Campus Education: A deep dive into the basics of Philosophy by @swaylee

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Greetings Everyone,
It's Rasheed once again with another learnwithsteem special edition. I learnt that alot of course are being neglected when it comes to tutorials and classes so I decided to bring a rare course to Steemit. Philosophy the course of the mind and a very interesting and fascinating course. For today, we would be looking at the basics of the course and I would simplify it as much as possible. Let's get started

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About Philosophy

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The word Philosophy was coined from two Greek words "Phileo" which means love and "Sophia" which means wisdom. Pythagoras first coined this when himself a "lover of wisdom". For those in the west, philosophers began in Greece around the 4th-5th century.

P Lovers of wisdom are called philosophers. Philosophers aim to acquire wisdom and knowledge about human phenomenon and the things that happen around us. Think of it as a quest for never ending knowledge as there are things that happen around us but we cannot explain it so they seek to know why.

Socrates of Athens is known as the Father of western philosophy. The pre Socratic philosophers include *The Milesian philosophers (Thales, Anximander & Anaximenes), The Pythagoreans (Pythagoras, archytas, Alcmaeon of Croton) and so on . There are also philosophers at every era and there always had been even before the course came into existence. Humans have been advancing in their quest for wisdom and knowledge hence the epoch of philosophy written below.

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Epoch of Philosophy

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Ancient Period (600BC - 500AD)
This period of philosophy was characterized by the shaping of human philosophic minds. This means that was the earliest stage where people start getting aware of philosophy and being groomed to become lovers of wisdom. The philosophers present during this era includes Socrates, Zeno, Plato and Pythagoras.

Medieval Period (354AD - 1400AD)
This period was characterized by christian philosophers who saw things from a religious point of view. During this period, people started attributing the activities of God when they wanted to answer complex questions. Philosophers during this period Thomas Aquinas and St Augustine.

Early Modern Period (1400AD - 1800AD)
This period was when science started to unfold. Humans started looking at things from a scientific point of view. They started to do experiments and research to gather their knowledge and wisdom and answer questions that they didn't know. The philosophers present during this era was David Hume, Galilee Galileo, John Locke.

Later Modern Period (1800AD - 1900AD)
This period is characterized by human intellectual revolution. Humans began to ask more and more questions hence they began to search for even more knowledge and go deeper into philosophy. The philosophers present during this era include Karl Marx, Auguste Comte.

Contemporary Period (1900AD - Present)
During this period, humans faced alot of break through in science which therefore gave birth to the other Philosophy disciples. More branches of philosophy were added and they all have their area of focus. So judging by the date, I would say we are currently in the contemporary Period. Philosophers here include William James, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Kuhn among others.

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Branches of Philosophy

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✓ Epistemology
This can also be seen as the theory of knowledge as it's derived from the Greek work "episteme" which means knowledge and "logos" which means reason. This is the branch of philosophy which studies everything relating to human knowledge which includes limits, origin and sources. The three criteria to knowledge in epistemology includes truth, justification and belief.

✓ Axiology
This branch of philosophy focuses on everything relating to human values. Values are things which humans hold close and causes them to behave the way believe. This focuses on values especially as it relates to ethics and religion. It is often referred to as the theory of value. It looks at the things we hold close to us, why we hold it close to us and what we would do to protect those values we hold dear. Terminal values and instrumental values, collective and individuals values are things which are looked at in this course.

✓ Ethics
This branch of philosophy focuses on what people consider as morally wrong or right. It studies the moral code of individuals and tries to determine what is morally accepted or prohibited in the human society.

✓ Aesthetics
This is the Theory of beauty and art. This branch of philosophy focuses on things which people consider to be artistic or beauty. It aims at looking at what people might consider to be beautiful and what they see in it inorder to call it beautiful.

✓ Metaphysics
This is a branch of philosophy which focuses on the reality of things and aims to answer things which we cannot answer. Things like essence & existence, time, space, change & permanence and possiblity and problem of causality are some of the things that are studied in this course. Branches of metaphysics includes ontology and cosmology.

✓ Logic
This branch of philosophy focuses on the correct way of reasoning. It involves following the right way to get a sound reasoning and the laws of thought. It is divided into inductive and deductive reasoning and is also often called formal science. It often looks to find out what correct reasoning is an seperate it from incorrect reasoning.

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Conclusion

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Philosophy is a very complicated and interesting topic because they are seekers and lovers of wisdom who go through different Processes to acquire more and more knowledge so as far as you have this quality you are a philosopher. If you think about it objectively, scientists are also their own philosophers. I hope we all enjoyed this post, anticipate my next lecture. Thanks for reading ⭐.

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