What is the philosophy of philosophy?

Question

What good is philosophy? Why do people study philosophy? What is the purpose of practicing philosophy? Does it do any good to philosophize?

Answer 1

Philosophy teaches the rigors of thinking; studying philosophy broadens ones horizons, philosophers are characterized by organized thinking.; According to Socrates, the purpose of practicing philosophy is to prepare for death. I use philosophy as a tool to convey my faith intelligently. I have discovered something disturbing very few people understand the discipline of philosophy, but ask them what is on TV, that is another matter.

Answer 2

The philosophy of philosophy is usually a suptopic in numerous fields notably history of philosophy, literary theory (or just theory), and of course ethics.

Like I said in a previous answer. Philosophy is an open-ended field of study since there are many differing philosophies, which have their strong points and weak points. People study philosophy either because they are coerced to do so in their undergraduate studies or for the fun of it. You can always ask, why do people read D.H. Lawrence? or Tolstoy? or Fitzgerald? It's because they want to or because they have to for school.

You don't actually practice philosophy. There are some guides to life out there which all basically say the same message: Tao Te Ching, Enchiridion, Meditations, the Bible etc., You don't practice philosophy unless you're talking about logic. You just study it and come to your own conclusions.

Again. You don't philosophize. I don't believe there's such a thing.

Is there any good? Besides showing off to your other philosophically minded peeps in friendly debates, there's really no benefit. It's just for the knowledge if you want to be considered well-read.

Answer 3

Russell has a good quote on this: We may note one peculiar feature of philosophy. If someone asks the question what is mathematics, we can give him a dictionary definition, let us say the science of number, for the sake of argument. As far as it goes this is an uncontroversial statement... Definitions may be given in this way of any field where a body of definite knowledge exists. But philosophy cannot be so defined. Any definition is controversial and already embodies a philosophic attitude. The only way to find out what philosophy is, is to do philosophy. —Bertrand Russell, The Wisdom of the West

Answer 4

The philosophy of philosophy should be answered in a philosophitical way by someone who studied the philosophy about the questions questioning the philosophy of the philosophy

Answer 5

All human attempts to know begin with philosophy. Every other field of study is initially explored by philospphers, who look to; 1) distinguish that feild from the others, 2) decide what methods of inquiry are suited to that distinct field, 3) establish a means for understanding any results of research in that feild, and 4) establish criteria for reevaluating and modifying 1-3. Philosphy is thus the basis and substance of every other field. This is made clear by looking at the highest degree in almost every feild; a PhD, or Doctor of Philosophy.

Answer 6

Philosophy of philosophy is called metaphilosophy (look it up if you think I'm joking).

Philosophy has three main aims:

1. To make concepts clear and distinct. A clear concept is one that isn't internally confused. A distinct concept is one that isn't confused with other similar concepts.

2. To remove self-conflict from theories about being, knowing and doing, and to arrive at a worldview that is free of self-conflict and free of conflict with the way the world is (the truth).

3. To arrive at a worldview that includes all that is true and necessary and excludes all that is untrue and unnecessary.

In summary, the good of philosophy is that it works toward thinking that is unconfused, unconflicted, and precise.

Answer 7

The philosophy of philosophy is that you can basically think however you want to think. The purpose of philosophy is to first listen to what others have thought in the past, wrestle with their ideas, then form you own ideals from what others have come to understand/think.

Decartes believed that we needed to strip our minds of everything we have come to understand and think, and start at the core of what we believe. The idea is to challenge everything you believe, and to make your opinions stronger. This is a great example of the philosophy of philosophy.

Philosophy is great because there are questions that have plagued great minds for hundreds of years, and they will continue to challenge everyone for years to come. Some might consider this very frustrating, but I consider it liberating because of the simple fact that you can believe what you want to believe - and think the way you want to think. Philosophy is the ultimate in freedom and liberation of the mind.

Answer 8

The philosophy of philosophy is to study it first and then use it everyday in life to better your life and everyone else's.

Answer 9

To be able to philosophize philosophically is a truly splendiferous philosophy, philosophically speaking, that is...

Answer 10

Philosophy is the search for answers to questions which have no factual answers, but to which some answer must be assumed in order to simply get through the day. Truth, love, religion, logic, ethics, beauty.....in other words, philosphy is the attempt to find out WTF it "ALL" means.