Philosophy: Nature of Existence, Reality & Knowledge - Essay Sample

Introduction

Philosophy can be defined as the fundamental nature of existence, reality and knowledge. The word philosophy is derived from the Greek word philosophia, which means love of wisdom. Some of the philosophical methods are critical discussions, questioning, systematic presentation and rational arguments. Philosophy has been divided into three parts, ethics, physics, logic or dialect. Physics is basically about the universe and all its contents, ethics is the part that is concerned with life, and everything that has to do with humanity and dialect is the reasoning process employed by both physics and logic. Philosophers are lovers of knowledge and can be divided into two, sceptics and dogmatists. Sceptics base their judgement on the idea that things cannot be known or are unknowable while dogmatists are the ones who make assertions assuming that things can be identified. Current scientific thinking and philosophy derive their origin to antiquity. Notions like an atom, element, spirit, body, form and matter, act and potency substance and ancient, causality, idea, conclusion, judgement, proof and science among others were developed by the Greeks (Palmer & Donald, 2006). Antiquity also saw the growth of the enormous diversity of philosophic thoughts such as realism, materialism, scepticism, idealism, sensualism and all their hybrids.

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A significant issue for the way of thinking of history is how to conceptualize history itself. Is history to a great extent of intrigue as a result of the target causal relations that exist among authentic occasions and structures like the absolutist state of the Roman Empire's history is an agglomeration of the activities and mental systems of heap people, high and low.

Ancient philosophy is divided into four periods. The first is the pre-Socratic period which covers the time before Socrates, it is represented in Greece, and its colonies and its chief element is the philosophy of nature. The man became a problem to be solved and an item of philosophical speculation when sophism appeared later. The second period is the Attic philosophy. This is because the motherland began to philosophize during this period. Plato, Socrates and Aristotle are the principal thinkers, and through them, Greek philosophy achieved its Peak. Philosophical problems such as morality, spirit, nature, soul and state are all treated with the same intensity. The blossom of philosophy matched to the period in the history of Greek when politics conquered the world in Alexander's Greats era. The third period called the Hellenism lies between the time when alexander's rise to power and the downfall of the successor states, that is between 300 and 30 B.C. In this era, we find the philosophical schools as the centres of attractions. (Stumpf & Samuel). The fourth period, philosophy of the age of emperors which dates from the centre of the first century when the platonic academy was closed at Athens by Justinian who banned future philosophizing. This period was not creative and foreshadowed all that proceeded.

The pre- Socratic period can be divided into two types of philosophers, those who based their ideas on the reality being one that is Thale, Anaximander, Anaximers, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Zeno. Those who based their ideas on the reality is many that are Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus. Thales was the first person to predict the solar system and reduced multiplicity into unity successfully. Anaximander, who was a student to Thales, agreed to the notion that plurality of things around the world can be reduced to one category. Thales, Anaximenes and Anaximander not far from the twentieth century created naturalism. Pythagoras came up with the idea that everything is numbered and a correct description of reality must be expressed in terms of mathematical formulas. (Clark& Gordon, 1997). In conclusion, the Pre-Socratic philosophers made the obvious contrast between senses and reason. They tried to elucidate reality without the help of religion, attempted to comprehend the relationship of mathematical numbers with the fluidity of reality and tried to clarify the problems of the single and the many.

Around 600 BCE, the Greek urban areas of Ionia were the scholarly philosophers of Greece and the main ocean merchants of the Mediterranean. Miletus, the southernmost Ionian city, was the wealthiest of Greek urban communities and the principle focal point of the Ionian arousing a name for the underlying period of traditional Greek human advancement, incidental with the introduction of the Greek way of thinking. Their primary commitment was the advancement and utilization of hypothesis dependent on the accurate perception of everyday marvels. They appeared to all concur on the thought that everything originates from a solitary base starting point or substance. Thales trusted it was water; Anaximander said it was a substance unique about all other known materials, boundless, endless and ever-enduring; and Anaximenes asserted it was air.

The sophists and the Socrates were more concerned with humanity, ethical concerns and moral behaviour. Socrates founded the Socratic discourse, which had two-direction one was to discover the person within, the soul and the second was the outward person through objective definitions. He asked specific questions like what is: love, meaning, virtue, justice, piety. His dialogue had three dimensions that are present a question, find faults with the answer and finally reach an agreement with students for not knowing. Plato had an idea that reality is composed of eternal forms that are upper-tier while Aristotle's view was that reality composed of a plurality of substances. Late scholasticism is well-thought-out to be the era of decline, which is the 15th and 14th century.

Philosophy starts with a thought about marvel. It begins when people e wonder about what generally is underestimated or thought to be valid. In this case, it becomes clear that this trend shows how Philosophy emerges in the West when various Greeks start to ponder about the idea of the universe and the idea of the real world and the divine beings. The miracle is a great thing that we ought to love and clutch as long as we can. It is one of the signs of youth. Little kids are loaded up with amazement.

The idea of history assumes an essential role in the human notion. It conjures thoughts of human needs, change, the job of material conditions in social issues, and the putative importance of recorded occasions. It raises the probability of gaining from history. What is more, it recommends the probability of better understanding ourselves in the present, by understanding the powers, decisions, and conditions that carried us to our present circumstance. It is in this manner visible that thinkers have, at times, directed their concentration toward endeavours to analyze history itself and the idea of authentic information. These reflections can be gathered into a group of work called the theory of history. This work is heterogeneous, involving investigations and contentions of optimists, positivists, scholars, scholars, and others, and moving to and fro over the partitions among European and Anglo-American way of thinking, and among hermeneutics and positivism.

References

Clark, Gordon H, Thales to Dewey. New Mexico: The trinity Foundation, 1997

Palmer, Donald. Looking at philosophy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.

Stumpf, Samuel E. Philosophy: History and problems. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003