Social Philosophy example essay topic

Beginning of Philosophy The word philosophy comes from the two Greek words philbin, which means "to love" and sophia, which means "knowledge" or "wisdom". Thales: One of the first known Greek philosophers, was doing speculative physics when he claimed that everything in the natural world was made of water. Leucippus and Democritus: Arrived at the conclusion that all matter was made from tiny particles (atoms) that were similar except for their size and shape; differences in larger bodies were accounted for by means of their different arrangements. Early thinkers thought of physics as a part of philosophy, and this view persisted over 2000 years. The full title of Isaac Newton's Principles, in which Newton set forth his famous theories of mechanics, mathematics, and stronomy, is Mathematical principles of Natural Philosophy. Philosophy: The definition of philosophy as the love or pursuit of wisdom, but this is too vague and general.

What philosophy is it self a philosophical issue, and the issue has not yet been settled. Philosophy is not an empirical science. Facts are often relevant to a philosophical question, but they cannot by themselves provide us with an answer. Many philosophical questions concern to norms.

Normative questions ask about the value of something. These sciences are interested in finding out what things are, but they cannot tell us how things ought to be. Ethical or aesthetic norms are standards of one kind or another and we apply them when we decide for example what is right or wrong, good or bad... When we voluntarily choose to do something, nothing makes us choose. Given the state of the world at the time you chose to extend a helping hand, you might have chosen not to do so. If this is tru- if nothing made you choose- then it follows that the choice cannot have been caused.

If it had been caused, then given the state of the world at the time the cause happened, you could not have chosen not to make the choice. The problem is voluntary choices happen. They seem to be real things. So the theory that voluntary choices are not caused runs counter to another belief we have, that everything that happens was caused.

Worse still, if your choice was not caused to happen, then you did not cause it to happen. That conflicts with yet another belief we have- namely, that for a choice like this we deserve praise. If you did not cause it to happen, what sense is there in praising you? David Hume argued that really mean that cause C had effect E is that C made E happen. But Hume's view seemed paradoxical at the time he stated it, and many who read Hume are still far from convinced he was right. The Divisions of Philosophy: Metaphysics: Which studies the nature of being.

What is being? What are its fundamental features and properties? These are two basic questions of metaphysics. Epistemology: The theory of knowledge. What is the nature of knowledge and what are its criteria, sources, and limits? Ethics or moral philosophy: The philosophical study of moral judgments, which includes, most importantly, the question: Which moral judgments are correct?

Social Philosophy: The philosophical study of society and its institutions. This branch of philosophy is concerned especially with determining the features of the ideal or best society. Political philosophy: Focuses on one social institution, the state, and seeks to determine its justification and ethically proper organization. Political philosophy is so closely related to social philosophy that it is common to treat them as a single area, social-political philosophy. Aesthetics: The philosophical study of art and of value judgments about art, and of beauty in general. Logic: The theory of correct reasoning, which seeks to investigate and establish the criteria of valid inference and demonstration.

So philosophy has seven major branches. However, the various main branches of philosophy do not each contain and equal number of theories or concepts or words. Philosophy view Historically: Ancient philosophy: Sixth century B. C through, approx, the third century A.D. Medieval philosophy: Third through sixteenth centuries, approx. Modern philosophy: Fifteenth through twentieth centuries.

Contemporary philosophy: Twentieth century. Philosophy can also be divided geographically, Eastern philosophy an d Western philosophy being the main divisions, with further subdivisions... In the twentieth century the predominant interests and methods of philosophers in the West have tended to separate philosophy into two fairly distinct traditions: Analytic philosophy: Analytic philosophers believe (or are the intellectual descendants of those who did believe) that the proper method of philosophy is what is called analysis. Generally (but with exceptions) this is the predominant tradition in English speaking countries. Continental philosophy: Several approaches to philosophy fit under this heading, including principally what are known as existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics.

Generally but with important exceptions this is the predominant in Continental Europe. Arguments: When someone supports a belief by giving a reason for accepting the belief, he or she has given an argument. Setting forth arguments is the most basic of philosophical activities and is one of the activities that distinguishes philosophy from merely having opinions. The conclusion of a person's argument is the point he or she is trying to stablish; the reason the person gives for accepting the conclusion is stated in the premises of the argument. There are just two ways in which an argument can fail or be incorrect. On one hand, one or more of the premises might be questionable.

On the other hand, even if none of the premises are questionable, they might fail to stablish the conclusion. Logic, the theory of correct inherence, is concerned with the second type of failure. Fallacies are common mistakes in reasoning of the second type, and one important contribution of logic has been identification, classification, and analysis of fallacies. Obviously, everyone concerned with sound reasoning, including philosophers, tries to avoid fallacies, but even philosophers are not always successful in doing so. Some fallacies are frequently encountered in philosophical discussions. Argumentum ad hominem: (Argument to the person).

Frequently people have the mistaken idea that they can successfully challenge a view by criticizing the person who holds that view. Ad hominem arguments are surprisingly common, and it can take a special effort to remember to evaluate a person's views on their merits and not on the merits of the person whose views they are. Appeals to emotion: Arguments that try to stablish conclusions solely by attempting to arouse or play on the emotions of a listener or reader. Straw man: Sometimes people (even philosophers) will "refute" someone's view by refuting what is actually a mis presentation of that view. If we aren't carefull we may think the original view has been refuted rather than the "straw man" that actually has been attacked. When the Irish philosopher George Berkeley maintained that physical objects are really just clusters of sensations existing only in the mind, the English writer Samuel Johnson "refuted" Berkeley by noting that some physical objects are so hard that things just bounce off them.

Johnson then kicked a rock, trying to demonstrate that rocks are too hard to be mere sensations. But Johnson had in fact misrepresented Berkeley, for Berkeley had never maintained that rocks are not hard. Johnson had set up a straw man that was easy to knock over. Red herring: To address a point other than the one actually at issue; that is, to bring in something that is off the point. You chose to act is not equivalent to the fact that you could have acted differently.

Ad hominem arguments, appeals to emotion, and straw man arguments might all be said to be read herrings because they all seek to establish something that is not quite the issue. Begging the question: One premise rests on an assumption that is more or less identical to the very thing you are trying to prove as your conclusion. The argument begs on the question. Black-or-white fallacy: Arguments that limit us to two options when in fact more options exist commit the black-or-white fallacy.