Life's Ultimate Questions

I have been refreshing on Ronald Nash's book "Life's Ultimate Questions; An Introduction to Philosophy" as of late and I am loving it. This was a book that I didn't appreciate in college but am seeing a huge benefit in now. I can't get enough of it! I'm trying to have a little basic philosophy refresher before a philosophy class next semester where we will study some of the philosophers that have had an influence on Postmodern thought in depth such as Wittgenstein, Rorty, Ricoeur, Foucault, Derrida, Fish, and some others. I'm really excited to dive into more of the primary source material rather than just take Christian theologians word for it.

The primary questions that philosophy should (and used to) ask include five things:
1. God - Is there a God? How does he relate to the world? Is this God personal?

2. Metaphysics - These are questions of ultimate reality and purpose. Is our universe closed/open? Purposeful?

3. Anthropology - Are humans inherently good/evil? What is mankind?

4. Epistemology - How do we know what we know?

5. Ethics - How and why do we make moral decisions?

Unfortunately more current philosophical streams have gotten sidetracked with the minors and majored on little pieces like linguistics or epistemology without connecting the pieces to the larger puzzle. They may give us little bits of truth here and there, but unconnected to the whole, they have limited value. Without a larger, consistent framework, there is no way to evaluate reality, our worldview turns into a jumbled mess and our lives stop working.

I'm also excited in December to read through Atlas Shrugged and use some of the criteria to critique philosophy that Nash gives. These tests include:

1. The test of reason - Is this worldview internally consistent? Are there any logical contradictions? Do the five pieces of the puzzle (as listed above) fit together?

2. The test of outward experience - Is this worldview consistent with what I experience as to be reality within the world we live? Nash uses an example of what is not consistent with reality such as the claim, "pain and death are simply an illusion." That is obviously false and should be rejected since we experience pain and death!

3. The test of inward experience - Is this worldview consistent with what my conscious and brain tell me is true?

4. The test of practice - Is it possible to claim to adhere to this worldview and consistently practice it as a way of life daily?

I think these are helpful criteria to examine worldviews and world religions and I am excited to use Atlas Shrugged as a guinea pig for this. If you have not read "Life's Ultimate Questions", I highly recommend it as a primer on philosophy. I have found it very valuable.