The Essence of General Philosophy

About the Book The name of the book itself is the indicator of what would be the subject matter of it. This book contains the essence of general philosophy right from the need and origin of philosophy till the absolute-the embodiment of Truth, Beauty and God.

The book touches the meaning of philosophy, its scope, commonsense, metaphysics, Epistemology, Theology, Religion, Logic, etc.

Different methods of philosophy, Judgment and Inference, Idealism, Nature of Causality Cosmogony, Cosmology, Ontology, Philosophy of the Soul, Mind and Body and Value and Reality are some of the topics that ex plain a vast number of theories under their heads.

More than sufficient care has been to place every topic and sub-topic the book so that the reader finds the book meaningful and readable.

Introduction The Need and Origin of Philosophy We are rational beings. We live, but we do not live an unthinking animal life. We live and sometimes think how we live and why we live. We do not swim with the current of life like a straw without thinking whither we go. This reflection on our life and experience is the root of philosophy. In supreme moments of our life when we are overpowered with the mystery of life and the heavy and weary weight of all this unintelligible world', our weary soul pants to penetrate the veil of appearances and 'see into the life of things. In this reflective mood many momentous questions force themselves on our mind and demand a solution-such as "What are we ? Whither shall we go? What is the meaning of our life? What is the meaning of this world? What is the goal of our life ?" etc. It is reflection on these all important problems of our life and experience that constitutes philosophy.

However primitive, crude and uncultured a man may be, in some moments of his life he cannot but ask himself these questions; his very life presupposes an unconscious theory of life and the world, and this unconscious world-view is the germ of philosophy. With the advance of culture and civilization human life becomes more and more complex, and the ever increasing anomalies and contradictions of human experience demand an explanation. It is the intellectual effort on the part of man to harmonize the various phases of our life and arrive at an adequate explanation of the mystery of life in its multifarious aspects-intellectual, aesthetic, moral and religious -that constitutes philosophy.

**Contents and Sample Pages**