INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY

 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY 

Introducing philosophy to neophytes could be a very interesting affair as well as challenging task. My starting point over the years has been to use the Socratic approach of starting from the position that most people actually have an idea of the discipline than they would agree to. It is simply putting the question bluntly to every student what they thought philosophy to be. To this I have been given various answers: Philosophy is thinking about everything. Or philosophy is a critical reflection on life and reality as a whole. Or philosophy is man’s attempt to understand himself and his place in the world.  Or philosophy is engaged in by mad people. All of these have something to say about philosophy one way or the other.  Clearly implied in these definitions is the fact that philosophy is a critical and reflective activity, one that is not meant for simple minds but minds that are ready to interrogate reality. It is not an activity for the commoners hence Plato’s famous saying that “the masses cannot philosophize.” 

While philosophy is engaged in by different experts who have written copiously on the subject, it is interesting to note that there are many definitions of philosophy as there are philosophers. In other words, there is hardly any generally accepted definition of the subject since every definition is considered as being inadequate for the discipline. Controversy is always etched within the house of philosophy. However, a good starting point of defining this discipline is from the etymological perspective. The term philosophy is taken from the Greek world “Phileo” meaning “to love” and “Sophia” meaning “wisdom”. Simply, therefore, philosophy means “love of Wisdom”. This does not mean that one has wisdom but that one loves wisdom and is engaged in a search for wisdom as the Greek philosopher would always say.  Wisdom here should not just be seen from the perspective of a Sage or wise man in a village or somewhere else. Wisdom in the philosophical sense should be seen in terms of cultivating a critical, rigorous, reflective and technical ability to tackle the serious issues of life which science and religion cannot handle satisfactorily. So while a philosopher is a lover of wisdom, it is not appropriate to call him just a sage. He is more than just a sage. Rather, he is a trained thinker, one who is a specialist in the art of thinking and probing reality with his special skills just as we talk about scientists, sociologists, economists, anthropologists, theologians etc. The approach of these specialists and many others to their areas of specialization will be very different from the approach of other lay people.  

In explaining who a philosopher is, a wise man needn’t be a philosopher but a philosopher must be a wise man. By this I mean that a wise man may have the ability and insight to ask some questions and deal with issues and concerns such as settling quarrels, yet he cannot understand the rules of logic or induction, deduction, the laws of thought and so on. There is what I call philosophy in a wide sense and philosophy in a strict sense. The wider sense of philosophy means the generous sense of understanding it such that some things that are incapable of going any tedious philosophical rigour could be accepted as philosophy. Take for instance, people talk about their own philosophy of life or maintain that they have a rather philosophical approach to an issue. What is meant here is that an approach is adopted which shows some level of reflective thinking but without a high dosage of sophistication and philosophical depth or technical thinking. As for philosophy in a strict sense, usually what is meant is that there is a definite, precise, critical and focused approach to an issue from a completely philosophical perspective. Here, ideas that have not been rigorously tested by reason have no place. Issues about superstitions, idiosyncrasies and others are not considered since they fail the test of critical reasoning. Reason is the most important tool of the trade of philosophy. It is the most portent instrument of the philosophy to carry out his onerous task of probing reality. With the use of reason, the philosopher is not to give in to ordinary, facile answers to the problems of life. Rather, he is prepared to ask the right critical questions as to “why being is instead of non-being.” Reason has an ever critical role to play in guiding the philosopher in his quest for the truth. Without reason as I often say, the philosopher will be like a blind man looking for a needle in a haystack.  

Philosophy is one of the first activities of man because he found himself in the world which has not yielded itself to easy understanding. Man therefore wants to make meaning out of the world and so he started raising some of the pertinent questions about reality. His questions among others have to do with some basic issues among others: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I here? One could summarise these questions as focusing on the ‘I’ and reality. What led to philosophical speculation in Miletus was the issue of the primal stuff of which the world was made. It was what stirred Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes into probing reality in order to find and name this primal substance. Thus they came out with various answers: Water, Air, the Indeterminate and so on.  Prior to them, this question has been answered through myths, mythologies and anthropomorphic gods and heroes. But Thales tried to find naturalistic explanations of the world without reference to the supernatural. This trend was followed by Anaximander and Anaximenes all answering this same question differently.  

While these Pre-Socratics had more cosmological concerns, Socrates turned his own search light in a different direction. His primary interest was in man himself and his interior or moral life. Man, according to him must know himself and understand why he exists because an unexamined life is not worth living. It was a turn toward ethical concerns and virtuous life in general. This was the life that Socrates himself lived. He was a man who was not imprisoned by mundane concerns and so devoted his energies to changing society by living a life that is well thought-through. This process entails changing oneself and living by a set of values that shows the attitude of being prepared to follow some principled guidelines such that one can live a life of moral rectitude.  For Socrates, self-knowledge is an imperative for living the right kind of life. It is only  when one has come to that knowledge of himself that he can thoroughly examine himself penultimate to living a good life.  

From Socrates, we had Plato whose concern was more sublime matters. Plato saw the real world of everyday experience as only a shadow of the true world which is the world of forms. Plato wanted to explain the world from the unknown to the known. While the good which defines itself is unknown, nevertheless, it is the source of everything else that is known. Then came Aristotle who was the heir apparent of Plato. He, on his own preferred a more scientific approach in explaining the world. For him, the existing order in the world is a good preparatory ground for the knowledge of everything beyond it. The approach therefore should be from the known to the unknown. 

 

DEFINING PHILOSOPHY AND WHAT SOME PHILOSOPHERS SAY 

As I earlier pointed out, defining philosophy is as arduous a task as it is interesting. It is because it is so difficult to reach a consensus as to a generally acceptable definition of the discipline. We shall therefore itemize some definitions of philosophy and attempt to explain them. 

1. Philosophy is reflecting critically on the way things are. That includes reflecting critically on the social and political and economic arrangements. It always intimates the possibility that things could be other than they are. And better…  Michael Sandel. 

2. Philosophy is thinking hard about the most difficult problems that there are. It requires an untangling of presuppositions: figuring out that our thinking is being driven by ideas we didn’t realize that we had. David Papineau 

3. Philosophy is thinking as clearly as possible about the most fundamental concepts that reach through all the disciplines. Anthony Kenny. 

4. Philosophy is something that has to do with the gadfly image, the Socratic gadfly refusing to accept platitudes or accepted wisdom without examining it. Donna Dickenson. 

5. Philosophy is a process of reflection on the deepest concepts that is the structures of thought that make up the way in which we think about the world. Simon Blackburn. 

6. It is thinking fundamentally, clearly and well about the nature of reality and our place in it, so as to understand better what goes on around us, and what our contribution is to that reality and its effect on us. Barry Smith 

7. It is our way of making sense out of the world in which we find ourselves in. Clare 

Carlisle.  

8. Philosophy is the art of critical and reflective thinking on reality as well as a conscious attempt to understand our place and role within the domain of reality as we find it. Emmanuel Ogundele  

9. Philosophy is a study of the fundamental principles that underlie human life. Odera Oruka 

10. Philosophy is a conscious reflection on lived experience. John Aniagwu 

 

 

BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY 

 

As an age-long discipline, philosophy resembles a big tree which has grown into different branches. These branches while depending on the mother tree for existence have concerned themselves with issues that are philosophical from their own respective perspectives. William Wallace in his book Elements of Philosophy followed the traditional classification of knowledge into: Speculative which is knowledge for its own sake as seen in its three levels, Metaphysics, the most abstract, Mathematics, the intermediate degree and natural philosophy whose object is sensible matter. Practical knowledge on the other hand is knowledge “for the sake of operation of conduct and so it is primarily concerned about the arts of making and the arts of directing human activity whether under the aspect of ethics or politics.”1 I prefer to divide them into major and minor branches. The major branches are: Metaphysics, Ethics, Epistemology, Logic and Aesthetics. The aforementioned branches are considered major because they deal with the broad issues of concern to philosophy. However, there are minor branches such as: Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophical anthropology etc. I categorize them as minor because they take their origin from the major branches and deal with issues arising from them. We shall now take them one by one. 

(a). Metaphysics: Etymologically, it means “After the physical” deriving its name from two Greek words: Meta and phusika. It is known as ‘first philosophy’. This name was said to take its origin from the name it was given by Andronicus of Rhodos who edited some treatises of Aristotle.2 Andronicus began by first working on the treatises on physics before what he called metaphysics. The ordering played a role in the choice of this name. Aristotle himself gave the name ‘first philosophy to these treatises by which he meant ‘fundamental, basic or most important.’3 In this ‘first philosophy’ he addressed interesting topics such as the nature of being, the nature of causation and the nature of knowledge. 

Metaphysics is also made up of ontology which is the study of being qua being or as it is called, ‘of existence and coming to be.’ It covers epistemology which is the theory of knowledge or gnoseology as well as dealing with questions about the mind and the soul, God, time and space and free will. Metaphysics is also a branch of philosophy which is not dependent as such on sensation or perception because its areas of interest cannot be grasped by our mental powers alone. Metaphysical problems and issues are at the heart of the fundamental nature of the world.  One can say that man is naturally disposed to metaphysics because in a way it is inbuilt into the nature of man to think of things that are transcendental or trans-physical. Man, by his nature is a transcending being and it is why metaphysics will always remain important. Attempts have been made by analytic philosophers to attack metaphysics as being irrelevant because the issues treated by it are not within the realm of sense-perception. 

 
EPISTEMOLOGY: This is coined from two Greek words, Episteme meaning Knowledge and Logos meaning word or study of. It is therefore theory of knowledge.  In the days of old, it was also called ‘Gnoseology’.  The major preoccupation of epistemology is knowledge, its sources, nature and the validity. In epistemology, some of the important questions that are asked are: What is the human mind capable of knowing? Or, from what sources can we gain or obtain knowledge.  Is genuine knowledge possible or do we just live on guesses or opinions? Is knowledge limited to the realm of the senses or can it be obtained outside it? Some of the other issues addressed in epistemology are the, truth and falsity, appearance and reality and so on. To this, there have been a lot of responses, for instance, the rationalist will say that only human reason can discover the basic principles of the universe while the empiricist would say that all knowledge is ultimately derived from experience and limited to it. Epistemology and metaphysics are related in that our knowledge of the world is highly dependent on the nature of being.  

 

ETHICS: The word ‘ethics’ is derived from ‘Ethikos’ meaning ‘manners’. However, in recent times it has taken on the meaning of a science of morals or moral philosophy. It is concerned with how moral issues are addressed especially general conduct. Today, ethics has two different meanings. In the first instance, it can mean the study of “theories about the intellectual origins and justification of moral codes and morality in general.” Secondly, it can mean the “particular codes of conduct adopted by individuals or professions.” It is in this regard that people talk about work ethics, medical ethics, business ethics, ethics of the legal profession and so on.  Ethics is concerned with motivation especially with altruism, egoism asking questions about happiness, justice, courage, what is valuable and desirable or undesirable. The field of ethics is very wide but generally it is concerned with what is right and wrong in human conduct and moral judgment in general.   

Ethics is that branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of morality and well-defined standards of right and wrong. As a result, it addressed the problem of human character and conduct in terms of obligations, rights, rules and what can be of benefit to society in general. In ethics, a range of laws are also discussed such as divine command, moral law, the law of duty for duty sake and so on. The sense of what is virtuous to do is addressed too in ethics. In the conclusion, the field of ethics involves systematizing, defending and recommending what is right and recognition of what is wrong in human behaviour.  

 

LOGIC: Logic comes from the Greek word ‘logos’ which can mean thought, word, reason and so on. As a result, logic has been defined as the study of the laws of thought. Aristotle who is generally described as the father of logic defined it as the “study of proof’. Most reasoning intends to show that something is possible or probable and not always to prove conclusively. Logic deals with inferences and judgment. It is also defined as the “study of that aspect of strict or deductive proof which is concerned with its soundness or unsoundness.”4 According to Grayling, Logic “is the workshop of philosophy, where a set of related and highly important concepts come in for scrutiny, among them, reference, truth, existence, necessity and quantification.”5 The concepts dealt with in Logic are highly fundamental to philosophical enquiry itself and to the general thought process. The main duty of logic is to study the soundness or unsoundness of any argument or position.  

 

AESTHETICS: This aspect of philosophy deals largely with the experience of appreciating the artistic experience as seen in painting, sculpture and others. It is also concerned with beauty thus preoccupied with if there is an underlying unity in the nature of these experiences. The interest of aesthetics extends as far as how judgments are made on artistic issues or matters of beauty. Questions that are relevant in this respect are: Is beauty relative or not? Does it really reside and dependent on the judgment of the beholder or objective in its own right? 

 

MINOR BRANCHES AND SUBDIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY 

Besides the major branches of philosophy, there are minor branches too. These minor branches are really part of the major branches and discuss issues which are subsumed under the major branches. There is a philosophy of every major discipline under the earth. It means there is a philosophical perspective to everything. So we have philosophy of Biology, of Mathematics, theology and so on. But some of the minor branches of philosophy are philosophy of religion, Philosophy of science, Social and political Philosophy, Applied ethics etc.  We shall briefly look at some of them. 

Philosophy of Religion: This is a philosophical look at religion. It takes a critical view of religion and the religious scheme examining the concepts used in religion and how weighty they are. It is originally a part of metaphysics as a major branch. 

Philosophy of Science: This is philosophy in so far as it is concerned with science as a broad discipline. Its main focus is the nature of science by seeking to explain its procedures and method.  

Philosophy of Law: This aspect of philosophy focuses on jurisprudence and the relationship between law and philosophy. 

Philosophy of Nature: This investigates the world of nature including matter, space and time, motion and so on. 

Philosophy of Mathematics: Even though mathematics is no longer technically part of philosophy today, nevertheless, there is the philosophy of mathematics which considers mathematical issues from a philosophical point of view. 

Philosophical Anthropology: This area of philosophy deals with man and the problems associated with being a human person. 

Social and Political Philosophy: What is considered in Social and political philosophy are those issues pertaining to the social nature of man and the political aspect of his person. Man is a social being by nature and at the same time a political animal. 

There are other minor branches of philosophy but these ones have been singled out for mention to drive home the point that the main branches have in turn branched out into many minor parts to further address into details some of its subject-matter. 

 

THE TASKS OF THE PHILOSOPHER 

The task of the philosopher is rather complex nonetheless interesting. Philosophy is an academic discipline in its own right which came out as a result of the Ancient Greek men and modern western minds wanting to resolve some problems in the world. It came about through the process of sorting out whereby man tried to organize his knowledge and enquiry.6 Despite the fact that certain aspects of philosophy have been taken over by other forms of inquiry, there are still some tasks specially set aside for philosophers. They are the critical task, the constructive task and the reflective task. 

 

CRITICAL TASK 

The philosopher has as one of his main assignments a critical task. He cannot be satisfied with bare-faced answers to questions but deep-seated answers. It is his task to probe, query and question those who make assertions so that their claims are situated on a solid foundation. Claims cannot just be made. They must be substantiated. This sort of task was evident in the life of Socrates who according to the Delphic oracle was reputed to the wisest man on earth. This was at the instance of his friend, Chairephon. As a reaction, Socrates decided to interrogate as many people who in his judgment were wise in order to prove the oracle was wrong. The task of the philosopher therefore is to query or interrogate others to see whether their opinions could stand up to scrutiny or not. Every opinion must be tested to see if they can be retained or cast overboard. Socrates would therefore feign ignorance in order to help others realize what they know. In his questions to Meno and Euthyphro, he asked about virtue and whether it can be taught as well as what is piety or impiety. Socrates took as his task the ultimate inquirer to test the soundness or otherwise of their positions.  This is indeed the critical aspect of the philosophical enterprise.  

This task of the philosopher is very important because as human beings, we take a lot for granted thus making many assumptions sometimes without any sound basis. In some instances, we are imprisoned in our own prejudices and this is unacceptable to the philosopher. Even though Socrates did not write anything, we know that his approach to the critical endeavour was informal but ever since, philosophy has become so formalized that it deals with every aspect of human educational pursuit. Thus the philosopher is critical of science, religion, politics, biology, education and so on. It is indeed to demand for conceptual clarification whereby there is ambiguity. In the same way that Socrates was the gadfly of the Athenian society, so also philosophy is the gadfly to other disciplines. Thus, the critical side of the duty of philosophy is very crucial to its success. The word critique here does not really mean to criticise but comes from the Greek word to ‘sift’ ‘separate’ or ‘sort out’. 

 

THE CONSTRUCTIVE TASK 

The perception of the philosopher of life is typical of a grid or network. He takes therefore as his task to go beyond being critical to constructing a view of the whole. He takes it as important to see how one experience or reality fits in within the whole system. He is as a result holistic in his consideration instead of just being particular. Philosophy is “man’s quest for a unity of knowledge, a perpetual struggle to create the concepts that allow the universe to be seen as unified rather than fragmented.”7 The focus of philosophy is total unity. All the problems addressed by philosophy are interlinked and so the philosopher must endeavour to find the nexus between them. Man is confronted by so many problems and surrounded by challenges for which he wants to find solutions. He must embark upon this task by first of all seeking to understanding the chain of events. Even the cheer fact of understanding man itself is a gargantuan or daunting task since man is a mystery. According to Halverson, “the quest for the total picture, the struggle to discern the unity that we instinctively believe lies behind the apparent inconsistences of our little fragments of knowledge”8 is essentially part of the constructive task of the philosopher. 

The attempt to arrive at a total picture of reality was a motivating fact to many philosophers of old. Sometimes the approach is in a piecemeal way in order to arrive at far-reaching conclusions. Thus, in the final analysis, the overall goal of the philosopher is to arrive at a picture of the whole and an all-inclusive concept of the universe in which every truth finds its proper place. 

 

 

THE REFLECTIVE TASK 

It is an important task of the philosopher to reflect on issues. Reflection is having a deep insight into an issue thus creating a comprehensive perspective on such an issue devoid of emotion but dwelling on it from a sincere, thorough and better understanding. Even though the reflection must bear elements of rationality or rational thinking, it creates an interior and well-thought out response about the issue under consideration. It is the task of the philosopher to deal with questions that are more profound and interesting as well as questions that are trans-empirical. The philosopher must develop his inner ability to ruminate on issues. It is in doing a kind of introspection and inside thought that he can deal with problems posed by reality which is rather  complex. The ability to reflect is part of what philosophy can do with us according to Martin Heidegger. Reflection also allows the philosopher to develop an overview of all the issues instead of having a narrow perspective of things. A mind that takes time to deal with important issues within will definitely provide better solutions than the one that rushes over them. The philosopher must therefore develop an inner insight into things which will allow him to proffer more reasonable solutions to the problem raised. Reflection makes it possible for the philosopher to systematize his ideas and situate them against a bigger and larger background. Involved in this reflective task is the subjective engagement of the philosopher with his ideas. 

 

 

UNDERSTANDING PHILOSOPHY 

As we have said earlier, the philosophical endeavour is unlike any other. This is because the questions raised by it are deeply fundamental. This is why the history of philosophy could as well be called the history of man’s continuous attempt to gain a comprehensive view of reality relating to every part of our human experiences. It is good to distinguish at this point between philosophical questions and philosophical systems. While a philosophical question is basic, short, focused and fundamental thus dealing with a barrage of philosophical issues, philosophical systems are concerned with the particular perspective of a philosophical subject e.g. transcendentalism, naturalism, idealism and so on.  For while transcendentalism says that the world of space and time in itself depends on a reality that is beyond space and time, naturalism says that there is only one order of reality which consists only of objects and events in the world of space and time. Idealism on its own contends that only ideas are real and so things in the physical world are not real in the real sense of the word. Philosophy can be studied from two important viewpoints: historical and systematic. It is important to study the two together for one cannot be easily understood without the other. Thus while treating philosophy from a systematic perspective, references cannot but be made to history particularly beginning with the history of Ancient Greek philosophy up to the present time. Combining the two approaches will lead willy-nilly to a better and richer understanding of the subject. 

 

THE ORIGINS AND SOURCES OF PHIILOSOPHY 

As a discipline, philosophy owes its origin and source to man since it is a consequence of man’s natural tendency to ask questions about the nature of reality. Having found himself in the immensity of the universe, man needs to better understand the world so as to be able to adapt to it. There is the view that philosophy developed from two main sources. The first one is the inherited religious and ethical conceptions. This means that every aspect of philosophy is connected with some kind inherited religious views and ethical reflections which have been passed on from one generation to the other. This is not only evident in Greece but also during the Patristic and Scholastic period. The second suggested source is that philosophy took its source from a process of scientific inquiry using the word science in a rather loose sense. It means that philosophy is a sophisticated and systematic occupation aimed at leading man to the knowledge of himself and the world. It helps to wean man from his ignorance while at the same time a methodological study of issues, problems and concepts in a systematic way thus proffering useful and helpful answers. Others have preferred to call is a half-way house between theology and science.  Bertrand Russell was of this view. This is so because philosophy consists of speculations on matters within the realm of unascertainable knowledge most especially in the realm of metaphysics. These are positions that cannot be conclusively proven to be true. Philosophy in this regard shares with theology in dealing with issues that are not definitely proven. Like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, tradition or revelation. He concluded that philosophy is a no man’s land between theology and science. 

 

THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY 

Naturally, philosophy deals with the problem of existence and human problems as well. It deals with the issues concerning reality and why things exist instead of not existing. Philosophy is a unique discipline because it deals with ultimate questions but these questions also have practical dimensions. In addition, philosophy also deals with abstract questions and these questions despite their intangible character have a lot to do with reality. Here are some practical guides that should be considered as important to the discipline of philosophy: 

1. The truth should not be taken for granted. 

2. Issues must be pursued in a systematic way. 

3. It must be carried out in a critical and rational way. Reason must be its main tool. 

4. It must be reflective and speculative. Reflection is higher than reason. Being reflective therefore includes certain elements of human psychology, spirituality and intuition. 

5. It must be consistent and coherent in its thinking.  

 

All of these elements and many more are crucial to the philosophical task and fundamental to the nature of philosophy. 

 

 

METHODS OF PHILOSOPHY 

Philosophy has its own methodology or its own way of carrying out its inquiry. Thus we have the dialectical method, historical method and systematic method. 

 

Dialectical Method: Dialectics is the development of thought through interplay of ideas.  An evolutionary way of working at things in a dialectical discourse helps in developing a sustained pattern of argument in which the implication of different positions are drawn out and contrasted. In dialectics, we have an evolution of thoughts and arguments. 

 

Historical Method: This is a process a student of philosophy is meant to study the tradition of philosophy from the beginning to the present time. As a result, the problems of philosophy are seen from a historical perspective. 

 

Systematic Method: Philosophy is meant to be a systematic discipline and must operate as such. In dealing with philosophical problems, it must be organized, constructive, imaginative and consistent perspective. As a result, it allows the student to build up his vocabulary in a step by step manner in the process of philosophical discussions. The novice is therefore provided with a more familiar starting point in dealing with philosophical issues being at home with the history of the subject, in this way, it helps the student to participate in philosophical discussions in a prepared manner. 

 

 

 

DIFFERENT EPOCHS IN THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF PHILOSOPHY 

Philosophy as a discipline has evolved over the years. It is a discipline that has gone through various stages in its development over the years. These periods are six in number. They are: 

1. The ancient philosophical period; 

2. Patristic Period 

3. The Scholastic/medieval period; 

4. The Renaissance period; 

5. The Modern period; 

6. The Contemporary period; 

Let us now take a short note on each of these in the following order: 

1. THE ANCIENT PERIOD:  Ancient philosophy is a conventional title in Europe for philosophical activities of the thinkers of the GrecoRoman world. This is what is still studied in most Catholic seminaries in the world as the first historical course in philosophy up till today. It includes a succession of philosophers who operated over a 1000 period from the middle of the first millennium BC to the first millennium AD beginning with Thales. 

     Traditionally ancient philosophy is divided into four main periods the PreSocratic philosophers, Socrates and Plato, Aristotle, the PostAristotelian philosophers. Recently, there has been a tendency to divide the last by adding a fifth phase of Christian and NeoPlatonist philosophers. The most important of the Ancient philosophers are Plato and Aristotle and even though there has been a shift of interest in favour of PostAristotelians, these two remains the focus of interest both to specialists and the wider philosophical community. In their different ways, Plato and Aristotle took backwards and forwards in philosophy. Each constructs his theorizing so as to encapsulate leading elements in the earlier tradition. While Plato does this with the impressionistic flair with his emphasis on the world of ideas, Aristotle was more scientific in method with more precision and historical accuracy. This is why both of them will ever remain relevant since their philosophical insights supersede those of the coming generation. The ancient philosophers created much and laid much of the groundwork for later philosophical debate in the fields of ontology, epistemology, logic, ethics and political philosophy. They also established the crucial features of philosophical method  openmindedness about the agenda of problems, and rational progress through argument and debate. Some of the key themes they discussed are these: the ontological specification of nonperceptible items e.g. (numbers, gods, universals), the isolation of the objective causes in the nonanimate sphere of nature, the analysis and the evaluation of patterns of reasoning and argument, the importance of understanding in the pursuit of the good life, the need to analyse the nature of the human person, the importance of the concept of justice in defining the nature of the political system and many more, 

While much of ancient philosophy runs with commonsense, it also contains paradoxes and eccentricities. Among these could be counted Plato’s theory of forms, according to which universal kinds or properties are usually separated from their instances, Aristotle’s conception of God is concerned only with his own essence, and the stoics’ absolutist distinctions between good and bad. One of the most fertile areas of ancient philosophy was ethics. Here a central figure is Socrates whose intellectually profound and persistent interest in the nature of the good life led him to penetrating comments on human knowledge and rationality. The constructive scepticism of Socrates has been a major determinant of subsequent philosophical method. Aristotle’s ethical work was influenced by Socrates even though with some modifications. By and large, the ancient philosophers always saw their theoretical interest as directed on practical matters. Their ethics is, applied as well as being theoretical. The study of ancient philosophy is an essential part of the study of philosophy and it must be sustained as a core element in the subject 

 

2. THE PATRISTIC PERIOD:  This is the period that comes immediately after the apostolic era. It covered about five centuries. At this time, Christianity was beginning to make its foray into new pagan territories and the need to make it more appealing was urgent. The main crux of the Patristic fathers or fathers of the Church was to brand Christianity as a philosophy in its own right bringing it at par with Greek philosophy. As a result, they embarked upon a kind of synthesis to bring Christianity at home with Greek philosophy and look for equivalents in Christian thought within elements of Greek philosophy which was the preeminent philosophy of the Greco-Roman world of the time. This was a rather complex task. What made their task fairly easy was that they were very knowledgeable in both Christianity and Greek philosophy and associating both though in an imperfect was helped the entire process. Some of those who were outstanding in this were Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Justin the Martyr, Marius Victorinus, Boethius, Dionysius, Pseudo-Areopagite St. Augustine and so on. It was an epoch-making period in the history of philosophy since it made Greek philosophy not just an isolated idea but one that can be compared and contrasted with other systems at the time. The beauty of patristic philosophy was that Christianity and pagan thought were not incompatible but that pagan thought can cooperate with Christianity but that pagan thought was subordinate to Christianity and needed to be purified by it since it is superior wisdom. Their approach much as it was so important to the growth of the philosophical tradition led to some problems. Their bold effort to marry paganism with Christianity led them to many heretical thoughts for instance Gnosticism. 

Neo-Platonism and Stoicism were the most dominant systems of this period presenting different doctrines accounting for the explanation of reality including some representation of the divine. This was the beginning of the establishment of new theological and ethical discourses which pervaded the ancient world. More so, Hellenistic Jews and Christian thinkers were highly attracted to the philosophical thoughts of the Graeco-Roman world. This philosophy of the ancient Graeco-Roman world was both a way of life as well as an intellectual discipline. This was what Christianity was transformed into eventually though on a higher plane. Many of the Christian philosophers of this time were called ‘apologists’ because they sought to apologise as it were for their faith. 

2. SCHOLASTIC/ MEDIEVAL PERIOD:  This is another major period in the history of philosophy after the ancient period. Histories of medieval philosophy tend to start with St. Augustine (354430) or even some years earlier than this with the Christian apologists. Augustine is however included among the list of medieval thinkers not because he was actually one but because his thought deeply, systematically, and in a philosophical way about Christianity, other major thinkers of this period were St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Thomas Aquinas and many more. 

Like St, Augustine, the medieval thinkers philosophized because they wish to understand Christianity. Indeed, Anselm’s famous phrase, ‘‘Fides quaerens intellectum’’ ‘Faith seeking understanding’ is instructive in this regard as a perfect description of philosophy as carried out during this period. A major part of this task of clarification is demonstrating that Christianity is not incompatible with what can be demonstrated by reason. The works of Aristotle was greatly used by medieval philosophers both in the West and in other traditions. An important point of conflict concerned Aristotle’s analysis of motion in the physics and metaphysics which led him to conclude that the world was eternal. Many medieval philosophers believing that the world began in time found it necessary to argue against Aristotle’s arguments. Aquinas held for instance that the eternity of world was neither provable nor disprovable. Albert the great held that the doctrine that the world began in time could be demonstrated. The problem of universals was also another interesting one in the middle ages. A big issue in this regard is that granted that all several individual things have a common nature as a result of which they are members of the same species, what is the mode of existence of this common nature? Does it exist in the individual that have the nature? This started off a big debate between realists; nominalists etc. there are also a big debate about values: Does God command us to perform acts of a given kind because they are in any case good, or their goodness is caused by the fact of God commanding them. 

Much as the medieval period is important to Christianity in many respects, many modern day philosophers would want to disregard this period as being inconsequential to the history of philosophy. This position is indefensible. 

3. RENAISSANCE PERIOD:  This is a period of thought in the West during the middle of the 14th to about the beginning of the 17th centuries.  It was a period of serious, intense and all-embracing philosophical activity. The principal concerns of Renaissance philosophers was the philosophy of nature (embracing science, occultism and metaphysics), psychology (including theory of knowledge), and moral and political philosophy – one of the major contributions was the employment of fables of golden ages, past and future, in order to retrieve and refashion personal and social virtues associated with antiquity which in their thinking was destroyed by the modern decadent culture. Their position was that God has revealed to humanity a single strand of truth which was preserved in the works of the ancient philosophers a part of which has been preserved for posterity. This helped in laying a foundation for the attempt to reconcile various ancient texts in their divergent positions and interpreting them in a new way. With the coming of the renaissance philosophers, there was increased interest in primary sources both of the Greek and Roman thought and so systems such as Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, Scepticism became more widespread. This helped in the development of Modern philosophy.   

The first Renaissance philosopher was St. Nicolas of Cusa 140164 while the last was Francesco Suarez 15481617. Other notable thinkers of this time were Giordano Bruno, Erasmus, Saint Thomas Moore, Pico della Mirandola, Galileo Galilei, Niccolo Machiavelli. 

The Renaissance cannot match the medieval and modern periods in their originality and influence of its philosophical ideas. For most part, it was concerned with the elaboration of systems of thought originating in the classical period. The main sources of philosophical inspiration were Plato and Aristotle even though traditions of scholasticism were maintained by figures such as Cajetan, Suarez and others. During this period, works by classical philosophers were retranslated and new commentaries produced. This led to the establishment of revivalist schools the most important was a NeoPlatonist school founded in Florence.  

4. MODERN PERIOD:   This was the period immediately after the renaissance period. It falls with the 17th century to the earlier part of the 20th century. The modern person is distinctive in its own right as a time when there was a remarkable break with classical traditions to attempt a new insight into issues of philosophical relevance. There has been a debate on historical circles whether Descartes with his “I think therefore, I exist” and Francis Bacon with his process of scientific methodology could be called the father of modern philosophy or not. Even though most historians have settled for the former credit has to be given to the two for initiating this period. 

The modernity as it is called is not a specific school of philosophy or doctrine but a change in the approach to philosophy. One of the interesting things in its approach was that it was a period of enlightenment. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the dominant schools within epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of mind were divided into two broad positions: The rationalists who argued that all knowledge must begin with ‘innate ideas’ in the mind. Thus some of those who subscribe to this position are Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz and others. Next were the Empiricists who believe that knowledge must begin with sensory experience such as John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume and to a great extent Immanuel Kant if one considers his position in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant eventually made frantic efforts to reconcile rationalism and empiricism but it is doubtful if he fully succeeded in this task. This culminated in the birth of German Idealism and also the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel holding that the world and mind must be understood according to the same categories thus eventually concluding that the ‘real  is the rational and the rational is the real.’ The position of Hegel took different forms in his disciples, some going to the right and others to the left.  

The coming of Soren Kierkegaard with his existentialism led to the dismissal of the rather complex Hegelian positions which had become too systematic. For him, life is meant to be lived and not a mystery to be resolved by some systematic form of philosophizing. This is because systematic philosophy is not responsive to real life situations and ethical guidance. Arthur Schopenhauer reacted extremely to Hegel by saying that the world is my representation and that the world was nothing but an empty and futile search for desires which ends in frustration. His cure for this was pessimism and atheism. Friedrich Nietzsche came to seize upon this to settle for the conclusion that ‘God is dead’ thus rejecting all pretensions to fixed and stable truth or even moral system. The modern period may have in a way ended with the coming of Bertrand Russell and George Edward Moore with the re-awakening of empiricism in a new light called Analytic philosophy. 

5. CONTEMPORARY PERIOD:  This is philosophy as it is done in current era of philosophy. One might call it philosophy as practiced in the 19-21st centuries. It is no more than a fallout from the modern period. The trend of thought in the philosophy today is existentialism, phenomenology, deconstruction together with a renewal of thought in other areas of philosophical endeavours. It is what some people will call in certain circles continental philosophy. There is more focus on Language and logic during this period. This is philosophy as developed in continental Europe and characterized by different forms of analytic philosophy. Notable philosophers in this tradition are Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jurgen Harbemas, JeanPaul Sartre, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Albert Camus. There is also the attendant influence of the modern philosophers on this age which is now given the name Postmodernism. It is good to remark too that philosophies from other parts of the world are beginning to show up in this century such as African Philosophy, Chinese Philosophy, Indian Philosophy etc. 

 

 

 

 

SOME IMPORTANT PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS, TERMS AND CONCEPTS. 

1. RATIONALISM:  This is a school of thought which is primarily concerned with 

the primacy of human reason over other any other faculties in the attainment of knowledge. Reason is the first source and justification for knowledge and truth. In this respect, the rationalists will say that the knowledge gained through reason can be justified without appealing to experience and so reason is independent from the senses. Rationalism is therefore the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge and the unique path to knowledge. 

Rationalism is mostly encountered as a view in epistemology, where it is contrasted with empiricism the view that the senses are primary with respect to knowledge. When overemphasized, rationalism can lead to subjectivism which takes as its criterion of truth the knowing subject, not the object to be known. This position can lead to dissolution of knowledge. Rationalism can also tend to individualism, an idea which calls upon each philosopher to work out a philosophy entirely his own and create an entirely original and novel view of the universe. Rationalism can also lead to naturalism which claims to attain wisdom by unassisted powers of nature and rejects all divine teachings. 

The father of modern rationalism was Descartes to whom philosophers like Malebranche, Spinoza and Leibniz traced their philosophic origin. Rationalism further gained a great hearing through Immanuel Kant and other philosophers after him such as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel who more or less deified the human subject of knowledge. 

2. EMPIRICISM:  This school of thought holds that sense experience is the sole source  

of knowledge. As a result, it maintains the primacy of the senses in human knowledge. Empiricists are of the view that the knowledge we gain through our five conventional senses are enough to furnish us with the required knowledge about the world. The source of knowledge for the empiricist is therefore the ideas supplied by the senses. Sense experience and nothing more is the only supplier of knowledge for the empiricist. Some empiricists are John Locke, David Hume, Bishop George Berkeley etc. 

3. IDEALISM:  This doctrine stresses the central function of idea in the understanding  

of reality. For the idealist, the mind or spiritual values are important and fundamental to our knowledge of reality. Idealists are also of the view that consciousness is very important and that the idea of a thing is more important than the thing itself. This is why some idealists distrust the veracity or truthfulness of the senses and so break the contact which we believe the senses provide for us to experience external reality. Idealism is a major trend in philosophy and it has many types some of which are subjective idealism, objective idealism, transcendental idealism etc. Subjective idealism claims that there is always the presence of a mind around an activity whether seen or not, while objective idealism believes that there is a universal mind that gives order and coherence to reality. Transcendental idealism would claim that the idea transcends the mere physical forms of existence. Some great idealists are Plato, Berkeley especially with his idea of to be is to be perceived. 

4. MATERIALISM:  This is the philosophical doctrine that gives primacy to matter alone thereby giving a place of secondary importance to the mind. For the materialists, the real world consists of matter alone even though it is known in different forms. Everything is reduced to matter and it is the only means through which reality can be explained. Materialism is divided into two groups: Historical materialism and Dialectical materialism. Historical materialism is a Marxist position that explains the development in society only in terms of material forces, and that society is an everevolving reality which moves through a natural resolution of the conflicts and contradictions inherent in it. Dialectical materialism is Marxist in orientation. Its main idea is that it is in nature that the overcoming of contradiction takes place. This is a reinterpretation of the philosophy of Hegel 

. 

5. EXISTENTIALISM:    This is the philosophical current began in the 19th century by  

Soren Kierkegaard a Danish philosopher. It is a philosophy of existence. Existence according to this theory is a peculiar mode of being that can only apply to man. While other things could be said to be, only man exists, God, the angels, trees are, but they do not exist. Jean Paul Sartre defines existentialism simply as ‘’existence precedes essence’’. Existentialism could simply be defined also as the philosophy of existence. Some existentialist philosophers are Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, Albert Camus etc. 

6. NATURALISM:  This is a school of thought which holds that all occurrence in the 

World can be explained according to natural laws and natural causes. The central position of naturalism is that reality can be conceived in terms of matter and that natural laws and science are valid and reliable explanation for reality as a whole. John Dewey is a good example of those in this school of thought. 

7. POSITIVISM:  Positive philosophy which is traceable to August Comte has to do  

with a system of universal and scientific knowledge. It is a universal philosophy because it includes all legitimate questions men could ask and scientific because it would follow the patterns of modern science. After this designation, any scientific outlook that adopts a scientific view of life has been called positivism. 

8. LOGICAL POSITIVISM:  This idea was propounded by a group of thinkers who  

lived in Vienna, Austria in the 1920s called the Vienna circle. It was a gathering of like minds comprising of philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, Logic and Mathematics. They had regular meetings from 1924-1936 at the University of Vienna, Austria, chaired by Moritz Schlick. Some of the other founding fathers of this school were Philipp Frank, Hans Hahn and Otto Neurath. While Hahn and Neurath were Mathematicians, Frank was a physicist. Their scientific background played a great role in the influence they had on this school that professed a rather dogmatic logical empiricism. The sole purpose of this school was to give philosophy a scientific outlook. According to them, philosophy does not produce propositions which are true or false but merely clarifies the meaning of statements, showing some to be scientific, others mathematical, and most philosophical propositions nonsensical. For logical positivists, the role of philosophy should be to clarify the meaning of statements some of which must be scientific statements. Statements which are empirically verifiable nonsensical and so are outside of philosophy. They did not hide their disdain for metaphysics and metaphysical truths. Some notable figures in this school of thought among others were Rudolf Carnap, Charles Morris and Herbert Feigl. Their ideas were later internationalized due to the emigration of many of them to other parts of Europe and the United States. This was occasioned more by Austrofacism or the rise of Austrian fascism.  

9. PRAGMATISM:  This philosophical movement began in America in this century. Its  

founding fathers are Charles Piece and William James. For Pragmatists what is true and meaningful is what works. The workability of a thing is therefore a major determinant of its truthfulness and usefulness. According to the pragmatist, utility and the satisfactory consequences of a thing are very vital to its existence. In other words, what is real is what can be applied and what can have satisfactory results. Pragmatism is both a theory of truth and meaning. The principal question a pragmatist would ask is: what is the practical consequence of accepting a particular position for my life? Instrumentalism and experimentalism are aspects of pragmatism. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOME COMMON TERMS IN PHILOSOPHY 

1.  INDUCTION:  A reasoning process is usually from empirically testable premises to a general conclusion which may in some respects contain more information than was to be found in the premises together. It is also a method of logical reasoning whose conclusion is arrived at by the wanting to universalize the premises. An example of this form of reasoning is: 

Bola, a Nigerian is a thief. 

Nonye, a Nigerian is a thief. 

Sunday, a Nigerian is a thief. 

Therefore all Nigerians are thieves. 

This form of reasoning says more than the premises. The general problem with inductive reasoning is that it leads to the fallacy of hasty generalization because it makes general claims without exhaustively examining all the particular instances involved in the general. Here, the truth of the premises does not necessarily lead to the truth of the conclusion. The conclusion may not always be relied on. It is a method which is popularly used in science. 

2.  DEDUCTION:  This reasoning involving logically necessary inferences from a general premises or set of premises to a conclusion. The mode of reasoning here is also known as syllogism since it makes the general statement from the premise and the particular statement which derives from it a conclusion. An example is this: 

Every dog barks, 

Randy is a dog. 

Therefore Randy barks. 

In this form of reasoning, the conclusion follows validly from the premises. The validity does not however take care of the truth or falsity of the major premise. It has been said against the inductive form of reasoning that it does not provide reason for its general position and that this itself may be true or false. The statement ‘’Every dog barks’’ is still a premise that has to be determined. Here, if all the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true since all needed contents for its truthfulness are already implicitly contained in the premises. However, the inductive form of reasoning is more popularly used in rational discourses because of its compelling nature. 

3. ANALYTICSYNTHETIC DISTINCTION:  This distinction was made popular by Kant according to which an affirmative subjectpredicate statement, proposition or judgment) is called analytic if the predicate subject is contained in the subject concept, and synthetic if otherwise. The statement,” All roses are red” is analytic, since the concept red is contained in the concept of roses. All roses are red is synthetic, since the concept red is not contained in the concept roses. The denial of an affirmation subjectpredicate statement entails a contradiction if it is analytic. E.g. ‘Not all red roses are red’ entails that some roses are both red and not red. 

4.  A PRIORI:  That which is known to be true by logical deduction from general principles, or independently of our experience of it, and not requiring empirical validation. It means prior to or independent of empirical experience. A belief or claim is said to be justified a priori if its epistemic justification, the reason or warrant for thinking it to be true, does not depend at all on sensory or other sorts of physical experience. An a priori statement is one that is selfevidently true, or logically derivable from selfevident truths; or truths that do not require verification or confirmation through experience. E.g. ‘Tadpoles are tadpoles’ is an a priori truth. Another example is 2+2=4. 

5.  A POSTERIORI:  That which is known through inductive procedures or knowledge grounded on empirical data for its validation. It is simply knowledge acquired after sensory experience or truths not known a priori. 

6.  REASON:  This is the faculty of cogitation with which we think about things in the world. It is also called man’s rational faculty. Reason is the basis of man’s claim to be a rational being.  ‘Reasons for action’ are considerations that call for to justify an action. Some reasons for action could be subjective or objective. A subjective reason is a consideration an agent understands to support a course of action. An objective reason is one that does support a course of action regardless of whether the agent realizes it or not. 

7.  FAITH:  It has to do with man’s fundamental existential commitment. It signifies what ultimately determines the kind of person an individual is, so far as this is a matter of personal concerns and not simply the resultant of natural and environmental factors such as those which genetically decided that individual and his mental characteristics. Faith itself is a complex phenomenon which is constituted and expressed in a range of attitude, dispositions, values and practices. 

8.  MYTH AND DOGMA:  A mythology is a fantastic reflection of reality in primitive consciousness, which was embodied in oral folklore characteristic of the antiquity. Myths were narratives born in the early stages of history whose images (gods, legendary heroes, big events etc). The intent was to explain different phenomena of nature and society. 

Dogmatism is a way of thinking in which everything is based on unalterable concepts and formulas regardless of the new data of practice and science. The source of dogmatism is to be found in the development of religious conceptions and the tendency to always assert indisputable truths above criticism.  It is a position which is sacred to all believers of the various religious groups. A dogmatic way is a monolithic approach to reality. 

9.  IS AND OUGHT:  The “is” of a particular reality is the present form or situation or what obtains at the moment. The ‘ought’ of a thing is what should be the real or ideal situation. 

10.  FACTS AND VALUES: A fact is one’s judgment of a particular state of affairs whereas a value is what one holds dear. A value determines so much of what we do in life especially in the area of ethics, religion and aesthetics. 

11.  CONSISTENCY, COHERENCE, IMPLICATION, INFERENCE, NECESSITY:  Consistency and coherence are both concerned with the logical sequence and the systematic nature of our argument. A body of beliefs or knowledge is therefore said to be coherent or consistent if none of them is inconsistent with one another e.g. a statement that “The palace is burning’’ and “The palace is not burning’’ will not be coherent but contradictory and inconsistent. Such statements must support one another to be right.  Correspondence has to do with the agreement of a claim with a particular stateofaffairs. An implication is much the same with an inference in that it is an endproduct of a form of reasoning. 

An inference is made when one concludes something on the basis of (genuine or alleged) evidence. If I observe that it is raining then the conclusion is so easy to make that rain has fallen.  But if woke up and see that the entire landscape is wet, I infer that it has rained while I was asleep. There is necessary in a situation whereby there is an inevitable solution or conclusion to a situation. 

13.  CONCEPT:  Narrow and broad senses:  A concept is a form of reflection on the world at the stage of cognition associated with the use of language. It denotes thought which generalizes objects of a certain class according to their specific attributes. 

Narrow sense:  A concept is in a narrow sense when it is used in the most restricted or definite sense of the term. 

Broad sense:  A concept is used in a broad sense when it is used in the most generous and unrestricted. 

14.  CAUSE:  A cause is an essential condition which is the premise for, and explanation of the existence of any phenomena (effects). An immediate cause is one which is proximate cause of a particular effect, whereas an ultimate effect is that which is a remote or farreaching cause of a particular effect. 

15.  SHORTTERM AND LONGTERM CONCEPTS:  A shortterm concept is one which is not farreaching. In this regard it is temporary in its impact. But a Longterm concept is one which is farreaching in its impact and influence. 

16.  ANTECEDENT AND CONSEQUENT:  An antecedent is the one comes before while a consequent is the one that comes after. It is like the relationship between a cause and an effect. 

 

 

 

PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES 

 

 

 

Even though every science is a mistress in her own house, the question of whether philosophy and the sciences are related in anyway has been of interest to philosophers in every age. While most philosophers agree to the idea that both are related, there are varied explanations as to the nature of this relationship and the form and shape it should take. Some philosophers are of the opinion that philosophy cannot proceed like the sciences. However, it could be said that both inquiries involve finding solutions to practical problems. This, however, is not a necessary feature. One might say that while the solution made possible by philosophy is far-reaching, that of science is immediate and not as long-term. On the one side, for a scientist to know what causes a given process is very often to know how to produce it. It is an agreed fact that the result of any scientific inquiry and philosophical one must be consistent. So in both, inconsistency or inadequacy functions as a sign of where more work needs to be done. 

In science as in philosophy, both deductive and inductive patterns of argument are employed. One would say that philosophy has a normative side to itself which science lacks. Thus, scientists set out to describe some aspects of how the world is, or of why it is so, or what can be done to change it. But philosophers often set up ideals of how intellectual inquiry should proceed or of what rationality, or of which socioeconomic objectives should animate impact or influence legislation. Roughly, while science can often supply knowledge of the means, it is for philosophy to discuss the choice of fundamental ends. 

While it must be said that there are important differences between science and philosophy, each has had tremendous influence on the other. For example, the readiness of philosophers to question customary assumptions or to explore any interesting speculation has sometimes helped to openup new avenues of scientific inquiry or to provoke major revolutions in scientific theory. For example, the Empiricist’s theories of meaning propounded by David Hume mediated by Ernst Mach played a part in creating the climate for Albert Einstein to regard the concept of absolute simultaneity as meaningless. Conversely, major new developments in science tend to pose new problems for philosophers for example the triumph of quantum theory in physics sets up new puzzles for those who investigate the structure of scientific explanations since familiar deterministic assumptions are no longer tenable. So also new medical technology has generated many new problems in medical ethics such as invitro-fertilization, cloning, use of life support machines, organ transplants etc. 

Today, one can also say without any equivocation that the general notion of scientific progress has been linked – sometimes positively or negatively with philosophical attitudes. Thus, the utilitarian John Stuart Mill has looked to science for a technology of happiness and have therefore been keen to say that the social sciences should emulate whenever possible the style and method of the natural sciences and attain a comparable level of success at prediction and explanation. Some philosophers have adopted a negative attitude to science. Sometimes, this attitude rests on the claim that a superior science is relevant such as a philosophically argued metaphysics or a creationist alternative to Darwinian Biology. It also rest on the idea that modern science is responsible for the environmental pollution we have today. It has also by extension led to the problem of global warming due to the depletion of the ozone layer. This position however could be attributed to the abuse of science rather than its proper use. It must be said that science has its good and bad side especially when informed or influenced by bad policy or ideology. 

It is important to note that both science and philosophy are concerned with knowledge even though they do not have the sufficient means of attaining truth within their respective spheres. A major problem is in a situation where the scientist makes a mistake in his own domain. In such a case, the science in question is not competent to judge itself and this is where a superior science is needed to correct it. Philosophy is highly needed in this regard. For Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, the principles of the special sciences are subordinate to the principles of philosophy but only indirectly. Philosophy therefore governs the other sciences, but its government is such that the special sciences are autonomous. It should be studied last or at the end of intellectual research. For Descartes, the principles of the special sciences are directly subordinate to those of philosophy. The latter therefore exercise over other sciences a government which may be termed despotic. For him, the study of philosophy should be done at the beginning of intellectual research. As for the relationship between philosophy and theological science, it is felt that while philosophy is the highest of the human sciences i.e. the sciences which know things by the natural light of reason, theology which is the science of God is still superior to it. This superiority is due to the fact that theology is based on truths formally revealed by God and so its primary criterion is the authority of God who reveals it. 

In conclusion, while there is a lot in common between philosophy and the sciences, there is also some degree of interdependence between them. Philosophy differs from the special sciences as regards its greater generality as well as it method. At the same time, philosophy helps to coordinate the activities of the sciences and to ask questions about the relations between science and everyday life, science and religion. 

 

 

 

 

 

SOME PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY 

 

 

Philosophy as a discipline is not free of problems. Many aspects of this important field of human endeavour are open to question due to the complex nature of the issues being addressed by it. These problems can be found in the area of metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, logic etc. Some of the problems discussed here are by no means exhaustive of all the problems of philosophy. They are only meant to help understand some knotty issues in philosophy still calling for answers. 

 

 

DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM AS A PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM 

The agelong issue of whether man is determined or has free-will has remained a serious problem in philosophy. Those who say that man is determined to act in a particular way are called the determinists while those who are of the view that man is free or that his actions are as a result of choice are called the volitionists. Let us examine the two positions. 

John Stuart Mill (18061873) the great British Philosopher and utilitarian thinker supports the view that human actions are determined. Even though we sometimes believe we have freewill yet events do occur that prevents us from doing what we choose. For example, what do we do when we take ill on the day of an important examination in school? In a case like this, our actions could be seen to be determined by some other forces extraneous to us. It is a fact that all actions are caused by past events and granted this, we can predict that a person will do the same again. John Stuart Mill calls his position “Necessarianism.” Mill’s argument is that though we are responsible for our actions insofar as we do what we want, the question of why ‘we want to do one thing or another’ or why we are who we are’ is a separate consideration. Although our free-will is determined in part by events that happen to us, we nevertheless have the feeling of being free most of the time because we are not aware of being compelled to act as we do. While it can be said that we feel a sense of freedom, it is very possible that some actions are performed because of some measure of determinism. In conclusion, while we are free, we are in a way influenced by deterministic forces. 

 

 

THE PROBLEM OF CHANGE AND PERMANENCE 

From times immemorial and since the time of Thales who lived between (636546 BC) the issue of these two factors have had important considerations in philosophy. The first one was that change seemed a basic feature of nature while a part of reality shows some element of permanence. As human beings, we notice change around us yet we also experience some unchanging experience or structure in the universe. The school of Thales and his disciples Anaximander and Anaximenes attempted to work out explanations of reality by asserting that underlying all attempts of apparent changes in the world, there is a real unchangeable element. This they explained under different guises: for Thales it was water or wetness, for Anaximander it was the ‘boundless, infinite’ while for Anaximenes it was ‘Air.’ The central problem here is: if everything changed all the time, nothing would be permanent and this is irreconcilable with our daytoday experience. 

In response to this metaphysical problem, different answers were offered by different philosophers. Heraclitus developed a metaphysical theory which maintained that change was the only reality in the world. For him, everything is in constant flux and so it is impossible for one to step into the same water twice for the old one would have passed away. For Parmenides, reality is permanent and unchanging and so the structure of reality cannot come into being or pass out of being. This structure for him is BEING or the only thing that is real. This made him to say that ‘’Being is and nonbeing is not’’. Zeno a disciple of Parmenides developed paradoxes to prove that change is impossible. This proof is based on the fact that if one should examine simple situations in which something seems to move, one is led by inexorable logic to contradictory or impossible conclusions. It was further illustrated by the story of Achilles and the tortoise. Democritus used the idea of atoms to explain change and permanence in the world. For him, the multiplicity of atoms and their movements account for the apparent changes in the world, although in reality, the world is the same. Plato and Aristotle offered different explanations of the presence of change while Aristotle did this through the idea of act and potency. 

In all, these explanations are all directed toward showing that there must be some truth in both theories of change and permanence. 

 

 

 

 

THE PROBLEM OF MINDBODY DUALISM 

 

The issues of the existence of bodies can rarely be denied since we see and touch bodies. However, it has been argued by some philosophers that what we see is nothing but appearance of the semireal. Plato is a good example of this. For him, world of appearance is a world of shadows of what is in the world of forms. The idea of the existence of minds is a much more complex one. In what sense can we talk of having minds? If at all there are minds, it is highly unlikely that we can describe them in the way we can describe other things. It was Rene Descartes who tried to show that mind is an individual substance possessing of special properties and entirely distinct from the body to which it is only joined by the power of an omnipotent creator. To further explain the position of Descartes, the idea of consciousness was adopted and so states of mind were regarded as ‘states of consciousness’ or thinking but this term is used in the widest sense of the word to mean doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, refusing etc. 

It is also sometimes claimed that mental states are characterized by a high degree of privacy such that only the possessor is aware of or have a kind of privileged access to his or her experience. Thus only the human subject is aware of his pains, doubts, thought etc. 

The problem of bodymind dualism therefore is primarily concerned with whether there is a mind, where exactly the mind is and how does it relate to the body. The layman’s simple solution to the issue of mind is that if we have a mind at all, it should be located in the brain instead of being diffused all over the body. Gilbert Ryle objects to the idea of ascribing spatial properties to mind as a radically misconceived move which is capable of casting a big doubt on the whole bodymind dualism debate.  

For Rene Descartes, the two are different for while mind is spiritual and lacking extension, the body is material and extended. In his book titled “The Passions of the Soul” he referred to the soul as having a general influence throughout the body. He further says that the body is united to all portions of the soul conjointly. Finally, he suggests that it is in the brain specifically at the pineal grand that both are related even though this is explanation is not satisfactory. In his “Meditation” he further states that the soul is lodged in the body not just like a pilot in a ship but ‘intimately conjoined.’ This is a clear statement that the mind and body form a unity. 

Our mental attitudes can and thus affect our behaviour and actions. This seems to be a connection we usually take for granted in our lives. These interactions are important for the debate of the relationship between mind and body. Some theories have been put forward to explain this relationship between mind and body. A good example is the theory of OCCASIONALISM which was propounded by Nicholas Malebranche. He explains this by saying that God intervenes on each occasion I choose to act. If decide to lift up a book, God provides the causal link between my mental willing and the movement of my arm which is a physical action. For Wilhelm Leibniz God is involved but once namely at the moment he created the universe, where he arranged for the two chains of events, the mental and the physical to act in perfect harmony. This is called the preestablished harmony theory or parallelism. Leibniz holds that there is a constant correlation between the two events. The bodymind dualism is still a major problem in philosophy today even in the consideration of personal identity and also in the areas of brain surgery and so on. 

To avoid the problem created by the mindbody dualism, Spinoza advocated a monistic solution. Here, Spinoza rejected the view of Descartes while arguing that there is only one infinite unlimited substance of which the mental and physical are only modes of being conceived under the attributes of thought and extension. 

Another attempt at avoiding this problem is to deny the existence of a mental or spiritual element and account for human thought and action entirely in material terms. Here the mind is reduced to what is ‘physical’ such that movements in the brain are only explained in material terms. This theory is called ‘CENTRAL STATE MATERIALISM’. Also the idea of immorality is a development upon the fact that the soul, mind or consciousness survives the dissolution of the body at death. No doubt, the problem of bodymind dualism will continue to bother philosophers for ages to come since there is no solution that is not open to further questions. 

 

 

 

 

THE VALUE OF PHILOSOPHY TO MAN AND SOCIETY 

 

 

It was a famous saying credited to Plato that “the masses cannot philosophize.” Philosophy as a discipline is not meant for the ordinary run of men as a result of its emphasis is on rigorous and critical thinking. Its concern about every aspect of reality makes it a special area of study unlike other aspects of human endeavour. Thus every area of human experience is of interest to philosophy and philosophers. Is philosophy therefore useful and of any value to man and society? The answer is a big ‘YES.’ 

 We live today in an age where so many changes are taking place. These changes are not only in the area of science and technology, but there are immense shifts in man’s thinking, values and practices. These changes are so remarkable and rapid that they have brought phenomenal advances to many areas of human endeavour. Yet, in spite of these changes, many thoughtful and reflective people are disturbed and anxious. This is because they are concerned about a situation in which our physical attainments, scientific power and wealth stand in sharp contrast to the failure of governments and individuals to come to grips with the pressing intellectual and moral problems of life. Knowledge today seems divorced from values and this has led to a situation in which we have more power without adequate insight. What lies at the roots of the problem of modern society today is man’s inability to develop commensurate insight to march the pace of technological progress. This will be impossible without philosophy. 

This is where philosophy is therefore needed to come to man’s assistance. As a discipline it has an irreplaceable role to play in the redirection of society today which is doomed without the required moral and intellectual leadership. Philosophy is very helpful to man by sharpening his mental ability to figure out what the issues are in any discourse so as to be able to create reasonable solutions out of every crisis situation. Problems are better solved when subjected to the court of reason and objective thinking instead of some myopic and short-sighted considerations. In the area of public discourse, philosophers have a big role to play by dissecting the issues and separating the wheat from the chaff.  

 The famous saying of Socrates is very relevant here namely that ‘’Man know thyself and an unexamined life is not worth living’’. Philosophy helps man by throwing more light on what is unclear most especially in the clarification of issues and terms used in any discourse. In other words, conceptual elucidation is an allimportant value of philosophy to man and society since we live in an age whereby guesses and halftruths have gained prominence over truth. Moral relativism and subjectivism has turned the world on its head in the understanding of the real issues free from spin and doctoring. Man cannot become the author of truth in its absolute form. Truth must have its own independent understanding beyond ‘my truth’ and ‘your truth’. It must be “the truth” otherwise our epistemological and moral world is moving in the direction of absolute disaster. Debates about abortion, Euthanasia, unjust wars and terrorism must be seen in the proper light of reason so that the right understanding and judgment will be allowed to prevail. 

In terms of cultural values, philosophy has been very helpful through its concern for the validity of arguments and precision in the use of language, imaginative insights, bold speculations, close examination of principles and concepts of other disciplines on many controversial issues and so on. Many instances can be cited of the profound influence philosophical writings have had on the political, social and wider cultural development of nations, e.g. the influence of Plato’s writing on Christianity and democracy in Europe as well as the writings of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. 

In terms of human formation, philosophy is of great value and importance. This is because most of us derive our view of the world from our religious background or some other traditions which were imbibed with our mother’s milk. Where philosophy is useful is that the man who strives for an outlook founded on philosophy must dare to stand on his own reason. He must tentatively doubt all inherited opinions and notions and must accept nothing as true which he himself cannot clearly see and prove. Francis Bacon has encouraged us in this direction by challenging us to beware of the idols. A prejudiced person will invariably be unable to make reliable and objective judgments.  The thorough-going approach championed by philosophy will be invaluable in arriving at what promotes genuine human values acceptable to all rational and reasonable persons. 

Philosophy’s value could also be seen in its intrinsic importance of satisfying the intellectual desire for comprehensive knowledge or understanding. It helps in the systematic ordering of our knowledge by bringing into order our hitherto disjointed ideas, positions, views and notions. Philosophy helps in this by situating our ideas on a stronger and firmer foundation. By starting with the commonest and most elemental aspects of common knowledge, past, present and future, philosophy is able to take man to a higher plane of the foundations of our knowledge. Philosophy also trains us in selfcritical rationality by looking through its history to find out the response of the human minds to various issues in the past. 

Every aspect of philosophy is important to man and relevant for his continued survival in the world. Philosophy is also concerned with some of the questions that are still unanswered by science or religion. This is a part of the uncertainty of philosophy itself. Paradoxically, in as much as philosophy is interested in certainty and ascertainable knowledge, its value could also lie in its uncertainty. The fact that philosophy is able to raise critical questions about existence and other relevant issues could be a part of its value which lies in its being able to offer satisfactory answers, a situation which is not possible on all matters. Our study of the world helps in liberating us from dividing the world into hostile camps or being imprisoned in our own prejudices or narrowminded conceptions of the world and of people. With this, we are open to changes and progress by being more tolerant of new ideas. 

In the light of what has been said so far, the accusation being levelled against philosophy as being unproductive has no place at all. Karl Marx once said, the “philosophers have only interpreted the world the point is to change it”. To accuse philosophy of being sterile is to miss the point as an important aspect of human endeavour. The philosopher is highly reflective and critical of reality with the view to a better understanding. More so, he is a creator of ideas without which the world cannot even function properly. As it is often said, “ideas rule the world”. To say that philosophy does not bake bread is not to know or deeply understand to role of the philosophy in the scheme of things in the world. Philosopher creates the idea that makes possible the baking of bread. 

With all that has being said, it is clear that philosophy is not only concerned with hairsplitting distinctions alone as some people have opined, but about issues of perennial relevance to man and society. Philosophy is therefore of paramount relevance to man and society.