Philosophy is the study of general and

fundamental problems, such as those

connected with existence, knowledge,
values, reason, mind, and language.[1][2] It is
distinguished from other ways of addressing
such problems by its critical, generally
systematic approach and its reliance on
rational argument.[3] The word "philosophy"
comes from the Greek φιλοσοφία
(philosophia), which literally means "love of
wisdom".
• Branches of philosophy
• The following branches are the main areas of study
• Metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, including
the relationship between mind and body, substance and
accident, events and causation. Traditional branches are
cosmology and ontology.
• Epistemology is concerned with the nature and scope of
knowledge, and whether knowledge is possible. Among its
central concerns has been the challenge posed by skepticism
and the relationships between truth, belief, and justification.
• Ethics, or "moral philosophy", is concerned primarily with the
question of the best way to live, and secondarily, concerning
the question of whether this question can be answered. The
main branches of ethics are meta-ethics, normative ethics,
and applied ethics. Meta-ethics concerns the nature of ethical
thought, comparison of various ethical systems, whether
there are absolute ethical truths, and how such truths could
be known. Ethics is also associated with the idea of morality.
• Political philosophy is the study of government and the relationship
of individuals (or families and clans) to communities including the
state. It includes questions about justice, law, property, and the
rights and obligations of the citizen. Politics and ethics are
traditionally inter-linked subjects, as both discuss the question of
what is good and how people should live.
• Aesthetics deals with beauty, art, enjoyment, sensory-emotional
values, perception, and matters of taste and sentiment.
• Logic is the study of valid argument forms. Beginning in the late 19th
century, mathematicians such as Gottlob Frege focused on a
mathematical treatment of logic, and today the subject of logic has
two broad divisions: mathematical logic (formal symbolic logic) and
what is now called philosophical logic.
• Philosophy of mind deals with the nature of the mind and its
relationship to the body, and is typified by disputes between dualism
and materialism. In recent years there has been increasing similarity
between this branch of philosophy and cognitive science.
• Philosophy of language is inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage
of language.
• Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy that asks questions
about religion.
• Indian philosophy
• Main article: Indian philosophy
• Further information: Hindu philosophy, 
Buddhist philosophy, Jain philosophy, and Upanishads
• The term Indian philosophy (Sanskrit: Darshanas), may
refer to any of several traditions of philosophical thought
that originated in the Indian subcontinent, including
Hindu philosophy, Buddhist philosophy, and
Jain philosophy. Having the same or rather intertwined
origins, all of these philosophies have a common
underlying theme of Dharma, and similarly attempt to
explain the attainment of emancipation. They have been
formalized and promulgated chiefly between 1000 BC to
a few centuries AD, with residual commentaries and
reformations continuing up to as late as the 20th century
by Aurobindo and ISKCON among others, who provided
stylized interpretations.
• Realism and nominalism
• Main articles: Philosophical realism and Nominalism
• Realism sometimes means the position opposed to the
18th-century idealism, namely that some things have
real existence outside the mind. Its standard meaning
is the doctrine that abstract entities corresponding to
universal terms like "man" or "table" or "red" actually
exist (e.g. for Plato in a separate realm of ideas). It is
opposed to nominalism, the view that abstract or
universal terms are words only, or denote mental
states such as ideas, beliefs, or intentions. The latter
position, developed by Peter Abelard and famously
held by William of Ockham, is called conceptualism.
• Idealism
• Main article: Idealism
• Immanuel Kant
• Idealism is the epistemological doctrine that nothing can be directly
known outside of the minds of thinking beings. Or in an alternative
stronger form, it is the metaphysical doctrine that nothing exists
apart from minds and the "contents" of minds. In modern Western
philosophy, the epistemological doctrine begins as a core tenet of
Descartes—that what is in the mind is known more reliably than
what is known through the senses. The first prominent modern
Western idealist in the metaphysical sense was George Berkeley.
Berkeley argued[73] that there is no deep distinction between
mental states, such as feeling pain, and the ideas about so-called
"external" things, that appear to us through the senses. There is no
real distinction, in this view, between certain sensations of heat and
light that we experience, which lead us to believe in the external
existence of a fire, and the fire itself. Those sensations are all there
is to fire. Berkeley expressed this with the Latin formula esse est
percipi: "to be is to be perceived". In this view the opinion,
"strangely prevailing upon men", that houses, mountains, and
rivers have an existence independent of their perception by a
thinking being is false.
• Pragmatism was founded in the spirit of finding a
scientific concept of truth that does not depend
on personal insight (revelation) or reference to
some metaphysical realm. The truth of a
statement should be judged by the effect it has
on our actions, and truth should be seen as what
the whole of scientific enquiry ultimately agrees
on.[75] This should probably be seen as a guiding
principle more than a definition of what it means
for something to be true, though the details of
how this principle should be interpreted have
been subject to discussion since Charles S. Peirce
first conceived it
• Existentialism
• Main article: Existentialism
• Søren Kierkegaard
• Existentialism is a term applied to the work of a
number of late 19th- and 20th-century philosophers
who, despite profound doctrinal differences,[82][83]
shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins
with the human subject—not merely the thinking
subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual.
[84] In existentialism, the individual's starting point is
characterized by what has been called "the existential
attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in
the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world.
 Sport psychology
• Sport psychology (or sports psychology) is a branch of
psychology. It is the study of the psychological factors that affect
participation and performance in sports. It is also a specialization
within the brain psychology and kinesiology that seeks to
understand psychological/mental factors that affect
performance in sports, physical activity, and exercise and apply
these to enhance individual and team performance. It deals with
increasing performance by managing emotions and minimizing
the psychological effects of injury and poor performance. Some
of the most important skills taught are goal setting, relaxation,
visualization, self-talk, awareness and control, concentration,
confidence, using rituals, attribution training, and periodization.