The emergence of Philosophy

,Definition and its importance

Etymology:
The term philosophy is taken from the Greek
word, (phylos) meaning "to love" or "to befriend" and
, (sophie) meaning "wisdom."
Thus, "philosophy" means "the love of wisdom".
Socrates, a Greek philosopher, used the term
philosophy as an equivalent to the search for wisdom.
 Also, the term wisdom is used as a general term
for describing the intellectual probing of any idea
 Introduction to Philosophy

• The study of any discipline, such as

Philosophy, should begin with its definition.
• But one of the characteristics of philosophy is
that definitions are difficult, not just the
definition of philosophy, but the definition of
anything.
• To return to the definition of philosophy, in the
Phaedo
•Socrates says that philosophy is a preparation
for the death that awaits us all.
• When our minds are engaged in philosophy
they escape earthly concerns and dwell in the
region of ideas.
• Our minds enter a spiritual region transcending
the death of our corpus.
• Another, better known, view of Socrates is that of
philosophy as ‘the love of wisdom’. This love
discovers truth, and we become wise by practical
application in our daily lives of what has been
discovered
• Pre-Socratics
• The history of philosophy in the west begins with
the Greeks
• particularly with a group of philosophers
commonly called the pre-Socratics
• . This is not to deny the occurrence of other pre-
philosophical rumblings in
Egyptian,Persian,Chinese, and Babylonian
cultures.
• Certainly great thinkers and writers existed in
each of these cultures
• we have evidence that some of the earliest Greek
philosophers may have had contact with at least
some of the products of Egyptian and
Babylonian thought.
• However, the early Greek thinkers added at least
one element which differentiates their thoughts
from all those who came before them.
• Thales of Miletus (624 BC - 546 BC), was a pre-
Socratic Greek philosopher.
• Many regard him as the first philosopher in the
Greek tradition.
• He has also been traditionally considered the
father of science
• although it is also contended that the beginnings
of science may be traced to Ancient Egypt.
• we discover in their writings
something more than dogmatic
assertions about the ordering of the
world -- we find reasoned arguments
for various beliefs about the world.
• Philosophy is the holistic science explore the
origins and aims of the universe ,human ,and
nature.
• The final aim is detection of the truth for itself
•   Philosophy according to this definition is
looking for the first and ultimate reasons for
the universe and of human and nature.
• Also It defines as point of view or
comprehensive intellectual vision for
human and the world.
According to this second trend we can
consider every man as a philosopher
because everyone has a special point of
view for life, , man and society
• Philosophy is sometimes described as "thinking in
thinking", that is, to think in nature of thinking by
using reflective thinking.
• The Greek Pythagoras (572-497 BC) was the first who
described himself as a philosopher.
• He defend the philosophy: it is the researching about
the truth by meditation in things.
• He consider love of wisdom is a searching for truth,
and wisdom is knowledge based on reflective thinking.
• Modern Philosophy focuses on logic and
conceptual analysis.
• Topics of philosophy include :the theory of
knowledge , human existence, ethics , the nature
of language and the nature of the mind.
• philosophy word in modern philosophy refers to
seeking for metacognition of the fundamental
issues in human life, which include the death ,
life, truth and the reality.
 Philosophy questions
• Philosophy questions are identified according on following
questions:
What truth?
• How or why consider something right or wrong, and how we
think?
• What is the wisdom?
• Is the knowledge possible? How do we know what we know?
• Is there a difference between correct and wrong behavior
morally?
If so; why there is a wide conflict about correct and wrong
behavior.
• Is there in absolute values?
• what is the truth? What are the things that
consider as truth?
What is the nature of thought and beliefs?
What is beauty?
• Why aesthetic criterion differs over time?
What art?
• Is beauty exist fact?
 Topics of philosophy
1. Metaphysics :is a traditional branch of philosophy
concerned with explaining the fundamental nature
of being and the world that encompasses it.
 Researchers divided metaphysics to two areas:
ontology, cosmology.
 Ontology is a philosophical study of the nature of
being, becoming, existence, or reality, as well as
the basic categories of being and their relations.
 cosmology studying the natural of universe. It
addresses the science behind the nature of reality?
And the difference between the appearance and
the fact
• Ideal philosophy decide that anything is
physical is an idea or a form of the idea.
• According that the mental phenomena is the
fact and conformity to reality.
• All of the events resulting from the mechanism
of the forces, and not very certain aim.
•   The finality I decides that the universe and
everything in it is characterized by the
presence of occurrence for certain aim.
 Theories and influence
• Before Thales, the Greeks explained the origin
and nature of the world through myths of
anthropomorphic gods and heroes.
• Phenomena like lightning or earthquakes
were attributed to actions of the gods.
• By contrast, Thales attempted to find
naturalistic explanations of the world, without
reference to the supernatural.
• He explained earthquakes by imagining that
the Earth floats on water and that
earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked
by waves.
• Thales's most famous belief was his
cosmological doctrine, which held that the
world originated from water.
• It is sometimes assumed that Thales
considered everything to be made from water.
• According to others, however, it's likely that
while Thales saw water as an origin, he never
pondered whether water continued to be the
substance of the world