ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Philosophy Simplified: Introduction and Table of Contents

Updated on December 2, 2015
Medvekoma profile image

Medvekoma is a hobby philosopher who wanted nothing to do with the subject originally, but ended up in the country's top 15 as a student.

'Philosophy is not a body of doctrine, but an activity.' - Wittgenstein

'Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.' - Schlegel

'Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.' - Bertrand Russel

What is Philosophy?

When asked this question, I often answer:

"A bit of this, and a bit of that. It's basically nothing, but related to everything."

Philosophy has common topics with almost any other subject, while being a distinct subject itself. Originally meaning "love of wisdom", it now encompasses the studies of:

  • Ethics
  • Aesthetics
  • Epistemology
  • Logic
  • Social, political and legal philosophy (philosophical anthropology)
  • Metaphysics

Source

So ... what's the point?

The point of philosophy is to approach these concepts with a rational, critical method of understanding. To find the right questions, but not necessarily their answer(s). For a simpler formulation, let us see Immanuel Kant's four questions. These really summarise what philosophy is about, and what guidance it could lend us in life.

  1. What can I know? (Epistemology)
  2. What should I do? (Ethics)
  3. What may I hope? (Religion)
  4. What is Man? (Philosophical anthropology)

In reality, philosophy is mostly "small talk between intellectuals". Philosophy gives birth to healthy discussions, while providing the foundations for all of the other studies, like logic for mathematics, aesthetics for arts and social philosophy for history and sociology. I consider it to be a fun subject to explore, with interesting ideas and people.

Yes, I'm in love with philosophy.

Proper Introductions

I'm going to begin with the concept of the Axial age, more specifically 6th century BC. Karl Jaspers (1883 to 1969, existentialism) coined the term axial age which refers to the cultural and philosophical peak/golden age between 800BC and 200BC.

In his book, titled The Origin and Goal of History he investigated the fact that most philosophical, scientific and cultural roots of our modern world originated from the axial age, and therefore it should be considered the starting point of modern history.

6th century BC saw the appearance of Gautama Buddha (563BC to 480BC), Laozi (BC571 to ??), Confucius (551BC to 479BC), Zarathustra (628BC to 551BC), the Hindu Upanishads (somewhere in 6th century BC), Prophet Jeremiah (approximates, 626BC to 587BC), Parmenides (515BC to 460BC) and Heraclitus (535BC to 475BC).

Coincident? Karl Jaspers thinks not, but whatever the truth is, it's empirical that in multiple corners of our dear Earth, culture-defining philosophers appeared out of thin air, and I consider this century to be the start of the history of philosophy. For some reason, people started to think. Started questioning their reality, their surroundings, the alpha and the omega.

And philosophy was born.

From this century onwards, we can easily distinguish between different periods of philosophy. I am going to write a distinct guide on each of the major eras, along with the topics I mentioned, and lastly, about the most famous philosophers and their personal views and ideas.

I'm going to write these articles one-by-one, so you may have to wait until I finish them up. Feel free to ask anything in the related articles, or add something I missed. I know that there are topics where I excel meaning that I'm pretty sure about what I write, but there are those topics that have much more devoted followers, Marx's philosophy for example.

For those who are already cracking their knuckles to correct me about class warfare and the bourgeois, these are mostly introductory descriptions to provide an overall image about the topics.

If you are interested, look up the philosophers I mention for the topics and read their works, there are some that are non-digestible for most (Kant, Nietzsche ...), but there are some works that could as well be entertaining works of literature (Kierkegaard, Bertrand Russel, ...).

Table of contents

  • History of philosophy
    • Greek philosophy
    • History of eastern philosophy
    • History of medieval philosophy
      • Theology
      • Arabian philosophy
      • Differences in philosophy between Islam and Christianity
    • History of Renaissance philosophy
      • Back to Aristotle?
      • Occultism
    • History of early modern philosophy
      • Rationalism
      • Empiricism
      • Philosophical roots of capitalism
    • History of 19th century philosophy
      • German idealism
      • Philosophical roots of socialism
      • Utilitarianism
      • Existentialism
      • Positivism
    • Modern and Postmodern philosophy
      • Professionalisation
      • Analytic philosophy
      • Continental philosophy
  • Topics of Philosophy
    • Epistemology
      • Direct realism
      • Indirect realism
      • Solipsism and the Matrix
    • Ethics
      • Roots of ethics
      • Universal rules
      • Schools of ethics
    • Aesthetics
      • Definition of art
      • Abstract art - is it really art?
    • Logic
    • Philosophical anthropology
      • Philosophy of history (not to be confused with history of philosophy)
      • Philosophy of politics
      • Legal philosophy and ethics
    • Metaphysics
      • Philosophy of religion
      • Arguments against and for the existence of a deity
      • Afterlife
      • Beforelife (the origins of our world)
      • Determinism and free will
      • Identity and personality
  • Famous philosophers
    • Plato
      • Idealism
      • Allegory of the cave
      • Rhetoric
    • Aristotle
    • Augustine of Hippo and Thomas of Aquino
      • Theology
      • Development of Christianity
    • René Descartes
      • Rationalism
      • Cogito ergo sum
      • Scientific revolution
      • Arguments for the existence of a deity
    • Francis Bacon
      • Idolums
      • Shakespeare question
    • Immaniel Kant
      • Rationalism and empiricism
      • Kant's ethics and the rise of Prussia
    • Karl Marx
      • Socialism
      • Progressivism
      • Sociology
    • Søren Kierkegaard
      • Critique of rationalism
      • Subjectivity
      • Three life states
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
      • Death of god
      • Will to power
      • Eternal return
      • Three metamorphoses
      • Übermensch
      • Critique of Christianity
      • The last man
      • Master and slave morality
    • Ludwig Wittgenstein
      • Philosophy of language, Linguistics turn
      • Skepticism
      • Logical positivism

Community feedback

Please, do comment your opinion or critique on this collection of articles on philosophy. There's no way I can get better without feedback, and I always appreciate it.

© 2015 Medvekoma

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)