Western Philosophy - Western Philosophical Subdisciplines

Western Philosophical Subdisciplines

Western philosophers have often divided into several major branches based on the questions typically addressed by people working in different parts of the field. In the ancient world, the most influential division of the subject was the Stoics' division of philosophy into Logic, Ethics, and Physics (conceived as the study of the nature of the world, and including both natural science and metaphysics). In contemporary philosophy, specialties within the field are more commonly divided into metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics (the latter two of which together comprise axiology). Logic is sometimes included as a main branch of philosophy, sometimes as a separate science philosophers happen to work on, and sometimes just as a characteristically philosophical method applying to all branches of philosophy.

Within these broad branches there are now numerous sub-disciplines of philosophy. At the broadest level there is the division between Analytic (Anglosaxon, particularly British and Irish) and Continental Philosophy (in the rest of Europe). For Continental Philosophy subdividing philosophy between "experts" is problematic for the very nature of the unifying task of philosophy itself; however, for most of Analytic Philosophy further divisions simplify the task for philosophers in each area.

The interest in particular sub-disciplines waxes and wanes over time; sometimes sub-disciplines become particularly hot topics and can occupy so much space in the literature that they almost seem like major branches in their own right. (Over the past 40 years or so philosophy of mind—which is, strictly speaking, mainly a sub-discipline of metaphysics—has taken on this position within Analytic philosophy, and has attracted so much attention that some suggest philosophy of mind as the paradigm for what contemporary Analytic philosophers do.)