The Divisions and Definition of Philosophy

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Nature of Philosophy
Divisions of Philosophy
Abstract: Philosophy, philosophical inquiry, and the main branches of philosophy are
characterized.

1. What is Philosophy?
1. The derivation of the word "philosophy" from the Greek is suggested by the
following words and word-fragments.
 philo—love of, affinity for, liking of
 philander—to engage in love affairs frivolously
 philanthropy—love of mankind in general
 philately—postage stamps hobby
 phile—(as in "anglophile") one having a love for
 philology—having a liking for words
 sophos—wisdom
 sophist—lit. one who loves knowledge
 sophomore—wise and moros—foolish; i.e. one who thinks he knows
many things
 sophisticated—one who is knowledgeable
2. A suggested definition for our beginning study is as follows.
Philosophy is the systematic inquiry into the principles and presuppositions of
any field of study.

 From a psychological point of view, philosophy is an attitude, an

approach, or a calling to answer or to ask, or even to comment upon
certain peculiar problems (i.e., specifically the kinds of problems usually
relegated to the main branches discussed below in Section II).
 There is, perhaps, no one single sense of the word "philosophy."
Eventually many writers abandon the attempt to define philosophy and,
instead, turn to the kinds of things philosophers do.
 What is involved in the study of philosophy involves is described by the
London Times in an article dealing with the 20th World Congress of
Philosophy: "The great virtue of philosophy is that it teaches not what to
think, but how to think. It is the study of meaning, of the principles
underlying conduct, thought and knowledge. The skills it hones are the
ability to analyse, to question orthodoxies and to express things clearly.
However arcane some philosophical texts may be … the ability to
formulate questions and follow arguments is the essence of education."
2. The Main Branches of Philosophy are divided as to the nature of the questions asked
in each area. The integrity of these divisions cannot be rigidly maintained, for one area
overlaps into the others.
 1. Axiology: the study of value; the investigation of its nature, criteria, and
metaphysical status. More often than not, the term "value theory" is used instead
of "axiology" in contemporary discussions even though the term “theory of
value” is used with respect to the value or price of goods and services in
economics.
 Some significant questions in axiology include the following:
1. Nature of value: is value a fulfillment of desire, a pleasure, a
preference, a behavioral disposition, or simply a human interest
of some kind?
2. Criteria of value: de gustibus non (est) disputandum (i.e.,
(“there's no accounting for tastes”) or do objective standards
apply?
3. Status of value: how are values related to (scientific) facts? What
ultimate worth, if any, do human values have?
 Axiology is usually divided into two main parts.
1. Ethics: the study of values in human behavior or the study of
moral problems: e.g., (1) the rightness and wrongness of actions,
(2) the kinds of things which are good or desirable, and (3)
whether actions are blameworthy or praiseworthy.
3. Consider this example analyzed by J. O. Urmson in his well-known essay, "Saints
andHeroes":

"We may imagine a squad of soldiers to be practicing the throwing of live hand
grenades; a grenade slips from the hand of one of them and rolls on the ground near the
squad; one of them sacrifices his life by throwing himself on the grenade and protecting
his comrades with his own body. It is quite unreasonable to suppose that such a man
must be impelled by the sort of emotion that he might be impelled by if his best friend
were in the squad."
1. Did the soldier who threw himself on the grenade do the right
thing? If he did not cover the grenade, several soldiers might be
injured or be killed. His action probably saved lives; certainly an
action which saves lives is a morally correct action. One might
even be inclined to conclude that saving lives is a duty. But if this
were so, wouldn't each of the soldiers have the moral obligation
or duty to save his comrades? Would we thereby expect each of
the soldiers to vie for the opportunity to cover the grenade?
2. Æsthetics: the study of value in the arts or the inquiry into
feelings, judgments, or standards of beauty and related concepts.
Philosophy of art is concerned with judgments of sense, taste, and
emotion.
1. E.g., Is art an intellectual or representational activity?
What would the realistic representations in pop art
represent? Does art represent sensible objects or ideal
objects?
2. Is artistic value objective? Is it merely coincidental that
many forms in architecture and painting seem to illustrate
 mathematical principles? Are there standards of taste?
3. Is there a clear distinction between art and reality?
2. Epistemology: the study of knowledge. In particular, epistemology is the study
of the nature, scope, and limits of human knowledge.
 Epistemology investigates the origin, structure, methods, and integrity of
knowledge.
 Consider the degree of truth of the statement, "The earth is round." Does
its truth depend upon the context in which the statement is uttered? For
example, this statement can be successively more accurately translated as
…

1. "The earth is spherical"

2. "The earth is an oblate spheroid" (i.e., flattened at the poles).
3. But what about the Himalayas and the Marianas Trench? Even if
we surveyed exactly the shape of the earth, our process of
surveying would alter the surface by the footprints left and the
impressions of the survey stakes and instruments. Hence, the
exact shape of the earth cannot be known. Every rain shower
changes the shape.
4. (Note here as well the implications for skepticism and relativism:
simply because we cannot exactly describe the exact shape of the
earth, the conclusion does not logically follow that the earth does
not have a shape.)
 Furthermore, consider two well-known problems in epistemology:

1. Russell's Five-Minute-World Hypothesis: Suppose the earth were

created five minutes ago, complete with memory images, history
books, records, etc., how could we ever know of it? As Russell
wrote in The Analysis of Mind, "There is no logical impossibility
in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes
ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered"
a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection
between events at different times; therefore nothing that is
happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the
hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago." For example,
an omnipotent God could create the world with all the memories,
historical records, and so forth five minutes ago. Any evidence to
the contrary would be evidence created by God five minutes ago.
(Q.v., the Omphalos hypothesis.)
2. Suppose everything in the universe (including all spatial
relations) were to expand uniformly a thousand times larger. How
could we ever know it? A moment's thought reveals that the mass
of objects increases by the cube whereas the distance among them
increases linearly. Hence, if such an expansion were possible,
changes in the measurement of gravity and the speed of light
would be evident, if, indeed, life would be possible.
 3. Russell's Five-Minute-World Hypothesis is a philosophical
problem; the impossibility of the objects in the universe
expanding is a scientific problem since the latter problem can, in
fact, be answered by principles of elementary physics.
2. Ontology or Metaphysics: the study of what is really real.
Metaphysics deals with the so-called first principles of the natural
order and "the ultimate generalizations available to the human
intellect." Specifically, ontology seeks to indentify and establish
the relationships between the categories, if any, of the types of
existent things.
 What kinds of things exist? Do only particular things exist or do general
things also exist? How is existence possible? Questions as to identity and
change of objects—are you the same person you were as a baby? as of
yesterday? as of a moment ago?
 How do ideas exist if they have no size, shape, or color? (My idea of the
Empire State Building is quite as "small" or as "large" as my idea of a
book. I.e., an idea is not extended in space.) What is space? What is
time?
 E.g., Consider the truths of mathematics: in what manner do geometric
figures exist? Are points, lines, or planes real or not? Of what are they
made?
 What is spirit? or soul? or matter? space? Are they made up of the same
sort of "stuff"?
 When, if ever, are events necessary? Under what conditions are they
possible?
2. Further characteristics of philosophy and examples of philosophical problems are
discussed in the next tutorial.

Further Reading:

 Edward Craig on What is Philosophy? This interview on Philosophy Biteswith David

Craig, editor of The Routledge Encyclopedia, by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton
explains the nature of philosophy. Craig believes the definition of philosophy has been
too narrow in the past; he thinks it's better to think of philosophy in terms of the vast
range of different kinds of problems which are not answered by specific disciplines.
Good philosophy can be done by anyone and either involves reasoning or the
explanations of reasoning. Good philosophy is not just a question of personal preference
in everyday thinking since everyday thoughts do not have the level of self-awareness of
reasoning processes.
 The Nature of Philosophical Inquiry. A chapter from Reading for Philosophical Inquiry,
an online e-text on this site, summarizing the main divisions of philosophy as well as
illustrating some introductory philosophical problems.
 Omphalos (theology). Wikipedia entry for several variations of the Omphalos
hypothesis—the philosophical problem of accounting for present state of the universe
by purported evidence drawn from the past.
 Philosophy. Useful encyclopedia entry from the authoritative 1911 Encyclopedia
 Britannica outlining the branches of philosophy.
 Philosophy—General Introduction. Ralph Barton Perry's accessible introduction to
philosophy and a discussion of philosophy's relation to art, science, ethics, and religion
are discussed in a lecture on the Harvard Classics.
 What is Philosophy Anyway? Summary article from M. Russo and G. Fair's Molloy
College site discussing the definition and main branches of philosophy.

“Philosophy … has no other subject matter than the nature of the real world, as that world lies
around us in everyday life, and lies open to observers on every side. But if this is so, it may be
asked what function can remain for philosophy when every portion of the field is already lotted
out and enclosed by specialists? Philosophy claims to be the science of the whole; but, if we get
the knowledge of the parts from the different sciences, what is there left for philosophy to tell
us? To this it is sufficient to answer generally that the synthesis of the parts is something more
than that detailed knowledge of the parts in separation which is gained by the man of science. It
is with the ultimate synthesis that philosophy concerns itself; it has to show that the subject-
matter which we are all dealing with in detail really is a whole, consisting of articulated
members.” “Philosophy,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1911) Vol. 21.

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