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What Is Philosophy  Essay

Philosophy is a one of the most perplexing, interesting and intriguing branch of study that seeks to understand the world from a viewpoint not commonly used. Three are many different branches of philosophy and three important ones include metaphysics, epistemology and axiology. Epistemology refers to the branch of study that tries to go deeper into the meaning and scope of knowledge. The field is concerned with important and pertinent questions concerning knowledge such as what is knowledge, how is it acquired and how do we know some of things that we know. For example we understand that adding 2 and 2 would give us 4. Epistemology is simply concerned with the origin of this knowledge and not with how we add etc. Moser (2002) writes: "Epistemology characterized broadly, is an account of knowledge. Within the discipline of philosophy, epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge and justification: in particular, the study of (a) the defining components, (b) the substantive conditions or sources, and (c) the limits of knowledge and justification. Categories (a)-(c) have prompted traditional philosophical controversy over the analysis of knowledge and justification, the sources of knowledge and justification (in the case, for instance, of rationalism vs. empiricism), and the status of skepticism about knowledge and justification."

Axiology on the other hand is concerned with values that people attach to things. Everyone knows that there are good and bad views attached to things especially positive and negative or low and high values attached to different things. Axiologists study how this value system is developed or acquired. In simpler words, axiology is the philosophy of religion as Brightman (1940 explained:

Philosophy of religion is a branch of metaphysics (specifically of axiology) which interprets the relations of man's experience of religious values to the rest of his experiences; thus it seeks both to contribute concrete religious values to the interpretation of experience as a whole and to criticize those values in the light of a rational view. Philosophy of religion thus has no methods, no...

It is that branch of philosophy that deals with nature of reality that goes beyond the normal scope of science. It is by far the most important component of philosophy and the origin of it is credited to the works of Aristotle. Meta literally means, "after," but in philosophy it also means beyond or above thus indicating that metaphysics is a science that transcends physics. In his own writings, Aristotle called the study first philosophy, the science of being or ontology, and theology. It may be defined, tentatively as the science of the first principles of reality, or the theory of the structure and meaning of reality as a whole, or the theory of the nature of the cosmos. Philosophers are not in entire agreement as to the precise scope of the subject. All are agreed that metaphysics deals with the problems of the structure and meaning of reality; but some hold that epistemology, the doctrine of the nature of knowledge and its place in reality, is a separate discipline. Some hold that the problems of the place of values in reality or of the relationships of existence and value (axiology) do not belong to metaphysics. If one accepted these distinctions, philosophical system would consist of three parts -- epistemology, metaphysics, and axiology, or the theory of the place of truth, goodness and beauty in the universe. While it would not be in accord with historic usage to deny the term "philosopher" to every thinker who has not achieved a systematic conception of the universe, a cosmology or metaphysics, a full or well-rounded philosophy is a theory of the universe. Hence metaphysics is identical in scope with philosophical system. It is the theory of the first principles of reality. It is not quite possible to develop a theory of truth or knowledge without giving birth to a theory of reality. It is thus equally inconceivable to consider the place of values in reality without raising the entire problem of the nature and place of personality. Since every fundamental problem of philosophy is…

Sources used in this document:
References

1. Edgar Sheffield Brightman, A Philosophy of Religion (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1940)

2 W.H. Walsh, Metaphysics (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1963)

3. Paul K. Moser, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)

4. Enrique Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation.
6. Apology by Plato available online at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/apology.html
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