Philosophy

What is philosophy?  What do philosophers do?  Surprisingly, even philosophers ask these questions.  It's not because they do not know what they are doing, but because asking questions is what philosophers do.  ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’, ‘What is it to be good?’, ‘What is the nature of reality?’  are some other philosophical questions.

Other disciplines ask similar questions.  Theologians also ask why there is something and what goodness is.  Physicists ask what reality really is.  What sets philosophy apart from other disciplines is how it approaches these questions.  It uses reason, rather than sacred texts or empirical experiment.  In particular, philosophers employ the main form of reasoning - argumentation - when answering these questions.

The main goal of the Philosophy Department at EvCC is to equip students with the tools needed to evaluate the merit of many ideas and claims, whether found in daily life, in the study of another intellectual discipline, or in philosophy itself.