Explain what is philosophy It is a very complex task, as it involves many concepts. Besides, this area has been present in our society for several years. Because of this, we developed this post to help you understand better this science. So, check it out right now!

So, what does philosophy mean?

In a very general way, philosophy is an area of knowledge that questions knowledge itself. Since its origin in ancient times, philosophers have tried to understand the world and everything in it, both in the abstract and the concrete.

In this way, one of the goals of this science is to understand the existence of mankind. Moreover, to understand knowledge through rational analysis. In addition, other areas of study of this concept are:

• moral values;
• truth;
• language;
• human mind.

Finally, philosophy has many different thoughts and corrections, depending on the knowledge developed. In this sense, some examples of philosophy are:

• politics;
• cosmological;
• ethics;
• aesthetics;
• epistemological.

Dictionary meaning of philosophy

To better understand this area, it is important to consider the meaning of the term. Thus, the word comes from the Greek philosophia, which means:

• philo - friendship, affection and love;
• sophia - wisdom.

In view of this, philosophy means respect and appreciation for knowledge. A very present theory on the origin of this term is that it was by the mathematician Pythagoras after the joining of the words philo and sophia.

What is the origin of philosophy?

The cradle of philosophy is Ancient Greece; in fact, that is also where the city-states emerged. According to records, this was the first time that men began their journeys to explain (or at least attempt to) the world around them. That is, taking into consideration the logical and the rational side.

This line of thinking is quite different from the older peoples. After all, they tried to explain natural events and phenomena through myths. Moreover, the Church had the Divinity as its main object, and knowledge came from it to satisfy man's basic curiosities.

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However, in Ancient Greece things took a very different turn, because the philosophers began to systematize human thought and used logic a lot.

Another very different thing is that philosophers did not see themselves as holders or "owners" of the truth, something very different from religious people.

Since they believed themselves to be just friends of knowledge and had the willingness to unravel the mysteries together with the common people. From this premise, which was based on questioning and criticizing mythical thinking, Philosophy took shape.

How to study philosophy?

You can study philosophy following the chronology of authors that is, following a time line, starting with the oldest, for example:

• The studies begin as of pre-Socratics .
• Then the three main authors of classical Greek philosophy are studied: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle .
• Then the Roman classics (such as Epicurus, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius) and philosophers of the Middle Ages, such as Thomas Aquinas and Augustine as well as authors of the transition from the Middle to the Modern Age, such as Machiavelli .
• Later, the authors of the Modern Age, such as Bacon, H obbes, Descartes, Pascal, Hume, Locke, Leibiniz, Spinoza among countless others.
• Finally, the authors of the so-called Contemporary Age, such as Diderot, Rousseau, Kant, Heiddeger, Husserl, Marx, Weber, Schopenhauer, Kierkgaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Adorno, Piaget, Vygostsky, Wittgenstein etc., up to the present time.

Understanding the difference between Plato and Aristotle is key and is also a way to separate philosophy between:

• an more idealistic / rationalistic / metaphysical / ontological line : de Plato Plato's "inherited" philosophy is usually associated with the idea of the study of being, of essentialism, of ontology;
• another more empiricist / experimentalist / cultural line : de Aristotle The "inherited" philosophy of Aristotle studies how experience (the events of culture) shapes the subject, often understood as a philosophy of doing .

Many modern and contemporary authors (such as Kant) can be understood as halfway between Plato and Aristotle. This Plato vs. Aristotle differentiation is just an entry point, it is not a watertight dichotomy from which philosophers need to choose.

Note that some authors are also associated with fields of knowledge other than philosophy, such as sociology (Marx, Weber), pedagogy (Piaget, Vygostky) and psychoanalysis (Still, we can say that these authors are also philosophers, because they conceive robust theories about the human being, human development, which have influenced knowledge beyond specific areas of knowledge.

The path we have listed above can be studied by The Thinkers Collection which roughly follows a chronological path, with works and excerpts of works by some of these philosophers. The focus of this Collection is the main philosophers of the so-called western philosophy .

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It is important to remember that there are other philosophical lines that also deserve to be studied, from Asia, Africa, the Americas.

What does a philosopher talk or write about?

A philosopher can deal with any subject. Until about 200 years ago, there was no such rigid division between the various sciences, such as sociology, geography, history, linguistics, anthropology, pedagogy, etc.

For example, René Descartes (1596-1650) was a physiologist (medicine), mathematician, and philosopher, among other things.

It is often said that a philosopher's comprehensive work needs to encompass studies on:

• metaphysics : study about being or ontology, for example by outlining what is specific and inherent in the human; or at least a refusal of metaphysics, proposing something else in its place.
• logic : study on truth (or, for some philosophers, the study of the impossibility of absolute truth ), of thought, of the thought/language relationship, of logical-rational procedures, and of the binomial things in themselves vs. representations of things .
• ethics : a study in right and wrong ethics, which in a way can also encompass a non-prescriptive but mainly observational analysis; within ethics, we could encompass politics, life in society, civilization, education.
• aesthetics : study on what is beautiful about taste, about art and its fundamentals.

So it is probably wrong that religion, politics, soccer (leisure), art, taste and sex are not discussed. Maybe these are the only things that are actually discussed all the time. And that actually deserve discussion.

But what does philosophy study?

In general, philosophy studies any subject, since it is possible to develop valid knowledge from its argumentation. Therefore, it is dedicated to inquiring into fundamental problems that are related to logic, knowledge, truth, moral and aesthetic values, etc.

In our current reality, there are several higher education courses in philosophy that aim at a training that is more oriented to the history of this area. Therefore, students have contact with the production of already established thinkers, such as Plato and Socrates, for example.

However, this line of thinking is quite different from the conception of many scholars of Philosophy teaching. This is because they believe that one only learns to philosophize when one is philosophizing.

Fields of study: History of philosophy and philosophical methodologies

Because of this, there are two ways to study philosophy. The first is focused on the History of Philosophy, which seeks to analyze the production of the world's great philosophers, while the other is aimed at learning philosophical methodologies, which does not require an understanding of the History of Philosophy.

Taking this concept into consideration, we can say that philosophy is a study of concepts, as Deleuze stated. For Kant, this area is a way to establish a critique of knowledge. Now let's see what other important philosophers have concluded about the study of philosophy.

Socrates and Descartes

Socrates is one of the oldest philosophers while Descartes is more modern. However, both believe that philosophical knowledge must be pursued by means of a quest, and this quest is quite rigorous, since it always aims at a universal truth.

Nietzsche

For the contemporary philosopher Nietzsche, there are no universal truths. However, there are genealogies and perspectives that shape this truth as we know it. According to this thinker, it is necessary to dedicate oneself to study the theory of knowledge and seek to understand how it is possible to have understanding.

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Read Also: St. Augustine: Biography and Patristic Philosophy

What is this area for?

Now that we know what philosophy is and what it studies, we will explore the following question: what is it for? Unfortunately, many people believe that philosophy is not very useful, since it does not present anything concrete.

Although this last part is true, since this field does not act in a practical way, philosophy plays a very important role in our society. Therefore, let us look at the uses of philosophy in the next topics.

Develops concepts and supports other knowledge

One of the first concerns of philosophy is the construction of concepts that will be fundamental bases of other areas of knowledge. With this, philosophy aims to create concepts, since it is a field with the objective of producing knowledge.

An event to illustrate this thought is the creation of science. As we know, this area of knowledge has a very privileged role in the world.

However, its development was only possible through the methodological bases developed by philosophy.

Assists in reflections on life

Another very important point of philosophy is that it has a strong connection with people's everyday lives. Therefore, it brings critical reflections that create a detachment from all that is trivial and commonplace.

In fact, this detachment is fundamental so that our life does not become an automatic practice. Still, so that we can consciously choose.

3. it is the basis of ethics and politics

Finally, we will bring an idea advocated by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. He explains that because we are human beings as social animals, we need to establish rules in order to live in society.

Because of this, philosophy serves to develop ethics, understand the state, and build better forms of government. Furthermore, the development of the concept of democracy and the main foundations for contemporary forms of government have philosophy as their basis.

Final considerations

So, as we can see, philosophy plays a very important role in our lives. Besides being a very broad subject in many areas of study.

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