PHL 101

Introduction to Philosophy
Definition of Terms
• Etymological definition: philo/philein (to love); Sophia
(wisdom) – Pythagoras

• Real definition: the science of all things by their ultimate

causes and principles as known by natural reason alone
Philosophical Questions
• Chinese Civilization: What am I?

• Indian Civilization: Who am I?

• Greek Civilization: Where am I?

Pre-Socratics
• Thales: water
• Anaximander: indeterminate boundless
• Anaximenes: air (“just as our soul, being air, holds us together, so do
breath and air encompass the whole world”)
• Pythagoras: numbers (since everything is measurable and can be
numbered, then everything must have originated from numbers)
• Heraclitus of Ephesus: fire (everything that passes through fire
changes, and since what is observable in this world is that everything
changes, then it must be that there is fire in everything) “No one can
step on the same river twice.”
Pre-Socratics
• Parmenides of Elea: the world consists of one indivisible thing;
this One is motionless and in perfect sphere. (Change is an
illusion)
• Empedocles: earth, air, fire, water (Being is uncreated and
indestructible and that it simply is. Change and motion are made
possible because objects are composed of many particles, which
are in themselves changeless.)
• Leucippus and Democritus of Abdera: atoms (everything was the
product of the collision of atoms moving in space)
Branches of Philosophy
• Cosmology/Philosophy of Nature: on the material world, and the
ultimate constituent principles of material beings
• Logic: on correct inferential thinking and its principles
• Epistemology: on certain and true knowledge and its principles
• Metaphysics/Ontology: on beings in general, on the different reasons
and principles of the reality of things
• Theodicy/Special Metaphysics: on the First Cause of contingent
beings and of emergent reality
Branches of Philosophy
• Rational Psychology/Philosophical Anthropology: on living beings
and the principle of life, on the nature of the vital operations and of
the vital powers, and their classification (Also called Philosophy of
Man)
• Aesthetics: on beauty and harmony, on value judgments about art
and beauty in general
• Ethics: on human acts and their morality
• Social/Political Philosophy: on the sociality of man, on the nature of
human society and its principles

• *Philosophy of Science/Language/Culture etc.

Historical Development of Philosophy (West)
• Ancient: cosmocentric
• Medieval: theocentric
• Modern: ideocentric
• Contemporary: anthropocentric
Critical Thinking
Culture plays a significant role in our propensity and ability to ask
philosophical question, which explains the difference among the
questions asked by the Greek, Indian, and Chinese civilizations.
1. Considering the culture you grew up in, what were the questions
that bothered you growing up?
2. Which aspect of our history propelled the questions you asked?