WHAT HAVE I LEARNED ABOUT PHILOSOPHY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

WHAT HAVE I LEARNED ABOUT PHILOSOPHY - Essay Example Philosophy has been in existence with the coming of the first human being, and was present even before the ancient civilisations of Greece, China, India Egypt, and Mesopotamia had come into being. It started when the first man questioned ‘what is life?’, and slowly took a definite shape, as this questioning initially entered the realms of religious traditions and mythical aspects; then evolved further to become abstract in nature (initially wisdom was more religion oriented, and the philosophers/high priests were held in high esteem, thought to be in direct connotation with the Supreme Being, and thus not questioned by the common people, out of fear and reverence). Later, came the more secular thinkers (that is, philosophy which is not anti-religious in nature; but merely independent of religion), in and around 6th BC, that based their questions on reason and observation, rather than religion and tradition. It was then that philosophy took on a more humanistic form and a ppeal, and came down from the abode of the high priests and the Almighty God, to touch the lives of all the common people. These secular thinkers were thus the first true philosophers, the first seekers of true wisdom. Thus we can say that philosophy in its early form can be said to be a sort of inquiry that was secular in nature, and based on reason and logic. Some of the early well known thinkers were Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, sages from the ancient Hindu philosophy, and Buddha. Middle-ages philosophy saw the replacement of religion by science, and soon two branches of philosophy came into existence which soon separated from the mainstream philosophy; mathematics and science (referred to as the ‘natural philosophy’ till the late nineteenth century). Modern day philosophy deals with questions that fall beyond the scope of these two branches of sciences and cannot be solved by them. Well known philosophers from the middle ages