Philosophy Debate Guide
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What is philosophy?
- Philosophy is a field of study that includes diverse subfields such as aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics, in which people ask questions such as whether God exists, what is the nature of reality, whether knowledge is possible, and what makes actions right or wrong. The fundamental method of philosophy is the use of reasoning to evaluate arguments concerning these questions. However, the exact scope and methodology of philosophy is not rigid. What counts as philosophy is itself debated, and it varies across philosophical traditions.
- The term philosophy comes from the Greek word "Φιλοσοφία" (philo-sophia), which means "love of wisdom" or less commonly "friend of wisdom". The term is notoriously difficult to define (see definition of philosophy) because of the diverse range of ideas that have been labeled as a philosophy. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy defines it as the study of "the most fundamental and general concepts and principles involved in thought, action, and reality". The Penguin Encyclopedia says that philosophy differs from science in that philosophy's questions cannot be answered empirically, and from religion in that philosophy allows no place for faith or revelation. However, these points are called into question by the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, which states: "the late 20th-century... prefers to see philosophical reflection as continuous with the best practice of any field of intellectual enquiry." Indeed, many of the speculations of early philosophers in the field of natural philosophy eventually formed the basis for modern scientific explanations on a variety of subjects.
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Philosophy from Wikipedia |
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Question of philosophy as central to the task of philosophy
I will say nothing of philosophy except that it has been studied for centuries by the most outstanding minds without having produced anything which is not in dispute and consequently doubtful and uncertain.- Rene Descartes
Philosophy itself is doubtful and uncertain. Its very nature or essence (or lack thereof) is and has been in dispute throughout the history of philosophy, irrespective of the fact that quite a few philosophers were convinced that their philosophical systems had put an end to philosophy. Unlike other disciplines, philosophy enters into itself to attack itself. The question ‘what is philosophy?’ has been fundamental to the philosophical task. In many respects, philosophy proceeds from the activity of reflecting upon itself. How one views philosophy and how one views what it is to do philosophy shape the way one approaches the problems and questions of human endeavor and existence.
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Discussion questions
• What is philosophy?
• What is it to do philosophy? (What does philosophy entail?) How does it proceed?
• How does philosophy differ from other intellectual disciplines?
• What is the purpose or function of philosophy within human endeavor?
• What is the role of philosophy within contemporary culture and society?
• What responsibility does the philosopher bear?
• In what ways does philosophy relate to its historical, cultural, and social contexts?
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Philosophers on philosophy
What is the use of a philosopher who does not hurt anyone’s feelings?- Diogenes
Philosophy teaches us to talk with an appearance of truth about all things and to make ourselves admired by the less learned.- René Descartes
When someone asks 'what's the use of philosophy?' the reply must be aggressive, since the question tries to be ironic and caustic. Philosophy does not serve the State or the Church, who have other concerns. It serves no established power. The use of philosophy is to sadden. A philosophy which saddens no one, that annoys no one, is not a philosophy. It is useful for harming stupidity, for turning stupidity into something shameful. Its only use is the exposure of all forms of baseness of thought. . . . Philosophy is at its most positive as a critique, as an enterprise of demystification.- Gilles Deleuze
Philosophy is the art of forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts.- Gilles Deleuze
So long as it is free from inner contradiction, it is hard to see how any philosophical thesis can be refuted, and equally hard to see how it can ever be proved. Our only hope…is to make the interpretations appear so strained that the assumptions on which they rest become discredited.- A. J. Ayer
A thinker is very much like a draughtsman whose aim is to represent all the interrelations between things.- Ludwig Wittgentstein
I find it important in philosophizing to keep changing my posture, not to stand too long on one leg, so as not to get stiff. Like someone on a long up-hill climb who walks backward for a while so as to revive himself and stretch some different muscles.- Ludwig Wittgentstein
People say again and again that philosophy doesn’t really progress, that we are still occupied with the same philosophical problems as were the Greeks. But the people who say this don’t understand why it has to be so. It is because our language has remained the same and keeps seducing us into asking the same questions. As long as there continues to be a verb ‘to be’ that looks as if it functions in the same way as ‘to eat’ and ‘to drink,’ as long as we continue to talk of a river of time, of an expanse of space, etc., etc., people will keep stumbling over the same puzzling difficulties and find themselves staring at something which no explanation seems capable of clearing up. And what’s more, this satisfies a longing for the transcendent because in so far as people think they can see the ‘limits of human understanding,’ they believe of course that they can see beyond these.- Ludwig Wittgentstein
Getting hold of the difficulty deep down is what is hard. Because if it is grasped near the surface it simply remains the difficulty it was. It has to be pulled out by the roots; and that involves our beginning to think about these things in a new way. The change is as decisive as, for example, that from alchemical to the chemical way of thinking. The new way of thinking is what is so hard to establish. Once the new way of thinking is has been established, the old problems vanish; indeed they become hard to recapture. For they go with our way of expressing ourselves and, if we clothe ourselves in a new form of expression, the old problems are discarded along with the old argument.- Ludwig Wittgentstein
The wanderer—He who has come only in part to a freedom of reason cannot feel on earth otherwise than as a wanderer—though not as a traveler towards a final goal, for this does not exist. But he does want to observe, and keep his eyes open for everything that actually occurs in the world; therefore he most not attach his heart too firmly to any individual thing; there must be something wandering within him, which takes its joy in change and transitoriness.- Friedrich Nietzsche
Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science. Like theology, it consists of speculation on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation.- Bertrand Russell
