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Don't wait! Try Yumpu. Start using Yumpu now! Terms of service. Privacy policy. Cookie policy. Change language. Main languages. Debate and dialogue The archetypical philosopher in this respect was Socrates.
His legacy lay in the tradition he established of debate and discussion, of questioning the assumptions of other people to gain deeper understanding and elicit fundamental truths.
Many later philosophers also adopted the device of dialogues to present their ideas, giving arguments and counterarguments rather than a simple statement of their reasoning and conclusions. Plato and his pupil Aristotle, for example, held diametrically opposed views on fundamental philosophical questions, and their different approaches have divided opinions among philosophers ever since.
This has, in turn, provoked more discussion and prompted yet more fresh ideas. But how can it be that these philosophical questions are still being discussed and debated? They saw the Earth and all the different forms of life inhabiting it; the sun, moon, planets, and stars; and natural phenomena such as the weather, earthquakes, and eclipses. Because we, too, exist as a part of the universe, metaphysics also considers the nature of human existence and what it means to be a conscious being.
How do we perceive the world around us, and do things exist independently of our perception? What is the relationship between our mind and body, and is there such a thing as an immortal soul?
The area of metaphysics concerned with questions of existence, ontology, is a huge one and forms the basis for much of Western philosophy. At its heart is the question of how we acquire knowledge, how we come to know what we know; is some or even all knowledge innate, or do we learn everything from experience? Can we know something from reasoning alone?
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