An attempt to address this question has been made on Wikipedia. Check it out here.
See also these pages: Uni of Melbourne, Dartmouth 1 & 2, Russell
Here are the broad areas of philsophy to consider:
- Logic (formal & informal)
- Metaphysics
- Epistemology
- Ethics
- Political Philosophy
- Philosophy of Mind
- Aesthetics
Mr Teoh has provided a list of some topics in applied ethics. Here is his list:
Cloning and issues in bioethics (e.g. medical ethics, genetics and ethics)
Media Ethics (e.g. censorship, etc)
Law and Punishment
Animal Ethics
The Ethics / Morality of War
Terrorism
Euthanasia
Environmental Ethics
Gender and Sexism
Poverty and Welfare
Race and Racism
World Hunger
Science and Religion
Science and Ethics (e.g. the ethics of advances in scientific technology)
Please rank your choices in order of preference. Pick 2 or 3 areas, and try to specify what question or problem in that area interests you most.
Remember to leave your comments on the relevant post (depending on which group you belong to).
Charisse & Vanessa: please clarify your choices in light of the above.
Ok, I would dearly love to do science and religion, gender and sexism, and law and punishment. I guess I have a general interest in these issues; if anyone else has an interest in these areas and actually has an idea of how to go about it I would be happy to go along with it.
From Mr Teoh’s list, I am interested in: Media ethics, Science and Ethics, as well as Science and Religion.
However I’d rather stick with metaphysics, minds and epistemology if possible rather than my selections from his list.
It does seem to me that all, or almost all of the topics in Mr Teoh’s list are related to ethics. However I would prefer to explore other aspects of Philosophy and not just ethics, which is primarily what we’ve been focusing on in a school context.
Is philosophy the pursuit of theoretical perfection?
In response to Amelia:
In my opinion, philosophy’s primarily the pursuit of wisdom, unless one considers wisdom to be perfection, I guess.
Amelia & Charisse: It would be helpful if you could each attempt to define the terms you use. What do you mean when by “theoretical perfection” and “wisdom”?
We can then better understand those aspects on which there is agreement as well as where the two concepts do not overlap.
This will allow the discussion to proceed in a more useful manner.
On the subject of fallacy employed in Philosophy, an argument seems to meet ‘theoretical perfection’– series of relating statements presented that has absolutely no fallacies. I termed this ‘theoretical perfection’ as, in truth, almost every argument we make/hear in real life has at least one fallacy in it. Sometimes, it just seems impossible to exclude all fallacies when making an argument; because it seems that a lot of the fallacies includes personal feelings and opinions that would de-activate the objective mode of the argument.
Also on the case of judgment, everything has to be ‘politically correct’– that there is not absolute right or wrongs, only your opinions vs my opinions. This is also a case of theoretical perfection because in reality, no one really cares if one hundred or two in a mass population of 5 million people thinks beauty is not just about being skinny. It seems that if popular figures think so, and the media favours so, then, it is so. Kant’s theory is completely ignored and the scenario is no longer perfect when not every individual’s opinion is regarded by the mass.
Let’s also take a look at science and religion. Noone cares if the existance of God is being held in question. They follow their various religions anyway. The concept of theoretical perfection is abandoned in reality.
One might say that philosophy is but a subject. but I beg to differ. Philosophy seems to be full of ideas. These ideas are being further developed so that they seem to be perfect, once again, I emphasize, theoretically. This level of theoretical perfection can be attained when the topics are being discussed, but it may not be possible to be attained in reality.
*above is just me thinking out loud, yours truly is not trying to start a debate or rebuke anyone in particular*
To Amelia: Would you mind defining “perfect” in the way you are applying it in your explanation? I checked and got 11 different definitions, so as Mr Ow said, it would be helpful for our understanding of the points you’re putting across (:
Also, could you elaborate on the difference between how people apply ‘theoretical perfection’ in theory and in ‘reality’, especially pertaining to science and religion? It sounds interesting.
Oops! Sorry for the vagueness, I was just shooting off ideas as my thoughts float along. I don’t really have an iron-clad definition of ‘perfect’, only that for an idea or a theory to be ‘perfect’ it must have as little holes as possible. It must therefore be very logical. As for the science and religion part…
It’s just that even though ‘theoretical perfection’ is being pursued in every subject we explore in philosophy, they may not even cross the people’s minds in reality. We debate about the very existence of Gods and the founding base of every religion. But in reality people just follow their own religion. Instead of re-evaluating their own religions and coming to a conclusion that they should follow their of beliefs instead of forcing others to acknowledge their beliefs; wars, battles and fights break out due to religious differences. It seems that none of them is willing to take a mental step back from their current situation and weigh the whole situation objectively.
But I digress; now let me attempt to address the “difference between how people apply ‘theoretical perfection’ in theory and in ‘reality’” part. Some things work in theory; because they seem sound and logical when being discussed verbally and when written on paper. However, not every theory works out right. It’s like making a hypothesis based on the theories an expecting the actual experimental results to be the same. It’s simply a little impossible. Circumstances are being thrown into the equation in reality. Things no longer have a clear cut line or water-proof boundaries. There are bound to be leaks and holes where fallacies step in, thus making the outcome different from what we expected to be.
Aha, am I confusing you?? I’m simply saying we cannot give a set of seemingly logical instructions and expect things to turn out the way we theorized. In philosophy, we try our best to make our argument or theories as bullet-proof as possible; but they may not work out in real life.
Yupp, since I haven’t really sat down to think about this topic, I can only say this much. Thank you for the questions! They made me ponder over my own thoughts and to dissect them further into little details. Thank you~
I think I understand. What you’re saying is that thought-experiments, in which variables can obviously be controlled exactly, cannot be applied directly to real-life scenarios because there are too many variables to control and thus the metaphorical boat starts leaking in the hull and finally sinks. Correct?
Your separate point about religion is also interesting. Many people have inconsistencies in their beliefs when it comes to religion. For some reason, there are also people who know perfectly well what contradictions there are in their thinking, but are somehow able to reconcile them. I suspect I’m not explaining it very clearly, but if you try this game:
http://www.philosophersnet.com/games/god.htm
You’ll sort of understand what I mean when I say “inconsistencies”. Try it out! It’s really interesting and dare I say fun.
Aha! It’s fun; a lot of the questions make me think twice before selecting my answer. There was one particular question where I almost got hit, but luckily I managed to sort out my thoughts before choosing the right answer; so I survived unscathed, but it was a very close one. It was fun, thank you! I’d recommend this little quiz to every on PEP, I think it’d be very useful if some people wish to re-analyse their ideas/ thoughts. Thank you!
what is happiness? can you consider as a philosophical question? thanks.
can you consider it a philosophical question or a psychological one?