ChristianPhilosophy

What is Christian Philosophy? Because it requires faith in biblical revelation, you might

assume that the Christian worldview cannot possibly have a philosophy of its own. According to

the secular worldviews, naturalism and materialism are grounded firmly in modern scientific

methodology and enlightened human experience. How can we as Christians, who are required

to postulate existence or reality outside the material realm, ever hope to prove that our beliefs

are true, reasonable, rational, and worth living and dying for? 

A Christian Philosophy of Education.

By Dr. Paul W. Cates, Ph.D.

From a Christian philosophy of education, thoughts and actions can be derived, implemented,

and defended. The elements to be considered in developing a Christian philosophy of education

range from theological and doctrinal to social and educational. The first step is the development

of a Biblical base. The Bible becomes the skeleton on which the practical application of our

philosophy can be arranged.

Under consideration in this paper on a Christian school's educational philosophy shall be the

Biblical base, implications for the teaching-learning process of the school, the role of the

educator, and the role of the learner.

The Biblical Base

The importance of having a sound Biblical philosophy of education cannot be

overemphasized. In referring to the importance of developing a distinctively Christian

philosophy, more Christian educators are beginning to realize that to be truly Christian, the

curriculum must be Bible integrated in theory and practice. By this the Bible is to provide more

than theoretical guidance and generalization. It is to be a vital part of the content of the

curriculum and integrated with all subject matter. The Bible should be the integrating factor

around which all other subject matter is correlated and arranged, and provides the criterion by

which all other subject matter is judged.

Since God is central in the universe and is the source of all truth, it follows that all subject matter

is related to God. Thus, the revelation of God must become the heart of the subject matter

curriculum. The Bible itself becomes the central subject in the school' curriculum. It, as God's

primary revelation to man, must become the integrating and correlating factor in all that is

thought and taught at the school. It is the basis by which all other channels of knowledge are

evaluated and used. Through the bible the inter-relatedness of all other subjects and truths is

made possible.

We may conclude therefore that the function of the bible in the subject matter curriculum is two-

fold. First, it provides content of its own. Second, it provides a service function to the other

subjects. The principles of Biblical truth should be applied to and in all other subjects. Claim to

truth from other areas should be tested and evaluated by the philosophical and theological

truths of the Word of God.

God's Christian Schools are built on the premise that all truth is God's truth and that the Word of

God is to be the key factor in the communication of knowledge. It is important to note that any

and all education that is received should have the word of God as its foundation. This is not to

imply that the Bible is a textbook on anything and everything; but rather, that the Bible is to be

the point of reference from which we can evaluate all other areas and sources of knowledge.

What one learns from God's natural revelation must be in harmony with what He has revealed in

His Word. Since God is the author of both revelations it is reasonable that they would not

contradict each other.

In summary some of the advantages of having a Biblical philosophy of education are as follows:

1. It co-ordinates the various spheres of life as a whole.

2. It relates knowledge systematically.

3. It examines the presuppositions, methods, and basic concepts of each discipline and group of

disciplines.

4. It strives for coherence, the formulation of a worldview.

5. Its method is to consult data from the total experience.

Rationalism

Rationalism is the philosophical stance according to which reason is the ultimate source

of human knowledge. It rivals empiricism according to which the senses suffice in justifying

knowledge. In a form or another, rationalism features in most philosophical tradition; in the

Western one, it boasts a long and distinguished list of followers, including Plato, Descartes, and

Kant.

Advanced Information

Philosophical rationalism encompasses several strands of thought, all of which usually share

the conviction that reality is actually rational in nature and that making the proper deductions is

essential to achieving knowledge. Such deductive logic and the use of mathematical processes

provide the chief methodological tools. Thus, rationalism has often been held in contrast to

empiricism.

Earlier forms of rationalism are found in Greek philosophy, most notably in Plato, who held that

the proper use of reasoning and mathematics was preferable to the methodology of natural

science. The latter is not only in error on many occasions, but empiricism can only observe facts

in this changing world. By deductive reason, Plato believed that one could extract the innate

knowledge which is present at birth, derived from the realm of forms.

However, rationalism is more often associated with Enlightenment philosophers such as

Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. It is this form of continental rationalism that is the chief

concern of this article.

Innate Ideas

Descartes enumerated different types of ideas, such as those which are derived from

experience, those which are drawn from reason itself, and those which are innate and thus

created in the mind by God. This latter group was a mainstay of rationalistic thought.

Innate ideas are those that are the very attributes of the human mind, inborn by God. As such

these "pure" ideas are known a priori by all humans, and are thus believed by all. So crucial

were they for rationalists that it was usually held that these ideas were the prerequisite for

learning additional facts. Descartes believed that, without innate ideas, no other data could be

known.

The empiricists attacked the rationalists at this point, arguing that the content of the socalled

innate ideas was actually learned through one's experience, though perhaps largely unreflected

upon by the person. Thus we learn vast amounts of knowledge through our family, education,

and society which comes very early in life and cannot be counted as innate.

One rationalistic response to this empirical contention was to point out that they were many

concepts widely used in science and mathematics that could not be discovered by experience

alone. The rationalists, therefore, concluded that empiricism could not stand alone, but required

large amounts of truth to be accepted by the proper use of reason.

Epistemology

Rationalists had much to say about knowledge and how one might gain certainty. Although this

query was answered somewhat differently, most rationalists eventually got back to the assertion

that God was the ultimate guarantee of knowledge.

Perhaps the best example of this conclusion is found in the philosophy of Descartes. Beginning

with the reality of doubt he determined to accept nothing of which he could not be certain.

However, at least one reality could be deduced from this doubt: he was doubting and must

therefore exist. In the words of his famous dictum, "I think, therefore I am."

From the realization that he doubted, Descartes concluded that he was a dependent, finite

being. He then proceeded to the existence of God via forms of the ontological and cosmological

arguments. In Meditations III-IV of his Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes argued that his

idea of God as infinite and independent is a clear and distinct argument for God's existence.

In fact, Descartes concluded that the human mind was not capable of knowing anything more

certainly than God's existence. A finite being was not capable of explaining the presence of the

idea of an infinite God apart from his necessary existence.

This rationalistic methodology, and the stress on mathematics in particular, was an important

influence on the rise of modern science during this period. Galileo held some essentially related

ideas, especially in his concept of nature as being mathematically organized and perceived as

such through reason.

Biblical Criticism

A number of trends in English deism reflect the influence of, and similarities to, continental

rationalism as well as British empiricism. Besides the acceptance of innate knowledge available

to all men and the deducing of propositions from such general knowledge, deists such as

Matthew Tindal, Anthony Collins, and Thomas Woolston attempted to dismiss miracles and

fulfilled prophecy as evidences for special revelation. In fact deism as a whole was largely

characterized as an attempt to find a natural religion apart from special revelation. Many of

these trends had marked effects on contemporary higher criticism.

Empiricism

Empiricism is the philosophical stance according to which the senses are the ultimate

source of human knowledge. It rivals rationalism according to which reason is the ultimate

source of knowledge. In a form or another, empiricism features in most philosophical tradition. In

Western philosophy, empiricism boasts a long and distinguished list of followers in all ages;

probably, the most fertile period for this trend happened during the early modern period, with the

so-called British empiricists, whose rank includes authors of the caliber of John Locke and

David Hume.

The Centrality of Experience

Empiricist claim that all ideas that a mind can entertain have been formed through some

experiences or – to use a slightly more technical term – through some impressions; here is

how David Hume expressed this creed: "it must be someone impression that gives rise to every

real idea" (A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Section IV, Ch. vi). Indeed – Hume proceeds in

Book II – "all our ideas or more feeble perceptions are copies of our impressions or more lively

ones". Under this characterization, empiricism is the claim that all human ideas are less detailed

copies of some experience or other 

Empiricists seem to have several cases on their side, cases where a person’s lack of

experience precludes her from possessing an adequate idea. Consider pineapples, a favorite

example among early modern writers. How can you explain the flavor of a pineapple to

someone who never has never seen one such fruit? Here is what John Locke says about this

case in his Essay: 

"If you doubt this, see whether you can by words give anyone who has never tasted pineapple

an idea of the taste of that fruit. He may approach a grasp of it by being told of its resemblance

to other tastes of which he already has the ideas in his memory, imprinted there by things he

has taken into his mouth; but this isn’t giving him that idea by a definition, but merely raising up

in him other simple ideas that will still be very different from the true taste of pineapple." (An

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book III, Chapter IV) 

There are of course countless cases analogous to the one cited by Locke. They are typically

exemplified by claims such as: "You can’t understand what it feels like …" Thus, if you never

gave birth, you don’t know what it feels like; if you never dined at the famous Spanish

restaurant El Bulli, you don’t know what it was like; and so on.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that an ideology

or proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in

the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected.

Pragmatism originated in the United States during the latter quarter of the nineteenth century.

Although it has significantly influenced non-philosophers—notably in the fields of law, education,

politics, sociology, psychology, and literary criticism—this article deals with it only as a

movement within philosophy.

The term “pragmatism” was first used in print to designate a philosophical outlook about

a century ago when William James (1842-1910) pressed the word into service during an 1898

address entitled “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results,” delivered at the University

of California (Berkeley). James scrupulously swore, however, that the term had been coined

almost three decades earlier by his compatriot and friend C. S. Peirce (1839-1914). (Peirce,

eager to distinguish his doctrines from the views promulgated by James, later relabeled his own

position “pragmaticism”—a name, he said, “ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers.”) The third

major figure in the classical pragmatist pantheon is  John Dewey(1859-1952), whose wide-

ranging writings had considerable impact on American intellectual life for a half-century. After

Dewey, however, pragmatism lost much of its momentum.

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in pragmatism, with several high-profile

philosophers exploring and selectively appropriating themes and ideas embedded in the rich

tradition of Peirce, James, and Dewey. While the best-known and most controversial of these

so-called “neo-pragmatists” is Richard Rorty, the following contemporary philosophers are often

considered to be pragmatists: Hilary Putnam,Nicholas Rescher, Jürgen Habermas, Susan

Haack, Robert Brandom, and Cornel West.

The article’s first section contains an outline of the history of pragmatism; the second, a

selective survey of themes and theses of the pragmatists.

Reconstructionism

Pragmatic Roots

Reconstuctionism in not a fully developed philosophy of life or of education. Many

writers view it as only an extension of progressivism, the educational philosophy. Like

progressivism, it is based on the “pure” philosophy of pragmatism. Therefore, its answers to

basic questions are the same. In answer to the ontological question of what is real,

reconstructionists agree that everyday, personal experience constitutes reality. The

epistemological question asks: “What is truth and how do we know truth”? The reconstructionist

claims that truth is what works, and we arrive at truth through a process of trial and error. The

axiological question asks: “What is good and beautiful”? The reconstructionist’s answer to this

is whatever the public consensus says it is!

Educational Theory

As far as his educational views are concerned, the reconstructionist sees things the

same way as the progressive—up to a point. For example, reconstructionists believe that

students learn more, remember it longer, and apply it to new situations better if they learn

through experience, rather than through being told something.

As they see it, the teacher’s main role is that of a resource person or a research project

director who guides the students’ learning rather than being a dispenser of knowledge. In this

role, the teacher carries on a dialogue with students, helping them identify problems, frame

hypotheses, find data, draw appropriate conclusions, and select efficacious courses of action

(praxis).

Reconstructionists don’t believe in a predetermined curriculum. They would use the

subject matter from any or all disciplines when needed to solve a problem. They would

probably deal more, however, with the subject matter of social experience (the social sciences)

in solving problems.

The teaching methods favored by reconstructionists are (1) the pupil-teacher dialogue

and (2) praxis. Praxis is “effective action.” In other words, reconstructionists favor applying the

problem-solving method (scientific method) of the progressives to real-life problems. After one

has reached an “intellectual solution” to a problem, reconstructionists favor carefully thought-out

social action to remedy or ameliorate the problem.

Reconstructionists, like progressives, do not favor any type of ability grouping. They feel

students should be grouped only upon the basis of common interests.

Reconstructionists also like flexible student seating arrangements, but since there is so

much involvement outside the classroom, seating is not even an issue.

Reconstructionists share the progressive’s view of student discipline. Moreover, they

feel that if students are actively involved in bringing about change in areas that concern them,

they will not become frustrated, and therefore, will not be likely to become discipline problems.

Reconstructionists prefer to evaluate students subjectively on the basis of their ability as

a social activist rather than give written examinations. Like progressives, they feel that student

self-evaluation has a proper place.

Reconstructionists’ Platform

Reconstructionists differ significantly from progressives in the matter of social policy.

Progressives acknowledge the rapidly changing conditions around us. But they are content to

just teach students how to cope with change. It has been said that progressives seek to teach

students how to reach “intellectual solution” to problems. This often culminates in writing a

paper, doing a report or a project of some kind. This kind of education would tend to “mirror the

contemporary society.” On the other hand, reconstructionists believe that students must learn

through practical experience how to direct change and control it. They believe strongly that our

culture is in crisis. They believe that things will get uncontrollably bad unless we intervene to

direct change and thereby reconstruct the social order.

Reconstructionsists believe that a “ Utopian Future” is a genuine possibility for mankind

if we learn how to intervene and to direct change. They believe that the school should train

students to be social activists in the tradition of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Nader

and Jesse Jackson.

Hindu Philosophy

The compound “Hindu philosophy” is ambiguous. Minimally it stands for a tradition of

Indian philosophical thinking. However, it could be interpreted as designating one

comprehensive philosophical doctrine, shared by all Hindu thinkers. The term “Hindu

philosophy” is often used loosely in this philosophical or doctrinal sense, but this usage is

misleading. There is no single, comprehensive philosophical doctrine shared by all Hindus that

distinguishes their view from contrary philosophical views associated with other Indian religious

movements such asBuddhism or Jainism on issues of epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics

or cosmology. Hence, historians of Indian philosophy typically understand the term “Hindu

philosophy” as standing for the collection of philosophical views that share a textual connection

to certain core Hindu religious texts (the Vedas), and they do not identify “Hindu philosophy”

with a particular comprehensive philosophical doctrine.

Hindu philosophy, thus understood, not only includes the philosophical doctrines present

in Hindu texts of primary and secondary religious importance, but also the systematic

philosophies of the Hindu schools: Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Pūrvamīmāṃsā and

Vedānta. In total, Hindu philosophy has made a sizable contribution to the history of Indian

philosophy and its role has been far from static: Hindu philosophy was influenced by Buddhist

and Jain philosophies, and in turn Hindu philosophy influenced Buddhist philosophy in India in

its later stages. In recent times, Hindu philosophy evolved into what some scholars call “Neo-

Hinduism,” which can be understood as an Indian response to the perceived sectarianism

and scientism of the West. Hindu philosophy thus has a long history, stretching back from the

second millennia B.C.E. to the present.

Buddhist philosophy

Buddhist philosophy is the elaboration and explanation of the delivered teachings of

the Buddha as found in the Tripitaka and Agama. Its main concern is with explicating

the dharmas constituting reality. A recurrent theme is the reification of concepts, and the

subsequent return to the Buddhist middle way.

Early Buddhism avoided speculative thought on metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics,

and epistemology,[3] but was based instead on empiricalevidence gained by the sense organs

(ayatana).

Nevertheless, Buddhist scholars have addressed ontological and metaphysical issues

subsequently. Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes

between different schools of Buddhism. These elaborations and disputes gave rise to various

schools in early Buddhism of Abhidhamma, and to the Mahayana traditions and schools of

the prajnaparamita, Madhyamaka, buddha-nature and Yogacara.

Buddhist philosophy, Indian

Buddhism was an important ingredient in the philosophical melange of the Indian

subcontinent for over a millennium. From an inconspicuous beginning a few centuries

before Christ, Buddhist scholasticism gained in strength until it reached a peak of influence and

originality in the latter half of the first millennium. Beginning in the eleventh century, Buddhism

gradually declined and eventually disappeared from northern India. Although different individual

thinkers placed emphasis on different issues, the tendency was for most writers to offer an

integrated philosophical system that incorporated ethics, epistemology and metaphysics. Most

of the issues addressed by Buddhist philosophers in India stem directly from the teachings

attributed to Siddhārtha Gautama, known better through his honorific title, the Buddha.

The central concern of the Buddha was the elimination of unnecessary discontent. His principal

insight into this problem was that all dissatisfaction arises because people (and other forms of

life as well) foster desires and aversions, which are in turn the consequence of certain

misunderstandings about their identity. Discontent can be understood as frustration, or a failure

to achieve what one wishes; if one’s wishes are generally unrealistic and therefore unattainable,

then one will naturally be generally dissatisfied. Since the Buddha saw human frustration as an

effect of misunderstandings concerning human nature, it was natural for Buddhist philosophers

to attend to questions concerning the true nature of a human being. Since the Buddha himself

was held as the paradigm of moral excellence, it was also left to later philosophers to determine

what kind of being the Buddha had been. A typical question was whether his example was one

that ordinary people could hope to follow, or whether his role was in some way more than that of

a teacher who showed other people how to improve them.

The Buddha offered criticisms of many views on human nature and virtue and duty held

by the teachers of his age. Several of the views that he opposed were based, at least indirectly,

on notions incorporated in the Veda, a body of liturgical literature used by the Brahmans in the

performance of rituals. Later generations of Buddhists spent much energy in criticizing

Brahmanical claims of the supremacy of the Veda; at the same time, Buddhists tended to place

their confidence in a combination of experience and reason. The interest in arriving at correct

understanding through correct methods of reasoning led to a preoccupation with questions of

logic and epistemology, which tended to overshadow all other philosophical concerns during the

last five centuries during which Buddhism was an important factor in Indian philosophy.

Since the Buddha saw human frustration as an effect that could be eliminated if its

cause were eliminated, it was natural for Buddhist philosophers to focus their attention on a

variety of questions concerning causality. How many kinds of cause are there? Can a

multiplicity of effects have a single cause? Can a single thing have a multiplicity of causes? How

is a potentiality triggered into an actuality? Questions concerning simplicity and complexity, or

unity and plurality, figured prominently in Buddhist discussions of what kinds of things in the

world are ultimately real. In a tradition that emphasized the principle that all unnecessary human

pain and conflict can ultimately be traced to a failure to understand what things in the world are

real, it was natural to seek criteria by which one discerns real things from fictions.

1 Human nature2 Ethics3 Buddha-nature4 Epistemology5 Metaphysics

Confucianism

Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the

Chinese philosopher Confucius ( 孔夫子 Kǒng Fūzǐ, or K'ung-fu-tzu, lit. "Master Kong", 551–479 BC).

Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but

later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han Dynasty.[1] Following the

abandonment of Legalism in China after the Qin Dynasty, Confucianism became the official state ideology

of China, until it was replaced by the "Three Principles of the People" ideology with the establishment of

the Republic of China, and then Maoist Communism after the ROC was replaced by the People's

Republic of China in Mainland China.

The core of Confucianism is humanism,[2] the belief that human beings are teachable, improvable

and perfectible through personal and communal endeavour especially including self-cultivation and self-

creation. Confucianism focuses on the cultivation of virtue and maintenance of ethics, the most basic of

which are ren, yi, and li.[3] Ren is an obligation of altruism and humaneness for other individuals within a

community, yi is the upholding of righteousness and the moral disposition to do good, and li is a system of

norms and propriety that determines how a person should properly act within a community.[3] Confucianism holds that one should give up one's life, if necessary, either passively or actively, for the

sake of upholding the cardinal moral values of ren and yi.[4] Although Confucius the man may have been a

believer in Chinese folk religion, Confucianism as an ideology is humanistic[2] and non-theistic, and does

not involve a belief in the supernatural or in a personal god.

Cultures and countries strongly influenced by Confucianism include

mainland China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, as well as various territories settled predominantly

by Chinese people, such as Singapore. Although Confucian ideas prevail in these areas, few people

outside of academia identify themselves as Confucian,[6][7] and instead see Confucian ethics as a

complementary guideline for other ideologies and beliefs, including democracy,[8] Marxism,[9] capitalism,[10] Christianity, Islam and Buddhism.

Paulo Freire's Philosophy 

Description

A critical exploration of the genealogy of Freire’s thinking and the ways in which Freire’s

seminal work has influenced philosophical and political movements, offering an analysis of how

this work might be developed for the future. Irwin explores Freire’s philosophy of education,

which balanced traditional ethical and spiritual concerns with contemporary ideas and drew

upon Christian and Hegelian-Marxist political thought and insights from existentialism and

psychoanalysis. The impact of Freire’s work and legacies are considered, drawing from his

emphasis on the need for praxis to bring about real and progressive change, with special

reference to his work in Brazil and his Third Worldist discourses.

 

This essential guide to Freire’s work and legacy will prove invaluable for postgraduate

students looking at educational theory and the philosophy of education. It will also be of interest

to postgraduate students looking at cultural and political theory.

Socrates Philosophy

Perhaps the greatest philosophical personality in history was Socrates. Unlike the

Sophists, Socrates refused to accept payment for his teachings, maintaining that he had no

positive knowledge to offer, except the awareness of the need for more knowledge. Despite his

humble self-opinion, it was through Socrates that Greek philosophy attained its highest level.

His avowed purpose was "to fulfill the philosopher's mission of searching into myself and other

men".

-470 BC to 399 BC

Greek thinker and founder of Western philosophy. Socrates committed none of his

thinkings to writing. It was only through his pupilPlato  that we know his ideas. And it is difficult

in the later Plato to distinguish between his own thoughts and those of Socrates.

Socrates lived in Athens, where he questioned fellow citizens on how they should live their lives.

'Know thyself' was his principal axiom, and he believe in the unity of beauty, truth and virtue. It

was impossible, Socrates held, to know what was good and not pursue it.

Socrates, the first great Athenian philosopher, taught that the key to a good life lay in moral

worth and the practice of virtue, and saw it as his duty to make other citizens aware of the

ignorance of the true good.

Socrates wrote nothing down; all we know of his teaching comes from the philosophy of

his pupil Plato, who was not quite 30 when Socrates was put to death.

All Plato's major works are in dialogue form, and the main speaker is usually Socrates. It is

assumed that in the earlier dialogues this character is the real historical Socrates, while in the

later ones he represents Plato's mature development of the teachings of Socrates. The

continuity of thought makes it impossible to tell where Socrates leaves off and Plato begins.

Throughout his career Plato remained convinced by the teachings of Socrates, and continued to

identify virtue with knowledge. However, the corresponding belief - that evil is inevitably done by

the ignorant was probably the basis of Plato's distrust of democracy, for a democracy had

convicted Socrates.

Plato 

(427-347 BCE)

The son of wealthy and influential Athenian parents, Plato began his philosophical career as a

student of Socrates. When the master died, Plato travelled to Egypt and Italy, studied with

students of Pythagoras, and spent several years advising the ruling family of Syracuse.

Eventually, he returned to Athens and established his own school of philosophy at the

Academy. For students enrolled there, Plato tried both to pass on the heritage of a

Socratic style of thinking and to guide their progress through mathematical learning to the

achievement of abstract philosophical truth. The written dialogues on which his enduring

reputation rests also serve both of these aims.

In his earliest literary efforts, Plato tried to convey the spirit of Socrates's teaching by

presenting accurate reports of the master's conversational interactions, for which these

dialogues are our primary source of information. Early dialogues are typically devoted to

investigation of a single issue, about which a conclusive result is rarely achieved. Thus,

the Ευθυφρων  (Euthyphro ) raises a significant doubt about whether morally right action can

be defined in terms of divine approval by pointing out a significant dilemma about any appeal to

authority in defence of moral judgments. TheΑπολογημα  (Apology ) offers a description of the

philosophical life as Socrates presented it in his own defense before the Athenian jury.

The Κριτων  (Crito ) uses the circumstances of Socrates's imprisonment to ask whether an

individual citizen is ever justified in refusing to obey the state.

Although they continue to use the talkative Socrates as a fictional character, the middle

dialogues of Plato develop, express, and defend his own, more firmly established, conclusions

about central philosophical issues. Beginning with the Μενων  (Meno ), for example, Plato not

only reports the Socratic notion that no one knowingly does wrong, but also introduces the

doctrine of recollection in an attempt to discover whether or not virtue can be taught.

TheΦαιδων  (Phaedo ) continues development of Platonic notions by presenting the doctrine of

the Forms in support of a series of arguments that claim to demonstrate the immortality of the

human soul.

The masterpiece among the middle dialogues is Plato's Πολιτεια  (Republic ). It begins with a

Socratic conversation about the nature of justice but proceeds directly to an extended

discussion of the virtues (Gk. αρετη [aretê]) of justice (Gk. δικαιωσυνη

[dikaiôsunê]), wisdom (Gk. σοφια [sophía]),courage (Gk. ανδρεια [andreia]),

and moderation (Gk. σωφρσυνη [sophrosúnê]) as they appear both in individual human

beings and in society as a whole.This plan for the ideal society or person requires detailed

accounts of human knowledge and of the kind of educational program by which it may be

achieved by men and women alike, captured in a powerful image of the possibilities for human

life in the allegory of the cave. The dialogue concludes with a review of variousforms of

government, an explicit description of the ideal state, in which only philosophers are fit to rule,

and an attempt to show that justice is better than injustice. Among the other dialoguesof this

period are Plato's treatments of human emotion in general and of love in particular in

the Φαιδρος  (Phaedrus ) and Συμποσιον  (Symposium ).

Plato's later writings often modify or completely abandon the formal structure of dialogue.

They include a critical examination of the theory of forms in Παρμενιδης  (Parmenides ), an

extended discussion of the problem of knowledge in Θεαιτητοσ  (Theaetetus ), cosmological

speculations in Τιμαιος  (Timaeus ), and an interminable treatment of government in the

unfinished Λεγεις  (Laws ). 

Rousseau philosophy

Jean-JacquesRousseau (1712-1778)

As a brilliant, undisciplined, and unconventional thinker, Jean-Jacques Rousseau spent

most of his life being driven by controversy back and forth between Paris and his native

Geneva. Orphaned at an early age, he left home at sixteen, working as a tutor and musician

before undertaking a literary career while in his forties. Rousseau sired but refused to support

several illegitimate children and frequently initiated bitter quarrels with even the most supportive

of his colleagues. His autobiographical Les Confessions  (Confessions ) (1783) offer a thorough

(if somewhat self-serving) account of his turbulent life.

Rousseau first attracted wide-spread attention with his prize-winning essay Discours sur

les Sciences et les Arts  (Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts) (1750), in which he decried

the harmful effects of modern civilization. Pursuit of the arts and sciences, Rousseau argued,

merely promotes idleness, and the resulting political inequality encourages alienation. He

continued to explore these themes throughout his career, proposing in Émile, ou

l'education  (1762) a method of education that would minimize the damage by noticing,

encouraging, and following the natural proclivities of the student instead of striving to eliminate

them.

Rousseau began to apply these principles to political issues specifically in his Discours

sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes  (Discourse on the Origin of

Inequality ) (1755), which maintains that every variety of injustice found in human society is an

artificial result of the control exercised by defective political and intellectual influences over the

healthy natural impulses of otherwise noble savages. The alternative he proposed in Du contrat

social  (On the Social Contract ) (1762) is a civil society voluntarily formed by its citizens

andwholly governed by reference to the general will [Fr. volonté générale] expressed in their

unanimous consent to authority.

Rousseau also wrote Discourse on Political Economy  (1755), Constitutional Program for

Corsica  (1765), and Considerations on the Government of Poland  (1772). Although the

authorities made every effort to suppress Rousseau's writings, the ideas they expressed, along

with those of Locke, were of great influence during the French Revolution. The religious views

expressed in the "Faith of a Savoyard Vicar"  section ofÉmile made a more modest impact.

Stoic philosophy

Epistemology philosophy

As most Greeks, the Stoics believed that a human being had a soul. For the Stoics, the

soul was corporeal, and was diffused throughout the body. (The individual soul was actually a

part of the world-soul.) Diogenes says, "And the soul is a nature capable of perception. And

they regard it as a breath of life, congenital with us; from which they infer that it is a body and

secondly that it survives death" (Lives, 156). The soul is that which comes into contact with

objects outside the perceiver by means of the five senses, which are called parts [or, better,

"functions"] of the soul. The perception of an object by the soul through one of the five senses

the Stoics called "presentation" (phantasia). Diogenes explains, "A presentation is an imprint on

the soul; the name having been appropriately borrowed from the imprint made by the seal upon

the wax" (Lives, 7.45). The soul is like a wax tablet and the object perceived is like a seal that

impresses a copy of itself into the wax. (Chrysippus warns, however, that one should not think

that literally an object impresses itself upon the soul [Lives, 7.50].)  Diogenes quotes Diocles the

Magnesian concerning the importance of "presentation" in Stoic philosophy:

The Stoics agree to put in the forefront the doctrine of presentation and sensation,

inasmuch as the standard by which the truth of things is tested is generically a presentation, and

again the theory of assent and that of apprehension and thought, which precedes all the rest,

cannot be stated apart from presentation. For presentation comes first; then thought, which is

capable of expressing itself, puts into the form of a propositions that which the subject receives

from a presentation (Lives, 7. 49)

    The Stoics, however, made a distinction between two types of presentation; the one is a

sensation (aisthêtikê) that corresponds to an external object, while the other is that conveyed by

the mind itself (Lives,7.51). Diogenes explains,

According to them some presentations are data of sense (aisthêtikai) and others are not: the

former are the impressions conveyed through one or more sense-organs; while the latter, which

are not data of sense, are those received through the mind itself, as is the case with incorporeal

things and all other presentations which are received by reason" (Lives, 7.51).

The distinction is between presentations that originate from external objects and those

that are the result of the operations of the soul or mind, usually connected to the perception of

an external object. When, for example, a person desires or fears an object, being aware of the

desire or fear is a presentation, which, although not originating from the external object, is yet

inseparable from it. Thus the Stoics distinguish between awareness of external, corporeal

objects and awareness of interior states or rational processes, which are incorporeal, but

connected usually with corporeal things.

Do you agree that "presentations" that originate from external objects are such that

they can be compared to an object leaving its imprint in wax? If not, what is the

nature of perception and how do perceptions relate to the hypothethical external

objects from which they originate?

    

The Philosophy of Epicureanism

Epicureanism was the philosophy founded by Epicurus at Athens near the end of the 4th

century B. c. Epicureanism propounded a simple, rational, dogmatic view of the nature of man

and the universe, through which men might attain real and enduring pleasure, in the sense of

peace of mind. The philosophy was never very popular and was attacked with extraordinary

violence and unfairness by philosophers of other schools and, later, by Christians. From these

attacks Epicureanism got its popular reputation as a mere self-indulgent cult of pleasure. But the

small groups that upheld Epicureanism were intensely devoted to their master. They regarded

his teaching as a true gospel, as good news about the nature of things that delivered those who

upheld it, presumably on strictly rational grounds, from the worst of human evils.

In the 1st century B.C. the school attracted some of the finest minds of the time, including

the Roman poet Lucretius, and for a time, Vergil. In the course of the 3d and 4th centuries A. D.

Epicureanism quietly died out. It seems to have been extinct as a school by the end of the 4th

centuryA.D.

The objective and the contents of Epicurean philosophy are known from the fragmentary

remains of Epicurus' own writings, supplemented by later sources. Much of the existing

knowledge of Epicurean doctrine comes from Lucretius' poem On The Nature of Things, and

there are other accounts in the writings of Cicero. The study of the doctrine is made easier by

the fact that it did not develop much after the time of Epicurus, and no schisms or subdivisions

grew up in the school. Epicureans were generally content to repeat the teachings of their master

with very little modification.

The Epicurean Objective

The great objective of Epicureanism, as of the contemporary Stoic and Skeptic schools, was

to free men from anxiety and bring them through knowledge of the truth to that untroubled

peace of mind they called ataraxia. But the route the Epicureans followed to this objective was

very different from that of their contemporaries. Epicurus thought that men reduced themselves

to utter misery by their worrying, particularly about worldly ambitions and the satisfaction of their

material needs. but most especially about death and the gods.

 

Widespread fear of the gods was promoted, according to Epicurus, not only by

popular superstition but even more by philosophical religion. A belief in an all-embracing and

inexorable Divine Providence governing every detail of life was something to be really frightened

of—if it truly existed. Epicurus proposed to deliver men from these fears by persuading them to

follow a way of life conformable to his rational view of the universe.

Philosophical Tenets

Epicurus divided philosophy into three parts: canonic, concerned with the rules for finding the

truth; physics, concerned with the nature of the world and the gods; and ethics, concerned with

morality.

The canonic basis of the doctrine was a simple one. There was only one means of knowledge:

some kind of direct physical perception based on the senses, which were considered absolutely

reliable. The general notions by which men recognize different kinds of things are a sort of

memory-deposit resulting from a large number of particular sense-perceptions.

Epicurean physics, the process of discovering the truth about the universe and the gods,

was a variation of the old atomism of Democritus. Nothing exists but atoms and the empty

space in which they endlessly move. Universes, including our own, and all in them, including

men, are just chance concatenations or chains of atoms, which are always coming into

existence and being dissolved in infinite space. In these atomistic universes, human thought

and action are completely undetermined and not subject to any fate or necessity. The gods live

in the gaps between the universes. They are peculiar atomic structures, immortal in that the flow

of atoms into them exactly balances the outflow. This is not the case with men, and hence men

die.

The gods have no power over the universes, but live a quiet happy life in the between-

worlds. They must exist because all men believe in them, but there is no need to fear them.

Philosophers can derive peace and joy from contemplating the ideal existence of the gods, and

it is possible that the gods approve of the philosophers, who are their equal in all except

immortality.

Philosophical analysis

Philosophical analysis (from Greek: Φιλοσοφική ανάλυση) is a general term for techniques typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition that involve "breaking down" (i.e. analyzing) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concepts (known as conceptual analysis). This article will examine the major philosophical techniques associated with the notion of analysis, as well as examine the controversies surrounding it.

Method of analysis

While analysis is characteristic of the analytic tradition in philosophy, what is to be

analyzed (the analysandum) often varies. Some philosophers focus on analyzing linguistic phenomena, such as sentences, while others focus on psychological phenomena, such as sense-data. However, arguably the most prominent analyses are of concepts or propositions, which is known asconceptual analysis (Foley 1996).Conceptual analysis consists primarily in breaking down or analyzing concepts into their constituent parts in order to gain knowledge or a better understanding of a particular philosophical issue in which the concept is involved (Beaney 2003). For example, the problem of free will in philosophy involves various key concepts, including the concepts of freedom, moral responsibility, determinism, ability, etc. The method of conceptual analysis tends to approach such a problem by breaking down the key concepts pertaining to the problem and seeing how they interact. Thus, in the long-standing debate on whether free will is compatible with the doctrine of determinism, several philosophers have proposed analyses of the relevant concepts to argue for eithercompatibilism or incompatibles.A famous example of conceptual analysis at its best is Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions. Russell attempted to analyze propositions that involved definite descriptions (such as "The tallest spy"), which pick out a unique individual, and indefinite descriptions (such as "a spy"), which pick out a set of individuals. Take Russell's analysis of definite descriptions as an example.[1]Superficially, definite descriptions have the standard subject-predicate form of a proposition. For example, "The present king of France is bald" appears to be predicating "baldness" of the subject "the present king of France". However, Russell noted that this is problematic, because there is no present king of France (France is no longer a monarchy). Normally, to decide whether a proposition of the standard subject-predicate form is true or false, one checks whether the subject is in the extension of the predicate. The proposition is then true if and only if the subject is in the extension of the predicate. The problem is that there is no present king of France, so the present king of France cannot be found on the list of bald things or non-bald things. So, it would appear that the proposition expressed by "The present king of France is bald" is neither true nor false. However, analyzing the relevant concepts and propositions, Russell proposed that what definite descriptions really express are not propositions of the subject-predicate form, but rather they express existentially quantified propositions. Thus, "The present king of France" is analyzed, according to Russell's theory of descriptions, as "There exists an individual who is currently the king of France, there is only one such individual, and that individual is bald." Now one can determine the truth-value of the proposition. Indeed, it is false, because it is not the case that there exists a unique individual who is currently the king of France and is bald—since there is no present king of France (Bertolet 1999).

Phenomenology (philosophy)

Phenomenology (from Greek: phainómenon "that which appears"; and lógos "study") is

the philosophical study of the structures of subjective experience and consciousness. As

aphilosophical movement it was founded in the early years of the 20th century by Edmund

Husserl and was later expanded upon by a circle of his followers at the universities

of Göttingen andMunich in Germany. It then spread to France, the United States, and

elsewhere, often in contexts far removed from Husserl's early work.

Phenomenology, in Husserl's conception, is primarily concerned with the systematic reflection

on and study of the structures of consciousness and the phenomena that appear in acts of

consciousness. This phenomenological ontology can be clearly differentiated from the Cartesian

method of analysis which sees the world as objects, sets of objects, and objects acting and

reacting upon one another.

Husserl's conception of phenomenology has been criticized and developed not only by

himself but also by students such as Edith Stein, by existentialists, such as Max Scheler, Nicolai

Hartmann, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, and by other philosophers, such as Paul

Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, and sociologists Alfred Schütz and Eric Voegelin.

Phenomenology is a movement in philosophy that has been adapted by certain sociologists to

promote an understanding of the relationship between states of individual consciousness and

social life. As an approach within sociology, phenomenology seeks to reveal how human

awareness is implicated in the production of social action, social situations and social worlds

(Natanson 1970).

Phenomenology was initially developed by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), a German

mathematician who felt that the objectivism of science precluded an adequate apprehension of

the world (Husserl 1931, 1970). He presented various philosophical conceptualizations and

techniques designed to locate the sources or essences of reality in the human consciousness. It

was not until Alfred Schutz (1899-1959) came upon some problems in Max Weber's theory of

action that phenomenology entered the domain of sociology (Schutz 1967). Schutz distilled from

Husserl's rather dense writings a sociologically relevant approach. Schutz set about describing

how subjective meanings give rise to an apparently objective social world (Schutz, 1962, 1964,

1966, 1970. 1996; Schutz and Luckmann 1973; Wagner 1983).

Schutz's migration to the United States prior to World War II, along with that of other

phenomenologically inclined scholars, resulted in the transmission of this approach to American

academic circles and to its ultimate transformation into interpretive sociology. Two expressions

of this approach have been called reality constructionism and ethnomethodology. Reality

constructionism synthesizes Schutz's distillation of phenomenology and the corpus of classical

sociological thought to account for the possibility of social reality (Berger 1963, 1967; Berger

and Berger 1972; Berger and Kellner 1981; Berger and Luckmann 1966; Potter 1996).

Ethnomethodology integrates the Parsonian concern for social order into phenomenology and

examines the means by which actors make ordinary life possible (Garfinkel 1967; Garfinkel and

Sacks 1970). Reality constructionism and ethnomethodology are recognized to be among the

most fertile orientations in the field of sociology (Ritzer 1996).

Phenomenology is used in two basic ways in sociology: (1) to theorize about substantive

sociological problems and (2) to enhance the adequacy of sociological research methods. Since

phenomenology insists that society is a human construction, sociology itself and its theories and

methods are also constructions (Cicourel 1964; 1973). Thus, phenomenology seeks to offer a

corrective to the field's emphasis on positivist conceptualizations and research methods that

may take for granted the very issues that phenomenologists find of interest. Phenomenology

presents theoretical techniques and qualitative methods that illuminate the human meanings of

social life.

Phenomenology has until recently been viewed as at most a challenger of the more

conventional styles of sociological work and at the least an irritant. Increasingly, phenomenology

is coming to be viewed as an adjunctive or even integral part of the discipline, contributing

useful analytic tools to balance objectivist approaches (Aho 1998; Levesque-Lopman 1988;

Luckmann 1978; Psathas 1973; Rogers 1983).

Logical positivism

Logical positivism, also called logical empiricism,  a philosophical movement that arose

in Vienna in the 1920s and was characterized by the view that scientific knowledge is the only

kind of factual knowledge and all traditional metaphysical doctrines are to be rejected as

meaningless.

Logical positivism differs from earlier forms of empiricism and positivism (e.g., that

of David Humeand Ernst Mach) in holding that the ultimate basis of knowledge rests upon public

experimental verification rather than upon personal experience. It differs ... (100 of 527 words)

 Logical positivism (also known as logical empiricism, scientific philosophy, and neo-

positivism) is a philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is

indispensable for knowledge—with a version of rationalism incorporating mathematical and

logico-linguistic constructs and deductions of epistemology. It may be considered as a type

of analytic philosophy.

Logical positivism, in the formal sense, began from discussions of a group known as the

First Vienna Circle which gathered during the earliest years of the 20th century in Vienna at

the Café Central. After World War I, Hans Hahn, a member of that early group, helped

bring Moritz Schlick to Vienna. Schlick's Vienna Circle, along with Hans Reichenbach's Berlin

Circle, propagated the new doctrines more widely during the 1920s and early 1930s. It was Otto

Neurath's advocacy that made the movement self-conscious and more widely known. A 1929

pamphlet written by Neurath, Hahn, and Rudolf Carnap summarized the doctrines of the Vienna

Circle at that time. The doctrines included the opposition to all metaphysics,

especially ontology and synthetic a prioripropositions; the rejection of metaphysics not as wrong

but as having no meaning; a criterion of meaning based on Ludwig Wittgenstein's early work;

the idea that all knowledge should be codifiable by a single standard language of science; and

above all the project of rational reconstruction, in which ordinary-language concepts were

gradually to be replaced by more precise equivalents in that standard language.

During the early 1930s, the Vienna Circle dispersed, mainly because of political

upheaval and the deaths of Hahn and Schlick. The most prominent proponents of logical

positivism emigrated to the United Kingdom and the United States, where they influenced

American philosophy considerably. Until the 1950s, logical positivism was the leading school in

the philosophy of science. Ultimately, it failed to solve many of the problems with which it was

centrally concerned,[2][3][4] and after the Second World War, its doctrines increasingly came under

attack by thinkers such asNelson Goodman, Willard Van Orman Quine, J. L. Austin, Peter

Strawson, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.