What Does Philosophy Mean?
For those not directly involved in the realm of philosophy, it is very hard to understand why anyone would want to devote his life to it. Many see philosophers as dreamy recluses confined within their own abstruse world of seemingly futile and impractical reasoning. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are just marble busts pictured in history books, people from an ancient, faraway world totally detached from ours. However, in reality, philosophy touches every facet of every person, every hour of every day. Far from being exclusive to Augustines and the Kants of this world, philosophy is something to be shared by all thinking human beings. Unlike other animals, humans are of a nature to ask questions about everything around him and seek answers to them. This eternal quest for knowledge is what philosophy is all about. Indeed, the word philosophy itself comes from the Greek words philia, which means love, and sophia, which means wisdom. Philosophy, love of wisdom, is fundamental to our humanity. Today, philosophy is very different from the sciences, yet it is not uncommon for the names of philosophers such as Aristotle to crop up in readings about the history of these sciences. That is because during their time, philosophy was abou
Unlike empirical scientists, philosophers do not test hypothesis through observation and experimentation. French philosopher and mathematician Rene Descartes, known as the founder of modern philosophy, even proved that philosophy is closer to the exacts sciences, like geometry. In his philosophical studies, he discarded all his beliefs that were subject to doubt until nothing remained but absolutely certain truths. From this he deduced other truths. Philosophers also use Socrates' dialectic method. They engage in argumentation, and through this interchange of ideas thought is developed. Sometimes philosophy may seem futile, because as an idea is further developed, more questions arise, and the problem remains unsolved. Yet despite this, argumentation and reasoning still brings us closer to the truth. t everything that could possibly be studied by man. Sciences such as physics had even been known as natural philosophy. Philosophical thinkers then tried to know all they could about the structure of nature, the world, and the universe. From this were born the modern sciences of physics, astronomy, and astrophysics. Other philosophers of the time studied human nature, body, mind, health, disease, pain, pleasure, and society. These studies gave rise to the fields of biology, medicine, psychology, sociology, political science, and economics. As a body of concrete information is formed for a certain field of inquiry, it becomes a science and is completely distinguished from philosophy. Nowadays, philosophy aims to answ
Some common words found in the essay are:
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