What are we? Why do we exist? What does it mean to exist? Why do we act like we act? Why do things happen in the world like they do?
Many centuries prior to what we call modern science, humans were already trying to answer these questions. The first structured framework we developed with the aim of critically finding the answer to these questions was philosophy.
I understand philosophy as the great-great grandmother of any modern branch of knowledge and from where they all stemmed from. It is not a coincidence that many of these questions were jointly adopted by other knowledge areas such as physics, biology or psychology.
It also deals with other important topics such as logic, critical thinking, ethics and morals, most of which remain largely untouched by other areas.
Being able to analyse the world, and ourselves, in a logical, critical, well structured manner is likely to help us understand both better, in turn allowing us to better tackle many of the tribulations we are faced with in our lives and society as a whole.
Posts
Socrates – part 2: Searching for the essence
Welcome back awesome nerds. This is the second part of my study of Socrates, where I’ll mainly focus on his philosophical ideas. If you want to know more about Socrates’ history and how much of a Chad he was, please go read the first part. Without further delay, let’s explore the philosophical ideas of this…
Socrates – part 1: He who knows nothing
Welcome back to our shared journey through philosophy over the years. This time we will be witnessing history! I am happy to point out that we have concluded our journey through the Pre-Socratic philosophers, and we have reached the man, the myth, the legend himself: Socrates. If my introduction wasn’t enough to highlight his important,…
The Pre-Socratics part 7 – The Sophists
In this next text through the history of philosophy we will be looking at a controversial, but influential group. Most of the information we have about this group comes to us from the writings of Plato, who didn’t like them very much (Kenny, 2010). So this biased view is something we have to keep in…
The Pre-Socratics part 6 – Caring about Health
Welcome to another text where we continue our journey through the philosophers who developed the ideas that inspired most of our own at present. Today we are going to explore a name that may not be as obscure as the ones before: Hippocrates. Giving some justification to my personal interest in philosophy, in ancient Greece,…
The Pre-Socratics part 5 – Love and Strife make the world go around
Today I will be writing about a very interesting, even legendary, pre-socratic philosopher: Empedocles. He was from Acragas, in the South of Sicily, and considered himself to be a god (Adamson, 2014; Kenny, 2010; Russell, 1946). This, of course, lead to tales of him being able to perform miracles such as controlling the winds or…
The Pre-Socratics part 4 – Mixing things up
Often, Athens is considered to be the cradle of Greek philosophy. However, you have by now probably noticed that none of the philosophers we have looked at so far as come from Athens, or even have spent a lot of their time there. Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to have spent most of his time…
The Pre-Socratics part 3 – Atomic theories
Welcome back to our exploration of the beginning and development of philosophy. In this text, I will be discussing an idea that originated with the ancient Greek philosophers and has actually been shown to be true by modern science – the idea that all bodies (living and non-living) are composed of very small particles that…
The Pre-Socratics part 2 – All is One, One is All
Welcome back to our delve into the world of philosophy in search of were a lot of our present day ideas have originated from and the search for knowledge has developed over the years. Last time we had finished learning the origin and meaning of the word ‘philosophy’ itself and pondering on some of the…
The Pre-Socratics part 1: Tales of olives and beans
Who was the first philosopher? What does philosophy mean? How do philosophers contribute to knowledge? I start exploring these question by giving an overview of the first philosophers in history.
The Physiolosopher 