Thoughts on Philosophy

Thoughts on Philosophy

Helena Ferreira,


The concepts of life and the world we call "philosophical" is the product of two factors: one consisting of factors, ethical and religious legacy; the other, the kind of research that could call "scientific", employing the word in its broadest sense . The philosophers, individually, have differed widely about the proportions in which these two factors entered into your system, but the presence of both that, to some degree, characterizes the philosophy.
"Philosophy" is a word that has been used in several ways, some more extensive, others more restricted. I intend to use it in its broadest sense, try to explain below. The philosophy, as I understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. As the theology, is the subject of speculation about the exact knowledge has to date failed to arrive, but as science, calling for more human reason rather than authority, this is the tradition or the revelation. All knowledge set - I think: it belongs to science, and any dogma about what goes beyond the knowledge set, belongs to theology. Meanwhile, between theology and science there is an Indefinite Earth. Exposed to attacks from both camps: that Earth is the philosophy. Almost all the issues of most interest to speculative minds are of such nature that science can not the answer and the answers confident of theologians no longer seem so convincing as they were in centuries past. Do you think the world is divided into mind and matter? And, assuming that that is the case, it is that spirit and matter? Do you think the spirit is the subject matter, or is he endowed with independent forces? Has the universe any unity or purpose? Is it evolving towards some purpose? There are actually laws of nature, or because they believe only in our innate love the order? This is the man what he seems to be the astronomer, that is, a set of tiny carbon and water to crawl, impotent, on a small planet unimportant? Or is it what appears to be the Hamlet? Did he is at the same time, both things? There is a way of life that is noble and one that is low, or all ways of living are simply useless? If there is a noble way of life, where he is, and how we accomplish it? Should the well be eternal, to earn the value they assign to it, or it is worth looking for him, even if the universe is moving, inexorably, to death? There is wisdom, or what we feel this is merely the latest refinement of madness. Such questions are not answer in the laboratory. The Theologies being sought to provide answers, all too conclusive, but its own security makes the modern spirit to face with suspicion. The study of such issues, even if it does not solve these problems, is the commitment of philosophy. "

If I have to philosophize, you do seek to understand the facts and the things that involve me, the reality in which I am immersed. And because I know what I can learn and how I sort my vision of the world, such as placing me in front of the physical world and the human world and all that is offered to my experience. How to understand the speeches of men and my own speech. How to judge the products of arts, religions and sciences.
But I can not forget those who philosophize before me. In a sense, it is because they philosophy that I feel encouraged to return to their venture. The cultural legacy of the species puts at my disposal a philosophical literature extremely rich and diverse, which I thought was going feeding. If I have to philosophize, I also have to place me in relation to the philosophies and his speeches, I have to consider the problems they have and that the solutions proposed for them.
This world closer to me to be introduced as a world populated by things that I like are the second varying degrees of similarity. For physical bodies, the physical body as I am. For living beings, as the living being who I am. But, particularly for men like me, being fundamentally similar to me, beings that feel, think and speak, thinking bodies like me, in the midst of the other things and processes of the world. Human beings who, like me, interact with the physical world that some, particularly continuously interact with each other, inextricably imbricados in social life of the species. Imergem their lives as my daily experience in the world. Men born in it, suffer, work, enjoy and die.
My immersion in the world I irrecusavelmente appears as mediated by the human world, that I share with all men. Appear to me as a newcomer to the life of the species, its culture and civilization, brought to life by human society and it has incorporated in its history. Welcoming me, sent me practices and customs, ways of thinking, the language that I serve, the concepts expressed in it. I was born in them and they went conditioning. Therefore, my experience of the World Human me appears as absolutely fundamental. An experience that fully. With regard to the human world, our common experience is the experience of our contingency and insecurity. Precariousness of our lives and our institutions. Immersed in the history of humanity, of our contingency thinking and our language, our beliefs and our speeches, from our point of view. Contingency and precariousness of our situation and that leads me to spontaneously say "we" instead of "me".
What we want is that my vision of the world has much in common with the visions that other men, like mine, have, of the world, they like me who are immersed in daily experience of common life. Visions of the World that they impose quietly, without options or decisions on your part. Visions in which spontaneously record, before any accession to the theory or preference for doctrine, their basic experience of reality in which they recognize integrated. In fact, we all know that these multiple visions of the world are also very different and varied, reflecting the infinda diversification of human situations, incorporating elements from all origin and nature, displaying the most diverse ontologies. Neither devised that could be otherwise. And everyone who experienced our own private visions of the world is substantially alter the course of our lives, for example discarding old entities and welcoming new ones.
"A quantum leap is really operates. And the philosophy wins the barrier of language. "Oswaldo Porchat

Classics of Philosophy:

Aristotle: The Politics, Poetics and the Art topics.
Descartes: Discourse of Method.
Erasmus of Rotterdam: Commends the madness.
Espinosa: Treaty on the Correction of Intellect.
Heidegger: 'What is this, the Philosophy?' And 'What is Metaphysics? ".
Hume: Essay on Human Understanding,.
Kant: Critique of Practical Reason.
Machiavelli: The Prince.
Pascal: Thoughts.
Plato: Apology, The Banquet, Crito, Phaedo, Filebo, Gorgias, Parmenides and Teeteto.
Rousseau: The Social Contract.
Thomas Morus: Utopia.