Non-horse Help Needed

[britzlove]

Anybody want to answer this question for me?

What is philosophy?


I have to write a paper based on responses...you can send them private if you want...

How you answer the question is not important.

It's for an assignment...and I am out of people to interview and need to get the assignment done..please help if you can.

Thanks!

Britz

[paintedhorizon]

Simple, philosophy is the study of whatever you care to study. I read somewhere that some call it the "love of wisdom".

[britzlove]

Thanks!

Anybody else feel free...it's a survey of responses...

I just spend more time here than elsewhere :smile: don't encounter many people to interview.

[Abejita]

hmm I would say it is the study of Ideas .

[britzlove]

Thanks!

[britzlove]

It's serious guys...if you have a minute...I'm so behind on my school work.

It's just thoughts about what you think of when you hear the question : What is Philosophy...

I'm not trying to trick anyone...it's a for real assignment. PM's are fine too. :D

[Heidi]

When I read "what is philosophy"....
....my first thought was it is a circular discussion that is never resolved.

The discussion (of anything philosophical) is continuing and endless because it is about ideas and preconceived notions and there are no ways to prove or disprove them, only a person trying to sway a person to one's way of thinking, or open a person up to other thoughts about the subject. There are no right/wrong answers with philosophy because it is about individual people's thoughts/ideas, how/why they believe them and often live/die by them.
Heidi

[moonrize]

Philosophy is one's personal way of viewing and thinking about the world and our interactions in it. Philosophy can be personal in that it's your way of thinking, or there can be "group" philosophies such as organized religion in which many people believe the same thing.

Good luck with your assignment. Just don't assign me to the "low IQ" side of the paper :roll:

[britzlove]

Thanks Heidi & Moonrize!

The only reasonably literate people I socialize with are here on APF. My daily exposure to people's pretty limited..and when I'm bartending I usually would be scared to ask the customers :shock:

And thanks so much again to PH and Abejita...maybe I can get this done tonight :crazy bannana

[britzlove]

Just don't assign me to the "low IQ" side of the paper


8-) I think it's designed to figure out which side of that scale I locate on.. :lol: no worries!

[Rose Mary Axell]

I think it is not so much a study of ideas, as it is a study of percieved ideals.

[CarolU]

I can tell you Philosophy was the most boring class I took in college! :(

Psychology is the study of the (individual) human brain and how it functions and thinks based on biology.

Philosophy is more the study of the thinking process as it relates to the existance of humans in societies or groups, how they function, and how people in them think. It is intellectually, the persuit of wisdom. It is based on logic rather then biology. If you remember Star Trek and Spock, the saying "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" that is very much a philosophical thought.

[PasoVicki]

I remember my first session of "Philosophy 101" in college (many, many years ago). The professor wrote "What is reality?" on the blackboard, and told the class to write an essay responding to the question. It seemed to be a strange beginning but, oddly, all these years later, that is the only "first day of class" memory I've retained from my entire college experience.

I'd say that Philosophy is the study of thoughts, ideas, reasoning, beliefs and principles -- the study of what people, or members of certain groups, think and/or believe.

[reuben T]

It can be a man's set of views on a particular subject, based on the experience of his lifetime. as used by Mike as the headliner of his website.




http://kinseyhorsetraining.com/


oops, that was the wrong word, oh well, it's close anyway.

[motorgypsy]

I remember my Western Civilization class when we studied the philosophies of civilizations from the Greeks to the present day and I remember thinking that studying philosophy was pretty useless because you could never come to any conclusions based on hard facts. Since that time I realized that useless or not, if you don't know the other guys' philosophy you'll have a very hard time working with him/her.

Know thyself. Love thy neighbor as thyself. What is reality? What is the purpose of life? Existentialism, Nihilism, Machiavelli, survival of the fittest and Darwinism, the age of reason, the age of analysis, how many angels will fit on the head of a pin - philosophy might be considered a method of examining what the people of a particular country or age think is important at the time.

Before TV and video games discussions of this type of thing went on for hours. Now the most typical time to listen to different philosophies is when an election is near.

People have philosophies about everything from child rearing to child bearing to horse training to the practice of religion. You name it and they have one. This is why it's so difficult for schools to provide a curriculum for the students. No matter what is taught, what books are in the library, what discussions are held, some parent or some student will have a philosophical disagreement with some of the material.

Many international disagreements result from entire cultures have very conflicting philosophies. I remember for example in the old Western movies the good guy NEVER "drew first". It was a rule that noone ever broke. This typified the way the US responded to world actions. Which is why many of us who grew up with this were greatly bother by the second Iraq invasion. The first one made sense to us but not the second one - because the good guy NEVER draws first in a gun fight. Other cultures do not necessarily share this philosophy as we well know.

So you might say that this act of examining beliefs that makes up the philosophy of an individual, regional group or entire country of people, causes great problems but also makes us all unique. And one thing you can never do is assume the other guy or other country shares your philosophy - because they don't. And the only way to keep the peace is to first learn about the other's philosophy and then decide how to deal with it where it seriously conflicts with your own.

[britzlove]

Gosh its a good thing I didn't get much done last night...I have more good replies today :smile:

I suppose I will admit my description of philosophy and that's the study of thinking and how thought influences life. Kind of vague I know...but that's easiest for me to tell other people who have no interest in it.

I study philosophy about half as much as paso finos...that's still alot.

I think motorgypsies took it kind of into my other field of interest and that's sociology.

Away from horses I'm still kind of a geek...and I'm OK with that :D

Thanks Bunches and Bunches and Bunches!

Britz

[PasoVicki]

I will admit my description of philosophy and that's the study of thinking and how thought influences life

Right there, I think, you're on the verge of moving from a discussion of philosophy into a discussion of sociology. What one thinks or believes is his/her philosophy. How a group's collective thoughts and beliefs lead the members of the group to behave, as a whole, morphs into sociology. The group creates rules of behavior that (ideally) take into consideration (as much as possible) the varying thoughts and beliefs (philosophies) of the individual members and that all members of the group can "live with." But there can never be perfect agreement, because there is so much variation in individual thoughts and beliefs -- which is one reason there is so much social dissent over certain issues (such as abortion or horse slaughter). Sometimes individual members of the group can't or won't accept rules of behavior that vary from their own philosophies, and no amount of argument or logic or reasoning will "change their minds." There, see, you can use your philosophy assignment as a platform for jumping into one of your other favorite issues. ;-)

[motorgypsy]

Check out the article in Wikipedia on philosophy. It gives the origin of the word from the Greek words for love and wisdom and goes on from there to give the different categories of philosophy and the philosophies of cultures and regions.

It's not the same as sociology. Sociology deals with social groups which of course will have one or more philosophies.

Here's one definition of sociology - sociology n. The study of human social behavior, especially the study of the origins, organization, institutions, and development of human society.

Sociology is fairly easy to define. Philosophy is not. There are hundreds of definitions for philosophy and there may be both individual and group philosophies.

And some definitions for philosophy - .

Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.

The study of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.

The general beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group.

synonym - doctrine: a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.

The rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics.

Any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation; "self-indulgence was his only philosophy"; "my father's philosophy of child-rearing was to let mother do it"

Notice it's as though the authors are going all around something but have great difficult pinning it down.

There are political philosophies, philosophies of life, horse breeding philosophies, environmental philosophies, religious philosophies. And they are so fluid - ever changing and constantly causing discord among those with divergent philosophies. Ethics is part of philosophy. It encompasses all the big questions like reality and what's real and what isn't. We wrote school philosophies, departmental philosophies, district philosophies to communicate to others our reason for being in existence. Why were we there. Why were we needed. It was a HUGE pain I'll tell you that!!!

Sociology is a lot easier to deal with than philosophy. Not that you can accomplish much with a society but at least the study makes sense.