Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Philosophy 101

"Philosophy deals with the nature of man and his place in the universe" (World Book Encyclopedia, 1958). It is not one of the physical or social sciences. To understand man's place in the universe, philosophers try to synthesize a variety of knowledge into a coherent vision of reality.

For instance, Plato believed that ideas that we grasp with our mind are more real than the things we sense. The idea or concept never passes away though the object may move or disappear. Thus, the object is unstable, while the idea is eternal.

Because things move, Aristotle motion and favored empirical observation as the way to understand reality. He trusted his senses because humans sense things before they begin reasoning about them and use "common sense" to know things about the real world based on sensory input and influenced by memory and imagination.

No comments: