TYPES OF QUESTIONS : CLASSIFICATIONS IN PHILOSOPHY

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Once we are equipped with the philosopher's toolbox i.e. The Socratic method of reasoning, We are ready to dive into the questions of Philosophy. 
So were the Intelligent people of Ancient times. 
In this Blog, We will look into the types of questions that our Ancestors have asked and thus the classification of the discipline of philosophy according to the different questions. 

Ancient Thinkers in Athens began by classifying ideas around them as "Philos" and "Mythos" , today known as "Science" and "Storytelling" respectively. There were people like Homer who thought we can understand this World through Stories while there were people like Socrates who decided to investigate the truth of the World via Scientific method. 
Philosophy was, in ancient times, the only discipline existing along with literature. It was called the "Natural Philosophy". 
Everything was philosophy back then. With time, thinkers needed to classify their discipline to enhance the conversation specialisation. 
The Discipline of Philosophy is divided into Three major types, viz.  

1. METAPHYSICS 
2. EPISTEMOLOGY 
3. VALUE THEORY 

Metaphysics:-

The question of Metaphysics is simply "What is the Nature of Reality?" Elaborating it, There is a World out there. Is the things that we see in this world and consider them to be real are really real? What do we mean when we say something is real? Is anything real? If yes, then can a distinction be made so that we may differentiate things as real or not-real? If not, then There must be a structure of virtuality present. What is the nature of virtuality? These questions dates back to a dialogue between Plato and Aristotle which leads us to the debate of the ages, Plato enunciating the idea of a Platonic reality while Aristotle putting his feet on the ground. 

Now a days where we feel proud to call ourselves Scientific, Metaphysics is very easily discredited by Scientists. But, This conformist approach should be abandoned. The ideal approach, in my humble opinion is not to reject logical arguments like this. For the case of Religion, Religion is nowhere comparable to Metaphysics. Metaphysics is questioning, Religion is answering, and you know, you can question anything, but you can't answer anything by saying any random story. 
Religion can be kept in the "mythos" Section which I don't mind. 


In the Black Cat analogy shown above, Religion is like sitting in the dark room and telling stories about the black cat specifying that it has special powers. 

Moving on... 


Epistemology :-

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which deals with the question of knowledge. The knowing of knowing itself. How do we know things? Is knowing a global phenomena? "Episteme" Is the word given for the way of knowing something. 
There is a long debate in this field concerning many famous figures namely two of them being Newton and Leibniz. The debate of something called "Ontology" and "Epistemology". Newton and many other Realists today say that knowledge about the world works on this hypothesis, 

There is a world out there independent of us. We interact with it through scientific methods to get Unique Facts about the World which is true for everybody. 


Whereas Leibniz and many Radical Theorists believed that 

We are a part of this world. So, we influence this world. So, in no way we can get to the absolute truths but only the half truths, my reality and your reality. Basically, The observer affects the Observations, Hence nothing is really real. Everything is your reality, my reality, their reality and so on. 

Epistemology concerns with the mode of questioning itself and whether it is dependent on some other logic or not. Whether Questioning is the last resolve of knowing. So we question the questioning itself to validate the questioning. Yeah! makes sense! 

Value theory :-

Is there anything of some value in this world or not? The previous two branches were so rigorous that we are left with this question. So, Value theory deals with the question of morality and ethics and what to belief and what not to in order to live a life. 
It is divided into two sub-disciplines, viz. 
1. Ethics
2. Aesthetics

Ethics  refers to the morality section and Aesthetics concerns with the idea of beauty, Objective beauty. What to consider absolutely beautiful and you will be logically correct too. We perceive beauty as something subjective, but there exists something objectively beautiful and what is it's grounds, this is what we concern ourselves with in this. 
So, we came to the end of the classification blog of our discipline. From the next blog, we will begin with the discourse related to metaphysics, which is to tackle the nature of reality. There is going to be a rigorous series of blogs following which you will get a feel of doing a BA in philosophy (believe me, not all of them know this much) . 

Stay tuned, keep reading, the only Salvation is in reading ( not Bible, but "Libre") (Libre means being free, so being in a library means... You know what! Being free of course) see you! đŸ™ƒđŸ™‚

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