Philosophy I

Abstract

The philosophy chapter I provides a broader foundation for the systematic discourse of thoughts and knowledge. The chapter covers Greek Philosophers – Socrates, Pythagoreans, Plato, Aristotle; Chinese Philosophers – Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi; Philosophical Hinduism; and The Age of Awakening: The New Science. The ancient philosophers set the tone for a moral and just society, living, and education. The 17th and 18th-century philosophers guide the questions, classification, and methodologies of knowledge. Important tenets of philosophy have three broad branches: Ontology (metaphysics), Epistemology (knowledge), and Axiology (ethics). Ontology refers to the study of being; Epistemology is concerned with how we know the substance of reality and the roots of knowledge; and Axiology addresses what we do with what we know, leading to some responsibility. Knowledge is discovered by understanding the past, creating and sharing new ideas, sifting out thoughts, experimenting, collecting and analyzing data, and interpreting the information. The purpose of the chapter is to help open the sphere of thinking inherited from the traditional teachings and explore how to organize insightful music research encompassing distinctive perspectives and methodologies. The chapter further discusses deductive and inductive processes, rationalism, Decartes’ the new metaphysics, and positivism. Spiritual and religious teachings are not a part of this chapter.