Jan 28, 2014

Developing a little intuition about Philosophy

Hello learners,
As I had mentioned in my earlier post, we need to start grappling with philosophy as a subject of study. This means we get our heads around a little jargon. An introductory piece was in the links in that post - step 1. Some more stuff in a quick form can be found here. Having read this and some other books on philosophy, you should be able to figure out which branch of philosophy deals with which kind of issues. The purpose for learning this is:
  1. To take a narrow view - it helps when you are faced with a quote at the IPO or a similar exam/competition, to know which branch the issue belongs to, as this helps you recollect the different thinkers / isms contributing to this area. (assuming to store information systematically) Hence you can construct your argument for the essay.
  2. To take it slightly broader - It helps you to store info systematically, when you learn about the ideas in context of their development and the thinkers' backgrounds - more like learning the history of philosophy. However, to achieve this in a short time, its best to take a quick input of material, such as in the links above.
So now, try to sort out the following as an assignment and answer the same as comments to this post.
Which branch(es) would deal with the following issues? Give the broad branch first, then be more specific
e.g. Q: What is Life? What do you call as "alive"? Answer: broadly - Metaphysics; finer look - Ontology
  1. In what way should one submit oneself to God.
  2. What are the conditions for saying "I Know"? Is it sufficient to have heard it from someone or is it necessary to actually have seen it / sensed it?
  3. What is the meaning of adding the number 1 to any number?
  4. Is beauty really in the eye of the beholder or is it really about the hand of the artist?
  5. Does a person have a right to complain about the religious practices of his neighbors if the sound of these practices is reaching his home, loudly? Does this mean that he is being intolerant? Is this morally wrong?
  6. Is it appropriate to feed lots of chocolates to a chimpanzee to see if the chimp starts suffering from diabetes?
  7. Is it 'OK' to mimic Shah Rukh Khan (dance or speech or fashion) because you adore him? Girls may choose Katrina Kaif.
  8. What is a joke? What makes us laugh?
So send me the answers in a couple of days. I intend to move to the next step by this weekend.


1 comment:

  1. 5th is ethics
    6th is also ethics
    7th is also ethics
    8th first part is meta physics 2nd is epistemology...

    ReplyDelete

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