Opening up a can of worms. What is philosophy?

Question

Philosophy and philosophical are words bandied about not only on this site, but everywhere in life. Rarely, do we stop to ask "What is philosophy?"

Metacognition is fun. Therefore, what is philosophy? What do we do when we think philosophically? What is the purpose of philosophy? What are the results of philosophy? How can one become more philosophical?

Answer 1

I sure as heck don't know the answer to this question, but I can't help trying to answer it. When I was taking some philosophy classes a few years ago, I would go from one class to the next, one semester after another, studying different writings, different theories, different doctrines. But I started to notice something about philosophers as different as Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant and Husserl. What they have in common is a certain way of approaching the project of questioning the world.

So what is it? First, it does involve questioning 'the world'. That is, these philosophers engage in a 'meta-world' activity. They take the whole thing, the world as such, and ask questions about it. This implies a distinction (though it would go too far to try to define this distinction) between the asker and the world, or more generally, it assigns a unique place to 'the intellect' or 'the reasoning capacity' vis a vis 'the world'. So philosophy is based on this somewhat vague distinction between intellect and world.

The fact that philosophy deals with the world as such implies that the questioning is of a certain kind. Again, I don't want to try to give a precise definition (I couldn't do it if I wanted to), but the questioning involves a kind of bracketing of ordinary discourse about the world, a distancing of the questioner from ordinariness. This might be called 'contemplating the forms' or 'transcendental idealism' or 'phenomenological reduction' -- and those things certainly don't refer to the same realities -- but they have in common a quality that I think is what makes philosophy philosophy. I wish I knew how to say more about it, but that's about as far as I've gotten. Right now all I can say for sure is, you'll know it when you experience it.

(The only thing I would add is that the grouping of technical terms above might imply a doctrine I don't want to imply, which in modern philosophy has its classical form in cartesian dualism. But Descartes' critics also possess this quality, as for example Voegelin's use of 'metaxy' and Gadamer's hermeneutics.)

Answer 2

I am not a student of the science of philosophy. But that does not take away from me, my right to philosophise. To me philosophy is like the flight of a beautiful butterfly, soaring . fluttering and majestically landing on a flower . Philosophical thoughts do so and finally land ona thought train , taking us to a destination ( of understanding).

Your own question of the "can of worms" . A simple man , sitting by the side of a stream full of salmons, will tell you: "Why? I am simply opening a can of worms to catch a fish!" a complicated thinker will say: " No.No. Let is not discuss that subject . Or else you will be opening a series of unpleasant thoughts."

A third , a marketeer, will rejoice saying: " see I told you ! There is a big market for worms , provided these are packed attractively"
If you want to become more philosophical you can start with the premise that you feel like an insignificant worm , all the time. This is for a start.

Answer 3

SInce you have no answers yet, I'll be the first.

Philosophy is a love of wisdom and wisdom is above knowledge in the heirarchy of needs.Data is also knowledge...When one thinks philosophically, one engages all faculties of the mind and an inquiring mind delve deep from the surface and examines the root. Consciousness stems from philosophical thoughts and one does not just "become" philosophical, one has to have an innate desire to seek wisdom and thoughts will be philosophical from all derivities.

Great Philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Schopenhauer etc. have methods and profound thoughts that need not oppose one another but complement instead. The spectrum of life is immense and complicated hence we need not pigeon-hole things but embrace the diversity of analysis and seek how best to apply it.

Answer 4

Quite literally, philosophy is the love of knowledge. Because the philosopher loves knowledge, he seeks it. But then the question follows: what is knowledge? Knowledge is when there is complete correspondence between one's belief concerning something and reality. Reality is the true nature of existence, but to believe this, one must believe that there is a true nature of existence (which there is, but some choose to reject this truth and live in the ambiguity of subjectivism).

Answer 5

Philosophy probably are opinions, reasons, concepts created by humans that are widespread because they are logical and reasonable and seems very profound for people to understand and yet applicable to many situations.

For example most martial arts have the philosophy of self-control and balance (this applies to life and also to the art itself, in terms of the art it'd mean that you keep your balance while attacking and causing your opponent to lose his/her balance).

Another example would probably be the philosophy of love and peace. How can one ever understand the meaning of love and peace unless they've experienced it and apply it, yet when they experienced/are experiencing it, it is still very profound to understand but it's just applicable.

Answer 6

technological information is meant for convalescing the familiar of plenty with reference to actual, social, medical attributes. technological information is a vechile. If it winds up in the hands of a sane man or woman ,he can do maximum of issues in favour of a human race. conversly no rely if it particularly is misused by some irresponsible those with choppy objectives, then it could wreck human race and peraphs the entire civilisation. this suggests technological information can not get us unconditional or a conditional peace. it would fullyyt be counted on people who're going to apply the medical discoveries the two in the upliftment or a destruction of the society.

Answer 7

Attempt of individual to put on words his/her own vision and following way of life.

Answer 8

devi- it is to live with contentment and peace.
it teaches us life's lessons which we are not following
everyone is after money and money is around everyone's mind.
this word cannot be understood in the present day life.

Answer 9

Yeah.

Answer 10

"A walk on slippery rocks"