Philosophy

Philosophy is the science that defines and studies the broadest abstractions possible to serve as man's cognitive guide. Philosophy can be broken down into the study of the basic nature of existence (metaphysics), the nature and means of mans knowledge (epistemology), the proper values for man (ethics), and the purpose and proper standard for the evaluation of art (aesthetics).

There are two fundamental similarities that tie these four^[1] branches together, as is hinted at by the above definition. The first is the universality of their scope: they comprise the broadest abstractions that can be made---metaphysics studies existence as such; epistemology studies knowledge as such; ethics studies value as such; and aesthetics studies the concretisation of those other branches.

The second is their necessity as guides to human action: metaphysics does not study specifically the nature of electrons, or chemicals, or any other particular field, but existence as such---whenever you do anything you are in some way relying on a certain model of how the world works, what existence is, whether it is subservient to your consciousness, etc.; so you must take into account metaphysics at every waking moment. Epistemology isn't providing man with a guide on how to acquire knowledge about mathematics, it gives him a guide on the attainment of knowledge as such---any man requires knowledge to survive, only the mathematician needs the specific knowledge pertaining to mathematics; thus any man needs epistemology, but not necessarily mathematics. Ethics tells man what values are, the proper method for selecting values and by what standard---without this man is blind. Aesthetics tells man how to distil these vast abstractions into concrete form which is required to serve as a guide to action.