Philosophical interpretation of reality essay

It is as deep and as tall as the mind can reach. Yet it is also young, even juvenile, in how little of its self-acclaimed potential it has fulfilled, and in how much it stands to learn.

Introduction The main topic of the article is the Western metaphilosophy of the last hundred years or so. But that topic is broached via a sketch of some earlier Western metaphilosophies.

Once that sketch is in hand, the article defines the notion of metaphilosophy and distinguishes between explicit and implicit metaphilosophy. Then there is a consideration of how metaphilosophies might be categorized and an outline of the course of the remainder of the article.

Some Pre-Twentieth Century Metaphilosophy Socrates believed that the unexamined life — the unphilosophical life — was not worth living PlatoApology, 38a. Indeed, Socrates saw his role as helping to rouse people from unreflective lives. According to Aristotlephilosophy begins in wonder, seeks the most fundamental causes or principles of things, and is the least necessary but thereby the most divine of sciences Metaphysics, book alpha, sections 1—3.

Later philosophers continued and even intensified the stress on philosophical practicality. The Roman Cicero held that to study philosophy is to prepare oneself for death. The idea that philosophy is the handmaiden of theology, earlier propounded by the Hellenistic thinker Philo of Alexandriais most associated with the medieval age and particularly with Aquinas.

Aquinas resumed the project of synthesizing Christianity with Greek philosophy - a project that had been pursued already by various thinkers including AugustineAnselmand Boethius.

Boethius was a politician inspired by philosophy — but the politics ended badly for him. In those respects he resembles the earlier Seneca. And, like Seneca, Boethius wrote of the consolations of philosophy.

Is philosophy a process or a product? What kind of knowledge can philosophy attain? How should one understand philosophical disagreement?

Schutz, Alfred | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Is philosophy historical in some special or deep way? Should philosophy make us better people? What method s and types of evidence suit philosophy? How should philosophy be written presuming it should be written at all?

Is philosophy, in some sense, over — or should it be? But how might one define metaphilosophy? One definition owes to Morris Lazerowitz. One alternative definition construes metaphilosophy as the philosophy of philosophy. Sometimes that definition intends this idea: That idea itself comes in two versions.

The thought here is this. Metaphilosophy, as the application of philosophy to philosophy itself, is simply one more instance of philosophy Wittgenstein Metaphilosophy stands to philosophy as philosophy stands to its subject matter or to other disciplines Reschersuch that, as Williamson puts it loc.

On this definition, metaphilosophy is post-philosophy. Indeed, those construals have little content until after one has a considerable idea of what philosophy is. Such indeed is a third possible reading of the philosophy-of-philosophy construal.

Now, just what does so pertain is moot; and there is a risk of being too unaccommodating. Explicit and Implicit Metaphilosophy Explicit metaphilosophy is metaphilosophy pursued as a subfield of, or attendant field to, philosophy. Metaphilosophy so conceived has waxed and waned.

In the early twenty-first century, it has waxed in Europe and in the Anglophone English-speaking world.

Metaphilosophy, Contemporary | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

This article will revisit all of those topics in one way or another. However, even when waxing, metaphilosophy generates much less activity than philosophy.Immanuel Kant (–) is the central figure in modern philosophy. He synthesized early modern rationalism and empiricism, set the terms for much of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy, and continues to exercise a significant influence today in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, and other fields.

Also see SEP, IEP, EB, ELC, and Douglas Hadley.. pluralism. Belief that reality ultimately includes many different kinds of things.

Thus, in ethics, the supposition that there are many independent sources of value and, in political life, acceptance of a multiplicity of groups with competing interests. Epistemological pluralism is a common feature in . Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us, even now in this very room.

You can see it when you look out your window, or you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. Dear: The concepts of reality, interpretation and free will are some of the philosophical foundations in which human beings get to know how they are affected by .

A. C. Grayling, Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought, Continuum, , pp., $ (pbk), ISBN Reviewed by Alexander Miller, University of Birmingham This volume is a collection of revised versions of ten essays apparently written in the s or.

Contemporary Metaphilosophy. What is philosophy?

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What is philosophy for? How should philosophy be done? These are metaphilosophical questions, metaphilosophy being the study of the nature of philosophy.