PHILOSOPHY: THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY
Intro:
Philosophy Love of wisdom Phil Love Sophia Wisdom Philosophers do not love and seek wisdom about everything Only about a select set of issues Focus on matters that are of fundamental importance to understanding ourselves and the world we inhabit Start by examining our common-sense beliefs about these matters The end-point of a philosophical exploration is a rationally justified and systematically view of these matters.
Might define philosophy as The critical examination of our common sense beliefs about matters of fundamental importance to making sense of our nature, the nature of the world we inhabit the relationship between the two.
The task is undertaken with the goal of arriving at a comprehensive and rational view of ourselves, and the natural world the hope is that through philosophical exploration we will arrive at some sort of reflective answers.
Metaphysics:
What exists?
What are the fundamental constituents of the universe?
What is their nature?
Includes the philosophy of mind, religion, personal identity, free will and so on.
Epistemology:
What is knowledge?
What is justification?
Do I know anything at all? Do I have justified beliefs?
Is it possible to defeat skepticism, the denial of the possibility of knowledge and justified belief?
Ethics:
What is intrinsically good?
What is intrinsically evil?
What is morally required?
What is morally forbidden?
Practical or Applied Ethics:
How ought I live?
Is it permissible to have an abortion or eat non-human animals?
How ought we organize our society?
Ought society to have a liberal abortion policy? How ought society to react to global warming?
Why Philosophy? What's its value?
Crass view (Hurka)
Grandiose view (Russell) Hurka claims that philosophy students perform well and that this success is due to the fact that students of philosophy possess "the basic elements of reasoning and problem-solving" Most important traits are "vision, creativity, and analytical power, traits better fostered by liberal education" Those who study philosophy and related subjects "will be better-rounded individuals. .. and better at reasoning about morality and politics.
In propositional logic, modus ponendo ponens (Latin for "the way that affirms by affirming"; generally abbreviated to MP or modus ponens or implication elimination is a rule of inference. [2] It can be summarized as "P implies Q and P are both asserted to be true, so therefore Q must be true."...
