Philosophy is often used to describe or refer to any system of beliefs whether of a society or a person or a group of persons. These beliefs can be about anything like religion, science even education; basic beliefs about anything at all.
However this is the layman meaning or the casual meaning of the word "philosophy".
Philosophy is actually a full fledged discipline, and it comprises of some major areas of study which include -
- Epistemology, the study of knowledge and belief.
- Logic, the study of what follows from what.
- Metaphysics, the study of the basic nature of existence and reality.
- Value Theory, which includes ethics/moral philosophy, political philosophy, aesthetics, and similar areas.
- Philosophy of Science and Mathematics, including Philosophy of Mind.
Starting with a study of philosophy however elementary it might be, appears usually to be daunting task for most people. This is usually due to common perception among people about philosophy as well as the somewhat complicated language that serious discussions of philosophy employs.
To get a small taste of philosophy, I highly recommend Bertrand Russell's essay called "On Denoting". It is very easy to follow for somebody with some background in mathematical logic and mathematical notation.
A very nice reading list is provided by the Philosophy community on reddit. They also have an excellent FAQ which does an awesome job of explaining what exactly is philosophy and a detailed description of its various fields of study.
Reading List and other resources
- Reddit Philosophy community reading list
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- International Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Society Of Mind by Ankit Hooda is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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