METAPHYSICS

A division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental

nature of reality and being and that includes ontology,
cosmology, and often epistemology.
The part of philosophy that is concerned with the basic causes
and nature of things. http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/metaphysics

EPISTEMOLOGY
the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge
especially with reference to its limits and validity.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/epistemology

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Epistemologists concern

themselves with a number of tasks, which we might sort into two
categories.

First, we must determine the nature of knowledge; that is, what does it
mean to say that someone knows, or fails to know, something? This is
a matter of understanding what knowledge is, and how to distinguish
between cases in which someone knows something and cases in which
someone does not know something. While there is some general
agreement about some aspects of this issue, we shall see that this
question is much more difficult than one might imagine.

Second, we must determine the extent of human knowledge; that is,

how much do we, or can we, know? How can we use our reason, our
senses, the testimony of others, and other resources to acquire
knowledge? Are there limits to what we can know? For instance, are
some things unknowable? Is it possible that we do not know nearly as
much as we think we do? Should we have a legitimate worry
about skepticism, the view that we do not or cannot know anything at
all?

http://www.iep.utm.edu/epistemo/
 Defined narrowly, epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified
belief. As the study of knowledge, epistemology is concerned with the
following questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions
of knowledge? What are its sources? What is its structure, and what are
its limits? As the study of justified belief, epistemology aims to answer
questions such as: How we are to understand the concept of
justification? What makes justified beliefs justified? Is justification
internal or external to one's own mind? Understood more broadly,
epistemology is about issues having to do with the creation and
dissemination of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry. This article
will provide a systematic overview of the problems that the questions
above raise and focus in some depth on issues relating to the structure
and the limits of knowledge and justification.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

ETHICS
an area of study that deals with ideas about what is good and bad
behavior : a branch of philosophy dealing with what is morally
right or wrong. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic

These replies might be typical of our own. The meaning of "ethics" is

hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are
shaky.

Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate

ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of
following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may
recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from
what is ethical.

Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Most religions, of

course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to
religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics
applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the devout
religious person. Religion can set high ethical standards and can
provide intense motivations for ethical behavior. Ethics, however,
cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.

Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. The law
often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe.
But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-
Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South
Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from
what is ethical.

Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society

accepts." In any society, most people accept standards that are, in
fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from
what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi
Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.

Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts,"

then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what
society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for
example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then
conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries
to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social
consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with
whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many
others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts,
one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact,
exist.

What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to

well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans
ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society,
fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those
standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape,
stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also
include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty.
And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the
right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy.
Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are
supported by consistent and well-founded reasons.

Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's

ethical standards. As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social
norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly
examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-
founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our
own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that
we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are
 reasonable and solidly-based. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-
resources/ethical-decision-making/what-is-ethics/

LOGIC
The term "logic" came from the Greek word logos, which is sometimes
translated as "sentence", "discourse", "reason", "rule", and "ratio". Of
course, these translations are not enough to help us understand the
more specialized meaning of "logic" as it is used today.

So what is logic? Briefly speaking, we might define logic as the study of

the principles of correct reasoning. This is a rough definition, because
how logic should be properly defined is actually quite a controversial
matter. However, for the purpose of this tour, we thought it would be
useful to give you at least some rough idea as to the subject matter
that you will be studying.
http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/logic/whatislogic.php

a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of

inference and demonstration : the science of the formal
principles of reasoning. http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/logic