PHL101Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Law School Admission Test, Empirical Evidence
Document Summary
Indeed, what is philosophy? is itself a philosophical question. A response i"m partial to it"s far from perfect but it will help us get started involves two separate distinctions between different kinds of questions one can ask. First: some questions are important (directly related to matters of central human concern): Does god exist? : some questions are not important: How long were julius caesar"s thumbnails ten days before the ides of march (march 15, 44 bce)? . How many blades of grass are in queen"s park on september 12, 2016? . Second: some questions are empirical (resolvable by recourse to sense experience and the inductive/abductive methods of the natural sciences): The cancer and grass questions: some questions are not empirical: Now for the answer to our question about philosophy: while the natural sciences deal with important questions that are empirical, philosophy deals with important questions that are not empirical: all important questions begin as philosophical.
