Introduction to Philosophical Principles

This short book introduces the most important principles for conducting any systematic philosophical inquiry, and therefore for building any serious philosophical habit. These principles are broken down into three sections: logic, physics, and person; or, the basic encounter with thought, with the world, and the nexus of thought and world.Although the work draws on the traditions of Thomism, Semiotics, and Phenomenology, readers are not introduced to the history of philosophy in any tradition nor given extensive dialectical arguments. Rather, this book should be considered an introduction to philosophical questioning in the pursuit of developing a philosophical habit--that is, the habit of routinely examining human life and the experiences had within it.This book is intended, in other words, to be a helpful series of guideposts not only as to the kind of material you should engage if pursing a philosophical mentality, or the sorts of questions you should ask-which would be an introduction to the cultural phenomenon of philosophy-but to how the very process of philosophy is carried out. It may not always help, and the farther you progress in questioning thoughts, the world, and the nexus of the two, the less likely you will be to find a complete answer here, either as to content or as to method: but it is to be hoped that this will provide a solid basis for that progress.