The question about the nature of philosophy is itself a philosophical question: metaphilosophy is a branch of philosophy. And so one expects and finds a variety of competing answers. Here are some. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the quotations. My comments are in blue. I conclude with a brief statement of my own.
Philosophy is thinking in slow motion. It breaks down, describes and assesses moves we ordinarily make at great speed - to do with our natural motivations and beliefs. It then becomes evident that alternatives are possible [John Campbell, Philosophers]
Nice as a characterization, but does not get the length of a definition. You could say the same about physics.
One comes to philosophy already endowed with a stock of opinions. It is not the business of philosophy either to undermine or to justify these pre-existing opinions, to any great extent, but only to try to discover ways of expanding them into an orderly system. It succeeds to the extent that (1) it is systematic, and (2) it respects those of our pre-philosophical opinions to which we are firmly attached. In so far as it does both better than any alternative we have thought of, we give it credence. [David Lewis, Counterfactuals]
Although I am a conservative across the board (socially, politically, fiscally, linguistically . . .), this characterization I find too conservative. Like a good conservative, I am prepared to say that there is a presumption in favor of pre-existing opinions, but that it is a defeasible presumption. Why shouldn't metaphysics be revisionary as opposed to descriptive, to allude to P. F. Strawson's old distinction? (See the opening sentences of Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics, Methuen, 1959.) Included in our stock of "pre-existing opinions" are our modal beliefs. Must we uphold them at all costs? Could it not be that there is no modality in reality, that modality is merely epistemic? And when one considers the absurd lengths to which David Lewis was driven "to expand into an orderly system" our modal opinions, then one could reasonably maintain that it would be better to jettison our ordinary modal opinions if the only suitable truthmakers for them are possible worlds conceived of as maximal mereological sums of concreta all equally real.
If one adopted Lewis's characterization, one would have to deny that F. H. Bradley was a philosopher. For his was a revisionary project: he was not concerned to "expand into an orderly system" "our pre-existing opinions." Quite the contrary: he was out to consign the whole lot of them to the realm of Appearance. And it seems the question whether metaphysics should be descriptive or revisionary, a question which is itself philosophical, would be ruled out if Lewis's characterization is accepted.
Philosophy is different from science and from mathematics. Unlike science it doesn't rely on experiments or observation, but only on thought. And unlike mathematics it has no formal methods of proof. It is done just by asking questions, arguing, trying out ideas and thinking of possible arguments against them, and wondering how our concepts really work. [Thomas Nagel, What Does it All Mean]
This is good as far as it goes. I would add that philosophy does not contradict science and that scientific results are themselves grist for the philosopher's mill. A common mistake is to think that philosophy is in competition with science, or is trying to achieve by a priori methods what can only be attained by empirical ones. Philosophers are not in quest of a 'High Priori' way to what can be gotten only via an arduous tour through the lowlands of experience.
The word 'philosophy' means the love of wisdom, but what philosophers really love is reasoning. They formulate theories and marshal reasons to support them, they consider objections and try to meet these, they construct arguments against other views. Even philosophers who proclaim the limitations of reason all adduce reasons for their views and present difficulties for opposing ones. [Robert Nozick, The Nature of Rationality]
I would say that a philosopher who loves reasoning more than he loves wisdom is no true philosopher. Such a person confuses the means (reasoning) with the end (knowledge of the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters, where 'ultimate matters' embraces matters of soteriological interest). But it is true that philosophers love reasoning, especially reasoning that issues in paradoxes. As a certain aphorist has written, a philosopher is one who loves a paradox but hates a contradiction. But it is not just that philosophers happen to love reasoning and tend to be good at it; by definition, philosophy is an enterprise of unaided reason. You cannot be a philosopher unless you have a certain trust in reason, a trust conspicuous by its absence in ordinary folk; unless you believe that reason and dialectic are reliable routes to truth. But given that philosophy is radical reflection, reason and the philosopher's trust in it become themselves themes of philosophical interrogation. And so the philosopher's trust in reason is not a naive trust. The enterprise of reason embraces the project of a critique of reason. Reason turns upon itself in order to assess its own powers and limits, if limits there be. As Hegel observed anent Kant, there is something paradoxical in such a project, and he was right. Well then, yet another paradox, yet another goad to thinking!
I think there is only one way to philosophy: to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part - unless you should meet another more fascinating problem, or unless indeed you should obtain a solution. But even if you do obtain a solution you may then discover to your delight, the existence of a whole family of enchanting though perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose to the end of your days. [Karl Popper, Realism and the Aim of Science]
This is wonderful. To put it crudely, if there are no problems that 'grab you by the balls,' or by the female equivalent thereof, then you are no philosopher. The aporetic sense is constitutive of the philosophical mind-set. That is what Plato was getting at in the Theatetus (at Stephanus 155) with his remark that wonder, perplexity is the feeling of the philosopher. Or as I once heard Roderick Chisholm say, "You are not philosophizing until you have a puzzle." Quite right.
I see philosophy not as groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat - a boat which we can rebuild only at sea while staying afloat in it. There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy. All scientific findings, all scientific conjectures that are at present plausible, are therefore in my view as welcome for use in philosophy as elsewhere [W.V.O. Quine, "Natural Kinds," Ontological Relativity and Other Essays]
This is a difficult question in metaphilosophy. Is philosophy continuous with science, or does it require a radically different method as Husserl maintained?
Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect. [Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy]
Very nice. Philosophy is a much-needed antidote to the dogmatism that comes naturally to people. Would there be as much militant fanaticism in the Islamic world as there is if there were any genuine philosophy there? Philosophy has a broadening and civilizing influence. It is incompatible both with religious zealotry and with science worship.
What is the aim of philosophy? To be clear-headed rather than confused; lucid rather than obscure; rational rather than otherwise; and to be neither more, nor less, sure of things than is justifiable by argument or evidence. [Geoffrey Warnock, Philosophers]
This is the sort of thing one would expect from a sober Englishman. Not that it isn't correct as far as it goes. A good philosopher always aims at clarity, as much as he can muster, and is never intentionally obscure. To paraphrase Nietzsche, the deep strive for clarity; the shallow strive for obscurity so as to appear deep to the masses. And of course the philosopher, by definition, employs (discursive) reason in his assault on the Big Questions. No philosopher qua philosopher puts forth a thesis on the basis of mystical experience or (putative) divine revelation. Nor does he rely uncritically on common sense or the deliverances of science. On the other hand, no philosopher worth his salt denigrates other putative modes of knowledge such as mystical experience. He takes their claims as further grist for his mill. He even holds open the possibility of abandoning philosophy and opting for one of these other modes of reality-contact.
But although clarity and rationality are important values, so is 'content.' 'Clarity with content' is one of my early mottoes. That is, genuine philosophy grapples with the deepest and hairiest problems, and if things get murky, then so be it. Better rich and meaningful murk than empty and meaningless clarity. To dismiss from philosophy the problem of the meaning of life, for instance, in the manner of a logical positivist is contemptible. Fair Philosophia rebels against all ancillary roles, whether as handmaiden to science or to theology. Similarly, the Ordinary Language fascination with the intricacies of linguistic usage must not be allowed to distract one from the questions that brought one to philosophy in the first place. The purpose of philosophy is to release us from Plato's Cave, not to make us more comfortable there.
The later Wittgestein and his Ordinary Language epigoni are conservative in a bad sense. Real philosophy does not leave everything as it is. Nor does it show the fly the way out of the fly bottle. There is no need to SHOW the fly the way out. Just pull out the cork and be done with it! I trust my meaning is clear.
There is a bit of tension between the Warnock and Lewis quotations. Lewis says that philosophy is not in the business of justifying pre-existing opinions, while Warnock thinks we should apportion our degree of belief accordingly as the belief-contents are "justifiable by argment or evidence." Who's right? Not easy to say. That too is a philosophical problem, and one ought not define philosophy in such a way as to beg the question one way or the other.
Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries. [Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus]
True as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Clearly defined thoughts are better than ill-defined ones if you can get them. But sometimes you can't. Are we therefore to confine ourselves to that alone which can be clearly articulated? I say no. (Will the wilderness traveller who cannot find a crystal pure spring refuse to drink from a murky stream?) Besides, clearly defined thoughts are not eo ipso true ones, and its is truth that we are after in the end. Further thoughts on this topic are in Adorno on Wittgenstein's Indescribable Vulgarity.
How would I characterize philosophy? Philosophy is the quest for the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters using unaided reason. It grapples with the Absolue, whether there is one and what it is. One cannot be a philosopher unless one believes that at least some important truths are attainable or at least approachable by dialectical and argumentative means. Thus there is no place in philosophy for the misologist, the hater of reason, and his close relative the fideist. Reasoning and argument loom large in philosophy, but they are not the main thing, pace Nozick above. They are means; the end is truth. Truth is reality-contact. The philosopher does not seek merely to know his own mind and its moves, but to know the Reality of which his mind is a part. And yet he must proceed self-reflectively. So the critique of reason is part of reason's enterprise.
There is no philosophy without the aporetic sense. Philosophy is first and foremost aporetics. Problems first, solutions second, if ever. And so philosophy cannot be apologetics for an already accepted ideology, nor can it be polemical. Apology and polemic belong in the sphere of ideology. Philosophy, as inquiry into whatever the truth is, is not ideology. Its primary aim is not to arrive at a system of beliefs orented toward action. Its primary aim is knowledge of the truth, whether the truth helps or hinders, legitimates our existing beliefs or unsettles them.
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