What is Philosophy?
An Age Old Question
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Strange, isn’t it? Other disciplines do not ask this question of themselves. Mathematicians don’t ask “what is mathematics?” because they know the answer by the time they become mathematicians. The same of scientists and carpenters. Experts in a given field have no need to question the nature of their vocation.
Yet for a trained philosopher, this question is as valid to them as it would be to a child hearing of philosophy for the first time!
So uniquely difficult is this question that there is an entire branch of philosophical study dedicated to trying to answer this very question, that branch of philosophy is called “meta-philosophy“.
Doubtless, the question of “what is philosophy” gave me more than my fair share of sleepless nights as a philosophy undergraduate. When asked what I study, I would respond “Philosophy!” which would usually be met with a confused look followed by the question “…what actually is philosophy?“. Usually this question would have me a bit stumped.
Eventually I developed a go-to answer and while it is not an answer without some controversy nor is it an answer which tells a person everything they might need to know, it gives a general idea of what is meant when a person studies philosophy as an academic discipline:
Philosophy is an umbrella term which describes a handful of disciplines. Generally composed of 3 main disciplines, but sometimes up to 7 disciplines, depending on who you ask.
The main disciplines are Metaphysics, Ethics and Epistemology.
But what are those subjects?
Metaphysics
The study of the nature of reality
If physics is the study of how reality works, metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality. What actually is reality? When we say everything is made of atoms and atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons and that those are made of matter and that matter might be made of strings and so on, what are we really saying? And what are the problems with our theories of the nature of reality historically and today? These questions are the fundamental concerns of metaphysics.
Generally, you might think of metaphysics as the “science-like” part of philosophy, as many science fiction concepts relate to some theory of metaphysics. For example, time, what is it and can it be travelled through is a metaphysical concept.
Do we have free will? Or is everything causally determined from the moment everything began?
Did the universe even have a beginning, or is it something beyond the laws of space and time? If so, what implications might that have for our view of life and death?
What happens after we die?
What is the mind really?
And is there an all powerful being watching over us and if so, what is the exact nature of said being?
These are all the kinds of questions that are studied by very serious scholars of philosophy who turn their hand and mind to the study of metaphysics.
Ethics
The study of how to live the good life
How can we live the good life?
In its most fundamental form, the above question is the essence of ethics. Generally speaking, when people think of philosophy, they are usually thinking of ethics. Those moral dilemmas which make a person question what the “right thing to do” might be, such as “the trolley problem” and questions about who one should save if there was a fresh organ, but 4 different people needed an emergency transplant. These sorts of questions relate to ethics because they are questions about how one should behave and make their choices. What is the right thing to do? How should we live in order to live our best lives?
Not only, how can we live our lives best for ourselves, but how might we live our best lives in the context of a society? What kinds of freedoms, if any, need to be forsaken in order to keep a social structure functioning?
Are morals real? Or are they just nice ideas that help us live more conformably with one another, but have no “truth value” to them?
Epistemology
The study of truth and knowledge
What is truth and knowledge?
That is the fundamental question behind epistemology. It is the study of how we know what we know. You could call it the study of knowledge as opposed to all other subjects which are effectively the study of knowledge.
Is knowledge something we have a justification for, a belief in, and something which is verifiably true? What kinds of things can we be certain of? Is there anything we cannot doubt? Are some kinds of knowledge better than others say for example, is something which is known by definition such as “all bachelors are unmarried men” somehow more valid knowledge than something we know from experience say for example “it is raining outside because I can see, hear, taste, touch and smell the rain falling from the sky”?
It seems important to study our basic assumptions about what we know in order to find out what we really know and what we in fact don’t know. Naturally, epistemology ties into a lot of other subjects such as methodological research, law, meta-scientific study or the philosophy of science and many other disciplines which fundamentally question what we know.
More Fields Of Philosophy?
Indeed! There are numerous branches of philosophical study. Some of which are on the brink of becoming their own subjects.
Logic:
Is the study of language through a process of structuring and reducing statements/arguments to their most fundamental meanings to extract the most refined truth of any given statement or argument. This is the backbone of analytic philosophy but is routinely used to varying degrees within the practice of Law.
Religious Studies:
Religious studies and philosophy go way back. In a sense, the study of religion and the practice of philosophy were once synonymous. These days there is an academic distinction between the practice of religion and the study of philosophy, but there are undeniable common grounds between religious studies and philosophy because they both as fundamentally similar questions such as “how to live the good life?”, “Where do we come from?”, “What if any is the point of life?” and of course the classic “What, if anything, happens to us after we die?”.
Politics:
One of the most divisive subjects of study but most assuredly one with a strong philosophical background. The study of politics is generally the study of society and how to run it, but the earliest questions about politics arose through more fundamentally philosophical questions about social relations, crime and punishment, ethics and justice. Though the study of politics is generally distinct from philosophy, there is a considerable intersection of interest between the disciplines, which has given rise to the aptly named subject “Political Philosophy”.
Art:
A nebulous subject which, much like philosophy, is difficult to define, art is a broad subject and philosophy has developed a field of study concerning art and the understanding of beauty called “aesthetics”.
Language:
Philosophers have long had the suspicion that language is something unique and special and the uniqueness and specialness of language might be up for debate among such scholars, but not up for debate is the enormous field of study known as “Philosophy of Language”. This field of study generally asks the more complicated questions about what language is, how it works and where it comes from. One of the key points of motivation behind this field of study is the idea that a better understanding of language will help us better understand ourselves and the world around us, as language is a fundamental tool through which we exchange ideas. So the more effectively we could transfer understanding to one another, the more effectively we could understand each other and the world around us.
Education:
The utility of philosophy has been called into question throughout its history, and in the modern era nothing has changed. These days people question the utility of philosophy as it can be difficult to turn philosophy into a commodity. Thankfully, one thing that is generally accepted is that philosophy, if nothing else, is a fantastic tool for improving critical thinking and therefore is an excellent educational tool. Many of our modern educational and psychological understandings have come from philosophical investigations, most prominently from John Locke’s 1693 book “Some Thoughts Concerning Education” which became the progenitor for our modern understanding of nature vs nurture and how it relates to childhood development particularly concerning how to educate children. But philosophy and education relationship thankfully persists today through organisations which teach philosophy such as “The Philosophy Foundation” which is one of a number of organisations which practise “P4C” or “Philosophy For Children”.
More!?
This has by no means been an exhaustive list. Philosophy, regardless of which aspects of it one considers to be its essential properties, is a multidisciplinary subject which for those in the know has its roots within almost every subject one can study. Indeed, Socrates/Plato argued that philosophy was a midwife which gives birth to all disciplines. When something is poorly understood, it is within the speculative and unformed realm of philosophy. But when it becomes better understood, it can be “birthed” so to speak into the world as its own independent discipline.
Helpful Video About Philosophy
The following are videos to help beginners in philosophy or those looking to refresh themselves on the basics of philosophy.