CHAPTER ONE

LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY

The Greek Philosopher Socrates once stated that “Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and
philosophy begins in wonder”.
Etymologically, the word “philosophy” comes from two Greek words: “philo” and “sophia”, which mean
“love” and “wisdom”, respectively. The ancient Greek thinker Pythagoras was the first to use the word
“philosopher” to call a person who clearly shows a marked curiosity in the things he experiences. Anyone
who raises questions, such as Does God exists? What is reality? What is the ultimate source of Being?
What is knowledge? What does it mean to know? How do we come to know? What is value?
According to Socrates, wisdom consists of a critical habit and eternal vigilance about all things and a
reverence for truth, whatever its form, and wherever its place. Based on the Socratic understanding of
wisdom, philosophy, as a pursuit of wisdom, is, thus, the development of critical habits, the continuous
search for truth.
But, questioning/criticism is not the final end of philosophy, though raising the right question is often
taken not only as the beginning and direction of philosophy but also as its essence. Raising the right
question is an art that includes the ability to foresee what is not readily obvious and to imagine different
possibilities and alternatives of approaching the apparent.
The other thing, which is worthy of noting, is that philosophy is an activity. It is not something that can
be easily mastered or learned in schools.

Basic Features of Philosophy

As an academic discipline, philosophy has its own salient features that distinguishes it from other
academic disciplines, be it natural, social and humanistic disciplines.
 Philosophy is a set of views or beliefs about life and the universe, which are often held
uncritically.
 Philosophy is a process of reflecting on and criticizing our most deeply held conceptions and
beliefs.
 Philosophy is a rational attempt to look at the world as a whole.
 Philosophy is the logical analysis of language and the clarification of the meaning of words and
concepts.
 Philosophy is a group of perennial problems that interest people and for which philosophers
always have sought answers.

Core Fields of Philosophy

Lesson 3: Metaphysics and Epistemology

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the ultimate nature of reality or existence. It deal
with issues of reality, God, freedom, soul/immortality, the mind-body problem, form and substance
relationship, cause and effect relationship, and other related issues. Metaphysicians seek an irreducible
foundation of reality or ‘first principles’ from which absolute knowledge or truth can be induced and
deduced. The term metaphysics is derived from the Greek words “meta” means (“beyond”, “upon” or
“after”) and physika, means (“physics”)

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Here are some of the questions that Metaphysics primarily deals with:
 What is reality?
 What is the ultimately real?
 What is the nature of the ultimate reality?
 Is it one thing or is it many different things?
 Can reality be grasped by the senses, or it is transcendent?
 What makes reality different from a mere appearance?
 What is mind, and what is its relation to the body?
 Is there a cause and effect relationship between reality and appearance?
 Does God exist, and if so, can we prove it?
 Are human actions free, or predetermined by a supernatural force?
 What is human being? A thinking mind? A perishable body? Or a combination of both?
 What is time?
Metaphysical questions are the most basic to ask because they provide the foundation upon
which all subsequent inquiry is based. Metaphysical questions may be divided into four
subsets or aspects.

i) Cosmological Aspect: Cosmology consists in the study of theories about the origin, nature, and
development of the universe as an orderly system. Questions such as these populate the realm of
cosmology: “How did the universe originate and develop? Did it come about by accident or
design? Does its existence have any purpose?”
ii) Theological Aspect: Theology is that part of religious theory that deals with conceptions of and
about God. “Is there a God? If so, is there one or more than one? What are the attributes of God?
If God is both all good and all powerful, why does evil exist? If God exists, what is His
relationship to human beings and the ‘real’ world of everyday life?”
iii) Anthropological Aspect: Anthropology deals with the study of human beings and asks questions
like the following: What is the relation between mind and body? Is mind more fundamental than
body, with body depending on mind, or vice versa? What is humanity’s moral status? Are people
born good, evil, or morally neutral? To what extent are individuals free? Do they have free will,
or are their thoughts and actions determined by their environment, inheritance, or a divine being?
Does each person have a soul? If so, what is it? People have obviously adopted different positions
on these questions, and those positions influence their political, social, religious, and educational
ideals and practices.
iv) Ontological Aspect: Ontology is the study of the nature of existence, or what it means for
anything to exist. Several questions are central to ontology: “Is basic reality found in matter or
physical energy (the world we can sense), or is it found in spirit or spiritual energy? Is it
composed of one element (e.g., matter or spirit), or two (e.g., matter and spirit), or many?” “Is
reality orderly and lawful in itself, or is it merely orderable by the human mind? Is it fixed and
stable, or is change its central feature? Is this reality friendly, unfriendly, or neutral toward
humanity?”

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 Epistemology

Epistemology is the other field of philosophy that studies about the nature, scope, meaning, and
possibility of knowledge. It deals with issues of knowledge, opinion, truth, falsity, reason, experience, and
faith.

‘Reason must approach nature with the view, indeed, of receiving information from it, not, however, in
the character of a pupil, who listens to all that his master chooses to tell him, but in that of a judge, who
compels the witnesses to reply to those questions which he himself thinks fit to propose.’ Immanuel
Kant

The following are among the questions/issues with which Epistemology deals:
 What is knowledge?
 What does it mean to know?
 What is the source of knowledge? Experience? Reason? Or both?
 How can we be sure that what we perceive through our senses is correct?
 What makes knowledge different from belief or opinion?
 What is truth, and how can we know a statement is true?
 Can reason really help us to know phenomenal things without being informed by sense
experiences?
 Can our sense experience really help us to know things beyond our perception without
the assistance of our reasoning ability?
 What is the relationship and difference between faith and reason?
 Epistemology seeks answers to a number of fundamental issues. One is whether reality can even be
known. Skepticism in its narrow sense is the position claiming that people cannot acquire reliable
knowledge and that any search for truth is in vain. That thought was well expressed by Gorgias, the
Greek Sophist who asserted that nothing exists, and that if it did, we could not know it. A full-blown
skepticism would make intelligent action impossible. A term closely related to skepticism is
agnosticism. Agnosticism suspends judgment about the existence or nonexistence of God.

Most people claim that reality can be known. However, once they have taken that position, they must
decide through what sources reality may be known, and must have some concept of how to judge the
validity of their knowledge. A second issue foundational to epistemology is whether all truth is relative,
or whether some truths are absolute. Is all truth subject to change? Is it possible that what is true today
may be false tomorrow?
A major aspect of epistemology relates to the sources of human knowledge. If one accepts the fact that
there is truth and even Truth in the universe, how can human beings comprehend such truths? How do
they become human knowledge? Central to most people’s answer to that question is empiricism
(knowledge obtained through the senses). Empirical knowledge appears to be built into the very nature of
human experience. The view that reasoning, thought, or logic is the central factor in knowledge is known
as rationalism.
Rationalism in a less extreme form claims that people have the power to know with certainty various
truths about the universe that the senses alone cannot give. In its extreme form, rationalism claims that
humans are capable of arriving at irrefutable knowledge independently of sensory experience.
Another way knowledge is thought to be acquired is revelation. Revealed knowledge has been of
prime importance in the field of religion. It differs from all other sources of knowledge because
it presupposes a transcendent supernatural reality that breaks into the natural order. Christians

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believe that such revelation is God’s communication concerning the divine will. Believers in
supernatural revelation hold that this form of knowledge has the distinct advantage of being an
omniscient source of information that is not available through other epistemological methods.
The truth revealed through this source is believed by Christians to be absolute and
uncontaminated. On the other hand, it is generally realized that distortion of revealed truth can
occur in the process of human interpretation. Some people assert that a major disadvantage of
revealed knowledge is that it must be accepted by faith and cannot be proved or disproved
empirically.

A fifth source of human knowledge, though not a philosophical position, is authority.

Authoritative knowledge is accepted as true because it comes from experts or has been sanctified
over time as tradition. In the classroom, the most common source of information is some
authority, such as a textbook, teacher, or reference work.
Axiology
Axiology is the study or theory of value. The term Axiology stems from two Greek words- “Axios”,
meaning “value, worth”, and “logos”, meaning “reason/ theory/ symbol / science/study of”. Hence,
Axiology is the philosophical study of value, which originally meant the worth of something.
 What is a value?
 How do we justify our values?
 How do we know what is valuable?
 What is the relationship between values and knowledge?
 What kinds of values exist?
 Can it be demonstrated that one value is better than another?
 Who benefits from values?
Ethics
Ethics, which is also known as Moral Philosophy, is a science that deals with the philosophical study of
moral principles, values, codes, and rules, which may be used as standards for determining what kind of
human conduct/action is said to be good or bad, right or wrong. Ethics has three main branches: meta-
ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Ethics raises various questions including:
 What is good/bad?
 What is right/wrong?
 Is it the Right Principle or the Good End that makes human action/conduct moral?
 Is an action right because of its good end, or it is good because of its right principle?
 Are moral principles universal, objective, and unconditional, or relative, subjective and
conditional?
 What is the ultimate foundation of moral principles? The supernatural God? Human reason?
Mutual social contract? Social custom?
 Does God exist? If so, is He Benevolent and Omnipotent?
 If God is Benevolent, why He creates evil things? If God does not create evil things, then,
there must be another creator who is responsible to creation of the evil things? But, if it is so, how
can God be an Omnipotent creator?
 Why we honor and obey moral rules? For the sake of our own individual benefits?, or for the
sake of others?, or just for the sake of fulfilling our infallible duty?

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 Descriptive Ethics The category of descriptive ethics is the easiest to understand - it simply involves
describing how people behave and/or what sorts of moral standards they claim to follow. Descriptive ethics
incorporates research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, sociology and history as part of the process
of understanding what people do or have believed about moral norms.

Normative Ethics refers to the ethical studies that attempt to study and determine precisely the moral
rules, principles, standards and goals by which human beings might evaluate and judge the moral values
of their conducts, actions and decisions.
Meta-ethics is the highly technical philosophical discipline that deals with investigation of the meaning
of ethical terms, including a critical study of how ethical statements can be verified. It is more concerned
with the meanings of such ethical terms as good or bad and right or wrong than with what we think is
good or bad and right or wrong.

Applied Ethics is a normative ethics that attempts to explain, justify, apply moral rules, principles,
standards, and positions to specific moral problems, such as capital punishment, euthanasia,
abortion, adultery, animal right, and so on. This area of normative ethics is termed applied
because the ethicist applies or uses general ethical princes in an attempt to resolve specific moral
problems.

Aesthetics is the theory of beauty. It studies about the particular value of our artistic and aesthetic
experiences. It deals with beauty, art, enjoyment, sensory/emotional values, perception, and matters of
taste and sentiment.
The following are typical Aesthetic questions:
 What is art?
 What is beauty?
 What is the relation between art and beauty?
 What is the connection between art, beauty, and truth?
 Can there be any objective standard by which we may judge the beauty of artistic works, or
beauty is subjective?
 What is artistic creativity and how does it differ from scientific creativity?
 Why works of art are valuable?
 Can artistic works communicate? If so, what do they communicate?
 Does art have any moral value, and obligations or constraints?
 Are there standards of quality in Art?

Social/Political Philosophy
Social/Political Philosophy studies about of the value judgments operating in a civil society, be it social
or political.
The following questions are some of the major Social/Political Philosophy primarily deal with:
 What form of government is best?
 What economic system is best?
 What is justice/injustice?
 What makes an action/judgment just/unjust?
 What is society?
 Does society exist? If it does, how does it come to existence?

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 How are civil society and government come to exist?
 Are we obligated to obey all laws of the State?
 What is the purpose of government?
Logic
Logic deals with formulating the right principles of reasoning; and developing scientific methods of
evaluating the validity and soundness of arguments.
 What is an argument; What does it mean to argue?
 What makes an argument valid or invalid
 What is a sound argument?
 How can we formulate and evaluate an argument?
Importance of Learning Philosophy
The Greek philosopher, Socrates, once said that “I tell you that to let no day pass without discussing
goodness and all the other subjects about which you hear me talking and examining both myself and
others is really the best thing that a man can do, and that life without this sort of examination is not
worth living.…” Thus, among the various benefits of learning philosophy is that philosophy provides
students with the tools they need to critically examine their own lives as w
 Independence:- This is the ability to develop one’s own opinion and beliefs.ell as the world in
which they live.

 Reflective Self-Awareness:- self-actualization cannot be realized without a clear knowledge of

oneself and the world in which one lives. Philosophy helps us to intensify our self-awareness by
inviting us to critically examine the essential intellectual grounds of our lives.
 Flexibility, Tolerance, and Open-Mindedness:- by studying different philosophical perspectives
we can understand the evolutionary nature of intellectual achievement and the ongoing
development of human thought.
 Creative and Critical Thinking: - this is the ability to develop original philosophical perspective
on issues, problems, and events.
 Conceptualized and well-thought-out value systems in morality, art, politics, and the like
 The other benefit of studying philosophy that should not be missed is that it helps us to deal with
the uncertainty of living. What Bertrand Russell stated in his book, The Problem of Philosophy,
can be a sufficient answer for this question.
The value of philosophy is, in part, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man
who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived
from common sense, from the habitual benefits of his age or his nation, and from
convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his
deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious;
common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously
rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find… that even the most
everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given.
Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts
which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free
them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to
what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the
somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never traveled into the region of
liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an
unfamiliar aspect (Bertrand, 1912, P; 158).