The Nature of Philosophy

There is little doubt that doing philosophy is one of the most challenging yet rewarding activities in which we can engage. This is because the questions we are concerned with in philosophy - the questions about the ultimate causes, meaning, and purpose of human existence and the world - are not only deeply interesting and challenging but also, in a sense, stand in urgent need of responses. The responses should be matters of deep concern to us all because they radically inform our understanding of just who we are and of precisely how we fit into the world that we inhabit.

Various philosophers including Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Mill, Wittgenstein, etc. attempted to answer the questions:

• What do we know?

• How do we know what we know?

• What are the defining features, the substantive conditions, and the limits of knowledge and its justification? 

• What is the nature and structure of reality?

• Are we simply very complex parts of the physical world?

• Or is there something very special about us?

• Are our actions subject to the physical laws of nature or do we have some special sort of freedom? Are there non-physical entities, e.g., God?  

For questions and inquiries, please contact Dr. Halla Kim, Department of Philosophy and Religion, UNO, Omaha, NE 68182, (402) 554-3934, hallakim@mail.unomaha.edu