What is Philosophy?: Lure of Philosophy, The
Five philosophers share their rationale for becoming philosophers. Their motivations range widely. One philosopher uses their profession to find answers regarding the existence of God while another simply wants to constr..
What is Philosophy?: Plato's Myth of the Cave; Its Relevance Today
Plato's parable of the cave, written in the 4th century B.C.E., portrays how philosophy works. In the parable prisoners sit in the bottom of a cave, their heads chained so they can only see shadows cast by objects moving..
What is Philosophy?: Relationship of Philosophy to Other Fields of Thought
What is philosophy? How is it related to other fields of thought? How is it different? In response to these questions, nine preeminent scholars create an insightful view of philosophy and the role it plays in contemporar..
What is Philosophy?: Socrates and His Method
Perhaps the most famous example of how "to do" philosophy was provided by Plato's teacher, Socrates. Socrates loved to be with people, to talk with them, argue with them, and ask them what they thought about a variety of..
What is Philosophy?: Socrates on Trial
Socrates, accused of impiety, undermining faith in the traditional gods, and corrupting the youth of Athens, is tried before a jury of 500 Athenians. He describes how he became involved in philosophy and challenges Thras..
What is Real?: Anti-realists' Thesis
Anti-realists contend that we shape the external world into the reality we know through our conceptual systems, language, and thought processes. Things are as we name them, parts and wholes as we define them. This applie..
What is Real?: Arguments Against Metaphysical Speculation
Some philosophers object to the idea that there is a spiritual reality different from the physical world as mere metaphysical speculation. As one group contends anything we cannot perceive with our senses or prove scien..
What is Real?: Basic Nature of Reality, The
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that probes the basic nature of reality, trying to find a simple explanation for that which is complex. It looks at the world from both an onotological and cosmological point of vi..
What is Real?: Breaking Through: Finding One's Own Reality
Getting in touch with true reality requires us to break through the time-encrusted schemes accepted by society rather than remain one of the prisoners Plato described in the Parable of the Cave. Cultural forces often enc..
What is Real?: Comparitive Realities of Children and Adults
What does it mean to say that a child gains a sense of reality? Recent studies of the brain suggest that each person's sense of reality is finely etched by the strength, size, or weight of the synaptic connections in the..