Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with
reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.
Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical,
generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. In more casual speech, by
extension, "philosophy" can refer to "the most basic beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an
individual or group".
The word "philosophy" comes from the ancient Greek word philosophia, which literally means
"love of wisdom". The introduction of the terms "philosopher" and "philosophy" has been
ascribed to the Greek thinker Pythagoras.

Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of religion is a branch of philosophy concerned with questions regarding religion,
including the nature and existence of God, the examination of religious experience, analysis of
religious vocabulary and texts, and the relationship of religion and science. It is an ancient
discipline, being found in the earliest known manuscripts concerning philosophy, and relates to
many other branches of philosophy and general thought, including metaphysics, logic,
and history. Philosophy of religion is frequently discussed outside of academia through popular
books and debates, mostly regarding the existence of God and problem of evil.
The philosophy of religion differs from religious philosophy in that it seeks to discuss questions
regarding the nature of religion as a whole, rather than examining the problems brought forth by
a particular belief system. It is designed such that it can be carried out dispassionately by those
who identify as believers or non-believers.

Existence of God
There are several main positions with regard to the existence of God that one might take:
1. Theism - the belief in the existence of one or more divinities or deities.

1. Pantheism - the belief that God exists as all things of the cosmos, that God is one
and all is God; God is immanent.
2. Pane theism - the belief that God encompasses all things of the cosmos but that
God is greater than the cosmos; God is both immanent and transcendent.
3. Deism - the belief that God does exist but does not interfere with human life and
the laws of the universe; God is transcendent.
4. Monotheism - the belief that a single deity exists which rules the universe as a
separate and individual entity.
5. Polytheism - the belief that multiple deities exist which rule the universe as
separate and individual entities.
6. Henotheism - the belief that multiple deities may or may not exist, though there is
a single supreme deity.
7. Hen ology - believing that multiple avatars of a deity exist, which represent
unique aspects of the ultimate deity.
2. Agnosticism - the belief that the existence or non-existence of deities or God is currently
unknown or unknowable and cannot be proven. A weaker form of this might be defined
as simply a lack of certainty about gods' existence or nonexistence.
3. Atheism - the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.
1. Strong atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.
2. Weak atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.
4. Apatheism - the lack of caring whether any supreme being exists, or lack thereof
5. Possibilianism - These are not mutually exclusive positions. For example, agnostic
theists choose to believe God exists while asserting that knowledge of God's existence is
inherently unknowable. Similarly, agnostic atheists reject belief in the existence of all
deities, while asserting that whether any such entities exist or not is inherently
unknowable.

Natural Theology
The attempt to provide proofs or arguments for the existence of God is one aspect of what is
known as natural theology or the natural theistic project. This strand of natural theology attempts
to justify belief in God by independent grounds. There is plenty of philosophical literature on
faith (especially fideism) and other subjects generally considered to be outside the realm of
natural theology. Perhaps most of philosophy of religion is predicated on natural theology's
assumption that the existence of God can be justified or warranted on rational grounds. There has
been considerable philosophical and theological debate about the kinds of proofs, justifications
and arguments that are appropriate for this discourse.
The philosopher Alvin Plantinga has shifted his focus to justifying belief in God (that is, those
who believe in God, for whatever reasons, are rational in doing so) through Reformed
epistemology, in the context of a theory of warrant and proper cognitive function.
Other reactions to natural theology are those of Wittgensteinian philosophers of religion, most
notably D. Z. Phillips. Phillips rejects "natural theology" and its evidentialist approach as
confused, in favor of a grammatical approach which investigates the meaning of belief in God.
For Phillips, belief in God is not a proposition with a particular truth value, but a form of life.
Consequently, the question of whether God exists confuses the logical categories which govern
theistic language with those that govern other forms of discourse (most notably, scientific
discourse). According to Phillips, the question of whether or not God exists cannot be
"objectively" answered by philosophy because the categories of truth and falsity, which are
necessary for asking the question, have no application in the religious contexts wherein religious
belief has its sense and meaning. In other words, the question cannot be answered because it
cannot be asked without entering into confusion. As Phillips sees things, the job of the
philosopher is not to investigate the "rationality" of belief in God but to elucidate its meaning.

Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil with that of
a deity who is, in either absolute or relative terms, omnipotent, omniscient,
andomnibenevolent. An argument from evil attempts to show that the co-existence of evil and
such a deity is unlikely or impossible if placed in absolute terms. Attempts to show the contrary
have traditionally been discussed under the heading of theodicy.

Philosophy of Science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and
implications of science. The central questions concern what counts as science, the reliability of
scientific theories, and the purpose of science. This discipline overlaps
with metaphysics, ontology and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship
between science and truth.
There is no consensus on many central problems in philosophy of science, including whether
science can reveal the truth about unobservable things and whether scientific reasoning can be
justified at all. In addition to these general questions about science as a whole, philosophers of
science consider problems that apply to particular sciences such as biology or physics. Some
philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to reach conclusions about
philosophy.
While the relevant history of philosophy dates back at least to Aristotle, philosophy of science
emerged as a distinct discipline only in the middle of the 20th century in the wake of logical
positivism, a movement that aimed to formulate criteria to ensure all philosophical statements'
meaningfulness and objectively assess them. Thomas Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions brought the word "paradigm" into the mainstream, meaning the set of practices that
define a scientific discipline in a particular period. Kuhn challenged the established view
that science achives clear progress over time.
Today, some thinkers seek to ground science in axiomatic assumptions such as the uniformity of
nature. The majority of philosophers of science, however, take a coherentist approach to science
in which a theory is validated if it makes sense of observations as part of a coherent whole. Still
others, and Paul Feyerabend in particular, argue that there is no such thing as the "scientific
method", so all approaches to science should be allowed, including explicitly supernatural ones.
Another approach to thinking about science is to study how knowledge is created from
a sociological perspective. Finally, there is a tradition in continental philosophy which
approaches science from the perspective of a rigorous analysis of human experience.
Philosophy of the particular sciences ranges from questions about the nature of time raised by
Einstein's general relativity to the implications of economics for public policy. A central theme is
whether one scientific discipline can be reduced to the terms of another. That is, can chemistry be
reduced to physics, or can sociology be reduced to individual psychology? The general questions

of philosophy of science also arise with greater specificity in the particular sciences. For
instance, the question of the validity of scientific reasoning is seen in a different guise in
the foundations of statistic. The question of what counts as science and what should be excluded
arises as a life-or-death matter in the philosophy of medicine. And philosophies of biology,
psychology, and the social sciences explore whether the scientific study of human nature can
achieve objectivity or is inevitably shaped by values and social relations.

Introductory Philosophy
Assignment

Philosophy, Science and

Religion

- Raghav Maheshwari
- 2013B4A8772P