This document provides an overview of the nature, purpose, and background of philosophy. It defines philosophy as the love of wisdom and discusses Pythagoras' classification of different types of people according to their loves. The document also examines the etymological meanings of key philosophical terms like philia and sophia. It outlines the historical development of philosophy from ancient to contemporary periods and describes the main branches of philosophy including metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, and logic. Finally, it discusses why philosophy is important and provides references for further reading.

2. Philosophy: Its Nature,
Purpose and Background
Franco Bugia Pelayo, MPA, MBA
Program Head – Bachelor of Public Administration
College of Governance
Trece Martires City College

3. Classification of Men According to
Pythagoras
•Lover of Pleasure
•Lover of Success
•Lover of Wisdom

4. Etymological Meaning of Philosophy
•Philos (φιλοσ) - Love
•Sophia (σοφία) – Wisdom
•Ergo, Philosophy Means “Love of
Wisdom”

5. Philia (φιλία)
"affectionate regard, friendship", usually "between
equals". (Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott)
It is a dispassionate virtuous love, a concept
developed by Aristotle. (Alexander Moseley.)
Philia is expressed variously as loyalty to friends,
family, and community, and requires virtue, equality,
and familiarity. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)

6. Sophia (σοφία)
• “a perfect knowledge of all
things that man can know,
both the conduct of his life
by preserving his health and
the invention of all arts.”
(Rene Descartes)

7. Nature of Philosophical Inquiry
David Papineau
• “Philosophy is thinking hard about
the most difficult problems that
there are. And you might think
scientists do that too, but there’s a
certain kind of question whose
difficulty can’t be resolved by
getting more empirical evidence. It
requires an untangling of
presuppositions: figuring out that
our thinking is being driven by ideas
we didn’t even realize that we had.
And that’s what philosophy is.”

8. Philosophical Process
Rational
Inquiry
Discovery of a
Partial Truth
Wondering

9. Can Absolute Truth
be Attained? Why
or Why Not?
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10. Historical Development of Philosophy
• Cosmocentric
• Anthropocentric
Ancient
• Theocentric
Medieval
• Homocentric
Modern
• Analytic
• Continental
Contemporary

11. Branches of Philosophy
Metaphysics
• An attempt to
determine what
is real
Epistemology
• Questions about
knowledge and
knowing
Axiology
• Seeking wisdom
about the nature
of ethical and
aesthetic values
Logic
• Procedures for
arguing that
bring people to
valid conclusions

12. Key Questions in Metaphysics
• What is the meaning of life?
• Does life have a purpose?
• Are people born good or evil?
• Does the universe have a design or purpose?

13. Key Questions in Epistemology
• What are the limits of knowledge?
• Where do we find the sources of knowledge?
• How do we acquire knowledge?
• Are there ways of determining the validity of knowledge?
• What is the truth?

14. Key Questions in Axiology
• Ethical
• What are values and why are they important?
• How should we live our lives? What is right and what is wrong?
• Aesthetic
• How do we judge what we see, touch and hear?
• What is beauty

15. Key Questions in Logic
• What is the validity of Ideas and how can this be
determined?
• How can we communicate with others without
contradicting ourselves
• What do our arguments mean?

16. Why Philosophy?
”We do not escape into
philosophy, psychology,
and art--we go there to
restore our shattered
selves into whole ones”
(Anaïs Nin)

17. References
• Gaarder, Jostein,(1994). Sophie's world : a novel about the history of philosophy. New
York :Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• Agdalpen Renato T. (2019)Humanities 6 – Social Philosophy: Being Social Being. Manila:
Mindshapers Co. Inc.
• Edmonds, David (1964) Philosophy Bites. Oxford: Oxford University Press
• Online Sources:
• Philosophy Index. URL: http://www.philosophy-index.com/
• Tim, "What is Wisdom ? Philosophical Definition, May 26, 2012, " in Philosophy &
Philosophers, May 26, 2012, https://www.the-philosophy.com/wisdom-philosophical-
definition.
• https://www.ancient.eu/socrates/#:~:text=Socrates%20(469%2F470%2D399,the%20fat
her%20of%20western%20philosophy.&text=Although%20Socrates%20is%20generally%20
regarded,honor%20is%2C%20rightly%2C%20challenged.
• https://www.ethicssage.com/2010/12/what-is-ethics.html
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/epistemology
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/metaphysics/Problems-in-metaphysics
• https://www.apaonline.org/page/undergraduates