I agree with Sean's response, but I'd like to add a few, um, opinions of my own. Some students believe that only "authorities" (e.g., teachers) know the "correct" answers to all questions. And they believe this until these students meet "authorities" who disagree. Such disagreements are not usually about mathematical or scientific questions (after all, everyone agrees that 2+2=4, and any math teacher who says otherwise is not really an authority on math). Rather, such disagreements are often about topics in the humanities, social studies, or philosophy (" Huckleberry Finn is the great American novel", says one; "No, it isn't", says another. "Mental states and processes are identical with brain states and processes"; "No, they're not". And so on.) After encountering "authorities" who disagree, these students often decide that there are two kinds of questions: those about which "authorities" know the answers and those about which "authorities" don't know the answers yet (but the answers...

There are 2 ways to interpret your question. One way is as a request for information about the philosophy of engineering. If that's what you're asking, I can suggest two good books to start with: Florman, Samuel C. (1994), The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, 2nd edition (New York: St. Martin's Press). Davis, Michael (1998), Thinking Like an Engineer: Studies in the Ethics of a Profession (New York: Oxford University Press). The first was written by a practicing engineer, the second by a philosopher. Both deal with questions like: What is engineering? How should engineers behave? You might find some other references on the webpage "What Is Engineering?" for my Philosophy of Computer Science course . There is also a branch of philosophy called the philosophy of technology, which deals with related issues. Check the article with that title in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The other interpretation is as a request for information about how to apply...

The American philosopher Gareth Matthews haswritten several wonderful books detailing his work withelementary-school kids on philosophy and has a website devoted to it: " Philosophy for Kids ".

Metaphilosophy is a perfectly legitimate branch of philosophy. After all, if there can be a "philosophy of X" for (almost?) any X, then surely there can be a philosophy of philosophy. As with any "philosophy of X", it studies the fundamental assumptions, methods, and goals of philosophy, investigating what philosophy is and how it canbe done. Some people might think that the philosophy of philosophy isthe height of "gazing at your navel", but it's really what's involvedwhen you think about thinking. So its existence shouldn't really surprise you. It's certainly not "a new discipline": It has probably been around at least since Socrates's (or maybe Plato's) time, though probably not so-named. The journal Metaphilosophy has been around for 40 years and is taken seriously, so metaphilosophy is certainly not "budding" or an "Internet fad". I wouldn't say that (all of) philosophy is metaphilosophy, though all of metaphilosophy is philosophy. (In fact, philosophy is one of the few academic...

And here's a link to an " experimental epistemology " lab at the University at Buffalo , run by philosopher James Beeb e . While I think there are useful experiments that philosophers can do that can shed light on what "ordinary" people's "intuitions" are, I wonder if this is really philosophy or merely philosophically-oriented cognitive science.

I'm sure that there are some topics that philosophy hasn't touched on. But I'm equally sure that there are no topics that philosophy couldn't touch on. I believe that, for any topic X, there is the philosophy of X. As Plato said, "The one who feels no distaste in sampling every study , and who attacks the task of learning gladly and cannot get enough of it, we shall justly pronounce the lover of wisdom, the philosopher." (Italics mine. Plato , Republic V,475c (trans. Paul Shorey, in Edith Hamilton & Huntington Cairns (eds.) (1961), The Collected Dialogues of Plato, including the Letters (Princeton: Princeton University Press): 575-844, quotation on p. 714.))

I thought that Peter Smith's reply was fine, too, until I read this new question and Prof. Stairs's reply. So I went back and re-read the original question (2823) and Smith's answer, and I wonder if this isn't all a tempest in a teapot. My reading of Smith's original answer was that he was distinguishing between "facts" and "beliefs", where facts are what philosophers call "states of affairs" or "situations": ways the world is (or could be). Facts simply "are", or "hold", or "obtain". Beliefs, on the other hand--as I think Smith used that term--are "propositions" or maybe even "sentences": Descriptions of ways the world is (or could be). Beliefs, understood in this way, can be true or false, rational or irrational. In ordinary, everyday usage, people (other than philosophers) tend to use the word "fact" to mean "belief" or "proposition", but I think Smith was trying to make a distinction that the current questioner is missing. As for the spirit of the question, sure, some facts are--what...

I agree with Allen Stairs that reading topically is important, but I think it is equally important to remember that philosophy is a conversation that has been ongoing for something like 4500 years. To join in on the conversation, it can be very useful to see it historically , to see how it began and how it evolved, and thereby to gain an understanding of why it is where it is today. One can combine these approaches: Read chronologically within a topic. Or read contemporary philosophy alongside its history. To compare philosophy with physics, as Stairs does, misleadingly suggests that the history is irrelevant. (That's not to say that philosophy doesn't "make progress"; on that topic, see my essay: Rapaport, William J. (1982), "Unsolvable Problems and Philosophical Progress" , American Philosophical Quarterly 19: 289-298.)

How does anyone (not just philosophers or other academics) justify a choice of profession? One does what one is good at and what one likes to do. Academics in particular (philosophers included) need not apologize for their choice; we are, after all, teachers (in addition to being [perhaps] ivory-towerish scholars or researchers), and teachers surely serve the greater good. We philosophers, in particular, encourage critical (and skeptical) thinking, which--I suggest--is a Good Thing even if what we critique might be whether or not material objects are mereological sums of simples (or something equally esoteric). Some of us do try to help solve practical problems (and Karl Marx once observed that philosophers have only tried to understand the world but that the point is to change it--I would imagine those are fighting words to some, inspiring to others!). Yes, my analysis of Wittgenstein or, more obscurely, Meinong might not directly improve people's lives, but then again how would we prove...

I'm not sure what you have in mind by "my own philosophy". Do you mean something like "your own philosophy of life"? Or do you mean something like "your own philosophy of (say) mind (or philosophy of language, etc.)". In the first case, I don't think very many professional philosophers can help you, because that's not the kind of thing that most of us do. But you might start by thinking about the things that are important to you, the things that you like, the things that you don't like, and then think about why they are important, and why you like (or don't like) them. And then try to similarly justify or explain those reasons, until you reach some basic principles that you can then take to be "your philosophy". In the second case, the best thing to do is to find some philosophical topic that you are interested in, read what historically important and current philosophers have to say about it, and then join in on the conversation.