What is Philosophy?

A very brief introduction

Philosophy, like everything, is very hard to define. Unlike science or history, philosophy lacks an agreed set of methods, nor is it limited in scope to a particular field of human inquiry. Indeed, many subjects that we would now understand as being distinct, like mathematics, politics, or science, were all considered philosophy for much of history, and only became separate disciplines in modern times. A.C Grayling describes this phenomenon in the following way:

“We humans occupy a patch of light in a great darkness of ignorance. Each of the special disciplines has its station on an arc of the circumference of the patch of light, straining to see outwards into the shadows to descry shapes, and thereby to push the horizon of light a little further outwards. Philosophy patrols the whole circumference, making special efforts on those arcs where there is as yet no special discipline, trying to formulate the right questions to ask in order than there might be a chance of formulating answers.” (The History of Philosophy)

Transliterated from Greek, the word philosophy means "love (philos) of wisdom (sophia)". Somewhat broad isn't it? Well fortunately we can be at least a little more specific. Philosophy in modern times is usually split into a few particular subjects, in the same way science is (biology, chemistry, and physics). These are as follows;

• Metaphysics

• Epistemology

• Ethics

• Logic

There are then a bunch of sub-categories but we'll get to those later. I want to briefly outline what each of these mean, and in doing so, hopefully give you an idea of what philosophers are doing all day!

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is enquiry into the nature of fundamental reality.¹ The types of questions metaphysics seeks to answer include;

• What is being?

• What is existence?

• What is an object?

• Do objects have parts?

• How do we distinguish between objects?

• What are properties?

• Are objects contingent?

• What is the nature of causation?

• What is time?

• What is a human?

• Do humans have souls?

• Do we have free will?

• What is identity?

• Does God exist?

Epistemology

Epistemology is enquiry into the nature of knowing and knowledge. The types of questions epistemology seeks to answer include;

• What is knowledge?

• When is a belief justified?

• What are beliefs?

• What are the limits of knowledge?

• Is objective knowledge possible?

• How is knowledge acquired?

• What is truth?

Ethics

Ethics can be split into three sub-categories; meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. The types of questions ethics seeks to answer include;

• What is good and evil?

• What is morality?

• Is morality objective?

• How do we ground ethics?

• What does it mean to ground ethics?

• What are moral obligations?

• What are human rights?

• Do moral obligations exist?

• What gives life meaning?

• What is the good life?

• How do we know what the right thing to do is?

Logic

Logic is enquiry into the nature of proper reasoning and how we ought to do it. The types of questions ethics seeks to answer include;

• What is proper reasoning?

• What is an argument?

• What makes an argument sound?

• What makes an argument valid?

• What is a valid inference?

• What are deduction, induction, and abduction?

• What are logical fallacies?

Sub-fields of Philosophy

• Philosophy of religion seeks to assess the claims and doctrines of particular religious traditions.²

• Political philosophy seeks to assess how best to organise society and government.

• Aesthetics is enquiry into the nature of art and beauty.

• Philosophy of language is enquiry into the nature of language.

• Philosophy of mind is enquiry into the nature of mental phenomena.

• Philosophy of science seeks to assess the methods and assumptions of science.

• Meta-philosophy seeks to assess what philosophy is and how best to do it.

A Note on Methodology

As I said earlier, philosophy lacks a unified method of truth seeking. Philosophers throughout history have used all sorts of means to come to their conclusions. That being said, nearly all philosophers agree that reason plays an fundamental role in philosophical enquiry. Reason, broadly conceived, is the ability to think, analyse, comprehend, and make rational judgements. Contemporary analytic philosophy has taken this one step further, by placing a lot of emphasis on the use of mathematical logic, the specificity of language, and rigorous argumentation.

A Brief Timeline of Philosophers

The following is a timeline of the major philosophers throughout history. Hopefully this gives you an idea of some names to look out for!

• Confucius (circa 551-479 AD)

• Siddhartha Gautama (circa 450 BC)

• Socrates (circa 399 BC)

• Plato (circa 428-348 BC)

• Aristotle (384-322 BC)

• Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD)

• Boethius (circa 480–524 AD)

• Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109 AD)

• Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD)

• Roger Bacon (1219-1292 AD)

• John Duns Scotus (1265-1308 AD)

• William of Ockham (1287-1347 AD)

• Francis Bacon (1561-1626 AD)

• Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD)

• Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679 AD)

• Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677 AD)

• John Locke (1632-1704 AD)

• George Berkeley (1685-1753 AD)

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716 AD)

• David Hume (1711-1776 AD)

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778 AD)

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804 AD)

• Jeremy Bentham (1747-1832 AD)

• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831 AD)

• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860 AD)

• John Stuart Mill (1806-1873 AD)

• Karl Marx (1818-1883 AD)

• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900 AD)

• Bertrand Russell (1827-1970 AD)

• G.E Moore (1873-1958 AD)

• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951 AD)

• Martin Heidegger (1889-1976 AD)

• Karl Popper (1902-1994 AD)

• Jean-Paul Satre (1905-1980 AD)

• J.L Mackie (1917-1981 AD)

• Jacques Derrida (1930-2004 AD)

There are of course many excellent philosophers operating in our current times, but for the sake of brevity, I have avoided listing contemporary philosophers.

Conclusion

Phillip Goff sees the job of philosophy as synthesis. Drawing from all fields of human enquiry, philosophy aims to answer the deepest questions about the nature of reality. Thus, the quest for a "theory of everything", properly belongs to philosophy, not science. Science, being necessarily limited in scope, can only give us part of the picture. Philosophy however, can unite the realms of fact and value, and with the help of our reasoning faculties, can bring us ever closer to understanding the universe we inhabit. This is what makes philosophy so exciting!

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1. The “meta” in metaphysics means “after” (or “above”/“beyond”). The term is thought to be coined by Aristotle’s editor, who simply listed the metaphysics as those books which should be read after ‘The Physics’. If physics is the study of what things do, then metaphysics is the study of what things are.

2. What separates this from theology is only really what is taken for granted before enquiry begins. A Christian theologian is going to assume that a) Christian doctrine is true (whatever that is), and b) the sources of Christian doctrine are legitimate (whatever those are). A philosopher isn't going to accept either of these claims going in.