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Philosophy

<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/f6d2bbce9b6458b66cb4f04d906b9930c715cd9c" alt="Black and white photograph of a seated man holding a paint brush to a nearly finished canvas resting on an easel." mediaType="image/jpeg" width="1750" height="803" />
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	<strong>Figure 8.1</strong> This photo of surrealist artist René Magritte captures him painting an unusual self-portrait. Note that the subject of the portrait is observing an egg but painting a bird in flight. The title of the painting is “Clairvoyance,” suggesting that Magritte sees art as a way of envisioning the future or imagining possibilities rather than simply presenting the facts at hand. (credit: modification of “[ N ] Jacqueline Nonkels - Rene Magritte paints Helderzeinheid (1936)” by cea/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
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	Chances are you have found yourself in a debate with someone about a matter involving judgments about what is good or bad. Maybe your disagreement was about a contemporary moral issue like abortion or the death penalty. Maybe the conflict had to do with a course of action, like going to college or joining the military, and whether it was the right thing to do. Maybe you got into a disagreement about whether a work of art was beautiful or a movie was good or bad. These types of conversations deal with <OpenstaxTerm>values</OpenstaxTerm>, and there is a specific area of philosophy that helps people think about these types of debates: value theory.
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<OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxTerm>Value theory</OpenstaxTerm> is the philosophical investigation of values. In its narrow sense, it refers to ethical concerns. In its broader sense, it addresses ethical, social, political, religious, aesthetic, and other types of values. Philosophers use value theory to approach questions that require people to think about what they value in life as individuals and as communities, especially in terms of morality, happiness, goodness, and beauty. Value theory provides tools that you can use to navigate difficult debates about what you value and why. This chapter will help you understand what a value is and how it differs from facts, the types of questions and distinctions that help people discuss values and their relations, and specific areas of value theory like metaethics and aesthetics.
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8 Value Theory

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

Question	Answer
the philosophical investigation of values. In its narrow sense, it refers to metaethical concerns. In its broader sense, it addresses a variety of values (ethical, social, political, religious, aesthetic, etc.)	Value theory
beliefs and evaluations about morality, politics, aesthetics, and social issues. They often express a judgment about what people think ought to be the case.	Values