Branches of Philosophy

• Ethics: values
• Aesthetics: beauty
• Metaphysics: real
• Logic: reason
• Epistemology: knowing
• Political philosophy: how societies are governed?

Epistemology:
• The theory of knowing. It’s related to the mind question about
reality like: Do we know things?
,and if yes, when do we know things?

Metaphysics and Ontology (Existence):

• The branch which deals with the first principles of things: (being,
identity, time, and space)
• Ontology: deals with (abstract entities), a theory that deals with
the nature of being
• Metaphysics is the bridge between physics and philosophy that
questions the existence from a small perspective like an ant’s
existence to the whole universe.
• It’s divided into three sub-disciplines:
o General metaphysics
o Psychical metaphysics
o Physical metaphysics
Axiology (Ethics)
• A Greek word for ethics
• It’s the branch which means the value of something, and
classifying how good things are.

• It’s considered two types:

o What does someone value?
o What should someone value?

History of Philosophy
Ancient philosophy (Ancient Greek philosophy)
The philosophy in antiquity, before the end of Roman Empire.

Pre-Socratic philosophers
They believed that humans originated from substances like water, air or
other substance called(apeiron).

Ancient philosophers
• Thales:
o First philosopher of posing the question about the origin of
humans
o Claims that the universe originated from water based on
empirical evidence.
• Pythagoras:
o Famous for studying numbers and geometrical relations of
numbers
o Claimed that the universe made up from numbers.
o Argued that Numbers, Music, and philosophy, are all
interlinked.
o Claimed that the world as a perfect harmony, dependent on
numbers.
• Heraclitus
o Claimed that the universe originated from fire
o He believed that the world existed, not created.
o Unity of world is kept because of the tension between things
and its opposites ex. (live-dead, cold-warm,…)
o A fundamental idea in Heraclitus is logos, which seems like a
universal law unites the cosmos.
• Parmenides (Idealist)
o He believed in unity of the universe called monism, a
physical sphere that is unborn, unchanged, and infinite.
o One must distinguish between true and false.
• Democritus (Materialist)
o He defends pluralism against monism.
o He claimed that atoms are homogenous and indivisible that,
interact with each other forming the plurality of the world
we live in.
 Sophists
- It’s an educational movement that appeared in ancient Greece.
- They attacked traditional thinking (morals, gods)
-

Greek Philosophers
Socrates
- He believed in reason and reasoning.
- He argued against Democracy.
- His philosophy supported system of ethics that based on reason,
not on natural needs.

Plato
- He is Socrates’ student.
- He is an idealist believer in spiritual substance ideas not matter.
- Seek to set up utopia (perfect city).
- Values doesn’t change with time and places.
- He was against democracy.
 Aristotle
- He is a realist philosopher.
- Every object consists of 2 dimensions (matter+ form, essence)
- Matter is changeable, form is unchangeable.
- Only ultimate truth can be captured through deduction and
reasoning.
- Ethics are obtained by practice not by birth.

Medieval Philosophy
Principles
- Use of logic
- Analysis to discover the truth
- Defense of God
- Applying logic to language, science and religion.
 Islamic Philosophy
Philosophers
Ibn Sina – Avicenna
- Wrote extensively in Logic, Ethics, and Metaphysics.
- He set up an argument for God existence.
- He paid too much concern for Aristotle’s logic.

Ibn Rushed – Averroes

- He was aiming to bring Aristotelianism in the Islamic Philosophy.
- He argues for the compatibility of Islam and philosophy.
- He criticized a famous philosopher (AL- Ghazali).
- He submitted two arguments defending God existence
(providence, from invention).
- He was against theologians (people who were supporting violence
and their authority to terrifying scholars).

Al- Ghazali
- He is considered the Mujaddid in the 11-th century
- His book “The incoherence in philosophy” made a major turn in
Islamic epistemology.
- He attacked Muslim’s philosophers.
- He argued that true knowledge comes from intuition.
 Christian philosophy
- It aimed at reconciling science and faith.
- Big philosophical questions to see that Christianity and philosophy
overlapping ex. (what is truth? What is real? How should we live ?).

Philosophers

Augustine
- He was a theologian.
- He is an idealist and follows Plato’s philosophy.
- He is viewed as one of the most important Church Father of the
Latin Church.
- His important works (The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and
Confessions).
- He raised a doctrine of divine illumination, he claims that God play
an active part in humans life.

Thomas Aquinas
- He was supporter for natural theology.
- He supported Aristotle’s philosophy.
- He tried to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy in principles of Christianity.
- He argued that God is the source of light.
- He unified the Greek Philosophy and Christian doctrine.
- He claims that God reveals himself through nature.
- He identified the Ultimate goal of human to be the union and eternal
fellowship with God.