1.
RESEARCH AND
PUBLICATION
ETHICS, FACULTY OF
ARTS, JU
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY
MAUSHUMI GUHA, DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, JU.

2.
THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
• Why philosophy?
• What is philosophy?
• What does philosophy do or what do we do with philosophy?

3.
DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY
• Can philosophy be defined?
• What are the different notions of definition?

4.
TWO NOTIONS OF DEFINITION
• ARISTOTLE
• Essences
• Categorisation, individuation, identification, differentiation or demarcation
• Sets
• WITTGENSTEIN
• Family resemblance and Disjunctive properties
• Epitome or exemplar or prototype

5.
BACK TO DEFINITIONS
• What if anything is the essence of philosophy?
• Philosophy as the love of knowledge – etymological definition.
• Philosophy as the mother of all disciplines – then what is left of philosophy once its children leave it
and go?
• The importance of questions – philosophy as an intellectual space for questions.
• The importance of critical thinking – philosophy as the master blueprint of critical thinking
(Note that questioning and reasoning are two sides of the same thing)
• Philosophy as a meta-discipline.
Chauvinism
Reticence
Diffidence

6.
BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY AND A
WITTGENSTEINIAN DEFINITION
• Philosophy and its branches.
• METAPHYSICS, EPISTEMOLOGY, ETHICS, PHILOSOPHY OF MIND,
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
• PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION, PHILOSOPHY
OF LOGIC
• LOGIC, PSYCHOLOGY
• METAPHILOSOPHY

7.
PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGY
• Commonsensical
• Analytical
• Naturalised
• Historical
• Literary
• Formal
• Logical
• Empirical?

8.
WHY PHILOSOPHY?
• Institutional versus informal

9.
WHAT CAN WE DO WITH PHILOSOPHY?
• Science
• Social Science
• Engineering
• Literature and Arts
• Philosophy – Tie up lose ends, test for reasonableness, check for
justification, ensure proper logical structure of thinking and presentation,
expect an overarching and comprehensive view of a problem. In their
higher reaches, all subjects tend to fall back upon philosophy.