THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY

             Philosophy means "love of wisdom." The word was first coined by Pythagoras.  Wisdom is a matter not of knowledge but of understanding and insight. It is achieved by enquiring into the why of things rather than into their how or what. Such enquiries lead philosophy to ask questions that are more basic and fundamental than those asked by science: not "what is the cause of X?" but "Is it the case that everything has a cause?"  Unlike religion, philosophy wants to understand why things are the way they are and not simply to accept on faith that they must be so. Philosophy may in part be defined as an attempt, by way of reason alone, to gain an understanding of our nature and the nature of the world we live in. To be a Philosopher, therefore, is to be interested in the following four questions, which give rise to philosophy's four main areas:

   * What are we like and what should we do? (ethics)

   * Is the world such that we can do it? (metaphysics)

   * How do we know all this? (epistemology)

   * How much faith can we place in this knowledge? (logic)