Philosophy.
Philosophy comes up as a result of curiosity, wonder and desire to know and comprehend. Philosophy is therefore a sort of inquiry a process of analyzing, criticizing, interpreting and speculating. The origin of the term philosophy has been attributed to a Greek thinker, Pythagoras. Attribution is based on a lost work of Herakleides Pontikos, a discipline of Aristotle. Philosopher came as a replacement for sophist, a word used to describe wise men, otherwise teachers or rhetoric, who were significant in Athenian democracy. The pioneers of philosophy lived in the ancient Greek world in the early 500 B.C. The ancient philosophers made efforts to find out the fundamental make-up of things and the nature of the world and of the realism. Before the philosophy came up, to obtain answers to questions of this kind, people relied on magic, religious beliefs, superstition, traditions or powers. The philosophers considered these sources of wisdom undependable and they as an alternative looked for answers by thinking and investigating nature. This is how they came up with various philosophies. The philosophies were different due to the fact that they emanated from ideas by different people. Some of them were criticized and others expounded by other philosophers. All in all, the ancient philosophers came up with philosophies most of which we base our explanations of life on even today. These philosophies are still important up to date (Morris, p 12).
Importance of philosophy
Philosophic thoughts are hard to escape in human life. Almost every person has on one occasion or another been baffled by such fundamentally philosophical queries like what is the essence of life Where did I come from and where will I go after death Without some answers to these inquiries, no knowledge or action is possible. It is from these questions that we are forced to reason and study hard in order to find some answers. Even the ancient philosophers got their philosophical answers from such problems. The questions can be supported by Descartes fourth meditation where he references to his third mediation that both God and him exist. He asks if God really exists, then why was there room for error or falsehood. In the fourth meditation, he attempts to answer that query philosophically concerning the true and the false. Almost every human being possesses some sort of philosophy in the sense of how they view life. A denial of philosophy is in itself philosophy. The apology is Platos version of speech given by Socrates defending himself from the charges of being a man who misled the young, declined to revere the gods and created fresh divinities. The apology by Plato starts by the words of Socrates where he says that he did not know whether the men of Athens had been influenced by his accusers. The apology suggests that philosophy starts with the truthful admittance of ignorance. He argued that whatever the wisdom he had came from his knowledge that he knew nothing (Yount, para. 1).
Study of philosophy assists people to elucidate what they believe, and it can stimulate them to consider definitive questions. People can investigate the philosophers of the past in order to find out why they thought the way they did and of what value their thoughts had in the present life. Great writers are always inspired by the great philosophers. They always study the works of those great philosophers, investigates the works of their critics and the impact their philosophies have in every day life. Philosophy has a lot of influence in everyday lives. Most of the things including the language we use utilize groupings derived from philosophy. A good example is the groupings of nouns and verbs that utilize the philosophic idea that there exists a distinction between things and actions. The question as to what the distinction is a philosophic question which needs reasoning and systematic logical investigation to find out (Morris, p 22).
In every society, there are institutions. The institutions are fundamentally established on philosophic ideas. These institutions include law government marriage education business and the family. Philosophic differences have always caused changes in these institutions, for example overthrowing of governments, amendments in laws, and transformations of economic systems. Such changes occur because people have varying beliefs and ideas on what is true, important, real, and significant. People also have different ideas on how life should be ordered.
Philosophy is to a very great extent utilized in education systems. Systems of education run in the course of philosophic ideas of a society about what learners should be taught and the purposes of the teaching. This is evident even in the ancient times when philosophers like Plato outlined the kind of education system that would help to bring forth a perfect society. In his philosophy, he argued that the interest of the state was best preserved in the young ones. Therefore, he suggested that children be nurtured and educated by the society as a whole. In the present time, the philosophy of Plato of education system is still in use. Most societies advocate for the education of children from an early age. In democratic societies, there is the stressing of people having to learn to think and make decisions for themselves. In totalitarian societies, people are forced to surrender to the interests of the leaders and are discouraged to make decisions for themselves. The values and interests taught by a societys education system reflect the societys philosophic ideas of what is significant. Philosophy also helps professions in defending themselves against criticism and to handle professionally moral problems. Philosophy assists people to find their moral discipline as it opens the doors to investigation (Yount, Para. 6).
Philosophy of education is a field of applied philosophy which addresses queries concerning education policy, human advancement, and curriculum development among other issues related to education. Philosophy of education addresses these queries using the conventional fields of philosophy like entomology (nature of being existence or reality in general), epistemology (nature and scope of knowledge), and ethics, and its approaches like speculative philosophy, prescriptive and analytic. Philosophy of education thus can mean the philosophical investigation of the reason, process, character and models of education. The philosophy can study what comprises nurturing and education process the principles and standards divulged through nurturing and education process the boundaries and legitimatization of education as an intellectual discipline and the link between educational theories and practices. Without philosophy, education systems would not work (Morris, p. 34).
Philosophy is important in starting anything that is new and worthwhile. This is also vital when a person has to work together with many other people. Philosophy challenges what is already known and what is yet to be found out. Knowledge is power, but one that trumps a methodically challenged interest based on rational analysis rather than experimental processes. Philosophy disciplines people and comes as a wake up call to make people realize that they cant have control over all aspects of life. In Descartes first Meditation, he casts off all the belief in things which are not completely certain and attempts to come up with things that are for sure. Descartes tries to undermine his own beliefs remembering that his senses had deceived him in the past. Philosophy is the realization that wisdom originates from truth and that truth emanates from reality (Yount, para. 3).
What philosophy does
Philosophy is a way of thought about the world, the universe and the people. Philosophy seeks to look inwards to establish the basis for the presuppositions that form the base for all human creation theories. The ideas of philosophy are theoretical, they are not tangible. Nevertheless, they are about the real world. Philosophy asks questions about the real world and seeks to answer them. Philosophy then tries the best way possible to make the answers they find out known to other people. This is why philosophers write articles and books to publish what they come up with. Philosophers also teach students as a way of disseminating what they know. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of seeking answers in that it is critical, generally systematic and relies on reasoned argument. Philosophy applies to the real world because it is the study of the fundamental problems and questions of existence in the real world. Philosophy presents ones personal thoughts. Socrates, Plato, Confucius among other philosophers of the past all had their own beliefs, thoughts and life experiences. They presented their own ideas and beliefs about life
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