THE PROBLEMS

OF PHILOSOPHY
Prepared by:
Jan Cleo D. Canoy
THE THREE GREAT PROBLEMS
OF PHILOSOPHY
THE PROBLEM OF REALITY
KNOWLE
DGE
VAL
UE
THE PROBLEM OF REALITY
What is the nature of the universe in which we live?

What is real?

The branch of philosophy which deals with this great

problem is named
METHAPHYSICS.
THE PROBLEM OF
KNOWLEDGE
How does a man know what is real?

How do we come by our knowledge and how can we be sure it is

true, not error or illusion?

The area of philosophy which is devoted to solving this problem

is named
EPISTEMOLOGY.
THE PROBLEM OF VALUE
What are the important values which are to be desired in living?

Are these values rooted in reality?

And how can they be realized in our experience?

The branch of philosophy dealing with such questions as these is

named
AXIOLOGY.
THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC
 METAPHYSICS
▪ the most abstract branch of philosophy.
▪ deals with the "first principles" of existence, seeking to
define basic concepts like
▪ Existence
▪ Being
▪ Causality
▪ Substance
▪ Time and space
ONTOLOGY
▪ the study of being
▪ metaphysics studies the general nature of reality
▪ ontology specifically studies the idea of being
▪ ontology asks "what" while metaphysics asks "how"

METAPHY
SICS
METAPHY
SICS
METAPHYSICS VS.
EPISTEMOLOGY
Metaphysics Epistemology
What is causality? How can we know whether
one thing caused another?
What is time? Is time part of the structure of
Is there such a thing as free reality that we experience, or
will? is it just part of the structure of
our own minds?
What is a substance?

METAPHY
SICS
FAMOUS QUOTES ABOUT
METAPHYSICS
Quote 1: "Why are there beings at all, instead
of Nothing?" (Martin Heidegger)

you cannot ask a "Nothing“ why it’s not here (or any other
question for that matter), and therefore you cannot receive
an answer if it doesn’t exist

METAPHY
SICS
FAMOUS QUOTES ABOUT
METAPHYSICS
Quote 2: "Shallow men believe in luck or in
circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and
effect." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

since causality is true, practically speaking, men with

"strong" minds believe in it, as opposed to believing in luck,
which is a matter of faith or wishful thinking
METAPHY
SICS
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
METAPHYSICS
The word "metaphysics" comes from Aristotle, but he was
certainly not the first philosopher to raise metaphysical
questions.

The theory of the four elements (earth, water, air, and fire)
is an ontological theory.

METAPHY
SICS
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
METAPHYSICS
Islam, for example, has an elaborate metaphysical system
based on a single "first principle": the unity of God, or
Tawhid. Starting from the idea of Tawhid, Islamic
philosophers have used rational deduction to work out all
sorts of philosophical conclusions that continue to be
debated around the world today.

METAPHY
SICS
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
METAPHYSICS
Confucianism is the one major religion that doesn’t focus
on metaphysics (Confucianism is more of an ethical-social
doctrine than a metaphysical one), and for this reason some
scholars argue that it shouldn’t be included within the
category of "religions“ at all!

METAPHY
SICS
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
METAPHYSICS
The Scientific Revolution
The early scientists figured out that they could understand
the world much more effectively by only believing in ideas
which could be tested and thereby proven.
Many people today unfortunately misunderstand and think
that science is a faith in the material world and a denial of
any immaterial world.

METAPHY
SICS
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
METAPHYSICS

faith
METAPHY
SICS
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
METAPHYSICS
Quantum Physics
new "metaphysics“

the rules of quantum physics make incredibly accurate

predictions about what actually happens in nature - much
more accurate than anything that came before

METAPHY
SICS
 EPISTEMOLOGY
the study of knowledge

What is truth?
Do we really know what we think we know?
How can knowledge be made more reliable?
TYPES OF EPISTEMOLOGY
1. Foundationalism
all knowledge is built on the basis of a few axioms, or
statements that cannot be doubted.

• Pros: foundationalism is extremely precise.

• Cons: you have to have a lot of confidence in your
axioms!
EPISTEMO
LOGY
TYPES OF EPISTEMOLOGY
2. Coherentism
knowledge is true as long as it isn’t self-contradictory

• Pros: coherentism is flexible.

• Cons: coherentism makes it hard to judge other people’s
views as "false."

EPISTEMO
LOGY
TYPES OF EPISTEMOLOGY
3. Pragmatism
if it works, its true

• Pros: avoids the problems of both foundationalism and

coherentism.
• Cons: hard to define "what works."

EPISTEMO
LOGY
EPISTEMOLOGY VS
ONTOLOGY
Epistemology is the study of knowledge
Ontology is the study of existence

Ontology raises questions about what exists, what kinds of

things exist, and what it means for something to exist.

EPISTEMO
LOGY
EPISTEMOLOGY VS
ONTOLOGY
Ontology Epistemology
Does God exist? How can we know if God exists?
Is the universe solely composed of Can spirits and souls be observed
physical matter, or are there non- or detected? If not, does it still
material beings like souls and make sense to say we have
spirits? knowledge of them?
What is free will? Do human beings Is free will something that we know,
have it? or just something we experience?
Is there even a difference?

EPISTEMO
LOGY
QUOTES ABOUT
EPISTEMOLOGY
Quote 1: "Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such
a thing as "the truth" exists... If the Leader says of such
and such an event, ’It never happened’ - well, it never
happened. If he says that two and two are five - well, two
and two are five." (George Orwell)

"the Leader is never wrong"

EPISTEMO
LOGY
QUOTES ABOUT
EPISTEMOLOGY
Quote 2: "Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty
that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful." (Oscar
Wilde)

Not only that human knowledge is limited, but in fact, that

this is a good thing!

EPISTEMO
LOGY
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
EPISTEMOLOGY
▪ what they might be made of (an ontological question)
▪ how human beings could find out (an epistemological
question)

EPISTEMO
LOGY
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
EPISTEMOLOGY
Western tradition
deductive reasoning
▪ Plato
▪ Aristotle
▪ Medieval Muslim scholars: "there is only one God“
▪ Thomas Aquinas ⟶ Christian epistemology
▪ Islamic philosophers
EPISTEMO
LOGY
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
EPISTEMOLOGY
Non-Western tradition
less dominant
▪ Indian philosophers

EPISTEMO
LOGY
THE HISTORY AND
IMPORTANCE OF
EPISTEMOLOGY
American philosophers ⟾ pragmatist epistemology

EPISTEMO
LOGY
 AXIOLOGY
the philosophical study of value
▪ Paul Lapie in 1902 and Edward Von Hartman in 1908
▪ ’axios’ means worth or value and ’logos’ means logic or
theory
▪ an objective format for measuring intangible attitudes and
values
▪ measures the level of development and the types of one’s
perceptual biases in one’s thinking
AREAS OF AXIOLOGY
1. Ethics
moral philosophy
▪ involves systematizing, defending and recommending
concepts of right and wrong conduct
▪ studies the moral behaviour in humans and how one should
act
▪ "moralists"

AXIOL
OGY
AREAS OF AXIOLOGY
2. Aesthetic
dealing with the nature of art, beauty and taste, with the
creation and appreciation of beauty
▪ the study of sensory or sensory-emotional values,
sometimes called judgements of sentiment and taste
▪ "critical reflection on art, culture and nature.“
▪ the tragic, the sublime or the moving

AXIOL
OGY
AREAS OF AXIOLOGY
3. Value
either material values or spiritual values
▪ Material values refer to the values of people’s daily
necessities, such as commodities.
▪ Spiritual values refer to the faculties of intellect, emotion
and will or the values of trueness, goodness and beauty.

AXIOL
OGY
AREAS OF AXIOLOGY
4. Religious
▪ Our living has been more habitually religious than artistic
▪ a conceptual basis for thinking of religious values

AXIOL
OGY
AREAS OF AXIOLOGY
5. Social
▪ “NO MAN IS AN ISLAND”

AXIOL
OGY
 LOGIC
Greek "logos“: word, thought, idea, argument, account,
reason or principle
▪ the study of reasoning, or the study of the principles and
criteria of valid inference and demonstration.
▪ It attempts to distinguish good reasoning from bad
reasoning.
▪ Aristotle: "new and necessary reasoning“
▪ investigates and classifies the structure of statements and
arguments, both through the study of formal systems of
inference and through the study of arguments in natural
language.
▪ deals only with propositions that are capable of being true and
false.
▪ not concerned with the psychological processes connected with
thought, or with emotions, images and the like.
▪ covers core topics such as the study of fallacies and paradoxes,
as well as specialized analysis of reasoning

LOG
IC
Logical systems should have three things:
▪ consistency (which means that none of the theorems of the
system contradict one another);
▪ soundness (which means that the system’s rules of proof will
never allow a false inference from a true premise); and
▪ completeness (which means that there are no true sentences
in the system that cannot, at least in principle, be proved in
the system).

LOG
IC
HISTORY OF LOGIC
▪Ancient India: involving a combination of
induction and deduction
▪Modern logic ⟿ Ancient Greek tradition
▪ Plato
▪ Aristotle

LOG
IC
HISTORY OF LOGIC
Aristotle: "Organon“
▪ Law of Excluded Middle
▪ Law of Non-Contradiction / Law of Contradiction
▪ Syllogism
▪ His followers: Peripatetics
▪ medieval times: Aristotelian logic (or dialectics), grammar,
rhetoric

LOG
IC
HISTORY OF LOGIC
▪Islamic philosophy: Avicennian logic
▪ hypothetical syllogism, temporal logic, modal logic and inductive logic
▪ 18th Century: Immanuel Kant
▪ “logic should be conceived as the science of judgment”
▪ 20th Century: Gottlob Frege, Alfred North
Whitehead and Bertrand Russell
⤷ Symbolic Logic
LOG
IC
TYPES OF LOGIC
▪ Formal Logic ▪ Modal logic
▪ Informal Logic ▪ Propositional Logic
▪ Symbolic Logic ▪ Predicate Logic
▪ Mathematical Logic ▪ Fallacies
▪ Deductive Logic ▪ Paradoxes
▪ Inductive Logic

LOG
IC
REFERENCES
Butler, Donald J., Four Philosophies and Their Practices in Education and
Religion. 3rd Edition
Schofield, H. (1975). The Philosophy of Education, An Introduction. Lowe and
Brydone Ltd. Thetford, Norfolk

THANK
YOU!