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Critical
Thinking
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Five Branches of Philosophy
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Metaphysics
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Study of Existence
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What's out there?
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Epistemology
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Study of Knowledge
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How do I know?
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Ethics
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Study of Action
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Which is best to do?
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Politics
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Study of Force
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What is permissible?
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Esthetics
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Study of Art
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What can life be like?
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What is Metaphysics?
- the branch of philosophy concerned with existence.
- It is the foundation of a world view.
- It says whether the world is real, or merely illusion.
- Metaphysics leads to ways of thinking, esthetics, governmental
system, and ethics.
Nonexistence
Subjectivism
- The belief that we cannot know anything.
- Everyone's mind is different.
- Everyone experiences events differently.
- Humans are the cause of existence.
Solipsism
- The belief that your own mental states are the only
states.
- This means that only your self exists, nothing else.
- All is a creation of your imagination including other
beings.
- Others, who may appear to be alive, are actually just
projections of your own being.
- "He who sees everything as nothing but the Self, and the Self
in everything he sees, such a seer withdraws from nothing.
- For the enlightened, all that exists is nothing but the Self,
so how could any suffering or delusion continue for those who know
this oneness?
Nihilism
- A form of skepticism that denies all existence.
- A doctrine holding that all values are baseless
- Belief that nothing can be known or communicated.
Fatalism
- All events are predetermined by fate and are therefore
unalterable.
- The belief that all events are predetermined and
inevitable.
Existence
Objectivism
- Reality is objective and external to the mind
- Knowledge is reliably based on observed objects and
events.
Positivism
- Sense perceptions are the only admissible basis of
knowledge and thought.
- The application of this doctrine in logic, epistemology, and
ethics.
Free Will
- The ability to choose
- The power of making choices that are unconstrained.
Rationalism
- Reliance on reason as the guide for belief and action.
- The theory that the exercise of reason, rather than
experience, authority, or spiritual revelation, provides the
primary basis for knowledge.
Logical positivism
- The primacy of observation in assessing truth
- Subjective arguments are meaningless.
- Also called logical empiricism.