What is Philosophy?

Philosophy is a form of inquiry – a process

of analysis, criticism, interpretation, and
speculation (Singer 1990).

Broadly defined as the search for the

ultimate, conducted by reason, in order to
satisfy man’s curiosity about himself and the
universe of which he is a part (Sullivan 1957).
Ancient Greek Philosophers( 600-400 B.C.)

Sophists
• PROTAGORAS
Man is the measure of all things
• GORGIAS
Nothing exists, if it if it did, no one could know it;
and if anyone knew it he could not communicate
that knowledge to others
PYTHAGORAS
• No man, but only God is wise
• That number, and the relations between them are
the ultimate reality
Classical Greek Philosophers( 400 B.C.- 400 A.D.)

Socrates
• That there is justice and injustice, right and wrong,
truth and falsity( Sullivan, 1957)
• First step on the road to knowledge was the
recognition of our ignorance
Plato
• Believed that the most important idea is the idea of
good, the knowledge of good is the object of all
inquiry
Aristotle
• Founder of formal logic
Medieval Greek Philosophers( 300-1600A.D.)
Origen of Alexandria
• Believed that the knowledge of the good(God) is itself
enough o remove all taint of sin and ignorance from
souls
St. Augustine
• Such a being, he agues, must really exist, for the vey
idea of such a being implies its existence
• De Trinitate
St. Thomas Aquinas
• follows Aristotle in thinking that an act is good
or bad depending on whether it contributes to
or deters us from our proper human end—
the telos or final goal at which all human
actions aim.
Modern Science

• The Copernican Revolution, or the paradigm shift from

the Ptolemaic model of the heavens to the heliocentric
model with the sun at the center of the solar system

• Galileo showed a remarkably modern appreciation for

the proper relationship between mathematics,
theoretical physics, and experimental physics.