Meaning, Concept and Definitions of Philosophy

2. History of Philosophy
The study of philosophy involves not only forming one’s own answers
to such questions, but also seeking to understand the way in which people
have answered such questions in the past. So, a significant part of
philosophy is its history, a history of answers and arguments about these
very questions. In studying the history of philosophy one explores the ideas
of such historical figures as:
Plato Locke Marx
Aristotle Hume Mill
Aquinas Kant Wittgenstein
Descartes Nietzsche Sartre

3. According to Aristotle - "Philosophy is a science which discovers the
real nature of supernatural elements".
According to Levison - "Philosophy is mental activity".
According to Karl Marks - "Philosophy is the interpretation of the world
in order to change it".
According to Hegel - "Philosophy is that which grasps its won era in
thought.“
Kant Immanuel Regards philosophy as "the science and criticism of
cognition.“
According to Russel - "Philosophy proper deals with matters of interest
to the general educated public, and loses much of its value if only a few
professionals can understand it.“
According to Henderson - "Philosophy is a rigorous, disciplined,
guarded analysis of some of the most difficult problems which men
have ever faced.“

4. According to John Dewey - "Philosophy is not a panacea
(remedy for all kinds of diseases/troubles) for the problems
of men, but is that which emerges out of the methods
employed by them to solve their problems."
Aristippus thinks that philosophy is "the ability to feel at
ease in any society."
According to Socrates - "Philosophy is a daily activity".
According to Phenix - "Science attempts only at the
discovery of facts. Philosophy is not interested in the
discovery of facts. Rather, it is interested in facts insofar as
to provide an attitude towards them. It tries to organize,
interpret, clarify and criticize the already discovered facts of
science."
D.J. Connar defines philosophy "as an activity of criticism or
clarification."
According to Plato "He who has a taste for every sort of
knowledge and who is curious to learn and is never satisfied
may be justly termed as a philosopher."
According to G.T.W Patreck - "Between science and
philosophy the very closest relationship exists. They spring
from the same root, the love of knowledge and they aspire
to the same end, the knowledge of reality. While science
describes the facts, philosophy interprets them."

5. The importance of philosophy will show itself as one traverses through philosophy. As one
gradually enters into the width of philosophy—grow in one’s acquaintance with philosophy--one
will experience its depth and importance as well. Just as philosophy cannot be confined within
precise boundary, so also is its importance. At the same time, we can refer to a few points that
will add to the importance of philosophy.
Every human being has a philosophy of life; it gives shape to his/her life. Even those who do
not find any importance for philosophy and question its relevance are in fact shouting aloud its
importance by their use of it. Since one’s philosophy of life moulds one’s attitudes and
convictions, it has to be developed, which is possible only by coming into contact with way in
which philosophers have thought. Study of philosophy is not for intellectual consumption, out of
intellectual curiosity to know how others have philosophized; it is primarily for oneself to
develop a philosophy of life

6. Need of philosophy
General Problem Solving Skills:
The study of philosophy enhances a person's problem-
solving capacities. It helps us to analyze concepts,
definitions, arguments, and problems. It contributes to
our capacity to organize ideas and issues, to deal with
questions of value, and to extract what is essential from
large quantities of information. It helps us, on the one
hand, to distinguish fine and subtle differences between
views and, on the other hand, to discover common
ground between opposing positions.
Communication Skills:
Philosophy contributes uniquely to the development of
expressive and communicative powers. It provides some
of the basic tools of self-expression - for instance, skills
in presenting ideas through well-constructed, systematic
arguments - that other fields either do not use or use
less extensively.

7. Persuasive Powers:
Philosophy provides training in the construction of clear
formulations, good arguments, and appropriate examples. It,
thereby, helps us to develop our ability to be convincing. We learn
to build and defend our own views, to appreciate competing
positions, and to indicate forcefully why we consider our own
views preferable to alternatives.
Writing Skills:
Writing is taught intensively in many philosophy courses, and
many regularly assigned philosophical texts are also excellent as
literary essays. Philosophy teaches interpretive writing through its
examination of challenging texts, comparative writing through
emphasis on fairness to alternative positions, argumentative
writing through developing students' ability to establish their own
views, and descriptive writing through detailed portrayal of
concrete examples.

8. Functions of Philosophy
A] Determining the aspects of education:
Aims of education:
Philosophy of education provides original ideas regarding all aspects of education
particularly educational aims, method of teaching, curriculum, teacher, students
etc. It is said that educational philosophy gives different views, but this situation is
not harmful, rather it helps
in providing education according to the need of society. Curriculum:
With the help of educational philosophy, a teacher comes to know why naturalism
gives emphasis to science subjects and why idealism gives importance to
religious subjects.
Discipline:
Concept of discipline changes with the changes in the outlook of life. In other
word, discipline reflects the philosophy of life. Idealism advocates street discipline
and self control where as naturalism emphasis freedom and natural discipline ,
and pragmatism stressed social discipline.
These disciplines are known from the study of different educational philosophies.
Hence, the knowledge of educational philosophy is essential to follow a desirable
discipline.

9. Administration:
The knowledge of what kind of school administration we should adopt
is determined by educational philosophy. Educational philosophy helps
to establish a school in democratic or totalitarian system. Now days we
are following democratic principle for administering the educational
institution. This is based on educational philosophy.
B] Harmonizing old and new traditions in the field of education-
In the process of social development the old traditions become
outdated for the people. They are replaced by the new traditions. But
this process of replacement is not always smooth.
It is faced with lots of opposition from certain orthodox sections of the
society. At the same time it must be kept in mind that every ‘old’ is not
outdated and every ‘new’ is not perfect Therefore, there is a need of
co-coordinating the two in order to maintain the harmony between
both. This function can be performed by philosophy of education.

10. C] Providing the educational planners, administrators and educators with
the progressive
vision to achieve educational development:- Spencer has rightly pointed
that only a true philosopher can give a practical shape to
education. Philosophy of education provides the educational planners,
administrators and educators
with the right vision which guides them to attain the educational goals
efficiently.
D] Preparing the young generation to face the challenges of the modern
time:- Society is not static; it changes its value, tradition, custom, culture
etc from time to time. Social commentators have given many labels to the
present period of history for some it is the information age and for others
it is post modernity, later modernity, high modernity or even the age of
uncertainty. One more addition to this list may be that ‘present age is an
age of Globalization

11. Meaning of Philosophy :
The original meaning of the word philosophy comes from
the Greek roots philo- meaning "love" and -sophos, or
"wisdom." When someone studies philosophy they want to
understand how and why people do certain things and how
to live a good life.
There are four pillars of philosophy: theoretical philosophy
(metaphysics and epistemology), practical philosophy
(ethics, social and political philosophy, aesthetics), logic,
and history of philosophy.

13. Theoretical philosophy :
Metaphysics
At its core the study of metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, of
what exists in the world, what it is like, and how it is ordered. In metaphysics
philosophers wrestle with such questions as:
•Is there a God?
•What is truth?
•What is a person? What makes a person the same through time?
•Is the world strictly composed of matter?
•Do people have minds? If so, how is the mind related to the body?
•Do people have free wills?
•What is it for one event to cause another?
Epistemology
Epistemology is the study of knowledge. It is primarily concerned with what we
can know about the world and how we can know it. Typical questions of
concern in epistemology are:
•What is knowledge?
•Do we know anything at all?
•How do we know what we know?
•Can we be justified in claiming to know certain things?

15. Ethics
The study of ethics often concerns what we ought to do and
what it would be best to do. In struggling with this issue, larger
questions about what is good and right arise. So, the ethicist
attempts to answer such questions as:
•What is good? What makes actions or people good?
•What is right? What makes actions right?
•Is morality objective or subjective?
•How should I treat others?
Logic
Another important aspect of the study of philosophy is the
arguments or reasons given for people’s answers to these
questions. To this end philosophers employ logic to study the
nature and structure of arguments. Logicians ask such
questions as:
•What constitutes "good" or "bad" reasoning?
•How do we determine whether a given piece of reasoning
is good or bad?