Nicholas M. VanHorn
Philosophy 101
Wisdom, logic, and the bigger picture
Have you ever questioned why the earth is a circle? Or what about why could the sky be blue? Even how could there be a man who possessed powers as great as to making an entire existence? This is the some of the questions philosophers have. That’s why the essence of philosophy is the use of human desire to know more about the world and to search for an answers to someone’s question. It teaches one how to think - not what to think. It teaches the history of thought, and the basis of science, art and religion. It's like an owner's manual for your mind, thoughts, and beliefs. Philosophers in ancient Greece, weren’t made philosophers by a school at first, they were the ones who questioned things, and whom thought with a rational mind to solve questions. They knew how to argue to prove they could be right or on to something. I think everyone can be a philosopher by expressing their own opinion, because there is no defined answer to the mysteries of life. The Greek word “philosophy” literally means “love of wisdom.” Therefore, philosophy is thoughts and ideas about existence, knowledge, values, reason, the mind and language. Everyone has a bit of philosophical questions in them. Even if it’s just why the grass is green, or how did someone know what time it was what numbers weren’t around.
Overlooking this discipline is easy to an irrational or scientific mind, because in the past the Greeks used philosophy built upon myths to scare or believe something. This was called Mythos which is a certain way of thinking that paced the world context of its supernatural origins. The myths had an advantage of creating a whole social world in which all acts had meaning. Philosophy is pretty adamant about that sometimes there isn’t an answer for everything and that is how this discipline differs from mythos. With myths they had a disadvantage though, of creating static societies, of resisting innovation, which caused many to conclude in mythos being false. This caused Philosophy to be born and logos came into the picture, using logical explanations rather than supernatural origins. Logos is basically logic; in the science term it is referred to as theory, study, or rationalization of something. The act of speaking or setting forth an idea in a clear manner, it designates a certain kind of thinking about the world, analysis that places context in reason and explains them with pure force. Those who dedicated themselves to logos were thought of as lovers of wisdom, hence as philosophers. Therefore, philosophy came about as the knowledge that there might not be an answer for everything, but the logic behind not knowing can lead to a better mind, and society when questioning things or to gain wisdom.
Mythos tend to make a theory sound false and totally off base, while philosophy changes the theory into a more logic and thought out argument. The difference between philosophy and mythos is that philosophy is thinking logically through a rational thought process rather than mythos which is based upon supernatural origins. For example, the reason it rains, is supposed to be the angels crying or when it thunders it’s the gods bowling. It is an event that happens that someone uses to explain an event that could be explained by a logical reason like clouds from and from the hot temperature mix creates a thunderstorm. A thinker who believes in this would be Socrates or Plato considering their stance on rational thinking which is a huge factor into many of their reasoning and theories, Plato even develops an ideal world on it. Socrates believed that there was 3 methods to philosophic arguments the thesis being number one, the antithesis, and the synthesis. Which proved they would prove that their view was maybe an opinion but not based off of supernatural origins or myths. This lead to a huge amount of people joining to follow Socrates because of him using logical