The Great Debate 3 big questions Essay Example For Students

The Great Debate 3 big questions Essay Philosophy Book: Chapter 1 Old guys, old rules, old news, right? Wrong. Philosophy is an important subject, because it helps us understand three big questions; why are we here, what do we do, and how do we treat each other. These are important questions to answer because without them we may end up in a situation much like the Taliban is in right now. Complete chaos created from confusion about those three big questions. These questions are left in a general sense because there are many different ways to look at them. After all we have many different people with many different ideas and so to come to a more concise understanding of such important topics we need everyones viewpoint. This is the purpose of something philosophers call The great conversation. For example: Think back to the attack on the US of September 11th. These attacks were caused for a variety of reasons, one of which being that the Taliban believed they had the answer as to the correct way to run a society. Therefore The Great Conversation was stopped. After all if I am the Taliban and I believe I have the answer as to how to run a society because I feel I have answered the three big questions, then why keep discussing? Why include anyone elses opinions and beliefs? Because if you dont then things could become violent, just as they did in Afghanistan. So you say you dont want to be like Afghanistan? Well good! So then how do you determine the answer to those three big questions, and what if there is more than one answer? Thats the purpose of philosophy and more specifically The Great Conversation, to come up with the best possible answer to all questions that may arise without eliminating the possibility that a better answer may exist. Take Platos Cave for example: People sit in a cave looking at shadows cast on a wall, from the light of a fire behind them. They have been chained to the floor for centuries. They are fed, clothed, and generally stimulated by the shadows, which are those of puppets on a bridge behind them. The people believe the shadows are real. But ponder just for a second; what if you were one of those people? What if you were released from your shackles and allowed to move about the cave freely. How would you explain to the others that the shadows they are seeing are not real people, but actual shadows made by the puppets on the bridge behind them? Would they believe you? Now switch roles. What if one of the people chained next to you was released and came back to you with this phenomenon that everything you have ever seen and thought was real was actually a lie. How would you react? Would you believe them? This was Platos way of getting people to explore what they didnt know existed. To question things in life instead of merely accepting what they were told was the truth. To get people to explore the outside world, so they dont become a prisoner of ignorance forced to live a life based on what they are told and not what they experience for themselves. Questioning, and exploring whats around you and how it affects you is part of getting a more complete answer to those three big questions, which is the task of philosophy. But how does one know what to explore? I mean the world is a huge place and one person cant possibly explore everything, how do you know where to start? This is where the Three Divisions of Knowledge come into play. Philosophers divided knowledge into three groups: Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities. Each focuses on disciplines and questions. A discipline is a branch of knowledge or teaching. Basically each division of knowledge helps explain certain disciplines for example: The Humanities group focuses on questions like why are we here, what is worth doing, how should we treat each other, and what should we do. And helps explain: literature, art theology, history, music and more. Some raging Humanity debates of the past have included: Existence of god? Post modernity v. enlightenment, and what is the purpose of art? But philosophy helps explain more than just the Humanities category and all its smaller questions and disciplines; it also tackles the Natural and Social Sciences as well. Philosophy ties in which the Natural Sciences in that it helps to explain things like biology, botany, anatomy, zoology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, ecology, and geology. Philosophy in this category asks the questions: How can we accurately describe the physical world, and what are the laws governing the universe. Some raging debates have included: Cancer; causes, cures, and infections. Intelligence; source of the genes that make one intelligent. Weather; how do we predict it, among many others. And last but certainly not least we move onto the all important Social Sciences. This category consists of questions like: What are the laws of governing human behavior, and Why do people think, act, and feel the way they do. Major debates here include: causes of crime, can we know how the brain works, and the source of violence. So there you have 3 categories which cover the 3 divisions of human knowledge, the topics they cover, questions they ask, and how philosophy plays an important role in explaining each one. Now are you starting to see why philosophy is so important? Why its more than just Old guys, old rules, old news? Without philosophy we would be left in the dark so to speak on so many issues; chained to the floor of ignorance, just like the poor souls of Platos Cave. People debate these things all the time, and one of the ways we keep it civilized and logical, non-violent and fair is through the way we have set up our society. The Secret Sharer written by Joseph Conrad, center EssayAfter all they provided him with food and shelter and the same amount of all the common good as they did everyone else, and by accepting that common good and that food, and shelter and whatnot, he agreed to follow the rules set by the society. He broke the rules by teaching his beliefs on the open streets, and therefore he was condemned to die Socrates realized that he had agreed to a set of rules and he broke them, therefore it would only be just of him to suffer the consequences, and that he did. So back to this good life How does one determine what is good, and is this good true? Is it real? Philosophers have stumbled upon another set of general questions in which people wrestle with all the time. What is good? What is true? What is real? For example, lets wrestle with What is real? If youve seen The Matrix you may remember Morpheus saying Well if you define real as what you can see, touch, taste, and smell, then real is only electrical impulses interpreted by our brain. So there is one argument for What is real? What about What is good? I would say what is good is what creates the safest most enjoyable environment for the greatest amount of people. But then again I dont have the only answer to these questions. Its very possible that because these questions are so general they may very well have more than one answer. But how do you determine the answer? Thats the purpose of philosophy and more specifically The Great Conversation, to come up with the best possible answer to all questions that may arise without eliminating the possibility that a better answer may exist. Now earlier I introduced to you to the concept of What is good? and What is real? but there is yet another concept. What is true? If I tell you that the sky is red and you think it is blue, then how do we know who is right? Do we go on what most people believe? Do we go on who has gone to school longer? Do we go on which colors we like best? Well I dont know the exact answer, thats why its still a debate. I can say I personally believe that here in America we go on a credibility system. We pick the person with the most knowledge and/or experience in a particular field, we use their knowledge for the basis of a debate, and then we argue it out. Sometimes we argue for things that we value. We may argue love at first site is true, because we may swear its happened to us. This is where Axiology comes into the equation. Axiology is the study of values, or stuff we place importance on, and it examines the question; what is good? Now, the stuff we place importance on is broken down into two smaller categories: ethics, and aesthetics. Ethics are our morals, and aesthetics are the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and expression of beauty, as in the fine arts. Now within Axiology we have defined ethics and aesthetics, but what about the debate of fact versus opinion within each of them. For example: Is Picassos work beautiful? I would say nope. You may say yes. Thats aesthetic subjectivism, opinions on what is and is not beautiful. On the other hand you have aesthetic objectivism or facts on beauty. For example: Everyone enjoys beautiful things. That is a fact that deals with beauty. The same goes for ethics. I think it is good ethics to treat women as equals of men. You however, depending on where you were raised, may believe that is not good ethics. Thats opinion; both examples of Subjectivism. On the other hand ethical objectivism would say: Here in the United States, women and men are equally free by law. That is a fact. Now we move onto Epistemology or the study of knowledge. Epistemology examines the question; what is true? Once again we deal with two opposite ends of a debate spectrum. We focus on a few things here. One of which is where does knowledge come from? Those who believe that the exercise of reason, rather than experience, authority, or spiritual revelation, provides the primary basis for knowledge are called Rationalists. Basically they believe people have revelations, and are born with knowledge (innate. ) On the opposite, those who believe that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge are known as Empiricists. Reason versus experience, you decide for yourself. For our last and final study we explore Ontology; the nature of being. Is it human nature to fill your space with material goods? Do they bring you happiness? Is that happiness true happiness? If you answered yes to any of those questions you may be a Materialist while if you answered no to any of those questions, there is a chance you may be an Idealist; someone who believes that the use of ideas, thinking, questioning, and active mental stimulation are far more valuable in terms of achieving happiness than the passive, vegetable style consumption of goods that plagues many of us.