Philosophy for Beginners. Origin, Areas and Value of Philosophy

Essay from the year 2021 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: B+, , language: English, abstract: The primary purpose of this essay is to deconstruct the negative conception of philosophy, providing insight into its nature not only as an aspect of the general human (intellectual) endeavor to acquire self-knowledge, but also to make the philosophical enterprise accessible not only to students making a fresh contact with the discipline or the Universities but also the lay persons who are interested in self-understanding, liberation and critical evaluation of the perennial ideas of human existence. This essay uses the two principal tools of philosophy namely; language and Logic to deploy philosophical expertise and mastery for everyday existential value. Through the language tool, the student and lay readers of philosophy are capacitated with a good command of language of communication to achieve clarity of thought, analysis of ideas and cognitive advantage over nature. The Logic tool on the other hand adds to human capacity the means of proving valid or invalid arguments through the general principles and techniques of good reasoning to the communication or articulation of ideas via the use of symbols. Using these tools, philosophy enlightens humanity, encourages open mindedness and broadens our sensibilities and sensitivity to the ideas of tolerance cooperation and compassion among others. It is here assumed that, knowledge of philosophy will generate and grow our conceptual and theoretical framework for perceiving, feeling, evaluating and transforming reality in our everyday lived lives.