Research Paper

“PHILOSOPHY AND LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE OF IT”
PHILOSOPHY 1381
UIW
December 9, 2007

Abstract

Wow, we’re finally at the end of our exploration into the world of philosophy. It been quite a long road for me but I made it through it all. Exploring this world that I had little knowledge of has broadened my horizon in the subject of philosophy. As we began we asked our selves “What is Philosophy? Philosophy is knowledge which is desirable in itself of those truths which can be grasped by reason. Philosophy is as important as the heart is to life itself (Stephen. 2005)..

The philosopher desires wisdom for no other purpose than because wisdom is intrinsically worth loving. For this reason, the philosopher is called a Lover of Wisdom (Orlowski, 1995). In Greek the word itself means “love of wisdom”. With the pursuit of wisdom we take on a battle the heart. And out of the heart flows the issues of life, the issues of life is blood which life itself is made of and without it there can be no life. I believe that the pursuit of wisdom should be of importance to everyone as which blood is to life.
We then move on to continue our quest by bringing a little logic to the subject. Logic is defined as the study of fight reasoning. Logic is said to be the primary tool of philosophy because logic provides sound methods for distinguishing good from bad reasoning. It helps us assess how well our premises support our conclusions, to see what we are committed to accepting when we take a view, and to avoid adopting beliefs for which we lack adequate reasons. Logic also helps us to find arguments where we might otherwise simply see a set of loosely related statements, to discover assumptions we did not know we were making, and to formulate the minimum claims we must establish if we are to prove our point. (Audi, 2000)
Logic plays a key role in philosophy. If there is going to be any rational discussion of different philosophical positions, the discussion must use the rules of logic. While logic will not specify what the content of the statements are, it will tell you how to arrange the statements in a logical fashion
Next we begin our exploration of, The Question of Reality. Where we answer questions such as: What is reality? What are things made of? What is ultimate? What is it that everything depends on for its existence? And what is really real?
The Idea of Form, the first full fledged philosophical system, idea or theory revolved around the word “form”. We take a look at the theory of forms through the eyes of Plato, whose theory of form postulates the existence of a level of reality or "world" inhabited by the ideal or archetypal forms of all things and concepts (Bruce, 1998). We also took a look at Aristotle. Who thought that in order to explain coherence and objective knowledge in this world form must be located in particular individual objects (Banach, 2006).
Next we continue our quest in the Question of Reality. We focus on Descartes, The father of modern philosophy, as he gives his philosophy on the questions of Mind and Matter. The mind-body problem arises from an intuition that, somehow, the mind is fundamentally different than matter. If that is the case, then at least two questions immediately arise. First, if mind is different than matter, then what is its nature? Second, if mind and matter are distinct, then in what way do they exert causal influence over each other? How does the body affect the mind and how does the mind affect the body?
Which leads us to the term dualism which is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter, which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical. Theses ideas were originated as far back as Plato and Aristotle. Plato and Aristotle maintained, for different reasons, that people's intelligence could not be identified with, or explained in terms of, their physical body