Philosophy: An Introduction

What Is Philosophy

It is assumed that the word philosophy is derived from two Greek words phileo and sophia. Phileo means love and sophia means wisdom. So, the lexical meaning of philosophy is love of wisdom. Wisdom is not mere information rather understanding or realization of things. To achieve wisdom, philosophers ask some fundamental question and try to answer them rationally. So, philosophy is the rational investigation of fundamental problems of human and universe.

Branches of Philosophy

There are three major branches of philosophy. Such as:

1. Metaphysics; the study of reality

2. Epistemology; the study of knowledge

3. Axiology; the study of value

Some opine that there four branches of philosophy and the last one is:

4. Logic; the Study of argument

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is that branch of philosophy what deals with the problems of reality. It discusses the theories on nature of life like mechanism and vitalism, theories on nature of reality like idealism and materialism; theories on number of realities like monism, dualism and pluralism. It also discusses some abstract concepts like god, soul, will, space-time, mind-body relation and so on. Cosmology and ontology are two types of metaphysics.

Epistemology

Epistemology is that branch of philosophy what deals with the problems of knowledge. It Discusses theories regarding sources of knowledge like rationalism, empiricism, intuitionism etc.; nature of knowledge like idealism and realism; limitation of knowledge like skepticism and agnosticism; theories for validity of knowledge like correspondence, coherence, pragmatic and so on.

Axiology

Axiology is that branch of philosophy what deals with the problems of value. It is concerned about actions, arguments and many other things of human being. There are three branches of axiology such as ethics i.e. study of actions, logic i.e. study of argument and aesthetics i.e. study of beauty. Some regard logic as an exclusive branch of philosophy.