One part of learning about a subject is learning its vocabulary. It's been an uneven road for me as I have learned bits about philosophy over the last few years, starting with semester 1 of the PhD program where a course introduced the terms ontology and epistemology. Somehow, I confused these terms for the next couple of years. I hope this post can prevent that for you, and introduce you to some of the most helpful terms to be familiar with if you're diving into philosophy!
Selection Process: History of Philosophy
One of the first problems in philosophy that I learned about when starting to read about it in earnest, was related to vocabulary. Reading philosophy as a neophyte is like learning a new language--with a twist! Over the centuries of philosophical writing, especially in the modern and postmodern eras, philosophers use many of the same terms as their predecessors and contemporaries do, but they'll also develop their own and use different definitions of some "common" terms.
This is confusing, to say the least.
I don't like being confused for more than a short time, so I gravitated toward a method to organize the madness. As you may have noticed in a post last month, many philosophical books I read involved some aspect of history. That is, where do the ideas talked about fit into the grand scheme of human experience?
In particular, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview, When Children Became People, Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, and A History of Western Philosophy took an expressly historical view of their subject matter. Ideas take time to percolate, and thus they take on different forms in subsequent generations as other thinkers engage with them. (As an aside, check out the implications for Christians' home library organization from Autumn Kern of The Commonplace Podcast!)
To sum up, I've used my slightly improved knowledge of history from the philosophical reading to point toward some helpful terms for my mental framework. Once those terms are in place, it's easier to fit in additional terms, nuances, and variations.
(Almost) 20 Helpful Terms
I'm sneaking in an extra subsection here, because I think that is helpful for overall mental structure as you follow philosophy through its history and learn the vocabulary. My primary resource is PhilosophyBasics. Bear in mind that each term deserves a much fuller definition--since it has been used in various ways in past philosophical writings--but the 1-2 line, single-sentence definitions should point you in the right direction.
19 Terms Defined
Agency: humans' ability to choose and enforce the consequences of those choices.
A priori and a posteriori: knowledge that is knowable either by itself/with reason or requiring sensory experiences.
Causality: each cause has a specific effect, determined partially by the actors' identities.
Contingency: some facts are not necessarily true or false, but possibly either to varying degrees.
Abductive, deductive, and inductive reasoning: respectively, to the best explanation, from generalities to particulars, and from particulars to generalities.
Essence and substance: necessary attributes of something for its identity, and the thing itself without any attributes.
Fallacy: a reasoning error that messes up a logical argument.
(Platonic) forms: universal essences of objects that help the world mkae sense.
Free will: humans' ability to choose their actions from among options/alternatives.
Hermeneutics: study of how to interpret and understand texts, especially the Scriptures.
Law of non-contradiction: a fundamental logical law that says that something can't simultaneously exist and not exist.
Ontology and epistemology: the study of the nature of being; the study of knowledge/knowing.
Premise: a claim supporting or opposing another claim; a proposition in an argument.
Proposition: the meaning of a sentence that states something and so can be either true or false.
Historical Periods in Philosophy
What were the ancient historical periods and what do they mean for philosophical thought and vocabulary (because one thinks mainly with words)?
- Pre-Socratic philosophers lived in the 7th-4th centuries BC, including Pythagoras. Major ideas put forth during this time were very diverse, ranging from "nothing is stable" to "motion or change does not exist."
- Socratic philosophers lived around Socrates' time and included Plato and Aristotle. Major ideas put forth included the process of Socratic dialogue or questioning. However, it is unclear where Socrates "ends" and Plato "begins" due to the nature of existing writings from this period.
- Hellenistic philosophers lived a little after Socrates' time and in Greek-dominated areas; they included Epicurus and Philo of Alexandria. Major ideas related to Stoicism (living with self-discipline according to the orderedness of the universe), Epicureanism (pursuing pleasure through friendship and knowledge), and Skepticism (living without assuming things about reality).
- Roman philosophers lived in the Roman empire until around the 5th century AD; they included Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine of Hippo. Major developments (aside from Augustine who deserves his own treatment!) include migration of Hellenistic philosophy to the Roman empire plus work on Latin terminology and vocabulary for further philosophizing.
- Medieval philosophers lived after the Late Antiquity period (formerly called Dark Ages because of an Enlightenment bias); they included Anselm, Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. Major ideas included areas of Christian theology, Neoplatonism, the existence of truth beyond what can be sensed, and mind-body dualism. Many church fathers' writings were completed during this time as well.
- Renaissance philosophers lived in the 15th and 16th centuries; they included Erasmus, Machiavelli, and Bacon. Major ideas included humanism, individualism, and secularism.
- Age of Reason philosophers lived in the 17th century; they included Descarte, Hobbes, Locke, and Leibnitz. Most sources blend this period with the Enlightenment.
- Enlightenment philosophers lived in the 18th century; they included Voltaire, Hume, Rosseau, and Kant. The overarching idea was that everything can be subject to reason. Not correct and not good!
- Modern philosophers lived in the 19th and 20th centuries; they included Hegel, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nietzsche, Bertrand Russel, and Derrida. Major ideas included empiricism (that all knowledge must be based in experience, ultimately), materialism (that all physical things are solely moving matter), and rationalism (Cartesian deductions from 3 assumptions that imply that truth is always logically consistent and meaningful). After these, modern philosophy swung in the opposite direction.
What Else to Learn and Read About
Philosophy, defined as the love of wisdom, isn't limited to one particular subject. So, what else you could investigate when learning philosophy is really directed by your specific interests. Let's look at some of the branches of philosophy (again from PhilosophyBasics) for examples.
- Ethics--how to decide what is right or best to do in a given situation.
- Aesthetics--what makes things beautiful. The Whimsical Christian is accessible here.
- Logic--how ideas fit together and flow necessarily from each other. I'm currently reading a book of essays, Faith and Rationality, that incorporates logical arguments. It's background reading for the book I plan to write . . . more to come on that topic!
- Political philosophy.
- Philosophy of mind.
- Philosophy of history.
- Philosophy of science. My favorite recent read was Understanding Scientific Theories of Origins.
- Philosophy of religion.
- Philosophy of language.
- Philosophy of education. My favorite resource here is Charlotte Mason.
Comments
Post a Comment