Some Issues to Consider

In our class session on Thursday 4 October 2007, I asked for a listing of the most important matters we should examine in the next two weeks.

The answers included:

considering opinions on the "multiverse" versus the "universe"
going over stuff
reviewing terms
examining different schools of thought
considering whether thoughts exist, what deja vu is
discuss philosophers
discuss the concept of "facts"
discuss the distinction between eastern and Western philosophies

The first is a matter of cosmology, an example of a problem of metaphysics. Any questions surrounding the ultimate nature of reality fall into this category.

"Examining different schools of thought" is certainly a traditional way of approaching an overview to philosophy. Any given school of philosophy or individual philosopher's examination includes some degree of consideration of every major field of philosophy: epistemology, logic, axiology, and metaphysics; however, each school or philosopher places a different emphasis on these fields. For example, Socrates was very strong in the examination of ethics and epistemology; he employed the rules of logic, but was not particularly engaged in the study of logic; he was very little interested in metaphysics. Spinoza, by contrast, was much interested in metaphysics, but rather less in the other areas. Kant planned to give an even treatment to all of the areas. His specialty in a way was logic, but he is famous for his "Critique of Pure Reason", which is both epistemology and metaphysics.

Discussing philosophers and the difference between Eastern and Western philosophies, also, is traditional in a overview course. It's useful to the formulation of our own philosophies to consider those of others. We will devote some effort to this in the second half of the course.