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Philosophy is nothing but magical formulae.

-- Gothean[1]

Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Historically, philosophy is the mother of the major intellectual fields. Philosophy is a type of intellectual tradition dialectic. Philosophy has its saints and martyrs. Philosophy is often said to require a great desire to learn. Philosophy is contrary to prejudice, such as the prejudice of snob or credentialism. Any lover of wisdom is a philosopher. Philosophy is the mother of science.

Traditionally, philosophy is an ascetic program for the craft of (general) intelligence.[2]

Philosophy is a very wide-ranging program. It's a program of desire for production. The production of knowledge. It produces knowledge by e.g. defining what knowledge is (e.g. Socrates and Plato do this), thus it includes epistemology, which is the philosophy of knowledge. The production of a specific epistemology produced modern science, famously by the philosopher Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon worked with axioms set forth by Aristotle. Aristotle studied Plato, and produced work somewhat in conversation to (or conversely to) to the work of Plato. 

Ascetic to the extent that philosophy involves the exercise of a multistage, disciplined, and open-ended reflection on the condition of the possibility of itself as a form of thought that turns thinking into a program.[3] 

  • Philosophy in the broad sense: Philosophy as the love of wisdom free to draw upon every source of truth available to us, including divine revelation. For a Christian, this is metaphysical and moral theology, which is the fulfillment—because of both its completeness and its certitude—of the classical search for systematic wisdom. (See Fides et Ratio, ## 75-79.)[4]
  • Philosophy in the narrow sense: Philosophy as the pursuit of wisdom appealing only to the deliverances of reason and without direct appeal to divine revelation. This is "philosophical" metaphysics and moral theory, which presuppose the ancillary philosophical disciplines such as logic, philosophy of nature, philosophy of mind, etc.[4]
  • Question: Why does St. Thomas make this distinction? Answer: Because of his respect (and that of many Fathers of the Church) for the intellectual achievements of certain key predecessors among the philosophers.  Notice the distinct projects of the Summa Theologiae (articulating the metaphysical and moral dimensions of Christian wisdom, including its central Christological element) and the Summa Contra Gentiles (showing that Christian wisdom is a plausible candidate for philosophical wisdom by the very same criteria — certitude and completeness — employed by the classical philosophers).  The Summa Contra Gentiles is a work addressed as a whole to a Christian audience, but what the audience gets to see is the conversation of St. Thomas (and his Christian friends) with the intellectually and morally well-disposed non-Christian philosophers[4]

Rhizomata[]

Types[]

"Presentism is the view that only present things exist (Hinchliff 1996: 123; Crisp 2004: 15; Markosian 2004: 47–48). So understood, presentism is an ontological doctrine; it’s a view about what exists (what there is), absolutely and unrestrictedly. The view is the subject of extensive discussion in the literature, with much of it focused on the problems that presentism allegedly faces." 

References[]

  1. 2021, if you will.
  2. R. Negarestani
  3. R. Negarestani
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 Alfred J. Freddoso Buffalo Bills John and Jean Oesterle Professor Emeritus of Thomistic Studies Professor Emeritus of Philosophy University of Notre Dame

 

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