“Philosophy” is a word that most of us are familiar with. Expressions such as
“my philosophy”, or “the philosophy of the company” usually refer to a set of values for
a person or organization. One might say “that’s so philosophical”, or “they’re just philosophizing”,
referring to seemingly profound ideas, or even nonsensical babbling. Logic,
on the other hand, appears to have a more objective, practical use. “It’s logical”,
Spock would always say, meaning guided by reason alone, free from emotional influence. Logic is
surgical and mathematical. Regardless of how familiar you are with these topics,
they may seem rather distant from everyday life, like the musings of a poet, or abstract math.
However, philosophy and logic are not as different as they might seem. Although dressing in robes and
asking rhetorical questions to the night sky may be part of the philosophical enterprise,
philosophy and logic also permeate everything around us: from state-of-the art science and
technology, to law and the constitution. From language and literature, to fashion and culture.
Although science itself can be traced back to the first time a hominid made fire artificially,
or developed a novel form of hunting after observing the behavioral patterns of their prey,
the central tools and methods which are at its core were conceived by the earliest
philosophical inquirers. As they attempted to understand the world around them without
relying purely on myths and legends, they were in a way, behaving like modern scientists,
as they established the epistemological basis for what the sciences would become. Knowledge,
after all, encompasses every field of study, and thus philosophy – which means “love of knowledge”
in Greek – began as an attempt to categorize and systematize everything into coherent perspectives,
giving birth to the earliest formal models of science as we understand it today. Even though
logic itself may be considered a specific area of philosophical inquiry, it is predominately
a methodological tool characterizing how most discourse and analysis operates,
as it does in contemporary philosophy and science. There certainly are specific applications of
philosophy, such as “philosophy of mind”, “philosophy of science”, and so forth,
and many philosophers also excelled in other fields, like Parmenides, Gödel,
Hypatia, Pythagoras, Marx, Descartes, and countless others. Nevertheless, philosophy is
itself an area of knowledge, and refers mainly to an inquisitive, critical endeavor to analyze and
understand the world around us. As an intellectual field, it has almost universal origins,
and at least 2500 years of recorded history, split into several research areas and schools
of thought. In this series, we will seek to learn about the most important figures, movements, and
conclusions that have characterized this inquiry. As with anything else pertaining to philosophy,
the actual number of areas of philosophy are controversial, as many overlap with one
another. But here are a few of the main ones that will be examined in this series. Ethics
is the most well-known. Its etymological roots and its alternative name, moral philosophy, both
come from character, custom, and culture. It’s the analysis of these behaviors and actions, of what
is good or bad, and what those words may mean. Epistemology, also known as theory of knowledge,
investigates what knowledge and belief are, how we obtain them, and what it means for them to be true
or false, or if they can even be categorized as such. Ontology, also referred to as metaphysics,
likewise analyzes existence: what it means to “be”, how things come to be and cease to be.
Precisely what “is” or exists, their properties and categorization, and what reality itself is.
Aesthetics studies beauty and ugliness, art, that which is sublime or horrid, what they represent,
how our senses apprehend these tastes, and how they are categorized. Political
philosophy investigates the values of justice and political systems, the roles and relationships of
governments, citizens, and communities, their rights and duties, and law itself.
Philosophy of Science studies the methodology, concepts, and overarching structures of scientific
thought, with several subfields being philosophy of biology, of chemistry, of physics and others.
There’s philosophy of religion, which differs from theology for its critical analysis of religious
texts, doctrines, and concepts regarding faith. Philosophy of mind represents many areas which
deal with consciousness, from epistemology to ontology and others, serving as the origin of
psychology in the 17th century, and recently delving into studies of cognition. And finally,
there is philosophy of language, which deals with meaning and the relationship
between interpretation, verbal and written language, their speakers, and the world.
What all of these areas have in common, and the manner in which they are able to dialogue with
each other, is argumentation. An argument is a kind of reasoning that differs from an opinion
or a mere single utterance about something. With an argument, there are premises, which can
be phrases, expressions, or other kinds of true or false statements. These result in or infer a
conclusion – a movement thus called inference. And this happens everywhere, from scientific papers to
parents explaining to their children why they can or can’t do something. This is where logic comes
in, as it examines whether the reasoning behind such discourse is valid or truthful. For example,
“All YouTubers are mortal/Dave is a YouTuber/Dave is mortal” is an argument composed of two premises
and a conclusion. They all happen to be true, and the conclusion seems to be a direct result of the
premises; but conclusions may not directly result from a premise, and logic is responsible for
verifying this. In this series, we will also see how logic developed from one format to another,
as well as the main concepts and ideas behind these alterations and applicability, in terms
of both discourse and technology. That’s right, the device you’re using to watch this video runs
on logic boards that are inherently dependent on logical systems of philosophical origins.
Although philosophy and logic can be difficult to grasp, this series will provide a basic
understanding of these areas, and convey how relevant they are to the world today. In a
chronological way, we will discuss the main thinkers and schools of thought in every time
period, from Ancient Greece, through the Medieval period, followed by the Renaissance and modernity,
then moving on to the 20th century and all the way up to their current formulations,
focusing largely on logic and the scientific relevance of theories. There will also be specific
tutorials focusing on the logical implications of the ideas we discuss, with the goal of learning
how to identify valid arguments in most contexts, and the philosophical underpinnings behind these
methods. So if that all sounds invigorating to you, let’s start learning philosophy!