the Thomistic and Kantian schools of thought over the
question, "Is it possible for the human mind to think about the supernatural (like
God, for instance)?" Immanuel Kant stated that reason thinks in certain
categories (there are 12 categories in 4 groups). Meanwhile, the Transcendent
does not have these 12 categories. For example, God occupying a certain room
can only be thought metaphorically, but how it technically is, cannot be
explained. Another example, infinitesimal in mathematics is illogical so it
cannot be defined. According to Lonergan, what is unlimited has to be
understood in terms of the unlimited, viz the ability of the human mind to ask
questions.

From the explanation above, it can be concluded that philosophy is related to

some key words, they are asking and thinking. In other words, philosophy can
be interpreted as an act (action) of reason to think embodied in questions as
appearance of loving wisdom. One word that is quite popular and may
represent philosophy is kepo (knowing every particular object). In philosophy,
people are encouraged to be curious as Aristotle said in the opening sentence

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of his work, τὰ μετὰ τὰ υυσικά (ta meta ta physika or metaphysics), “Man by
nature desires to know.” No one wants to be deceived in the pursuit for wisdom.

2. Philosophy and Doing Philosophy

If philosophy is questioning activity, then, surely it should come naturally. Then,

why should there be a study of philosophy? Aside from an activity, philosophy
can also be classified into a field of science like other sciences such as
sociology, economics, physics, etc. Thus, there is a division of defining
philosophy. First, philosophy can be interpreted as the activity of the mind in
thinking and questioning generally. Henceforth, this thinking activity is called
philosophising. The second is philosophy as a science or the science of
philosophy. As a science, philosophy has material and formal objects.

The material object of philosophy is anything that can be thought (with

reference to the nature of philosophy as an activity of thinking). Consequently,
the object is very broad. It includes everything existing or in other words the
object of philosophy is Being (German: Sein; latin: Esse). The 'Being' is written
with an initial capital letter to distinguish it from 'being' in the common sense.
'Being', in philosophy, denotes a single and ultimate category or genus in
definition. It should be taken into account that a definition is formed from
definiendum (what is defined), copula, and definiens (comprising genus and
differentiae specifica). For example, 'a car is a mode of transportation that is
engined and 4 wheeled', the definition structure is as follows:

car is mode of engined and 4 wheeled

transportation

definiendum copula genus diff. specifica

definiens

'Mode of transportation' as a genus of 'car' can be defined for example as

'object for moving' so that mode of transportation are categorized into the
genus 'object' and so on. However, all of these definitions will end in 'Being'
which cannot be defined because it no longer has a genus. 'Being' can only be
understood by analogy (analogia entis).

Thomas Aquinas formulated the analogia entis in the expression "Esse unum,
bonum, verum, et pulchum est" (Being is one, good, true, and beautiful). The
four features of Being then become the four main branches of philosophy, they
are metaphysics (unum), ethics (bonum), epistemology (verum), and aesthetics
(pulchrum). Other philosophies, such as educational philosophy, political

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philosophy, communication philosophy, etc., are derived from these four
branches. For example, the philosophy of communication discusses the mental
structure of reason (the metaphysics of human beings) in relation to the
concept of symbols (epistemology) that can be understood one another.

To discuss the material object, namely Being, philosophy has a formal object.
The form of philosophy is characterized by speculative and deductive methods.
The form object is a significant feature distinguishing philosophy from positive
sciences (according to the Father of Positivism, Auguste Comte in "Cours de
Philosophie Positive". Positive sciences use an inductive and experiment-based
approach.

Inductive Approach:

Experiment 1 The water in container 1 is heated to 373K and boils

Experiment 2 The water in container 2 is heated to 373K and boils
Experiment 3 The water in container 3 is heated to 373K and boils
Experiment 4 The water in container 4 is heated to 373K and boils
Experiment 5 The water in container 5 is heated to 373K and boils

Conclusion: Water boils at 373K

Deductive Approach:

Premise All water boils at 373K

Conclusion The water in containers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and all water in this
world boils at 373K

Thus, it can be said that inductive approach concludes from particular premises
leading to universal proposition while deductive make a conclusion from
universal premise leading to particular conclusion.

C. PHILOSOPHICAL PROJECT

[This part gives limitations of philosophical topics discussed in this paper and
presents how philosophy is shaped differently in every age following contextual
directions of human needs ]

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1. Preliminary on Eastern and Western

Philosophy is an instrument to grasp an inquiry and knowledge contextually.

Culturally, there are two philosophical area as the context, they are Western
Philosophy and Eastern Philosophy. Each area has its own characteristics in
formulating Being regarding to different style of society and its necessities.

Eastern thoughts oftenly discussed are Arabian, Indian, and China school of
thoughts. These areas have great philosophical thoughts because they are
supported by great civilizations. Arab thinkers (especially the classical ones)
were stongly influenced by Plato and Aristotle that are so Hellenistic (in the
classification, even though Arabs are in the East, there was still a trace of
Western thought). Meanwhile, India and China developed their distinctive way
of thinking and ingredient. India, which has a background in Hinduism, has a
spiritualist-cosmological representation. The metaphysical anthropology-
naturalist theme has been developed by various schools of thought from India
such as Vedanta, Shankara, etc. Meanwhile, China develops ethical-political
themes. This ethical-political issue is important in Chinese society because the
context is that there were countries fighting each other before the unity into
one.

We find less discussion of Eastern Philosophy compared to Western

Philosophy. There are several reasons that allegedly cause it. First, Eastern
philosophy is a broad philosophical area with a wide variety of topics. In other
words, there is no such dominant school of thought as in the West that it is
difficult to classify it. Second, the East lacks the habit of systematically
documenting or recording data. Perhaps this is also a consequence of the more
prominent oral culture than written culture. Therefore, even in this paper, what
will be the central topic in discussing philosophical projects is Western
Philosophy. In general, Western Philosophy is divided into certain periods,
including:

a) Classical Greek philosophy

 Cosmocentric
 Anthropocentric
b) Medieval philosophy
 Neo-Hellenists
 Theocentric
c) Modern Philosophy
 Renaissance
 Enlightenment
d) Contemporary Philosophy (also called Postmodern)

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2.Demythologisation

Philosophy begins with man’s astonishment at the world surrounding him

encouraging emergence of many questions. The initial astonishment goes for
nature, such as 'how does it rain?', 'where does lightning come from?', 'how do
earthquakes occur?', and so on. Prior to the emergence of the philosophical
way of thinking, questions of natural expereiences are answered by myths. For
instance, a natural disaster happens because of the gods are angry over the
sins. It is also said that the seasons depict gods’ emotions. To keep such of
disasters away, many offerings and worships to the gods are neded.
Philosophy revises such ways of thinking and it is the first project of philosophy,
that is demythologisation.

Discourse of demythologisation places cosmology (Natural Philosophy) as the

central theme of its discussion. Early philosophers discussing cosmology
included Thales, Anaximanders, Anaximenes, Democritos, Pythagoras, etc. The
main debate of these philosophers is the origin of the cosmos. Technically, it is
unavoidable that the explanations of these philosophers required to be revised
by modern science, but at least Natural Philosophy paved the way for science.
One of the important discovery in this project is that the cosmos deals with a
certain order, not a random or determined decision given by a personal
superhuman entity. It allows science to formulate its laws.

Furthermore, the project of demythologisation is not only applied to nature or

cosmos but also carried out on humans or antopocentric philosophy. It brings
philosophers of the age to get a nearer investigation from a far object to human
himself. The philosopher pioneering the movement is Socrates. He deserves the
account of human inventor. The Socrates’ invention of human clear a way to
the birth of various thoughts and even branches of science and philosophy
exploring richness of humanity. In his investigation of human being, Socrates
introduces ‘eclectic midwifery’ methods. This method begins with a statement
or general understanding in society that will be criticized. This understanding is
then confronted with its negation in the form of a question so that the model
becomes a dialogue between the initial understanding and the question that is
the negation. The answer to this question becomes a new understanding which
is then questioned again and so on until it reaches an eclectic deadlock.
Demythologisation in Classical Greek is basically a characteristic of
philosophical perspective model continuing until now known as the ‘critical
nature’ of philosophy.

In each era, demythologizing has been interpreted in various ways. Scholastic

philosophy (Medieval) interprets demythologsation as an attempt to reconcile
faith with reason. Scholastic thought then is criticised by the Renaissance for a

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rebirth of Greek philosophy centred on human, not God. In fact, in the
Renaissance, God, that is the main topic of medieval thoughts is considered an
irrational myth. The typical renaissance demythologisation marked the dawn of
modernism.

The modern era formally started when Descartes introduced methodology as a

requirement for demythologsation. Previously, the philosophical dialogue style
embellished by questions, like what was done by Socrates, was a common style
in philosophy, as seen in the Summa Theologica (Thomas Aquinas).
‘Methodology’ is originated from the word 'meta' and 'hodos' which means
'through a road'. A knowledge are not worth to be said as a science if the the
way of acquisition does not pass through a certain method. It may be that
practically a knowledge works and is useful, but without a clear method, that
knowledge is not considered as a science. Thus, there are three requirements
for knowledge can be properly considered as a science, they are logical and
systematic (attributed to Aristotle) and methodological (contribution of
Descartes). Simon de Laplace once said that everyone born after Descartes is a
Cartesian (follower of Descartes) because after him, the scientific method is
still used today and even methodological skills are a pre-requisite for
graduating from higher education.

Then, the demythologisation project continued into the Age of Enlightenment

(Aufklarung). One very famous slogan from Aufklarung is "sapere aude" which
means "dare to think by yourself!" (Kant, in What is Enlightenment). The slogan
shows us how other people's thoughts can be is a myth that needs to be
criticised. Kant invites everyone not only to follow other people's opinions, but
to have the courage to have own thoughts, even though it is uncommon and
different from public opinion.

During the Aufklarung Period, the positivism movement also emerged. Apart
from Comte, who favored inductive, another influential thinker is Henri Poincare
with his conventionalism. Poincare finds problems in mathematics that are
neither empirical nor purely rational, especially those that appear in the axioms.
As is well known, axioms are propositions whose truth claims do not require
external proof or are true in themselves. One of the axioms taken as an
example is the fifth axiom of Euclidean geometry which was later refuted and
supplemented by Lobachevsky's Non-Euclid Geometry. In the science
mentioned, there is no empirical evidence or logical rationality, only
conventions. In revealing the truth of a fact, often what can be examined is very
limited. To overcome this problem, experts make conventions about knowledge
of these facts until more valid data is known. The flow of conventionalism gives
one characteristic to science, which is universal. The universal nature of

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science is still used today and can be seen in scientific communities that
provide reviews for research, for example, Scopus, Scimago, SINTA, etc.

After the Modern Era, there has not been a single dominant school of thought,
so it is only called postmodern (after modern) or contemporary ( con + tempo =
current). The great postmodern project is a critique of modernity. There are
many things that are criticized, such as universality which is criticized by
Lyotard with his 'small narrative', systematics which is criticized by Foucault
with post-structuralism, method which is criticized by Feyerabend through his
'Anti-Method', etc. In other words, from the point of view of postmodernism,
modernity is a new myth that needs to be demythologised.

3. Dialectics

In the project of demythologisation, it can be seen that old myths are

rationalised with their negation, then new explanations appear (which are
considered by the next period as new myths) which are then also
demythologised again, and so on. Such a process is known as dialectics.
Dialectics is a development of the eclectic dialogue from Socrates, which was
originally the essence of philosophy itself. In subsequent developments,
dialectics specifically discusses change or motion.

Socratic dialectic was sparked by the method commonly known as the Elenchi
Method. The method is used to examine a proposition, as a thesis, by its
counter-proposition or negation, namely the antithesis. The result of dialectics
is a combination of thesis and antithesis in one entity called synthesis. Then,
the synthesis becomes a new proposition (or a thesis for the next dialectics)
which is examined against its counter-thesis (antithesis), then the result is a
new synthesis, and so on so that dialectical process is endless.

The modern philosopher oftenly associated with dialectics, because of his

profound ideas of it, is Hegel. In the earlier period, dialectics was used in the
logics. Unlike his predecessors, Hegel applies dialectics to metaphysics or
ontology. The dialectics occuring starts from Being (Sein) as the thesis, then

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the counter-proposition of the thesis is the antithesis, that is non-Being (nicht
Sein), and the combination of the thesis and the antithesis is the principle of
becoming (werden). The Hegelian Dialectic is well known as the Dialectic of the
Spirit or Mind (Geist), which is the culmination of German Idealism.

The application of dialectics to metaphysics has triggered a quite sharp debate.

The Father of Metaphysics, Parmenides, said that Being is constant and
unchangeable. Also, Being always exists non-Being will never exist.
Parmenides applies rigorly the principle of identity in Being, viz, Being is Being
and non-Being is non-Being, there is no way that Being can turn into non-
Being. Then, how to explain the change from Being to non-Being in dialectics?

This question can simply be explained through answer to why a glass can break
and a piece of paper can turn into ashes when it is burned, etc. For example,
just take the instance, why glass can break. When we drop a glass on the floor,
the glass breaks. However, if the same thing is applied to paper or wood, the
results are not the same, or in other words, the paper and wood do not break.
Hegel said that glass can break because there is a potentialily of break in the
glass. In other words, there is already a broken glass in the good glass. The
same explanation was also given by Aristotle in his work entitled Φυσικὴ
(Fisika). Aristotle said that Being has a structure of actus and a potentia. Actus
is the principle of Being (fixed, static, unchanging) while potentia is the
principle of change or becoming. For example, a glass as an actus can change
into anything other than the glass itself. The difference is that Hegel expressed
this potentia in negative term. According to Hegel, the potentia of Being is the
negation of the Being. Every thing must contain negation within itself so that
the negativity does not appear externally, but internally. In the same sense,
Being can turn into non-Being because non-Being is already in Being.
Dialectically it can be said that in the thesis there is an antithesis and in the
antithesis there is a synthesis. In general, the thesis-antithesis-synthesis
already exist within Being in se, not from the outside (externally).

Karl Marx adopts the dialectics in the opposite direction from Hegel. The
dialectics of Marxism is the dialectics of materialism. The dialectic is commonly
applied in social analysis. The actual condition of society is embodied in thesis.
By ‘the society’, Marx refers to capitalist society. The thesis already is in the
antithesis, viz the collapse of capitalism which is not caused by external
causes, but from within capitalism itself. The synthesis of the dialectics over
capitalism is communism.

The dialectical thinking style can be applied in other contexts, for example, in
discussing technology. Throughout the history of human civilisation, a new
technology replaces an old technology. However, is the new technology really

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new from scratch? Certainly not. The new technology is a synthesis of the old
technology. The old technology as a thesis contains a negation in itself, that is,
there is no technology like that. In this case it can be assumed that the old
technology contains deficiencies so that it can no longer accommodate human
needs. The superposition between old technology and its antithesis gives rise
to a synthesis, namely a new technology which in turn will become a new
thesis. The new technology will later be replaced by a later technology as a
synthesis and etc. so that the technological development will be endless.

Sleman, February 2023

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