2.Describing Philosophy

8/11/2019 2.Describing Philosophy

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Towards A Description of Philosophy

C. A. Tomy

July, 2014
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Describing Philosophical Activity
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Why No Attempt at Defining Philosophy

Though it is very difficult to specify the nature ofphilosophy or articulate what makes a given problemphilosophical, philosophers by and large agree whether agiven problem is a philosophical problem or not.

Philosophy has various features. However, a philosophermay not agree whether a given feature actually belongs tophilosophy.

It is impossible to have a definition of philosophy,covering all features that various philosophers say belongto philosophy.

Such an all encompassing definition would be in allprobability highly incoherent.


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Towards a Description of Philosophy

However,it is imperative to have some idea about the

nature of philosophy before we proceed to get into thestudy of philosophy.

Instead of attempting a definition of philosophy, we shallattempt at some sort of description of a few of the

features of philosophical thinking.These perhaps are not the only features, nor do allphilosophers agree with regard to these features.

Because the features we list below may themselves be

debated over and subjected to philosophical scrutiny.However, the description, would provides us with aworking understanding of the nature of philosophicalthinking.


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Philosophy as a Critical Enterprise.

One of the chief activity of philosophy is criticism.

It critically examines various belief systems, ways of life,views and perspectives and tries to figure out whetherthey are tenable or not.

This feature of philosophy was well articulated long backby Socrates when he said

An unexamined life is not worth living.
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Critical Analysis of Concepts, Methodology, etc.

It also critically scrutinizes the concepts used in andmethodology employed by the various particulardisciplines and try to assess the cognitive import of theclaims made by these disciplines.

Like the fire of the Goldsmith that examines whether agiven piece of mental is gold or not, it tests the tenabilityof the ideas and concepts employed by various otherdisciplines.

Philosophys critical activity is not confined to just a setof beliefs or concepts. Anything and everything comesunder its critical activity. Philosophy is never content withwhat is given or the status quo.
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Philosophy as an Analysis

What is analysis?
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What is analysis?

The process whereby a complex phenomenon is brokendown into its its component parts.
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What is analysis?

The process whereby a complex phenomenon is brokendown into its its component parts.

In the process of analysis we come to know what thebasic components of the system under analysis are and

how its various elements or components are organized toform a complex whole.

Complex concepts, beliefs, statements etc in any field likescience, religion, and ethics can be subjected to analysis.

There is a prominent school of philosophy which thinksthat philosophy is primarily analysis of language whichreveals the the basic structure of language leaving noroom for ambiguities of any sorts.


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Philosophy as Study of Meaning

As a part of Philosophys analytical inquiry, it also seeksto understand the meaning of various beliefs and conceptsand words that we use.

It also ties to enquire into the nature of concept ofmeaning, or the meaning of meaning

It ties to specify under what condition, concept or a wordor a statement or proposition is meaningful
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As Search for presuppositions

Philosophy may not be particularly interested in anyspecific system of knowledge but knowledge system as awhole.

It tries to discover the presuppositions of various inquiries,if not knowledge system as a whole. By a presuppositionI mean various beliefs on the basis of which we act orform other beliefs.

One may not be aware of these presuppositions and mostof the time they are tacitly assumed.
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A Mundane Example of Presuppositions

When I walk across the football ground, or through the

corridors of the various buildings on the campus, I tacitlyassume that I do not plunge into the ground whereaswhen I go to the swimming pool, I do not dare to walkover the water because of the belief that if I step over

water, I will go down. This tacit assumption I do notentertain consciously. However, some of my acts of thedaily life and my omission of certain other acts are basedon them. I may suddenly become aware of them, forexample, if some were to ask me why I avoided walking

over the water in the swimming pool. At point of timeasking this odd the question, I may become ware of theassumption that I unconsciously entertained from my earlychildhood and may spell out as answer to the enquirer.
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Presuppositions of Knowledge System as a Whole

The kind of presuppositions that we look for in philosophy

may not be of the kind we discussed in this example. Thepresuppositions we search for are those of our knowledgesystems as a whole and the presuppositions of each of theparticular inquiries we make.

Suppose that one of the propositions that we entertain aspart of our knowledge system is: All crows are blackThen the proposition, There are countries in the worldwhere crows are not black cannot be part of ourknowledge system as the latter proposition is not

consistent with former. It shows that one of thepresuppositions of our knowledge system is that it mustbe consistent.

Any system of belief that violates this norm is summarily

rejected.
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Philosophy as Presupposition-less Enquiry

Each of the particular inquiries that we make has its ownpresuppositions which is not questioned in the concerneddiscipline.

Philosophy, perhaps, is the only inquiry, that could becharacterized as presuppositionless as putativepresuppositions can be questioned and subjected tocritical scrutiny.
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Search for Meaning in Life

Our discussion so far might show that philosophy is

interested only in questions of knowledge. But this is nottrue.

Philosophy lays a lot of importance practical life particularly how we must lead our life so that it is

meaningful or worth-living.It asks what is the highest good or goal of life, thesummum bonumwhich imparts meaning to ones life.

But here again philosophers are not unanimous about

what is the highest good of human life.To lead a life worth living some would prescribeseekingpleasures, others say that fulfilling responsibilitytowardsoneself as well as others, and for others it ispursuit ofknowledgeand so on.
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Philosophy as a Synthesis

Various Disciplines as Product of Analytic InquiryThere are various kinds of knowledge derived fromdifferent particular inquiries. There is knowledge aboutthe physical universe. The various aspects of the physical

universe is studied by different natural sciences such asphysics, chemistry, biology etc.

Then there is knowledge about social phenomenon whichis studied by the social sciences. it tries to come up witha consistent view about life and the universe.

Finally, there is knowledge about the self and its creativeproducts studied under humanities.
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Three Kinds of Reality?!

We may for conveniences sake speak of three kinds ofreality:

the material or physical reality,

the social reality which consists of human behavior in

relation to other members of the society,and finally, there is the reality of self.

We may say that

natural sciences study the physical reality

social sciences, the social realityand humanities, the reality of the self and its acts.
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Towards a Darsan or WeltanschauungPhilosophy is not content with mere analysis and criticalscrutiny. Philosophy is an act of synthesis as well.

One of the important functions of philosophy is tointegrate these various kinds of knowledge into a single,unified and consistent vision of the world and life. - whatIndian philosophers call Darshan.

The comprehensive vision of reality and life that we comeup with will have certain implications for various inquiriesin different fields of knowledge and how humans shouldconduct their life.

Thus the vision that philosophy develops is a general andconsistent view about the reality and life.

It must, however be noted that that there are variousalternative ways of building a unified vision dependingupon where we lay emphasis on or what aspects of the

the system of knowledge is consideredprimary.
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Physicalism

A vision of the world centered around the physical worldis called physicalism or materialism.

In this vision, there is one independent status for what we

call a self or a mind.What we call self, mind, do not have an existence of theirown for they are reducible to the physical or materialreality and if at least to certain functions of the physical

through a systematic and rigorous method of science.

Id l
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Idealism

A vision of the real centered on the reality of self is calledidealism.

According to this view, what really exist is the self and its

manifestations.The material/physical world is just an appearance whichin the ultimate analysis can be reduced to self.

Depending on notion of the self, that on whether self is

transcendental or empirical, there are varieties of idealism.

D li
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Dualism

The philosophical vision that accommodates both self and

the physical world and gives equal importance to both iscalled dualism.

On this view, the self and the matter exist on their ownand one cannot be reduced to the other.

This view would grant that there are two fundamentalfields of inquiry or that there are two basic sciences,psychology dealing with nature and operations of the selfand physics dealing with nature and working of material

world.One importance consequence of this view is that thesetwo disciplines have totally different methods conductingscientific inquiry.

Phil h R fl i I i
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Philosophy as a Reflexive Inquiry

Another important characteristic of philosophy is that it is

a reflexive inquiry. That is to say, it can be concernedabout itself, it can look for the presupposition, if any, ofphilosophical inquiry itself.

It analyzes and critically examines various philosophical

concepts. It also critically examines the method if anythat it employs in its inquiry. (Philosophical inquiry ingeneral may not have any particular methodology of itsown which could be called the method of philosophy)

Thus when I say philosophy is a reflexive inquiry , what Imean is that it is a second order discipline and that thereis no third order inquiry. To say that philosophy is areflexive inquiry is to apply a closure.

I shall make the point clearer with two analogies.

Th A l f th t d f Mi d
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The Analogy of the study of Mind

Philosophical activity, in an important sense, is analogousto the way the mind functions.

The mind is the human cognitive instrument through with

we study the real and comes up with a systematicaccount of various aspects of nature.

To study the mind, however, we do not have aninstrument other than mind itself. That is, mind is theultimate instrument /organ with which study the natureas well as itself. (One mind studying another mind?).

A l f J di i l S t
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Analogy of Judicial System

The way of philosophy functions is analogous to the wayjudiciary works in a democratic system.

A case that is judged by the supreme court cannot be

reviewed by the lower courts. If it has to be review itmust be reviewed by another bench of the same court.

Similarly, as far as philosophical issues are concernedphilosophy may be said to be the ultimate of court ofappeal. To resolve the philosophical debates, we do nothave another judge than philosophy itself.

Phil h S d O d Di i li
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Philosophy as a Second Order Discipline.

The features of philosophical thinking, which I describedabove, all emanate from the view that philosophy is asecond order discipline.

What does it mean to say that a discipline is a secondorder one?

This requires us to specify the distinction between firstorder and second order inquiries.

First Order Inq iries


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First Order Inquiries

Briefly speaking , a first order discipline is one that isdirectly concerned with the world or has its own definitesubject matter.

Physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics,sociology etc are examples of first order disciplines.

Each of them is concerned with some particular aspectsof the world or life and from that point of view each has aspecific subject matter of its own.

Each of them claims to have a set of truths.

The Second Order Inquiry
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The Second Order InquiryA second order discipline, on the other hand, can not besaid to have a subject matter and a method of its own

the way the first order disciplines have.To put it differently, whereas first order discipline has itsown facts and data, the second order discipline does nothave its won facts and data.

It is never interested in the facts as they are studied bythe first order discipline.

Its primary concern is with the first order disciplinesthemselves. That is to say, its preoccupation is primarilywith the concepts they provide and methods they followin conducting their inquiry.

In short, a first order discipline is directly deals with theworld whereas second order discipline reflects over thedisciplines that directly studies the various aspects of

reality.

Why Philosophy is a Second Order Discipline


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Why Philosophy is a Second Order Discipline

As a second order discipline Philosophy feeds itself to a

great extent on the foundations of other disciplines, andis therefore parasitic upon them.

Philosophy depends on other discipline for its veryexistence. The genuine philosophical problems, it is held,

arises out side the arena of philosophy.A philosophical problem may arise because of theproblems that they face in their moral life or difficultiesthat they encounter in explaining and empirical

phenomena within the frame work of a given theory.Some of the prominent philosophical questions arisemainly because of philosophers engagement with otherdisciplines.

Can Ethics be a Second Order Inquiry?
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Can Ethics be a Second Order Inquiry?

One may ask:

In what aspect, philosophy as a search for meaning in life

can be considered as a second order discipline.?

We can think of at least two reasons as to why search formeaning in life can be considered as second order inquiry.

The First Reason
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The First Reason

Philosophers reach their views as to what should be thegoal of life through a thorough examination of the waypeople lead their life.

They subject human life as it is lived to a thorough

examination.They search for the basic principles upon which variousgroups of people live their life.

They critically examine these principles and if possible

give alternatives.All these suggest that search for meaning in life too is one ofthe activities of a second order discipline.

The Second Reason
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The Second Reason

When a moral or political system is presented to them,they subject it to critical scrutiny to figure out what isthe rational foundation or the justifications for acceptingthe system and and assess their tenability.

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2.Describing Philosophy

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