Philosopher’s Stone
I understand philosophy as the discipline that attempts to clarify meaning. For example, what do we mean when we say an action is wrong, immoral, or evil? Or when we say an action is right, moral, or good? All of these judgments (and many more like them) make up a family of evaluations that fall under the study of ethics, one of the main branches of philosophy.
As I see it, philosophy, literally the longing for wisdom, is the study of meaning generally, consisting of various branches: not only ethics, but also logic, epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, the history of all these, plus philosophy of science, religion, history, philosophy of _________________ (anything; fill in the blank). In every instance the focus is the same: to understand what we mean by the claims made in each category.
Duane L. Cady Curriculum Vitae
