Can anyone explain the descriptive and prescriptive approach to philosophy?

Question

How would you distinguish between the two? I have a test tomorrow and I am still a little confused. Thank you!

Answer 1

Descriptive approach is when you teach philosophy you just DESCRIBE what the possible approaches are, what are the different views, what are the possible solutions to a given problem.

Prescriptive is when you teach philosophy and you claim that YOUR approach is the ONLY approach, that your view is the only correct view, and that your solution to a given problem is the only correct solution.

Answer 2

We often describe what is the case, whereas we prescribe when we think we know what should be the case. It the first instance I am detailing how things are, in the second, I am arguing about how things ought to be.

But it's weird hearing philosophy described as descriptive. Especially in its modern forms (both analytic and continental), philosophy is unrelentingly critical: we analyse and argue, trying to clarify concepts and explain conceptual relationships, and in some fields we often make prescriptive claims about how things ought to be (in ethics and political philosophy, for instance). But philosophy is rarely descriptive in the sense that, say, good science requires clear and rigorous description of the phenomena being studied.

Answer 3

I only came up with another question. explain the difference between a plant and human curiosity when it is touched with light.