Philosophy

Philosophy is the critical study of the most fundamental questions that humankind has been able to ask. Philosophers ask questions such as

• Metaphysics: What sorts of things exist? What is the nature of those things? Do some things exist independently of our perception? What is the nature of space and time? What is the nature of thought and thinking? What is it to be a person? What is it to be conscious? Is there a god?
• Epistemology: Is knowledge possible? How do we come to know what we know? How can we know that there are other minds?
• Ethics: Is there a difference between morally right and wrong actions (or values, or institutions)? If so, what is that difference? Which actions are right, and which wrong? Are values absolute, or relative? In general or particular terms, how should I live?

Philosophy is paradigmatically concerned with fundamental concepts such as existence or being, morality or goodness, knowledge, truth, and beauty; philosophers have often been particularly concerned with asking critical questions about the natures of these concepts — questions which don't seem to be amenable to treatment by the special sciences.

Philosophy: Motives, Goals, and Methods

The word "philosophy" means "love of wisdom". These words show the motives and goals of many philosophers. Philosophers often have a passionate drive toward wisdom, and are willing to put that drive at the center of their lives. Many philosophers are curious about the world, humanity, values, knowledge, and the nature of things.

Some authorities distinguish philosophy by its methods of inquiry. Many philosophers frame their questions as problems or puzzles, in order to give clear examples of their doubts about a subject they find interesting, wonderful, or confusing. Often these questions will take the form of inquiry into the assumptions that lie behind a belief.

Then philosophers may answer or deal with these doubts. Many philosophers frame problems in a logical manner, using syllogisms, and then work towards a solution based on critical reading and reasoning. Others, like Socrates, search for answers through discussions, or by responding to the arguments of others. Still other philosophers put more emphasis on the practice of careful personal contemplation.

Philosophers debate whether "solving" a philosophical problem is like answering a question in the natural sciences: whether or not, for example, philosophical "solutions" are objective, definitive, and say something informative about reality; or rather whether these solutions just give more clarity or insight on the logic of our language, or even act as personal therapy.

Most philosophers prefer that philosophical answers follow from justifications. Very few philosophers accept a philosophical belief without asking for it to be justified.

Debates about philosophical method are closely connected to debates about the relationship between philosophy and natural science, and arguments over whether philosophy makes (or can make) progress in the same ways as the natural sciences. There is an entire field of philosophy—called meta-philosophy, the "philosophy of philosophy"—the subject of which is the nature of philosophical problems, philosophical solutions, and the proper method for getting from one to another (cf. pataphysics).

The fact that these debates have their own specialized field should not be taken to mean that they are less relevant to philosophy as a whole, since the nature and role of philosophy itself has always been an essential part of philosophical deliberations. The existence of these fields indicates a lengthy debate beyond the scope of this article. Such questions are discussed at more length elsewhere.

Non-academic uses of the word

Popularly, the word philosophy is often used to mean any form of wisdom, or any person's perspective on life (as in "philosophy of life") or basic principles behind or method of achieving something (as in "my philosophy about driving on highways"). This is also commonly referred to as a worldview.

To take another example, reacting to a tragedy "philosophically" might mean abstaining from passionate reactions in favor of intellectualized detachment. That particular definition arose from the example of Socrates, who calmly discussed the nature of the soul with his followers while the hemlock (used to execute him in accord with the decision of an Athenian jury) took effect. But the use of philosophically in this adverbial sense is only a distant relation of the contemporary academic usage.

This article focuses specifically on philosophy as an academic function rather than these usages, though there is some overlap with the former definition.

Western and Eastern Philosophy

Members of many societies around the world have considered the same questions, and built philosophic traditions based upon each other's works. Philosophy may be broadly divided into various realms based loosely on geography.

The term "philosophy" alone in a Euro-American academic context can misleadingly refer solely to the philosophic traditions of Western civilization, sometimes also called Western philosophy. In the West, the term "eastern philosophy" broadly subsumes the philosophic traditions of Asia and the East.

However, as the world becomes increasingly globalized, some believe that the Eastern and Western philosophical divide will shrink or disappear altogether.

Western Philosophy

The Western philosophic tradition began with the Greeks and continues to the present day. Famous Western philosophers include Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, René Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Willard van Orman Quine. For more information, see Western Philosophy.

Eastern Philosophy

Eastern philosophy follows the broad traditions that originated from or were popular within ancient China and India. Famous Eastern philosophers include Gautama Buddha, [[Nagarjuna|Template:Nagarjuna]], Confucius, Lao Zi (Lao Tzu), Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu), Mencius, Xun Zi, Zhu Xi, Sankara , Ramana Maharshi, and Ramanuja. For more information on Eastern philosophies, see Eastern philosophy.

Applied philosophy

Though often seen as a wholly abstract field, philosophy is not without practical applications. The most obvious applications are those in ethics -- applied ethics in particular -- and in political philosophy. The political philosophies of Confucius, Sun Tzu, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and John Rawls have shaped and been used to justify governments and their actions.

Philosophy of education deserves special mention, as well; progressive education as championed by John Dewey has had a profound impact on educational practices in the United States in the twentieth century. It could be argued that some New Age philosophies, such as the "Celestine Prophecy", inadvertantly educate people about human psychology and power relationships through the use of spiritual metaphor.

Other important applications can be found in epistemology, which might help one to regulate one's notions of what knowledge, evidence, and justified belief are. Two useful ways that epistemology and logic can inform the real world are through the fields of journalism and police investigation. Informal logic has fantastic applications, helping citizens to be critical in reading rhetoric and in everyday discussion. Philosophy of science discusses the underpinnings of the scientific method. Aesthetics can help to interpret discussions of art. Even ontology, surely the most abstract and least practical-seeming branch of philosophy, has had important consequences for logic and computer science.

In general, the various "philosophies of," such as philosophy of law, can provide workers in their respective fields with a deeper understanding of the theoretical or conceptual underpinnings of their fields.

Moreover, a burgeoning profession devoted to applying philosophy to the problems of ordinary life has recently developed, called philosophical counseling. Moreover, many Eastern philosophies can and do inadvertantly help millions of people with anxiety problems through their emphasis on meditation, calm, and the connection between the health of the body and the health of the soul.

Some tentative generalizations about what philosophy is

Based on the ground covered above, it seems that philosophy is a discipline that does not make use of experimentation and careful observation, though it may interpret philosophical aspects of experiment and observation. More positively, one might say that philosophy is a discipline that examines the meaning and justification of certain of our most basic, fundamental beliefs, according to a loose set of general methods. But what we might mean by the words "basic, fundamental beliefs"?

A belief is fundamental if it concerns those aspects of the universe which are most commonly found, which are found everywhere: the universal aspects of things. Philosophy studies, for example, what existence itself is. It also studies value--the goodness of things--in general. Surely in human life we find the relevance of value or goodness everywhere, not just moral goodness, though that might be very important, but even more generally, goodness in the sense of anything that is actually desirable, the sense, for example, in which an apple, a painting, and a person can all be good. (If indeed there is a single sense in which they are all called "good.")

Of course, physics and the other sciences study some very universal aspects of things; but it does so experimentally. Philosophy studies those aspects that can be studied without experimentation. Those are aspects of things that are very general indeed; to take yet another example, philosophers ask what physical objects as such are, as distinguished from properties of objects and relations between objects, and perhaps also as distinguished from minds or souls. Physicists proceed as though the notion of a physical body is quite clear and straightforward--which perhaps in the end it will found to be--but at any rate, physics assumes that, and then asks questions about how all physical bodies behave, and then does experiments to find out the answers.

How to get started in philosophy

It is a platitude (at least among people who write introductions to philosophy) that everybody has a philosophy, though they might not all realize it or be able to defend it. But at the same time the word "philosophy" as it is used by some philosophers is nothing like what is meant by people who say "Here's my philosophy of life..." Such is the tension between popular and scholarly opinion.

If you're already interested in studying philosophy, your reason might be to improve the way you live or think somehow, or you simply wish to get acquainted with one of the most ancient areas of human thought. On the other hand, if you don't see what all the fuss is about, it might help to read the motivation to philosophize, which explains what motivates many people to "do philosophy," and get an introduction to philosophical method, which is important to understanding how philosophers think. It might also help to acquaint yourself with some considerations about just what philosophy is.

Those who are new to the subject of philosophy are advised to study logic, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, and political philosophy as these are - arguably - the central disciplines.

People who are inclined to study philosophy with others may wish to seek out organizations such as the non-profit Society for Philosophical Inquiry.

Quotations

"Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it … or because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings—that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. - Gautama Buddha (attributed)

"Science is what we know and philosophy is what we don't know." - Bertrand Russell

"What is your aim in philosophy? To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

"Philosophy is the peculiarly stubborn attempt to think clearly." - William James

"Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing." - Ambrose Bierce

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point, however, is to change it." - Karl Marx

"Philosophy, which once seemed obsolete, lives on because the moment for realizing it has been missed." - Theodor Adorno

"Now you and I have, I hope, this advantage over all those clever new philosophers, that we happen not to be mad." - G. K. Chesterton

"Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man's relationship to existence. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible." - Ayn Rand

Books and journals suitable for beginners

• Blackburn, Simon. (1999). Think. Oxford University Press.
• Gaarder, Jostein. (1996). Sophie's World. Berkley Publishing Group.
• Grayling, A. C. (Ed.). (1995). Philosophy: A guide through the subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Grayling, A. C. (Ed.). (1998). Philosophy 2: Further through the subject. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Hoff, Benjamin. (1983). The Tao of Pooh. Penguin Books.
• Hoff, Benjamin. (1993). The Te of Piglet. Penguin Books.
• Nagel, T. (1987). What does it all mean?: A very short introduction to philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Philosophy Now magazine

Reference works

• Honderich, T. (Ed.). (1995). The Oxford companion to philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge.

Please see:

• Western Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Eastern Philosophy
• Chinese Philosophy
• Buddhist Philosophy
• Hindu Philosophy
• Islamic Philosophy