ABSTRACT

Dorothy and her dog Toto are carried by cyclone to the Land of Oz. To get back to Kansas, they seek the Great Oz, in his Emerald City. Through green spectacles, naturally, his city looks green. When Dorothy and her companions gain the presence of Oz they’re terrified-till Dorothy notices The Wizard’ is only a projection. Behind the big screen sits a little old man, who, like her, wants to ‘get back to Kansas’. If theories are green spectacles, then philosophy is like optics: a reflective and refractive process, looking at three areas where we seek meaning-the origin and nature of the world (metaphysics, theories of existence), belief (epistemology, theories of knowledge) and conduct (ethics, theories of value). These measure reality testing, and provide means to validating meaningfulness.