PHI 238: Rights and Wrongs

Waggle Sections

Philosophy and An Overview of its Subfields

Philosophy is an English word derived from the Greek filosofia or the love of wisdom.  The tradition holds that there are three objects of study in philosophy: the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.

The True	The Good	The Beautiful
Logic	Ethics	Aesthetics
Metaphysics	Politics	Poetry
Epistemology	Theology	Rhetoric

Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Post-Modern philosophy has focused on these objects.  Under the sciences of the True are metaphysics, epistemology, and logic.  These sciences are typically referred to as the theoretical sciences.  Simply, metaphysics is the study of things, or the science that attempts to answer the question: "What is it?"  Epistemology is the study of knowledge, or the science that attempts to answer the question: "How do you know it?"  Logic is the method or a method of inquiry that is governed by strict rules in order to determine the validity of positions.  The goal or end of the theoretical sciences is knowledge.  Often Cosmology, or the study of the arrangement of things, or the science that attempts to answer the question of the order of things, is added to the theoretical sciences.

Under the sciences of the Good, are ethics, politics, and theology.  These sciences are typically referred to as the practical sciences.  The practical sciences attempt to answer the general question "What is the good life?" with ethics focusing on the good life of the individual and politics focusing on the good life for the collective.  Often theology is added to the practical sciences, as the study of divinity and humanity's relationship to the divinity.  The goal or end of the practical sciences is action.

Under the sciences of the Beautiful are aesthetics, poetry, music, and rhetoric.  These sciences are typically referred to as the productive sciences.  Understood quite generally, aesthetics is the science of feeling, or sensation; poetry is the science of verbal communication appealing to sensation; music is the science of non-verbal communication appealing to sensation; and rhetoric is the science of crafted discourse.  The goal or end of the productive sciences is making of something, i.e., a product.

Philosophy differs from other sciences in several ways.  There are a range of methods used, accounts given are systematic - explaining the whole sum of natural events in the same terms and by the same method used throughout.  Unlike other sciences, philosophy attempts to uncover the arch (arche) or first principles underlying phenomena to account for similar phenomena.  Philosophers also attempt to provide accounts in an economical use of language - involving few terms and only the essential distinctions necessary for clarity.  Finally, philosophers appeal to reason, and to argumentation to support positions held.  When I refer to a science, what I mean here is a body of knowledge governed by a specific object of inquiry, deploying the same method of inquiry throughout.

Philosophy, in the West, is the product of Greek speculative thought.  Thales of Milesia  (cir. 585 BCE) is credited by the tradition as being the first philosopher.  There is some disagreement amongst the ancients as to exactly who was the first philosopher.  Some, Aristotle for one, say that Anaximander (cir. 500 - 428 BCE) was the first philosopher.  He, being a generation later than Thales, was the first philosopher who actually wrote down his discoveries.  What makes matters more difficult for us in determining the exact beginning of philosophy, is that these ancient writings have not come down to us intact.  We have to rely on a variety of source materials, which are often contradictory and are sometimes hostile, to know anything about these thinkers.  Contemporary scholars refer to Thales, Anaximander, and company, as the Milesian “school”.  The Milesian “school” focused on the study of Nature and attempted to give a rational account for change in material nature by appeal to a principle or a set of principles to explain that change and to explain the order of things.  By nature, here, is meant fusia and the order of things, here, is meant kosmoV.  Hence, the primary focus of pre-Socratic philosophy was cosmology and metaphysics.  These philosophers typically posit a single substance underlying the appearances and changes in that substance account for differing phenomena. 

Without going into great detail on the various schools of ancient pre-Socratic philosophy, the central thread of what anchors our perception of philosophy is the person of Socrates and his immediate followers.  The following are dates for Socrates and his most famous followers:

Socrates                        470 BCE - 399 BCE

Plato                             427 BCE - 347 BCE

Aristotle                        384 BCE - 322 BCE

The word ‘ethics’ comes from the Greek ta eqika (ta ethika) which encompasses both our ideas of ethics as well as the idea of the ethnic.  The Ethos of a society are its conventions and values or the normative principles that regulate the society.  In most Greek philosophy, action is aimed at some result or end. End or goal terminating action is called teleology, or more properly, teleology is the position that all action aims at some specific end (teloV telos).

Arguably, there are six central notions in the study of ethics. 

1.  Concept of Human Nature.  What is the fundamental nature of human beings, and how does that nature determine our activities?

2.  Role of Reason.  Are we fundamentally rational beings or is reason a tool of desire?

3.  Role of Freedom.  Are our actions the results of choices freely made or are our actions determined by our physical make up?

4.  Source of values.  Are values timeless, determined by society and our times, or are values determined by our religious inclinations, or are values chosen by the individual independent of society and subject to radical change.

5.  Relationship between the individual and society.  Is the relationship complementary or one of conflict?

6.  Universality of values.  Are values applicable to all human beings in all times or are values reflective of specific times and places only?

In our investigations, these notions will impact, in part, how we approach the applied ethics essay readings.  One thing that we should consider in the theoretical portion of the semester is how these two theories attempt to address each of these notions. 

*Wagrag productions 2003