Carlon RobbinsWhiteville, NCHumanities, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory Scholar, Martial Artist
A rather naturally inclined introspective and inquisitive personality of mine led to my becoming a sort of “Nietzschean” at the age of nine. In my own teenage years, I became more aware of what philosophizing actual is, and began independently studying various thinkers, subjects, and topics. I studied Philosophy formally as both an undergraduate and graduate student.
Philosophy is THE ultimate academic and scholarly discipline and tradition, from and out of which all other academic disciplines were formed and evolved. Philosophy is the “backbone” of academic traditions. But philosophy is much more than degrees and disciplines, it has formalities, traditions, and limitations just like all the others. The clencher about the word “philosophy,” itself, which stems from two Greek words, “Philos” meaning “love of” and “Sophia,” which means “wisdom” (the love of wisdom), is that it can double as a term used for one’s own, individual sets of ideals, ideas, beliefs, feelings, thoughts, meaning, significance, and creation, aka your personal “philosophy.”
The discipline of Philosophy, as we have inherited in the Western tradition, originated in Ancient Greece in the 6th Century BCE. Some branches of philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, logic, ethics, social-political philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and many others. Within philosophy there are also a great variety of schools of thought, theories, approaches, and research. Philosophy attempts to tackle serious, deep, rich, complex, but always open-minded questions. How can one learn “truth” without being open and receptive? – The notion of “truth” is one which philosophy questions. What is “truth?” How do we “know?” How do we know that we “know?” What is the nature of reality? “Consciousness?” Is the mind/soul separate from the body, or are these arbitrary concepts? What is beauty? What is morality? But, for all of its intensities, philosophy enriches your life.
