Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.[1] The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concern matters of value, and thus comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology.[2]
Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.
Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are:[1]
1. Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined
2. Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action
3. Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do in a specific situation or a particular domain of action[
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the essence of a thing. This includes questions of being, becoming, existence, and reality.[1] The word "metaphysics" comes from the Greek words that literally mean "beyond nature". "Nature" in this sense refers to the nature of a thing, such as its cause and purpose. Metaphysics then studies questions of a thing beyond or above questions of its nature, in particular its essence or its qualities of being. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in a "suitably abstract and fully general manner", the questions:[2]
1. What is there?
2. And what is it like?
Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, possibility and probability.[3]
Ontology is the philosophical study of being. More broadly, it studies concepts that directly relate to being, in particular becoming, existence, reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations.[1] Traditionally listed as a part of the major branch of philosophy known as metaphysics, ontology often deals with questions concerning what entities exist or may be said to exist and how such entities may be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences.
Logic (from the Ancient Greek: λογική, translit. logikḗ[1]), originally meaning "the word" or "what is spoken", but coming to mean "thought" or "reason", is a subject concerned with the most general laws of truth,[2] and is now generally held to consist of the systematic study of the form of valid inference. A valid inference is one where there is a specific relation of logical support between the assumptions of the inference and its conclusion. (In ordinary discourse, inferences may be signified by words such as therefore, hence, ergo, and so on.)
There is no universal agreement as to the exact scope and subject matter of logic (see § Rival conceptions, below), but it has traditionally included the classification of arguments, the systematic exposition of the 'logical form' common to all valid arguments, the study of inference, including fallacies, and the study of semantics, including paradoxes. Historically, logic has been studied in philosophy (since ancient times) and mathematics (since the mid-19th century), and recently logic has been studied in computer science, linguistics, psychology, and other fields.
Rhetoric (from the Greek ῥητορικός rhētorikós, "oratorical",[1] from ῥήτωρ rhḗtōr, "public speaker",[2] related to ῥῆμα rhêma, "that which is said or spoken, word, saying",[3] and ultimately derived from the verb ἐρῶ erō, "I say, I speak"[4]) is the art of using speech to convince or persuade. Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law or for passage of proposals in the assembly or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies, calls it "a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics".[5] Rhetoric typically provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals, logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric or phases of developing a persuasive speech were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery.
From Ancient Greece to the late 19th century, rhetoric, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic – see Martianus Capella) is one of the three ancient arts of discourse, played a central role in Western education in training orators, lawyers, counsellors, historians, statesmen, and poets.[6][7]
Aesthetics (/ɛsˈθɛtɪks, iːs-/) is a branch of philosophy that explores the nature of art, beauty, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty.[1]
In its more technical epistemological perspective, it is defined as the study of subjective and sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste.[2] Aesthetics studies how artists imagine, create and perform works of art; how people use, enjoy, and criticize art; and what happens in their minds when they look at paintings, listen to music, or read poetry, and understand what they see and hear. It also studies how they feel about art—why they like some works and not others, and how art can affect their moods, beliefs, and attitude toward life.[3]
More broadly, scholars in the field define aesthetics as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature".[4][5] In modern English, the term aesthetic can also refer to a set of principles underlying the works of a particular art movement or theory: one speaks, for example, of the Cubist aesthetic.