The Function of PhilosophyWritten by Peter M.K. Chan
The Function of Philosophy All rights reserved This s a self-contained section to Epilogue of my book titled The Mystery of Mind Copyrighted and published in United States. ======================================================================== In simplest of terms, human knowledge comes in two forms: description of facts, and theories about them. Description tells us what happened, theories explain how or why they happened. More importantly, they also purport to tell us what will probably happen. In other words, purpose of explaining is to make intelligible sense of occurrences that description alone is not able to provide. This is usually done by generalizing and projecting on basis of what is known. It is to guess and conceptualize as to what may exist in unknown. This explanatory procedure is true of religion as it is of science. Religion conceptualizes existence of souls and other spiritual beings such as ghosts, deities, devils, angels, if not also fairies and so on to account for experiences that are either too boring or difficult to understand. Science conceptualizes existence of ether, atoms, material forces, laws of nature, space-time, force-fields, dark-matter, anti-matter, black holes, strange attractors and so on for purpose of understanding observed workings of physical world. In very basic sense of word, to philosophize is also to explain. By light of its founding practitioners, basic business of philosophy is to determine what exist and relation between natures of such existents. These two core enterprises are traditionally known as ontology and metaphysics. Thus, as other kinds of theories, a philosophical theory must also depend on conceptualizations in order to explain. Such conceptualizations are usually erected on basis of two things: presuppositions and basic concepts or categories as they are professionally called. To believe that anything material must be cognitively inert is a fundamental presupposition of dualism. That everyone must take a soul to have a mind is another. These are in contradistinction to materialist and scientific presupposition that physical causal system is closed, and that material power and agency is all there are. Of basic concepts, these include such notions as existence (or being) and nothingness, facts and possibility, matter and mind, body and soul, act and object, substance and form, actuality and possibility, attribute and substance, accident and essence, function and structure, and so on and so forth. Between presuppositions and basic concepts, they provide various ways of mapping and relating many of diverse features of what is known as human reality. However, across span of centuries, different philosophers have found different ways of conceptualization to be intelligible, resulting in proliferation of different philosophical styles and perspectives. In this sense, it can be said that every philosophical theory is in ultimate analysis a consequence of presuppositions and categories that its owner intends to grind. For this reason, many philosophical controversies are about differences in conceptualization rather than disagreements about facts. They are, in final analysis, controversies about explanatory efficacy of certain concepts and presuppositions upon which same set of phenomena or facts and events are to be explained. Many times, gut source of these disagreements are so ingrained that no arguments on basis of facts are able to settle. This is also why no one philosophical perspective is acceptable to all. Having said that, it must also be pointed out that even in realm of science, explanation is also a matter of degree, and major disagreements also exist. Besides, diversity and complexity of phenomena in any knowledge area that has to be tackled is simply too complicated for any one theory to satisfy on a permanent basis. For this reason, theories are often not valued in terms of being true or false. They could only be described as adequate or inadequate, probable or improbable, in light of what is already known.
| | Affirming MoneyWritten by Skye Thomas
Creating abundance is probably hottest topic across internet. Whether you're looking to start a business from your home computer or trying to payoff your mortgage in time to retire with comfort, everyone seems interested in how to get more money. There are personal growth and spiritual growth lessons involved in creating wealth that have been oversimplified. Most people have issues around money that cause them to block themselves from actually creating a life of wealth and abundance. A major piece of changing one's self talk is in stating positive affirmations. However, without hard work and a bit of old fashioned elbow grease, affirmations are worthless.First off, let's look at why we even need affirmations. Many of us were taught that money is root of all evil. The real quote should read, "The love of money is root of all evil." Yes, greed is real topic, not amount of money in one's bank account. For whatever reason lesson about greed has been taught all wrong and people think that money in and of itself is evil. Money is simply a means for barter, a trade system. I'll trade you a chicken for a new dress. We agree to swap paper money or coins that create equivalent of trade so as not to have to haul chickens and dresses around with us. Money is just a means of creating trades. It's also a way to save up for later. I'll give you a chicken today, but I want apples when you harvest them from your trees this fall. Money can be accumulated towards a larger deal. I've worked all year making shoes for entire village so that they'll all come help me build my new house this summer. Saying that money is root of all evil is like saying that trading goods and services is evil. Trading is trading, it's cooperation in a numeric format. Nothing more nothing less. Another concept that many of us have to unlearn is idea that it's really difficult to earn a living or it's really hard to amass any kind of wealth. Personally, I hear my father telling me throughout my childhood that "Things are a lot harder when you get out into real world." Truth be known, nothing in my life has been as difficult as my childhood was. For first fifteen years after I left my dad's home, I had to work really hard at making every penny because that's what I thought was grown up way of doing it. I have a friend who was raised on exact opposite mindset. He was encouraged as a child that he was completely capable of making money with or without any fancy college degrees and such. The result is that he's always had money and it flows in and out of his hands pretty freely. He even built a business from ground up on his first try because it never dawned on him that he was supposed to fail and struggle.
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