Definitions of philosophy
Definitions of philosophy aim at determining what all forms of philosophy have in common and how to distinguish philosophy from other disciplines. Many different definitions have been proposed but there is very little agreement on which is the right one. Some general characteristics of philosophy are widely accepted, for example, that it is a form of rational inquiry that is systematic, critical, and tends to reflect on its own methods. But such characteristics are usually too vague to give a proper definition of philosophy. Many of the more concrete definitions are very controversial, often because they are revisionary in that they deny the label philosophy to various subdisciplines for which it is normally used. Such definitions are usually only accepted by philosophers belonging to a specific philosophical movement. One reason for these difficulties is that the meaning of the term "philosophy" has changed throughout history: it used to include the sciences as its subdisciplines, which are seen as distinct disciplines in the modern discourse. But even in its contemporary usage, it is still a wide term spanning over many different subfields.
An important distinction among approaches to defining philosophy is between deflationism and essentialism. Deflationist approaches see it as an empty blanket term, while essentialistic approaches hold that there is a certain set of characteristic features shared by all parts of philosophy. Between these two extremes, it has been argued that these parts are related to each other by family resemblance even though they do not all share the same characteristic features. Some approaches try to define philosophy based on its method by emphasizing its use of pure reasoning instead of empirical evidence. Others focus on the wideness of its topic, either in the sense that it includes almost every field or based on the idea that it is concerned with the world as a whole or the big questions. These two approaches may also be combined to give a more precise definition based both on method and on topic.
Many definitions of philosophy concentrate on its close relation to science. Some see it as a proper science itself, focusing, for example, on the essences of things and not on empirical matters of fact, in contrast to most other sciences, or on its level of abstractness by talking about very wide-ranging empirical patterns instead of particular observations. But since philosophy seems to lack the progress found in regular sciences, various theorists have opted for a weaker definition by seeing philosophy as an immature science that has not yet found its sure footing. This position is able to explain both the lack of progress and the fact that various sciences used to belong to philosophy, while they were still in their provisional stages. It has the disadvantage of degrading philosophical practice in relation to the sciences.
Other approaches see philosophy more in contrast to the sciences as concerned mainly with meaning, understanding, or the clarification of language. This can take the form of the analysis of language and how it relates to the world, of finding the
General characteristics and sources of disagreement
The problem of defining philosophy concerns the question of what all forms of philosophy have in common, i.e. how philosophy differs from non-philosophy or other disciplines, such as the empirical sciences or fine art. One difficulty is due to the fact that the meaning of the term "philosophy" has changed a lot in history: it was used in a much wider sense to refer to any form of rational inquiry before the modern age. In this sense, it included many of the individual sciences and mathematics, which are not seen as part of philosophy today.[1][2][3] For example, Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica formulating the laws of classical mechanics carries the term in its title.[1] Modern definitions of philosophy, as discussed in this article, tend to focus on how the term is used today, i.e. on a more narrow sense.[4] Some basic characterizations of philosophy are widely accepted, like that it is a critical and mostly systematic study of a great range of areas.[5][6][1] Other such characterizations include that it seeks to uncover fundamental truths in these areas using a reasoned approach while also reflecting on its own methods and standards of evidence.[7][8][9] Such characterizations succeed at characterizing many or all parts of philosophy. This is an important achievement since the domain of philosophy is very wide, spanning across almost any field, which is reflected in its sub-disciplines termed "philosophy of...", like the philosophy of science, of mind, of law, of religion, or of pornography.[5][6][1][7] The problem with such general characterizations is that they are usually too vague: they apply not just to philosophy but also to some non-philosophical disciplines and thereby fail to distinguish philosophy from them.[5][6][1][7]
To overcome these difficulties, various more specific definitions of philosophy have been proposed. Most of them are controversial.
Some definitions of philosophy focus mainly on what the activity of doing philosophy is like, such as striving towards knowledge. Others concentrate more on the theories and systems arrived at this way.[7][11][1] In this sense, the terms "philosophy" and "philosophical" can apply both to a thought process, to the results of this activity in the form of theories, or even to contemplative forms of life reflecting such theories.[1][7][11] Another common approach is to define philosophy in relation to the task or goal it seeks to accomplish such as answering certain types of questions or arriving at a certain type of knowledge.
The difficulty in defining "philosophy" is also reflected in the fact that introductions to philosophy often do not start with a precise definition but introduce it instead by providing an overview of its many branches and subfields, such as epistemology, ethics, logic, and metaphysics.[5][6][12][11] The discipline known as metaphilosophy has as one of its main goals to clarify the nature of philosophy.[10] Outside the academic context, the term "philosophy" is sometimes used in an unspecific sense referring to general ideas or guidelines, such as the business philosophy of a company, the leadership philosophy of an entrepreneur, or the teaching philosophy of a schoolmaster.[1]
Deflationism, essentialism, and family resemblance
An important distinction among definitions of philosophy is between deflationism and essentialism.[4] The deflationist approach holds that philosophy is an empty blanket term.[13] It is used for convenience by deans and librarians to group various forms of inquiry together.[14] This approach is usually motivated by the enduring difficulties in giving a satisfying definition. According to this view, philosophy does not have a precise essence shared by all its manifestations.[7][4][14] One difficulty with the deflationist approach is that it is not helpful for solving disagreements on whether a certain new theory or activity qualifies as philosophy since this would seem to be just a matter of convention. Another is that it implies that the term "philosophy" is rather empty or meaningless.[4]
This approach is opposed by essentialists, who contend that a set of features constitutes the essence of philosophy and characterizes all and only its parts.[4][15] Many of the definitions based on subject matter, method, its relation to science or to meaning and understanding are essentialists conceptions of philosophy. They are controversial since they often exclude various theories and activities usually treated as part of philosophy.[4]
These difficulties with the deflationist and the essentialist approach have moved some philosophers towards a middle ground, according to which the different parts of philosophy are characterized by family resemblances.[4] This means that the various parts of philosophy resemble each other by sharing several features. But different parts share different features with each other, i.e. they do not all share the same features.[16][17] This approach can explain both that the term "philosophy" has some substance to it, i.e. that it is not just based on an empty convention, and that some parts of philosophy may differ a lot from each other, for example, that some parts are very similar to mathematics while others almost belong to the natural sciences and psychology. This approach has the disadvantage that it leaves the definition of philosophy vague, thereby making it difficult for the non-paradigmatic cases to determine whether they belong to philosophy or not, i.e. that there is no clear-cut distinction.[4]
Based on method and subject matter
Two important aspects for distinguishing philosophy from other disciplines have been its topic or domain of inquiry and its method.
Definitions focusing on the domain of inquiry or topic of philosophy often emphasize its wide scope in contrast to the individual sciences.[4] According to Wilfrid Sellars, for example, philosophy aims "to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term".[18][19] Similar definitions focus on how philosophy is concerned with the whole of the universe or at least with the big questions regarding life and the world.[9] Such attempts usually result in a definition that is too broad and may include both some natural sciences and some forms of fine art and literature in it.[4] On the other hand, they may also be too narrow, since some philosophical topics concern very specific questions that do not directly deal with the big questions or the world as a whole.[4]
Because of these difficulties, philosophers have often tried to combine methodological and topical characterizations in their definitions.[9] This can happen, for example, by emphasizing the wideness of its domain of inquiry, to distinguish it from the other individual sciences, together with its rational method, to distinguish it from fine art and literature. Such approaches are usually more successful at determining the right extension of the term but they also do not fully solve this problem.[4]
Based on relation to science
Various definitions of philosophy emphasize its close relation to science, either by seeing it itself as a science or by characterizing the role it plays for science.[4][1] The plausibility of such definitions is affected by how wide the term "science" is to be understood. If it refers to the natural sciences, such definitions are usually quite controversial. But if science is understood in a very wide sense as a form of rational inquiry that includes both the formal sciences and the humanities, such characterizations are less controversial but also less specific.[4] This wide sense is how the term "philosophy" was traditionally used to cover various disciplines that are today considered as distinct disciplines.[1][3] But this does not reflect its contemporary usage.[4] Many science-based definitions of philosophy face the difficulty of explaining why philosophy has historically not shown the same level of progress as the sciences.[4] Some reject this claim by emphasizing that philosophy has significantly progressed, but in a different and less obvious way.[20][21][22] Others allow that this type of progress is not found in philosophy and try to find other explanations why it should still be considered a science.[4]
As a proper science
The strongest relation to science is posited by definitions that see philosophy itself as a science. One such conception of philosophy is found within the
Another conception of philosophy as a science is due to
Seeing philosophy as a proper science is often paired with the claim that philosophy has just recently reached this status, for example, due to the discovery of a new philosophical methodology.[23] Such a view can explain that philosophy is a science despite not having made much progress: because it has had much less time in comparison to the other sciences.[4]
As an immature science
But a more common approach is to see philosophy not as a fully developed science on its own but as an immature or preliminary science.
This approach has the advantage of explaining both the lack of progress in philosophy and the fact that many sciences used to be part of philosophy before they matured enough to constitute fully developed sciences.
Based on meaning, understanding, and clarification
Many definitions of philosophy see as its main task the creation of meaning and understanding or the clarification of concepts.[9] In this sense, philosophy is often contrasted with the sciences in the sense that it is not so much about what the actual world is like but about how we experience it or how we think and talk about it.[4] This may be expressed by stating that philosophy is "the pursuit not of knowledge but of understanding".[4] In some cases, this takes the form of making various practices and assumptions explicit that have been implicit before, similar to how a grammar makes the rules of a language explicit without inventing them. This is a form of reflective, second-order understanding that can be applied to various fields, not just the sciences.[4]
A conception of philosophy based on clarification and meaning is defended by
Other conceptions of philosophy agree that it has to do with finding meaning and clarifying concepts but focus on a wider domain beyond the sciences.
From the perspective of ordinary language philosophy, philosophy has as its main enterprise the analysis of natural language.[10] According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, philosophy is not a theory but a practice that takes the form of linguistic therapy.[1][34] This therapy is important because ordinary language is structured in confusing ways that make us susceptible to all kinds of misunderstandings.[10] It is the task of the philosopher to uncover the root causes of such illusions. This often takes the form of exposing how traditional philosophical "problems" are only pseudo-problems, thereby dissolving them rather than resolving them.[10] So on a theoretical level, philosophy leaves everything as it is without trying to provide new insights, explanations, or deductions.[34]
The focus on understanding is also reflected in the
Others
Various other definitions of philosophy have been proposed. Some focus on its role in helping the practitioner lead a good life: they see philosophy as the spiritual practice of developing one's reasoning ability through which some ideal of health is to be realized.[38] Such an outlook on philosophy was already explicitly articulated in stoicism and has also been adopted by some contemporary philosophers.[38] A closely related conception sees philosophy as a way of life.[39][38] This is based on a conception of what it means to lead a good life that is centered on increasing one's wisdom through various types of spiritual exercises or on the development and usage of reason.[39][38][40] Such an outlook can already be discerned in ancient Greek philosophy, where philosophy is often seen as the love of wisdom. According to this characterization, philosophy differs from wisdom itself since it implies more the continued struggle to attain wisdom, i.e. being on the way towards wisdom.[1][7]
A closely related approach sees the principal task of philosophy as the development and articulation of
Other conceptions of philosophy focus on its reflective and
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