Philosophy 101 for Social Scientists

Session I Demystifying Western Philosophy

Basic concepts for philosophy beginners

‘Philosophy begins with wonder. – Plato/Socrates

1. A very rough chronology

Pre-Socratic philosophers
Ancient Western philosophy (1-6 CE)

The Big Three:

Socrates, Father of formal Western philosophy, Logic, no written works

Plato, friend of Socrates, Republic, Dialogue with Socrates

Aristotle, pupil of Plato, Ethics, etc.

Others: Epicurus, Stoics, and theologian philosophers (St Augustine of Hippo)

Medieval philosophy (7-13 CE)

Theology grounded philosophy: Scholasticism, St Anselm of Canterbury, St Albert the Great,

St Thomas Aquinas (the biggest), William of Ockham (Ockham’s razor)

Early modern and modern (13-19 CE)

A turn to experience and reason: Blaise Pascal, Baruch Spinoza, Rene Descartes, David
Hume, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich
Nietzsche

Modern and contemporary (20 CE onwards)

A turn to language, phenomenology and existentialism: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Edmund

Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, Jacques
Derrida

2. Key words to crack philosophical shells

A broad working definition of philosophy:
Philosophy (Greek: philosophia, love of wisdom) is to reflect upon human experiences
comprehensively.

Etymologically speaking, philosophy is a VERB. It is not something, but something people

do!

Whenever you reflect on your experience and draw some conclusion about it, you are doing
‘philosophy’!

The difference between you and a properly trained ‘philosopher’ lies in the system.

Generally, a philosophic system should include EVERYTHING from heaven down to earth
(perhaps below the earth).

Ontology: Speaking on Being itself (mind the difference between Being and Existence), the
area that investigates this area is called Metaphysics (meta, beyond; physics, the
material/physical world), meaning the study of guiding principles underpinning and beyond
the physical world.

Cosmology: Speaking of the cosmos (mind the difference between the word Cosmos and
Universe).

Epistemology: Speaking of knowing (basic question: How can I know something?)

Anthropology: Speaking of human nature (basic question: How do human beings differ from
animals?)

Ethics: The inquiries into the appropriateness of (human) behaviours, which often produces
binary value judgments such as good/evil, right/wrong. Also called Moral Philosophy/Moral
Theology in ancient and medieval times (basic question: What OUGHT TO be done by
humans? And prescriptions of what SHOULD be done follows).

Mind those words ended with ‘-logy’. This suffix originates from Greek word ‘logos’ (),
literally meaning ‘word(s)’. Thus, whenever you meet a word xx-logy, it can be directly
translated as ‘speaking about/of xx’ in a meaningful manner. This suggests that in the formal
study of any –logy discipline in Western tradition, you MUST be attentive to words and term,
since they often remind you the basics of the discipline. You need to strive for the accuracy in
verbal and linguistic representation of the thing you study!
Finally, working definition for the word ‘meaning’ is: the possibility to apprehend (grasp,
capture) and comprehend (understanding-led practice).

Here ends the Session One. Questions?

An outline for subsequent sessions:

This is an outline for the trial crash course which aims to provide any social sciences students
a glance into the philosophical world. After all, we are all philosophers in one way or
another! For practical purposes, the contents are written in English. The presentation
sequence of the sessions can vary.

Session I Demystifying Western Philosophy

Session II The Philosophical Groundings for Social Sciences

Session III Complex Terminology Simplified (1)

Session IV Complex Terminology Simplified (2)

Session V The Quantitative V.S. The Qualitative

Session VI Getting into the Qualitative World