(or, How To Run An Effective Intellectual Scam)
by Christopher Schlegel

The most important issues in philosophy are in the area of Metaphysics & Epistemology. This is because they are the foundation of the philosophical hierarchy:

Metaphysics – dealing with the fundamental nature of existence, irreducible primaries, axiomatic statements that everything that proceeds will be based upon.

Epistemology – dealing with the nature of Knowledge, also referred to as the Theory of Knowledge.

Ethics – dealing fundamentally with how should humans act in relation to reality, secondarily to other humans.

Politics – dealing with how should humans deal with each other and in what systematic way.

Aesthetics – dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and with the creation and appreciation of beauty (more generally how humans use their senses to appraise reality).

(By the way…For any system or collection of ideas to be considered an actual “philosophy” all of these areas have to be covered explicitly or implicitly.)

The differences between the philosophical outlooks of Aristotle and Plato began a crucial central debate that is still with us to this day. The debate centers on the areas of metaphysics and epistemology. For the purposes of this discussion these areas can be reduced to two simple questions: metaphysics-What do I know? & epistemology-How do I know it? The central debate is about the nature of concepts: i.e. what are they exactly, where do they come from, etc.