Philosophy

About

The department of philosophy is a newly established one in the college. There is already a dearth of philosophy departments in the colleges of the UT of J&K, and it is a privilege to have one here. Philosophy is called the mother of all sciences. Not long ago, even science was ‘natural philosophy as one can observe from the title of what has been regarded as the most important work in the physical sciences i.e., Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (The mathematical principles of natural philosophy). It has been only a couple of centuries and some decades since science severed itself from philosophy and has taken on an independent role. Still there are debates lurking at the interface of science and philosophy. Philosophy and science continue to influence and enrich each other in a symbiotic way. Yet, science is not philosophy. Philosophy asks some deeper questions concerning the nature of reality, the possibility of knowledge, the standards of right and wrong action (if there are any), the nature of beauty, the meaning of life, and the like. In this regard, philosophy seems to be closer to religion, but it does not rely on custom and faith to answer (or at least attempt to answer) these questions. Here, philosophy is not to be thought of as mutually exclusive to religion. In fact most of the great philosophers have been either religious or had a neutral position thereof. Briefly put, philosophy concerns itself with issues like: what is there/what exists? Does the world consist of just matter or just mind or both? How do we get to know what is there or what exists? Is there any universal yardstick to evaluate good and bad behavior? What types of reasoning patterns are allowed in an argument? What is beauty? Consequently, philosophy has been divided into branches catering to each of the above questions. They are:- Metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, logic, aesthetics, respectively. Every philosophical tradition/era (Greco-Roman, Indian, Islamic, modern western, 20th century) has egged itself with most of these cluster of issues. The study of the subject at the college engages with these queries.