Principles of Philosophy

Metaphysics: The nature of, the study of, the idea of being

Micro- on the smallest scale, my essence of being is that I’m a musician. When I’m playing drums, piano, or singing by my self, my essence of being comes out through music. You can hear it; everything has a purpose.

Meso- when we take things to a slightly larger scale, for instance jamming with a few friends, my essence of being changes. No longer is it just my emotions, and interpretation of how a piece of music should go. The essence of being becomes a culmination of every musician in that room. We just vibe of each other, taking in all the emotions of each instrument and the musician playing them, and our interpretation self will change as a result of that.

Macro- one could experience the largest scale of being at a huge outdoor music festival. In a situation like this you have upwards of 20 bands performing in different areas at once. All this music is just filling this space, and its all coming together in your ears. Your essence of being is being shaped by a multitude of different artists who play different types of music from all around the world; it’s a beautiful thing.

 Axiology: The nature of, the study of, the idea of value

Micro- on the smallest scale of value, I consider myself to be a neutral political party. My views, and what I value politically are not shaped, or really fit into any one particular ideology.

Meso- on a slightly larger scale, like the state of Massachusetts, there is going to be more than just one political view. However, Massachusetts is generally seen as a liberal state. The majority of the population holds liberal values such as, a progressive government and agrees with government aid.

Macro- on a large scale like the United States, there is a vast range of values (especially politics) that extend beyond one individuals views, or even an individual state’s political ideologies. These values are ranging from liberal, conservative, or anywhere in between.

Epistemology: The nature of, the study of, the idea of knowledge

Micro- On the smallest level I think of the idea knowledge as being the amount of knowledge one would need to build a shed.

Meso- the next level of knowledge could be thought of as having a group in a classroom like atmosphere learning how to build a shed for their back yards. In this situation you have a multitude of different background, and interpretations what the shed will look like.

Macro- On the largest scale, knowledge could be thought of as the collection of books written on building sheds, and other “do it yourself” carpentry projects. The knowledge on this topic is not simply from your perspective or even a small group of people. Rather it is a culmination of different people from different cultures and generations across the world. Just think of all the ideas you could learn on a scale such as this.