What is Philosophy?

10 OCTOBER 2020 ~ 1000-WORD PHILOSOPHY: AN INTRODUCTORY ANTHOLOGY

Author: Thomas Metcalf

Category: Metaphilosophy
Word count: 1000
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If you’ve ever wondered whether God exists, whether life has purpose, whether
beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what makes actions right or wrong, or whether
a law is fair or just, then you’ve thought about philosophy. And these are just a few
philosophical topics.
But what is philosophy? The question is itself a philosophical question. This essay
surveys some answers.

‘Philosophy’ in a dictionary.

1. Defining Philosophy
The most general definition of philosophy is that it is the pursuit of wisdom, truth,
and knowledge.[1] Indeed, the word itself means ‘love of wisdom’ in Greek.
Whenever people think about deep, fundamental questions concerning the nature
of the universe and ourselves, the limits of human knowledge, their values and the
meaning of life, they are thinking about philosophy. Philosophical thinking is
found in all parts of the world, present, and past. [2]
In the academic world, philosophy distinguishes a certain area of study from all
other areas, such as the sciences and other humanities. Philosophers typically
consider questions that are, in some sense, broader and/or more fundamental than
other inquirers’ questions:[3] e.g., physicists ask what caused some event;
philosophers ask whether causation even exists; historians study figures who
fought for justice; philosophers ask what justice is or whether their causes were in
fact just; economists study the allocation of capital; philosophers debate the ethical
merits of capitalism.
When a topic becomes amenable to rigorous, empirical study, it tends to be
“outsourced” to its own field, and not described in the present day as “philosophy”
anymore: e.g., the natural sciences were once called “natural philosophy,” but we
don’t now just think about whether matter is composed of atoms or infinitely
divisible: we use scientific experiments.[4] And most of the different doctoral
degrees are called “Doctor of Philosophy” even when they’re in sociology or
chemistry.
Philosophical questions can’t be straightforwardly investigated through purely
empirical means:[5] e.g., try to imagine a lab experiment testing whether societies
should privilege equality over freedom—not whether people believe we should, but
whether we actually should. What does moral importance look like in a
microscope?
The main method of academic philosophy is to construct and
evaluate arguments (i.e., reasons intended to justify some conclusion). Such
conclusions might be that some theory is true or false or might be about the
correct analysis or definition of some concept. These arguments generally have at
least some conceptual, intellectual, or a priori, i.e., non-empirical, content. And
philosophers often incorporate relevant scientific knowledge as premises in
arguments.[6]
2. Branches of Philosophy
Philosophy deals with fundamental questions. But which questions, specifically, is
philosophy about? Here’s a standard categorization: [7]
Logic: Logicians study good and bad arguments and reasoning, and they study
formal, symbolic languages intended to express propositions, sentences, or
arguments.[8]
Metaphysics: Metaphysicians study what sorts of entities exist, what the world and
its constituents are made of, and how objects or events might cause or explain each
other.[9]
Epistemology: Epistemologists study knowledge, evidence, and justified belief. An
epistemologist might study whether we can trust our senses and whether science is
trustworthy.[10]
Values: In value theory, philosophers study morality, politics, and art, among other
topics. For example: What makes wrong actions wrong? How do we identify good
people and good lives? What makes a society just or unjust? [11]
There are many sub-branches within these fields. Many other fields— the sciences,
art, literature, and religion—have a “philosophy of” attached to them: e.g.,
philosophers of science might help interpret quantum mechanics; philosophers of
religion often consider arguments about the existence of God. [12]
There are also unique and important philosophical discussions about certain
populations or communities, such as feminist philosophy and Africana philosophy.
 People from all cultures contribute to philosophy, more than are typically
[13]

discussed in Western philosophy courses.[14] Western academic philosophy has

often neglected voices from non-Western cultures, and women’s voices. [15]
Philosophers sometimes import tools, knowledge, and language from other fields,
such as using the formal tools of statistics in epistemology and the insights from
special relativity in the philosophy of time. [16] When your project is understanding
all of existence[17] in the broadest and most fundamental way, you need all the help
you can get.
3. The Point(s) of Philosophy
Academic philosophy doesn’t present a body of consensus knowledge the way
chemistry and physics do.[18] Do philosophical questions have correct answers?
Does philosophical progress exist? Does philosophy get closer to the truth over
time?[19] These are all matters of philosophical debate. [20] And philosophical debates
are rarely resolved with certainty.
So what’s the point? Here are some answers: [21]
 To discover truth, wherever and whatever it is.[22]
 To learn how to better live our lives.[23]
 To understand our own views, including their strengths and weaknesses.
 To examine our own lives and be more conscious of our choices and
their implications.
 To learn how to better think and reason. Recall: The main method of
philosophy is to present and examine arguments. [24]
And arguably, all of us are already naturally interested in at least some
philosophical questions. Many people find that philosophy is a lot of fun. And it’s
difficult to dispute that it is very important to find the answers to philosophical
questions, if the answers exist. It’s important to know, for instance, that slavery is
wrong and whether scientific consensus is generally trustworthy. So as long as it’s
at least possible to find the answers to these questions, we should try.
Also, there are strong correlations between studying philosophy and high
achievement in other academic areas, such as GRE scores and professional-school
admission.[25]
4. Conclusion
We’ve contrasted philosophy with other fields. We’ve looked at the branches of
philosophy. And we’ve looked at the purposes or benefits of philosophy. But
what is philosophy, really? Given everything we’ve said so far, we can provide at
least a partial definition of ‘philosophy’ as follows:
A largely (but not exclusively) non-empirical inquiry that attempts to identify and
answer fundamental questions about the world, including about what’s valuable
and disvaluable.
Is this a good definition? That’s a philosophical question too.
Acknowledgments
This entry has benefited enormously from the comments and suggestions of Shane
Gronholz, Chelsea Haramia, Dan Lowe, and Nathan Nobis.
Notes
 Berkeley 2003 [1710]: 5; Blackburn 1999: 1.
[1]

 Some of the oldest formal philosophy writing we have is attributed to a group of

[2]

ancient Greek philosophers called the ‘Pre-Socratics,’ because they wrote before
Socrates and Plato did (cf. Curd 2019). The earliest Upanishads may go back even
further (Olivelle 1998: 4 ff.).
 This is similar to Encyclopaedia Britannica’s (n.d.) definition: “the rational,
[3]

abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental

dimensions of human existence and experience.”
 See e.g., Berryman 2020 on ancient atomism.
[4]

 Metcalf 2018.
[5]

 Most philosophers believe that the sciences provide knowledge relevant to

[6]

traditional philosophical issues. That is, most philosophers endorse the meta-
philosophy of ‘naturalism,’ according to which philosophy should be informed by
the natural sciences. The usual justification for naturalism is based on the track-
record of the natural sciences, including their tending toward consensus. See
Bourget and Chalmers 2014: 476; Metcalf 2018; and Papineau 2019. For examples
of the relevance of science to traditional philosophical issues, see Ingram and
Tallent (2019: § 8); Wilce 2019; and Knobe and Nichols 2019. In these examples,
special relativity may be relevant to philosophy of time; quantum mechanics may
be relevant to philosophy of logic; and social science may be relevant to ethics.
 This is a version of common anthologies’ categorizations. See e.g., Blackburn
[7]

1999: vii and Rosen et al. 2015.

 Logicians can also study logics about obligation (McNamara 2019), about
[8]

necessity and possibility (Garson 2019), and whether useful logics can contain
sentences that are both true and false simultaneously (Priest et al. 2019).
 Van Inwagen and Sullivan 2019.
[9]

[10]
 Steup 2019; Metcalf 2020.
[11]
 Value theorists also study specific topics, such as our obligations to animals
(Gruen 2019) and whether governments can be legitimate (Peter 2019). See also
Haramia 2018 (the entry on applied ethics in 1000-Word Philosophy) for an
overview of applied ethics.
[12]
 Indeed, one area where people see many connections is with religion. So what’s
the difference between philosophy and religion? This is not an easy question to
answer, but most religious practice proceeds from a shared starting-point
consensus body of putative knowledge, and these beliefs are almost all about God
or gods, the afterlife, and how to live a pious life. In contrast, in philosophy,
everything is constantly open to question, and the topics are much broader than
gods and the afterlife.
[13]
 See e.g., McAfee 2019 and Outlaw 2019.
[14]
 Van Norden 2017.
[15]
 See e.g., Van Norden (op. cit.) and Buxton and Whiting 2020.
[16]
 Indeed, one popular metaphilosophical view is methodological naturalism about
philosophy, according to which philosophy should use the methods of the natural
sciences. Some naturalists go so far as to say that traditional philosophical methods
should be replaced by scientific methods. See Metcalf 2018 and Papineau 2019 for
more discussion. As for tools and knowledge from other fields, statistical and
probabilistic analysis is common in many areas of philosophy (see, e.g., Weisberg
2019) and special relativity may tell us something important about the philosophy
of time (Ingram and Tallant 2019).
 And maybe even the objects that don’t exist; see Reicher 2019.
[17]

 Bourget and Chalmers 2014. Arguably, there is consensus about many

[18]

philosophical questions, but we don’t consider those questions in academic

philosophy, at least not anymore. For example, almost everyone knows that slavery
is wrong and that women should be allowed to vote if anyone is. See also Gutting
2009 for a general survey of some apparent philosophical discoveries.
 Cf. Chalmers 2015.
[19]

 See, e.g., Miller 2019.

[20]

 See Bierce 2008; de Montaigne 1987: 204; Russell 2010: 20 for some other
[21]

statements about the nature or purpose of philosophy.

 Bierce 2008.
[22]

 De Montaigne 1987: 204.

[23]

 See e.g., Groarke 2019.

[24]

 Daily Nous n.d. However, we do not yet know what proportion of this is a
[25]

‘selection effect’—people who are already smart major in philosophy—and how

much of this is a ‘treatment effect,’ i.e., majoring in philosophy actually makes you
smarter.
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