FOUNDATIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

1. REALITY

Reality, in everyday usage, means "the state of things as they actually exist." The term Reality, in
a wider sense indicates the whole of which everything is a part, including everything that exists,
has existed, or can exist, whether it is observable, comprehensible, or contradictory in regard to
various sciences, philosophies, or any system of perception or analysis. Popular philosophies
about reality are as follows;
1. Solipsism: (Solipsism is the view that "I am the only mind which exists," or "My mental
states are the only mental states." The solipsist attaches no meaning to the supposition
that there could be thoughts, experiences, and emotions other than his own. The true
solipsist understands the word "pain," for example, to mean "my pain"). So, according to
the solipsists’ view, reality is everything that exists in their mind/conscience alone. The
problem with this philosophy is that it is impossible to verify the existence of anything
except your own consciousness.
2. Idealism: “Idealism” is the belief that all things exist as an idea in the mind—or more
specifically, as an idea in someone’s mind. George Berkeley, a famous idealist
philosopher, found that his views were dismissed as idiotic by some of his peers. It’s said
that one of his opponents closed his eyes, kicked a stone, and stated: “I refute it thus.”
The point was that if the stone really existed only in the man’s mind, he should not have
been able to kick it with his eyes closed. Berkeley’s refutation of this was a bit
troublesome, especially in modern eyes. He stated that there existed an all-powerful and
omnipresent God, who perceived everyone and everything simultaneously. Thus,
according to idealists reality means everything that exists as an idea in someone’s mind.
3. Monism: (it is the doctrine that only one Supreme Being exists). This theory was
presented by Plato. He claimed that in addition to the world we’re all familiar with, there
exists another world of perfect “forms.” All the things we see around us here are merely
shadows, imitations of the real thing.
Plato, being a monist, tells us that everything is made out of a single substance. This
means that (according to his view), diamonds, gold, and dog poop are composed of the
same basic substance arranged in different ways.
4. Presentism: Time is something we take for granted: if we consider it for a moment, we
normally divide it simply into the past, the present, and the future. “Presentist”
philosophers, however, argue that there is neither a past nor a future; only the present
exists. Thus, in the view of presentists, reality means that thing which is present in the
present moment of time.
5. Phenomenalism: Phenomenalists believe that things only exist insofar as they are
perceived. In other words, your cheese sandwich only exists so long as you are aware of
its existence. So as for trees that fall in forests with no one around to hear them; they
don’t. No perception, no existence. That’s phenomenalism in a nut-shell. So according to
the phenomenalists reality is everything that can be perceived.
1. RATIONALITY
Rationality means acting according to reason. It means accepting only that which you have
reason to believe. It means using logic (reasoning assessed according to strict principles of
validity) to weed out any contradictions.
Rationality is the quality or state of being rational i.e. being based on or agreeable to reason (the
power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements logically). Rationality is the habit
of acting by reason. It implies the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons to believe, and
of one's actions with one's reasons for action. The virtue of rationality means the recognition and
acceptance of reason as one’s only source of knowledge, one’s only judge of values and one’s
only guide to action.

Rationality is the use of logical reasoning in the areas of discourse and problem-solving.

Rationality should not be confused with rationalism. Rationality is used to describe a quality of
discourse or behavior; rationalism is a philosophy recognizing reason as the prime (or only)
"way of knowing."

The German sociologist, Max Weber, proposed an interpretation of social action that

distinguished between four different idealized types of rationality. The first, which he
called Zweckrational or purposive/instrumental rationality, is related to the expectations about
the behavior of other human beings or objects in the environment. These expectations serve as
means for a particular actor to attain ends; ends which Weber noted were "rationally pursued and
calculated."

The second type, Weber called Wertrational or value/belief-oriented. Here the action is

undertaken for what one might call reasons intrinsic to the actor: some ethical, aesthetic,
religious or other motive, independent of whether it will lead to success.
The third type was affectual, determined by an actor's specific affect, feeling, or emotion—to
which Weber himself said that this was a kind of rationality that was on the borderline of what he
considered "meaningfully oriented."

The fourth was traditional or conventional, determined by ingrained habituation. Weber

emphasized that it was very unusual to find only one of these orientations: combinations were
the norm. His usage also makes clear that he considered the first two as more significant than the
others, and it is arguable that the third and fourth are subtypes of the first two.

Weber's constructions of rationality have been critiqued both from a Habermasian (1984)

perspective (as devoid of social context and under-theorised in terms of social power) and also
from a feminist perspective (Eagleton, 2003) whereby Weber's rationality constructs are viewed
as imbued with masculine values and oriented toward the maintenance of male power.
2. ETHICS

It is the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles. Ethics is also called moral
philosophy, the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad, right and wrong. The
term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles.

The word "ethics" is derived from the Greek "ethos" (meaning "custom" or "habit"). Ethics differs
from morals and morality in that ethics denotes the theory of right action and the greater good,
while morals indicate their practice. Ethics is not limited to specific acts and defined moral codes,
but encompasses the whole of moral ideals and behaviors. Ethics deals with such questions at all
levels. Its subject consists of the fundamental issues of practical decision making, and its major
concerns include the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be
judged right or wrong.

It asks questions like "How should people act?" (Normative or Prescriptive Ethics), "What do

people think is right?" (Descriptive Ethics), "How do we take moral knowledge and put it into
practice?" (Applied Ethics), and "What does 'right' even mean?" (Meta-Ethics).

Socrates, as recorded in Plato's dialogues, is customarily regarded as the father of Western ethics.

He asserted that people will naturally do what is good provided that they know what is right, and
that evil or bad actions are purely the result of ignorance: "There is only one good, knowledge,
and one evil, ignorance". He equated knowledge and wisdom with self-awareness (meaning to be
aware of every fact relevant to a person's existence) and virtue and happiness. So, in essence, he
considered self-knowledge and self-awareness to be the essential good, because the truly wise (i.e.
self-aware) person will know what is right, do what is good, and therefore be happy.

According to Aristotle, "Nature does nothing in vain", so it is only when a person acts in
accordance with their nature and thereby realizes their full potential, that they will do good and
therefore be content in life. He held that self-realization (the awareness of one's nature and the
development of one's talents) is the surest path to happiness, which is the ultimate goal, all other
things (such as civic life or wealth) being merely means to an end. He encouraged moderation in
all things, the extremes being degraded and immoral, (e.g. courage is the moderate virtue between
the extremes of cowardice and recklessness), and held that Man should not simply live, but
live well with conduct governed by moderate virtue. Virtue, for Aristotle, denotes doing the right
thing to the right person at the right time to the proper extent in the correct fashion and for
the right reason - something of a tall order.

3. TRUTH

Truth is most often used to mean being in accord with fact or reality, or fidelity to an original or
standard. 'Truth' involves the qualities of "faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, sincerity, veracity".
Major theories about truth include;

4. Correspondence Theory: Philosophers (Plato, Socrates and Aristotle) who argue for the
correspondence theory hold that there is a world external to our beliefs that is somehow
accessible to the human mind. More specifically, correspondence theorists hold that there
are a set of "truth-bearing" representations (or propositions) about the world that align to
or correspond with reality or states of affairs in the world. A state of affairs just is a
particular way the world or reality is. When a proposition aligns to the world, the
proposition is said to be true. Truth, on this view, is that correspondence relation.

5. Coherence Theory: The main idea behind this view is that a belief is true if it "coheres"
or is consistent with other things a person believes. For example, a fact a person believes,
say "grass is green" is true if that belief is consistent with other things the person believes
like the definition of green and whether grass exists and the like. It also depends on the
 interpretation of the main terms in those other beliefs. Suppose you’ve always lived in a
region covered with snow and never saw grass or formed beliefs about this strange plant
life. The claim "grass is green" would not cohere with other beliefs because you have no
beliefs that include the concept "grass." The claim, "grass is green" would be nonsense
because it contains a nonsensical term "grass." That is, you never formed a belief about
grass so there’s nothing for this new belief to cohere with.

6. Consensus Theory: It holds that truth is whatever is agreed upon, or in some versions,
might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group. Such a group might include all
human beings, or a subset thereof consisting of more than one person.

7. Pragmatic Theory: The three most influential forms of the pragmatic theory of

truth were introduced around the turn of the 20th century by Charles Sanders
Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. Although there are wide differences in
viewpoint among these and other proponents of pragmatic theory, they hold in common
that truth is verified and confirmed by the results of putting one's concepts into practice.

6. INDUCTIVE AND DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT

In the study of logical reasoning, arguments can be separated into two categories: deductive and
inductive. Deductive reasoning is sometimes described as a "top-down" form of logic, while
inductive reasoning is considered "bottom-up."

Deductive Argument: Deductive thinking is reasoning from abstract, general principles to a

specific hypothesis that follows from these principles. The arguments resulting from such
thinking are called deductive arguments. For instance:

Sylvia owns only white shirts and blue shirts.

Sylvia is wearing a shirt today.
So Sylvia is wearing either a white shirt or a blue shirt today.

This is an example of a deductive argument. It is so because the two premises or the supportive
evidence are the first and the second statements are proven to be true. If the premises are true,
then the conclusion or the deduction from the two will definitely be true. Such statements are
logically correct. In deductive arguments, the supportive evidence guarantees a sure, truthful
conclusion. In these statements, the premises provide a strong support to the argument. And if
the premises are correct, then it is impossible for the conclusion to be wrong. In a deductive
argument, the inference or the conclusion is certain.

Inductive argument: Inductive thinking involves a complementary process of observing a

number of specific events or instances and interfering with an abstract, general principle to
explain those instances. The arguments resulting from such thinking are called inductive
arguments. For instance:

The first cat is white.

The second cat is white.
 The third cat is white.
The fourth cat is white.
So, all cats are white.

This is an example of an inductive statement. An inductive argument is based on more of the

observation of the supportive evidence. The inference or the conclusion derived in an inductive
argument is only a probable truth. The conclusion is induced in these types of statements.

7. EMPIRICISM
Empiricism, in philosophy, is the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts
are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs
or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience. This
broad definition accords with the derivation of the term empiricism from the ancient Greek
word empeiria, “experience.” It holds that the best way to gain knowledge is to see, hear, touch,
or otherwise sense things directly. In stronger versions, it holds that this is the only kind of
knowledge that really counts.

Concepts are said to be “a posteriori” (Latin: “from the latter”) if they can be applied only on the
basis of experience, and they are called “a priori” (“from the former”) if they can be applied
independently of experience. Beliefs or propositions are said to be a posteriori if they are
knowable only on the basis of experience and a priori if they are knowable independently of
experience (see a posteriori knowledge). Thus, according to the second and third definitions of
empiricism above, empiricism is the view that all concepts, or all rationally acceptable beliefs or
propositions, are a posteriori rather than a priori.

Empiricism is often contrasted with rationalism, a rival school which holds that knowledge is
based primarily on logic and intuition, or innate ideas that we can understand through
contemplation, not observation. For example;

Rationalists hold that you don’t have to make any observations to know that 1+1=2; any person
who understands the concepts of “one” and “addition” can work it out for themselves.
Empiricists argue the opposite: that we can only understand 1+1=2 because we’ve seen it in
action throughout our lives. As children, empiricists say, we learn by observing adults, and that’s
how we gain abstract knowledge about things like math and logic. Of course, ideally, knowledge
consists of both observation and logic; you don’t have to choose between the two. It’s more a
matter of which one you emphasize.

There is a combined philosophy, called constructivism, which represents one way to get the best
of both worlds. Constructivists, like empiricists, argue that knowledge is based, first and
foremost, on observing the world around us. But we can’t understand what we see unless we fit
it into some broader rational structure, so reason also plays an essential role. Constructivism is a
high-profile idea in the philosophy of education, and many teachers use it to design their lessons:
the idea is to present information in an order that builds on previous information, so that over
time students “construct” a picture of the subject at hand, and at each step they are able to
“place” the new information in the context of old information.
 8. SKEPTICISM
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, in Western philosophy, is the attitude of doubting
knowledge claims set forth in various areas. Skeptics have challenged the adequacy or reliability
of these claims by asking what principles they are based upon or what they actually establish.
They have questioned whether some such claims really are, as alleged, indubitable or necessarily
true, and they have challenged the purported rational grounds of accepted assumptions. In
everyday life, practically everyone is skeptical about some knowledge claims; but philosophical
skeptics have doubted the possibility of any knowledge beyond that of the contents of directly
felt experience. The original Greek meaning of skeptikos was “an inquirer,” someone who was
unsatisfied and still looking for truth.

Skepticism, at its heart, holds that in order to understand the universe, it is best to actually look at
it and find out. This means challenging those who merely assert their beliefs about nature, and
demanding that they show how they have derived their ideas. Theories and suggestions that can
be, and are, backed by evidence and are deemed logically coherent are kept, while those that fail
this test are rejected - but, very importantly, nothing is ever held above this challenge. Regardless
of how often an idea or theory passes the test of evidence, skepticism holds that there is always a
possibility, however slight, that it might be wrong. As a result, skepticism is the true meaning of
having an open mind, and in many respects is synonymous with the scientific method.

9. DETERMINISM
Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, decision and action is causally
determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. This does not necessarily mean that
humans have no influence on the future and its events (a position more correctly known
as Fatalism), but that the level to which humans have influence over their future is
itself dependent on present and past. Taken to its logical extreme, Determinism would argue that
the initial Big Bang triggered every single action, and possibly mental thought, through a system
of cause and effect. Types of Determinism include;

 Causal Determinism (or Nomological Determinism) is the belief that future events are

necessitated by past and present events combined with the laws of nature. Thus, all events
have a cause and effect and the precise combination of events at a particular time results in
a particular outcome.
 Logical Determinism is the notion that all propositions (i.e. assertions or declarative
sentences), whether about the past, present or future, are either true or false. The question
then arises as to how choices can be free, given that what one does in the future is already
determined as true or false in the present.
 Environmental Determinism (or Climatic or Geographical Determinism) is the view
that the physical environment, rather than social conditions, determines culture.
 Biological Determinism is the idea that all behavior, belief and desire is fixed by
our genetic endowment and make-up and cannot be changed.
 Theological Determinism is the belief that there is a God who determines all that humans
will do, either by knowing their actions in advance (via some form of omniscience) or
by decreeing their actions in advance.
 Emergentism (or Generativism) argues that free will does not exist, although
an illusion of Free Will is experienced due to the generation of apparently infinite
 variations in behavior from the interaction of a finite (and deterministic) set of rules and
parameters. Thus the unpredictability of the emerging behavior which we see in daily life
actually stems from complex, but entirely deterministic, processes.

10. ESSENTIALISM
Essentialism, at its simplest, is the view that things have essences (the attribute, or set of
attributes, that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is). Thus, for any specific kind
of entity, there is a set of characteristics (or properties or traits), all of which any entity of that
kind must have. A member of a specific kind of entity may possess other characteristics but these
neither establishnor preclude its membership.

It is contrasted with Non-Essentialism (which states that there are no specific traits which any

given kind of entity must have), and with Nominalism (which states that abstract
concepts, general terms or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names).

An essence characterizes a permanent, unalterable and eternal substance, or a form (in the sense

of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic Realism). Plato was therefore one of the first essentialists,
believing in the concept of ideal forms, an abstract entity of which individual objects are mere
facsimiles. Classical Humanism has an essentialist conception of the human being, which means
that it believes in an eternal and unchangeable human nature.
 Mereological Essentialism is the view that objects have their parts essentially.
Therefore, if an object loses or gains a part, it would effectively cease to exist in that it
would not be the same object anymore.
 Ethical Essentialism (or Moral Absolutism) is the claim that some things are wrong in
an essential or absolute sense, breaking a universal, objective and natural moral law and
not merely an adventitious, socially or ethically constructed one.
 Epistemological Essentialism is the view that all entities have intrinsic properties that
can be discerned by reason (sometimes attributed to Aristotle).
 Sociological Essentialism is a sociological (as opposed to philosophical) theory which
states that positions on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity or other group characteristics
are fixed traits, not allowing for variations among individuals or over time. It has been
used, at different times, as a convenient doctrine by
both nationalist and liberationist movements, and for simplifying the task
of colonization and imperialism.
 Educational Essentialism is an educational (as opposed to philosophical) theory that
states that children should learn the traditional basic subjects and that these should be
learned thoroughly and rigorously. An essentialist program normally teaches
children progressively, from less complex skills to more complex.

11. EXISTENTIALISM
Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the
view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite
existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling
that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or
any other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to
find meaning in life) is by embracing existence.
Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must take personal
responsibility for themselves (although with this responsibility comes angst, a profound anguish
or dread). It therefore emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and holds that
the only way to rise above the essentially absurd condition of humanity (which is characterized
by suffering and inevitable death) is by exercising our personal freedom and choice (a complete
rejection of Determinism).

Often, Existentialism as a movement is used to describe those who refuse to belong to any school

of thought, repudiating of the adequacy of any body of beliefs or systems, claiming them to be
superficial, academic and remote from life. Although it has much in common with Nihilism,
Existentialism is more a reaction against traditional philosophies, such
as Rationalism, Empiricism and Positivism, that seek to discover an ultimate order and
universal meaning in metaphysical principles or in the structure of the observed world. It asserts
that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them, rather than what
is rational.

Existentialism originated with the 19th Century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich

Nietzsche, although neither used the term in their work. In the 1940s and 1950s, French
existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus (1913 - 1960), and Simone de
Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) wrote scholarly and fictional works that popularized existential themes,
such as dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment and nothingness.

12. METAPHYSICS
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy responsible for the study of existence. It is the
foundation of a worldview. It answers the question "What is?" It encompasses everything that
exists, as well as the nature of existence itself. It says whether the world is real, or merely an
illusion. It is a fundamental view of the world around us.

Why is Metaphysics important?

Metaphysics is the foundation of philosophy. Without an explanation or an interpretation of the

world around us, we would be helpless to deal with reality. We could not feed ourselves, or act
to preserve our lives. The degree to which our metaphysical worldview is correct is the degree to
which we are able to comprehend the world, and act accordingly. Without this firm foundation,
all knowledge becomes suspect. Any flaw in our view of reality will make it more difficult to
live.

What are the key elements of a rational metaphysics?

Reality is absolute. It has a specific nature independent of our thoughts or feelings. The world
around us is real. It has a specific nature and it must be consistent to that nature. A proper
metaphysical worldview must aim to understand reality correctly. The physical world exists, and
every entity has a specific nature. It acts according to that nature. When different entities interact,
they do so according to the nature of both. Every action has a cause and an effect. Causality is
the means by which change occurs, but the change occurs via a specific nature.