What is philosophy ?

At its simplest, philosophy (from the Greek phílosophía or phílosophía,

meaning ‘the love of wisdom’) is the study of knowledge, or "thinking
about thinking", although the breadth of what it covers is perhaps best
illustrated by a selection of other alternative definitions:
the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics);
what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures
(metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and
what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic) (Wikipedia)
investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge,
or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods
(American Heritage Dictionary) the study of the ultimate nature of
existence, reality, knowledge and goodness, as discoverable by human
reasoning (Penguin English Dictionary) the rational investigation of
questions about existence and knowledge and ethics (WordNet) the
search for knowledge and truth, especially about the nature of man and
his behavior and beliefs (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary) the
rational and critical inquiry into basic principles (Microsoft Encarta
Encyclopedia)
the study of the most general and abstract features of the world and
categories with which we think: mind, matter, reason, proof, truth, etc.
(Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy)
careful thought about the fundamental nature of the world, the
grounds for human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct
(The Philosophy Pages)
As used originally by the ancient Greeks, the term "philosophy" meant
the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, and comprised ALL areas of
speculative thought, including the arts, sciences and religion.

Philosophical questions (unlike those of the sciences) are usually

foundational and abstract in nature. Philosophy is done primarily
through reflection and does not tend to rely on experiment, although
the methods used to study it may be analogous to those used in the
study of the natural sciences.

In common usage, it sometimes carries the sense of unproductive or

frivolous musings, but over the centuries it has produced some of the
most important original thought, and its contribution to politics,
sociology, mathematics, science and literature has been inestimable.
Although the study of philosophy may not yield "the meaning of life,
the universe and everything", many philosophers believe that it is
important that each of us examines such questions and even that an
unexamined life is not worth living. It also provides a good way of
learning to think more clearly about a wide range of issues, and its
methods of analyzing arguments can be useful in a variety of situations
in other areas of life.

Philosophy is such a huge subject that it is difficult to know how to

break it down into manageable and logical sections. Perhaps the most
basic overall split at the highest level is geographical, between Eastern
Philosophy and Western Philosophy (with, arguably, African Philosophy
as a possible third branch at this level).
Presocratic philosophy

Western Philosophy - by which we usually mean everything apart from

the Eastern Philosophy of China, India, Japan, Persia, etc - really began
in Ancient Greece in about the 6th Century B.C. Thales of Miletus is
usually considered the first proper philosopher, although he was just as
concerned with natural philosophy (what we now call science) as with
philosophy as we know it.

Thales and most of the other Pre-Socratic philosophers (i.e. those who
lived before Socrates) limited themselves in the main to Metaphysics
(inquiry into the nature of existence, being and the world). They were
Materialists (they believed that all things are composed of material and
nothing else) and were mainly concerned with trying to establish the
single underlying substance the world is made up of (a kind of Monism),
without resorting to supernatural or mythological explanations. For
instance, Thales thought the whole universe was composed of different
forms of water; Anaximenes concluded it was made of air; Heraclitus
thought it was fire; and Anaximander some unexplainable substance
usually translated as "the infinite" or "the boundless".

Another issue the Pre-Socratics wrestled with was the so-called

problem of change, how things appear to change from one form to
another. At the extremes, Heraclitus believed in an on-going process of
perpetual change, a constant interplay of opposites; Parmenides, on the
other hand, using a complicated deductive argument, denied that there
was any such thing as change at all, and argued that everything that
exists is permanent, indestructible and unchanging. This might sound
like an unlikely proposition, but Parmenides's challenge was well-
argued and was important in encouraging other philosophers to come
up with convincing counter-arguments. Zeno of Elea was a student of
Parmenides, and is best known for his famous paradoxes of motion (the
best known of which is that of the Achilles and the Hare), which helped
to lay the foundations for the study of Logic. However, Zeno's
underlying intention was really to show, like Parmenides before him,
that all belief in plurality and change is mistaken, and in particular that
motion is nothing but an illusion.

Although these ideas might seem to us rather simplistic and

unconvincing today, we should bear in mind that, at this time, there was
really no scientific knowledge whatsoever, and even the commonest of
phenomena (e.g. lightning, water freezing to ice, etc) would have
appeared miraculous. Their attempts were therefore important first
steps in the development of philosophical thought. They also set the
stage for two other important Pre-Socratic philosophers: Empedocles,
who combined their ideas into the theory of the four classical elements
(earth, air, fire and water), which became the standard dogma for much
of the next two thousand years; and Democritus, who developed the
extremely influential idea of Atomism (that all of reality is actually
composed of tiny, indivisible and indestructible building blocks known
as atoms, which form different combinations and shapes within the
surrounding void).

Another early and very influential Greek philosopher was Pythagoras,

who led a rather bizarre religious sect and essentially believed that all of
reality was governed by numbers, and that its essence could be
encountered through the study of mathematics.
Classical Philosophy

Philosophy really took off, though, with Socrates and Plato in the 5th -
4th Century B.C. (often referred to as the Classical or Socratic period of
philosophy). Unlike most of the Pre-Socratic philosophers before him,
Socrates was more concerned with how people should behave, and so
was perhaps the first major philosopher of Ethics. He developed a
system of critical reasoning in order to work out how to live properly
and to tell the difference between right and wrong. His system,
sometimes referred to as the Socratic Method, was to break problems
down into a series of questions, the answers to which would gradually
distill a solution. Although he was careful to claim not to have all the
answers himself, his constant questioning made him many enemies
among the authorities of Athens who eventually had him put to death.

Socrates himself never wrote anything down, and what we know of his
views comes from the "Dialogues" of his student Plato, perhaps the
best known, most widely studied and most influential philosopher of all
time. In his writings, Plato blended Ethics, Metaphysics, Political
Philosophy and Epistemology (the theory of knowledge and how we can
acquire it) into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. He
provided the first real opposition to the Materialism of the Pre-
Socratics, and he developed doctrines such as Platonic Realism,
Essentialism and Idealism, including his important and famous theory of
Forms and universals (he believed that the world we perceive around us
is composed of mere representations or instances of the pure ideal
Forms, which had their own existence elsewhere, an idea known as
Platonic Realism). Plato believed that virtue was a kind of knowledge
(the knowledge of good and evil) that we need in order to reach the
ultimate good, which is the aim of all human desires and actions (a
theory known as Eudaimonism). Plato's Political Philosophy was
developed mainly in his famous "Republic", where he describes an ideal
(though rather grim and anti-democratic) society composed of Workers
and Warriors, ruled over by wise Philosopher Kings.

The third in the main trio of classical philosophers was Plato's student
Aristotle. He created an even more comprehensive system of
philosophy than Plato, encompassing Ethics, Aesthetics, Politics,
Metaphysics, Logic and science, and his work influenced almost all later
philosophical thinking, particularly those of the Medieval period.
Aristotle's system of deductive Logic, with its emphasis on the syllogism
(where a conclusion, or synthesis, is inferred from two other premises,
the thesis and antithesis), remained the dominant form of Logic until
the 19th Century. Unlike Plato, Aristotle held that Form and Matter
were inseparable, and cannot exist apart from each other. Although he
too believed in a kind of Eudaimonism, Aristotle realized that Ethics is a
complex concept and that we cannot always control our own moral
environment. He thought that happiness could best be achieved by
living a balanced life and avoiding excess by pursuing a golden mean in
everything (similar to his formula for political stability through steering
a middle course between tyranny and democracy).