Positive philosophy is Related to many streams of Philosophy :
Philosophy is characterized as much by its methods as by its subject matter. Although philosophers deal with speculative issues that generally are not subject to investigation through experimental test, and philosophy therefore is more fully conceptual than science, philosophy properly done is not mere speculation. Philosophers, just like scientists, formulate hypotheses which ultimately must answer to reason and evidence. This is one of the things that differentiate philosophy from poetry and mysticism, despite its not being a science. Positive philosophy is an interdisciplinary study approach of man’s life in their ordinary discourse that is related to Educational, Social, Environmental and Health issues. It will combined the problems of such disciplines like :
Applied Philosophy
The term "applied" simply means "to put into practice" or "to be used practically." From this use of the term "applied," we can formulate a general definition of applied philosophy: it is the application of those principles and concepts derived from and based on philosophy to a study of our practical affairs and activities. Notice that these principles and concepts are used to "study" our practical affairs. The reason why this is important is because applied knowledge is third-order philosophical knowledge and does not necessarily lead to a completed "truth" applicable to all times and places.
Applied Ethics
Applied ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply 'theoretical' ethics, such as utilitarianism, social contract theory, and deontology, to real world dilemmas. Topics falling within the discipline include medical ethics, legal ethics, environmental ethics, computer ethics, corporate social responsibility, or business ethics.
Many considerations of applied ethics also come into play in human rights discussions.
Applied ethics seeks to engage formal ethics in attempts to solve actual dilemmas. In doing so, it illuminates the potential for disagreement over the way theories and principles should be applied. Strict, principle-based ethical approaches often result in solutions to specific problems that are not universally acceptable. Drawing on medical ethics for an example, a strict deontological approach would never permit the deception of a patient about their condition, whereas a utilitarian approach would involve consideration of the consequences of so doing, and might permit lying to a patient if the result of the deception was 'good'. The example demonstrates that a deontologist can derive a different solution to a dilemma than a utilitarian.
Social Philosophy
Social philosophy is the philosophical study of questions about social behavior (typically, of humans) Social philosophy addresses a wide range of subjects, from individual meanings to legitimacy of laws, from the social contract to criteria for revolution, from the functions of everyday actions to the effects of science on culture, from changes in human demographics to the collective order of a wasp's ness.
Subdisciplines:
Social Philosophy: the application of moral principles to the problems of freedom, equality, justice and the state.
Relevant issues in social philosophy:
Some of the topics dealt with by social philosophy are:
Agency and free will ,The will to power Accountability ,Speech acts, Situationism, Modernism and Postmodernism, individualism ,crowds, property rights, authority, free will, ideologies cultural criticism।
Social philosophers include:
Socrates, Plato, Chanakya, Confucius, Thiruvalluvar, Thomas, Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Wilhelm-Friedrich Hegel ,Karl Marx ,Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, Émile Durkheim ,Max Weber ,Sigmund Freud ,Carl Jung, Theodor Adorno ,Georg Lukács ,Antonie Pannekoek ,Simone de Beauvoir ,Michel Foucault, Noam Chomsky, Cornelius Castoriadis ,Guy Debord ,Terry Eagleton and Susan Sontag .
Cited from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_philosophy
February 27, 2008 2:07 am
Political Philosophy
Political Philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown—if eve. In a vernacular sense, the term "political philosophy" often refers to a general view, or specific ethic, belief or attitude, about politics that does not necessarily belong to the technical discipline of philosophy.
Three central concerns of political philosophy have been the political economy by which property rights are defined and access to capital is regulated, the demands of justice in distribution and punishment, and the rules of truth and evidence that determine judgments in the law.
Strictly speaking, the philosophy of literature is a branch of aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that deals with the question, "what is art"? Much of aesthetic philosophy has traditionally focused on the plastic arts or music, however, at the expense of the verbal arts. In fact, much traditional discussion of aesthetic philosophy seeks to establish criteria of artistic quality that are indifferent to the subject matter being depicted. Since all literary works, almost by definition, contain notional content, aesthetic theories that rely on purely formal qualities tend to overlook literature.
The very existence of narrative raises philosophical issues. In narrative, a creator can embody, and readers be led to imagine, fictional characters, and even fantastic creatures or technologies. The ability of the human mind to imagine, and even to experience empathy with, these fictional characters is itself revealing about the nature of the human mind. Some fiction can be thought of as a sort of a thought experiment in ethics: they describe fictional characters, their motives, their actions, and the consequences of their actions. It is in this light that some philosophers have chosen various narrative forms to teach their philosophy.
Cited from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_and_literature
February 27, 2008 1:55 AM
Philosophy of Art
Philosophy is the Art of determining the Truth (which requires many years of study of the great minds of human history) such that we may apply this Truth to life. Likewise, the greatest Art is founded on profound Truths that express the wonder and beauty of our relationship to the universe. As Ayn Rand and Henri Matisse write.
Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments। An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature. (Ayn Rand, 'Art and Cognition').
When we speak of Nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of Nature। We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe. (Henri Matisse).
Our modern worldview, with its obsessive focus on Market Economics, Agriculture, and the Ego has allowed us to become isolated from our true connection with Nature, the Cosmos and our place in the Universe. With many people now living in cities it seems that we have lost our connection to Nature, and thus we have lost our true foundations for how we evolved to live (which is a disturbing thought for the future survival of life on Earth).
Though there have been many great artists and inspiring works of art throughout human history, no art has ever been founded on what truly exists, as this knowledge had not been known. The Postmodern belief in no Absolute Truth has detrimentally affected modern Art, resulting in artistic confusion, lack of meaning and decay.
'Art historians speak of modern art as concerned primarily with essential qualities of colour and flatness and as exhibiting over time a reduction of interest in subject matter.' (Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, Roots of Modernism)
Philosophy of Technology
The philosophy of technology is a philosophical field dedicated to studying the nature of technology and its social effect.
History:
Considered under the rubric of the Greek term techne (art, or craft knowledge), the philosophy of technology goes to the very roots of Western philosophy. In his Republic, Plato sees techne as the basis for the philosophers' proper rule in the city. In the Nicomachean Ethics (Book 6), Aristotle describes techne as one of the four ways that we can know about the world. The Stoics argued that virtue is a kind of techne based upon a proper understanding of the universe.
20th century development:
Whereas 19th Century philosophers such as Karl Marx were philosophically interested in tools and techniques, the most prominent 20th century philosophers to directly address modern technology were John Dewey and Martin Heidegger .Both saw technology as central to modern life, although (to speak roughly) Dewey was optimistic about the role of technology, Heidegger pessimistic. Dewey's work on technology was dispersed throughout his corpus, while Heidegger.'s major work on technology may be found in The Question Concerning Technology.
In the 1960's, Marshall McLuhan became a major radical voice in the field, with such works as the bestseller The Medium is the Message, as well as The Gutenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.
Contemporary philosophy:
Contemporary philosophers with an interest in technology include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Andrew Feenberg, Langdon Winner, Donna Haraway, Larry Hickman, Don Ihde, Paul Levinson, Carl Mitcham, Leo Marx, Gilbert Simondon, Jacques Ellul and Bernard Stiegler.
While a number of important individual works were published in the second half of the twentieth century, Paul Durbin has identified two books published at the turn of the century as marking the development of the philosophy of technology as an academic subdiscipline with canonical texts; these were Technology and the Good Life (2000), edited by Eric Higgs and American Philosophy of Technology (2001) by Hans Achterhuis.
Cited from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_technology
February 27, 2008 1:57 AM
Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy that is concerned with the philosophical study of religion, including arguments over the nature and existence of God, religious language, miracles, prayer, the problem of evil, and the relationship between religion and other value-systems such as science and ethics, amongst others.
Folk Psychology
Folk psychology (sometimes called naïve psychology, common sense psychology or vernacular psychology) is the set of background assumptions, socially-conditioned prejudices and convictions that are implicit in our everyday descriptions of others' behavior and in our ascriptions of their mental states. It includes concepts such as belief ("he thinks that Peter is wise"), desire ("she wants that piece of cake"), fear ("Alex is afraid of spiders") and hope ("she hopes that he is on time today"). Such ascriptions are collectively known as propositional attitude ascriptions.
Last Updated:07-07-2009
