Understanding Philosophy
Etymologically (the origin of the word), derived from Greek philosophy "Philosophia". Philos which means love, love, or tendency to something. While Sophia means wisdom. Thus a simple philosophy means love or inclination to wisdom.
There are several definitions of philosophy that have been classified by the nature and function as follows:
- Philosophy is a set of attitudes and beliefs about life and nature are usually accepted uncritically (informal sense).
- Philosophy is a criticism or a thought process of the beliefs and attitudes that we hold very high (formal sense).
- Philosophy is the attempt to get the whole picture. This means that philosophy seeks to combine the results of a variety of science and human experience that it becomes a consistent view of nature (meaning speculative).
- Philosophy is the logical analysis of language and an explanation of the meaning of words and concepts. Such a style of philosophy is also called logocentrism.
- Philosophy is a collection of the direct problem of human attention and are answered by an expert-look for philosophers.
Characteristics of philosophical thinkingPhilosophical thinking has its own characteristics which can be distinguished from other disciplines.
Some features of philosophical thought can be expressed as follows:
- Radical that is thought up by the roots, up to the nature or substance of the thought.
- Universal means that philosophical thinking regarding general human experience.Specificity according to Jaspers philosophical thought lies in the aspect of generality.
- Conceptual meaning that is result of generalization and abstraction of human experience. For example: Is it art? Is that beauty?
- Coherent and consistent (coherent). Coherent meaning in accordance with the rules of logical thinking. Consistent means that does not contain contradictions.
- Means that a systematic description of philosophical opinion it should be in regular contact with each other and contained a specific intent or purpose.
- Comprehensive means covering or thorough. Philosophical thinking is an attempt to explain the universe as a whole.
- Free means to the extent that broad, philosophical thought may be said to be the result of free thought, free from the prejudices of social, historical, cultural, even religious.
- Responsible means a person who thinks of doing philosophy is at once responsible for the results of his thinking, at least to his own conscience.
The eight characteristics of this philosophical thinking makes philosophy different from the characteristics tend to think of other sciences, as well as placing the position of philosophy as a neutral scientific fields, especially characteristic of the seventh. (Mustansyir and Munir, 2004: 4-5).
Sources : Aesthetics Book by Dr. Daulat Saragi, M. Hum.