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Philosophy

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	W. E. B. <OpenstaxTerm>Du Bois</OpenstaxTerm>, a prominent American intellectual and civil rights activist, pioneered the use of empirical methods in the field of <OpenstaxTerm>sociology</OpenstaxTerm>. When Du Bois first engaged with sociology, the young field of study was largely theoretical. Du Bois criticized early sociologists for making broad generalizations about human societies based on vague, personal impressions rather than first seeking to gather evidence (Westbrook 2018, 200). Du Bois set out to convert sociology into a scientific discipline.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	After receiving his PhD from Harvard University in 1895, Du Bois came to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Here he conducted a complex investigation into the obstacles that African Americans faced in becoming self-supporting. Over 15 months, Du Bois conducted 2,500 door-to-door interviews, collecting data on demographics, education, literacy, occupation, health, membership in civic organizations, criminality, rates of alcoholism, income levels, home ownership rates, voting practices, and the integration of <OpenstaxTerm>African Americans</OpenstaxTerm> into the larger society. He compared his findings with data compiled by the US Census Bureau and other sources to gain more insight. For example, comparing his data regarding the occupations of people living in the Seventh Ward, an African American neighborhood, to 1890 census data on the occupations of people in the whole of Philadelphia, he found that a significantly greater percentage of African Americans were engaged in low-skilled, low-paying occupations. Du Bois’s study and his subsequent book, entitled <OpenstaxEm>The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study</OpenstaxEm>, became the first empirical analysis of <OpenstaxTerm>racism</OpenstaxTerm> in the United States.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00003" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/6232c2c123a9e68d29567015d375e7b4bbc3ced1" alt="Studio photograph of W.E.B. Du Bois. He wears a formal jacket and sports a neatly trimmed beard and moustache." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="554" height="800" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="554">
	<strong>Figure 12.3</strong> W.E.B. Du Bois pioneered the use of empirical methods in the field of sociology. (credit: “W.E.B. Du Bois by James E. Purdy, 1907” by James E. Purdy National Portrait Gallery/Wikimedia, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Today we take for granted our ability to find statistics such as the divorce rate, the crime rate, or the average salary for a job in the region where we live. However, the collection of this kind of data and its use as a tool to inform public policies aimed at addressing social problems is a product of <OpenstaxTerm>Du Bois</OpenstaxTerm>’s determination to bring science to the study of social issues.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/2372ee446541a98af33c9f8600aa8d966c9ed7f3" alt="Hand-drawn bar graph showing that African Americans are disproportionately represented in Domestic and Personal Service and underrepresented in Manufacturing and Mechanical Industries." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="564" height="217" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="564">
	<strong>Figure 12.4</strong> This bar graph from Du Bois’s The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, published in 1899, illustrates his conclusion that African Americans living in the Seventh Ward were less likely to work in the skilled professions of manufacturing and mechanical industries and more likely to work in unskilled positions of domestic labor. This data-based approach to studying human experiences was revolutionary at the time. Note that at this time, the term Negroes was commonly used to describe Black Americans. (credit: The Philadelphia Negro, p. 109, by W. E. B. Du Bois, Google Books, Public Domain)
</OpenstaxFigureText>

12.1.4 Du Bois and Empirical Sociology

1 Introduction to Philosophy

1.1 What Is Philosophy?

1.1.1 Historical Origins of Philosophy

1.1.2 How It All Hangs Together

1.2 How Do Philosophers Arrive at Truth?

1.2.1 Sources of Evidence

1.2.2 Logic

1.2.3 Conceptual Analysis

1.2.4 Trade-offs

1.3 Socrates as a Paradigmatic Historical Philosopher

1.3.1 “The Life Which Is Unexamined Is Not Worth Living”

1.3.2 Human Wisdom Is Worth Little or Nothing

1.3.3 The Importance of Doing No Harm

1.4 An Overview of Contemporary Philosophy

1.4.1 What Can You Do with a Philosophy Major?

1.4.2 An Overview of Your Philosophy Textbook

2 Critical Thinking, Research, Reading, and Writing

2.1 The Brain Is an Inference Machine

2.1.1 The Brain’s Adaptive Ability to Plan Ahead

2.1.2 The Evolutionary Advantage of Shortcuts

2.2 Overcoming Cognitive Biases and Engaging in Critical Reflection

2.2.1 Critical Reflection and Metacognition

2.2.2 Cognitive Biases

2.3 Developing Good Habits of Mind

2.3.1 Strive for Objectivity

2.3.2 Adopt Epistemic Humility

2.4 Gathering Information, Evaluating Sources, and Understanding Evidence

2.4.1 Start with a Strong Foundation

2.4.2 The SIFT Method (Four Moves for Student Fact Checkers)

2.5 Reading Philosophy

2.5.1 Prepare to Read

2.5.2 Engaging with Philosophical Texts

2.5.3 Pre-reading

2.5.4 First Read

2.5.5 Close Read

2.6 Writing Philosophy Papers

2.6.1 Identify Claims

2.6.2 Collect Evidence and Build Your Case

2.6.3 Organize Your Paper

3 The Early History of Philosophy around the World

3.1 Indigenous Philosophy

3.1.1 Challenges in Researching Indigenous Philosophy

3.1.2 Indigenous African Philosophy

3.1.3 Indigenous North American Philosophical Thought

3.1.4 Mesoamerican Philosophy

3.2 Classical Indian Philosophy

3.2.1 The Vedic Tradition

3.2.2 Classical Indian Darshanas

3.3 Classical Chinese Philosophy

3.3.1 Early Chinese Philosophical Thought prior to Confucius

3.3.2 Confucianism

3.3.3 Daoism

3.3.4 Mohism

4 The Emergence of Classical Philosophy

4.1 Historiography and the History of Philosophy

4.1.1 Presentist Approach

4.1.2 Contextualist Approach

4.1.3 Hermeneutic Approach

4.2 Classical Philosophy

4.2.1 Egyptian Origins of Classical Philosophy

4.2.2 Ancient Greek Philosophy

4.2.3 The Presocratics

4.2.4 Socrates and Plato

4.2.5 Aristotle

4.2.6 Epicureans

4.2.7 Roman Philosophy

4.3 Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

4.3.1 Defining Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Philosophy

4.3.2 Early Jewish Philosophy

4.3.3 Early Christian Philosophy

4.3.4 Islamic Philosophy

4.3.5 Late Medieval Philosophy in Christian Europe

4.3.6 Jewish Philosophers in the Christian and Islamic Worlds

4.3.7 The Rise of Reason in the Early Modern Era

5 Logic and Reasoning

5.1 Philosophical Methods for Discovering Truth

5.1.1 Dialectics and Philosophical Argumentation

5.1.2 The Use of Reason to Discover Truth

5.1.3 Testing Hypotheses

5.1.4 Laws of Logic

5.1.5 Normativity in Logic

5.2 Logical Statements

5.2.1 Conditionals

5.2.2 Universal Statements

5.3 Arguments

5.3.1 Getting to the Premises

5.3.2 The Difference between Truth and Logic

5.4 Types of Inferences

5.4.1 Deductive Reasoning

5.4.2 Inductive Inferences

5.4.3 Abductive Reasoning

5.5 Informal Fallacies

5.5.1 Fallacies of Relevance

5.5.2 Fallacies of Weak Induction

5.5.3 Fallacies of Unwarranted Assumption

5.5.4 Fallacies of Diversion

6 Metaphysics

6.1 Substance

6.1.1 Fundamentality: The One and the Many