"For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms." — Alexander the Great
"For my own part, I can do philosophy my own way." — Me the not Great
Philosophy is the generalised study of any thing. Things are of two kinds: real things and abstract things. Real things are also called as entities and abstract things are also called as ideas. Reality or physical world is the totality of entities. The world is the totality of all things. The totality of all abstract things is the realm of ideas or ideal world.
The branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality is called Metaphysics. The goal of metaphysics is to find what things are entities (i.e. what really exists?) and what are their descriptions and relations with each other. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that studies existence. Mereology is the sub-branch of ontology that studies part-whole relationships of entities.
Entities with many-to-one relation with other entities are called as compositions. A monobloc chair is composed of many plastic molecules. Many components form the one composition hence a many-to-one relation is there. Compositions have extra properties compared to the composing entities. Properties are the things that describe other things. A chair can be comforting but plastic molecules are not comforting like a chair. A composite entity is not fundamental as it can be reduced to its components either in description or in reality as the process of decomposition.
"Ontological simples" are fundamental entities that are not composed of anything so they cannot be further decomposed. They can compose other entities by interacting with other entities or simples.
Entities with one-to-one relation of their composition but not all properties are same among them are called constitutions (arrangments). An origami boat is a specfic constituion of a piece of paper. The boat can float on water but the plain paper cannot. New properties have emerged out of the constitution.
Metaphysics is often regarded as the first philosophy but I like to call it as low-level philosophy similar to low-level computer programming owing to the generality and depth of its questions. But who is doing these studies? It is the philosophical agents.
Agents are entities that are able to do something. Philosophical agents are special kind of agents that can experience reality and can reason. From now onwards I call philosophical agents as agents for brevity. You are an agent. I am an agent. Objects are entities other than agents. A chair is an object.
Abstract things are not existent in reality as entities but still they can be conceived and described by agents. For example, Spiderman, electric fields, point particles, line, etc.
Experience and reasoning are the processes through which an agent forms beliefs. A belief is the attitude (judgement) held by an agent about any description of properties of a thing.
A belief is qualified as true and be called a truth in two independent ways:
1. If it corresponds to reality (the correspondence theory of truth) -
To correspond means that the belief contains the actual descriptions of an entity as it is (such descriptions are called facts).
2. If it is reasoned coherently based on other truths or definitions (the coherence theory of truth) -
Reasoning is how an agent conceives any new belief (inferred beliefs) from already held beliefs.
Knowledge is truth that is justified (demonstrated or proven to be true). Epistemology (theory of knowledge) is the study of justification of truths. The goal of epistemology is to decide what beliefs are regarded as knowledge.
Epistemology is hence the branch of philosophy that focuses over what and how an agent can know about any thing either by experience (a posteriori) or by reasoning alone (a priori).
A posteriori knowledge - Beliefs that are concieved through experience and justified to be true only by observation or empirical evidence.
A priori knowledge - Beliefs that are concieved through reason and justified to be true without any need of observation or empirical evidence.
The branch of philosophy that studies coherent reasoning is called Logic. The goal of logic is to define the coherent rules of inference so that an agent can contruct coherent beliefs. Logic requires a formal system called logical language or syntax to express and organise beliefs. A belief expressed in some formal language is called a proposition. In a proposition, the subject is the description of a thing and the predicate is the description of properties of that thing. Based on the contents of a proposition, there are two kinds: Analytic and Synthetic.
In these propositions the predicate is the definition of the subject. They are a priori as they do not require empirical evidence. They do not necessarily conform to reality but are true because the definitive properties must not contradict each other (coherent truth). Examples:
1. “A quadrilateral has four sides.” (Quadrilaterals are defined as planar shapes which have four sides.)
2. “A sister is a female sibling.” (“Female siblings” and “sisters” are literally the same thing.)
In these propositions the predicate is not the definition of the subject, where properties other than definitive properties are claimed. They are contingent either on reason or observation:
Without using any sensory information or inferential experiment, the truth value of these claims cannot be decided. Hence they are true only by conforming to reality. Examples:
1. “It is raining."
2. “Water is H2O.”
Consider the proposition: "There is a hippopotamus in this matchbox." I can try to observe it but cannot find it, and then it can be argued that it is hidden because the inability to observe the hidden hippo does not make the claim false. But one can take the definition of a hippopotamus and a matchbox and reason that it is bigger than a matchbox, so it cannot be in this matchbox. Without observing a hippo, we can say that the claim is false. In a way, we claimed that “A hippo cannot be in a matchbox” to be true, which is synthetic but not a posteriori.
Synthetic A priori claims do not require direct experience or observation to be true. “For a triangle, the sum of the angles is 180 degrees.” This is not the definition of a triangle but it is still true without any direct observation. However, it is impossible to prove the angle sum property of triangles without having the notion of space. To define something, all sufficient properties must be met. After that, one can find necessary properties. Reason is needed but also some sufficient background experience (conceptual) and definitions.
All synthetic a priori claims are true in their conceptual framework, so the cases where the conceptual framework does not work, the synthetic a priori claims do not work also. For example, the angle sum property is true for triangles in Euclidean geometry only. Hence, a priori synthetic claims are true only coherently. For mathematicians all synthetic a priori claims are also analytic as such claims are derived out of axioms that are also analytic.
The initial beliefs from where reasoning starts are called premises and the inferred beliefs are called conclusions. An argument is a set of premises that justifies a conclusion. Hence arguments are a formal usage of reasoning to establish knowledge.
An argument is called deductive if the conclusion is already included in the premises but may not be obvious to an agent. Hence deductive argument "deduct" the required conclusion from the premises. They guarantee the truth of conclusion if the premises are true. Deductive arguments are useful in generating a-priori knowledge.
If the premises being true guarantees the conclusion also being true then the argument is called as a valid argument. Moreover if the premises are true then such a valid argument is called a sound argument, otherwise it is called an unsound argument. Invalid arguments do not guarantee the truth of conclusion hence are also called as deductive fallacies.
An argument is called ampliative if the conclusions are not deduced from the premises but rather involve new beliefs. Ampliative arguments are useful in generating a-posteriori knowledge. A non-deductive or ampliative argument is of two types: Abductive and Inductive.
A table highlighting different types of arguments, given by Peirce
| Abduction | Deduction | Induction |
| Case from Rule and Result | Result from Rule and Case | Rule from Case and Result |
| Rule (first principle): All the beans in this bag are white | Rule (first principle): All the beans in this bag are white | Case (hypothesis): These beans are from this bag |
| Result (conclusion): These beans are white | Case (hypothesis): These beans are from this bag | Result (conclusion): These beans are white |
| Case (hypothesis): These beans are from this bag. (The beans were taken out of this bag) | Result (conclusion): These beans are white. (These beans that we have now are white) | Rule (first principle) All the beans in this bag are white. (all the beans taken out will be white) |
Only deductive argument guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Abductive and inductive arguments are trial fits to make the deduction work. The idea of non-deductive or ampliative arguments introduces the concept of probability. The probable the conclusions, the stronger the ampliative argument. If the premises are in fact true then such strong arguments are called cogent arguments.
In abduction, we seek a probable case that makes the conclusion deductively true given the rule is true.
In induction, we seek a probable rule that makes the conclusion deductively true given the case is true.
In a way, abduction is about finding what probably happened (finding the case that fits the rule), and induction is about what probably will happen (as the rule dictates it). Deduction is finding what happens.
Relative to a deductive conclusion, the premises and argument involved are called its proof. For any synthetic a priori proposition, a proof can be demanded. Based on how we proceed to supply proofs, we find the following problem:
There are only three ways of absolutely completing an argument:
1. The circular argument - in which the proof of some proposition presupposes the truth of that very proposition. The problem is that it is not an argument but rather some elaborate rephrasing of the proposition to be proven as its proof.
2. The regressive argument - in which each proof requires a further proof, and so on. The problem is here the unending nature of such arguments.
3. The dogmatic argument - which rests on accepted propositions that are merely asserted rather than proven. Hence simply rejects to be an argument at all.
Popper suggested to accept this trilemma as unsolvable and construct knowledge by the method of conjecture and criticism.
But why an agent holds any belief and bother about arguments and justifications? The motivation to hold any belief is decided from the agent's values. Values are principles or standards that specify what is considered worthwhile or desirable. Axiology is the branch of philosophy that studies values. Analogous to how I called metaphysics as low-level philosophy, axiology can be comparatively called as high-level philosophy. Values are of two types: moral and non-moral.
Non-moral values are values that involve permissible actions. Moral values are values that involve obligatory or forbidden actions. Ethics is the study of moral values and Aesthetics is the study of non-moral values.
Moral agents are agents that can make choices based on what values they hold. Ethics is hence the study of an agent’s choices. In ethics, the goal is to find the right choices (what an agent is ought to do - moral principles). Moral choices can only be made when the agent is able to make any choice. Kant described this fact as "Ought implies can." Which means "If you are ought to do it then first you must be able to do it." Hence studying the agents themeselves is the key of any axiological study.
For aesthetics, the studies of cognition, psychology and humanities are the critical aspects as they really explains what and how much aesthetic value something holds for an agent.
The process of conjecture and criticism (Popper) when formalised is called science. In my view, science is the method of philosophy. The goal of science is to create a description of any system (the part of world that is being studied) by establishing its properties and the relations among its properties by reason, experience or both. At any instant such a description is called a theory.
In case of empirical science, (where the system is a part of reality. For example: Physics, Biology, Social Science, etc.) the theory does not exactly describe the system but a model of the system which is an approximation of it. In case of formal science, (where the system is abstract but may also have some correspondence to reality) the theories are exact but still can be revised. Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science are all examples of formal science. Formal sciences often work on exploring theories of abstract systems that may model some general features of natural systems. Scientific knowledge can hence be defined as coherent true beliefs which withstand repeated scrutiny and revision.
In empirical science every observation of a system may give us knowledge of some properties of the system. The model has to be developed such that it explains all the known properties. But such a model is not complete; it has to predict new observable properties. If such predictions are observed then such observations become evidence for the theory. If observations are contrary to the predictions then the theory is revised or discarded. This feature of theories in empirical sciences is called falsifiability. Falsification enables us to test if the theory is empirical in nature or not. This process has to be repeated in the search of finer theories and this process is called scientific research. This way different classes of philosophical questions gave birth to different fields of science.
It is commonly asked that while sciences have progressed then why philosophy has not made any progress? But my answer to this question in the defense of philosophy is that because of traditionally how philosophy is practicised and popularised, it came out as "subjective intellectual concerns to examine different beliefs" rather than a formal study of things. Though examining beliefs is infact should be called as formal study. Some people can argue that philosophical questions conventionally are such that they cannot be studied or answered via the scientific method and arguments are the only way to make progress in philosophy but the scientific method and research itself is a form of argumentation. If we stick to the "study of things" definition then any intellectual progress should be considered a part of philosophical progress. But since the meaning of progress is contigent on values of the agents then even sciences are not immune to such questions of "not making enough progress". In my view, the progress of philosophy resides in the variety of questions it can discover and the ways it compells us to refine our ways of experiencing and reason about our world.