Questioning is part of human life, even to understand the meaning of life. Even as a child, there is the “why” phase, a fundamental stage for personal and cognitive development, according to psychology.
The questions, still in adulthood, originate from philosophical thinking. You may have asked yourself what is philosophy? But, first of all, let's understand its etymology, which derives from the joining of two Greek terms:
Philia (friendship) + Sophia (wisdom) = Friendship for wisdom or love for knowledge.
Thus, Philosophy is dedicated to different fields of study, including logic, ethics, aesthetics, politics and metaphysics.
What is philosophy?
According to the pre-Socratic Greeks, the philosophy it would be a rational way of explaining the conception of the universe, using theories that are often contrary to the claims of myths.
From the perspective of Socrates, philosophy designates an interior look and a way of raising real conceptions about what the human being has worked through the social conception.
According to the Hellenists, philosophy would be a kind of praxis of life to obtain fullness and happiness. As for the medievals, philosophy would be linked to theology and to the infinite wisdom of God, who bestowed rational knowledge on humans.
The moderns believed in the relationship with the knowledge, a science, politics and ethics, approaching issues raised by the Greeks, but without going deeper into the theme. On the other hand, in the contemporary world, philosophy encompasses new problems to develop new ideas about them.
However, there is no single, ready-made answer as to what the essence of philosophy is. It is known that it is a field of knowledge that aims to go in search of concepts or essences of what exists in the world, developing conceptual definitions.
Concepts are complex meanings that delineate problems, and, based on these problems, philosophy is articulated.
What is the origin of philosophy?
The question about the origin of philosophy is controversial. Many believe that it was conceived in the Greece, with Tales of Mileto, in the middle of 2585 a. Ç.
However, this date ignores the fact that Egyptian, Hindu and Chinese societies were already dedicated to the production of something similar to what we call philosophy. If we extend the concept beyond what we consider to be philosophy, we can say that Buddhists and Taoists were already developing philosophical thinking.
Therefore, we can claim that the western philosophy it originated in Greek territory, with Thales, but its term would be defined only later, by Pythagoras of Samos. And 200 years later, Aristotle was the first to categorize broad branches of philosophy.
- Free Online Inclusive Education Course
- Free Online Toy Library and Learning Course
- Free Online Preschool Math Games Course
- Free Online Pedagogical Cultural Workshops Course
What is the object of philosophy?
From the Brazilian academic perspective, most courses in Philosophy offer training focused on history of philosophy.
This curricular base ends up colliding with the conception of numerous scholars of the teaching of Philosophy and its methodology, whose argumentation is based on the fact that the learning of philosophy only comes from philosophizing.
Therefore, there are two variants in the teaching of Philosophy: the history of philosophy and the learning of the methodologies of philosophy.
In general, based on Deleuze's framework, we can say that philosophy is a study of concepts. And, from the perspective of Kant, a way of elaborating a critique of knowledge.
On the other hand, ancient philosophers, such as Socrates, and modern philosophers, such as Descartes, philosophical knowledge only is achieved through research, sometimes rigid, for pure and immutable definitions, looking for a truth universal.
As for the contemporary philosopher Nietzsche, there are no universal truths, but perspectives and genealogies called as truth. For metaphysicians, philosophy is the search for being and essences. And finally, in political philosophy, thoughts revolve around real contexts such as ethics, politics and social life.
A few phrases from philosophers
Check out some philosophers' phrases ancient and modern:
Admiration is inherent in the philosopher's nature; and philosophy derives only from amazement. (Plato)
Philosophy is not taught, it is taught to philosophize. (Kant)
Philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, manufacturing concepts… The philosopher is the friend of the concept, he is a potential concept… Creating ever-new concepts is the object of philosophy. (Deleuze and Guattari)
Man's first reasoning is of a sensitive nature… our first philosophy masters are our feet, our hands, our eyes. (Rousseau)
Philosophy is what distinguishes us from savages and barbarians; nations are the more civilized and cultured the better they philosophize their men. (Discards)
Curiosity
On November 15th, World Philosophy Day is celebrated. The date was established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in 2002.
Read too: What is Sociology? Understand its meaning and purpose in Science!
The password has been sent to your email.
