Topics Philosophy

Question Hi, I have an engineering background but I have been studying philosophy for a couple of years. The problem I have is this. When I read a scientific (that is, not philosophical) problem, I almost always easily understand what the problem is (of course, I do not mean that I can easily solve the problem). A good way to test understanding is to try to explain the problem to another person. And most of the time I can easily explain a scientific problem to another person. But, in philosophy this is not the case. Even I spend so much time trying to understand what a philosophical problem is, I almost always have the feeling that I do not understand the problem. And the test I told above confirms me. Most of the time it is very difficult for me to explain the problem to another person. I suspect that the reason for this situation is something related with the nature of philosophy. What do you think? and what should I do to remedy this situation? Thanks, Unakil

Accepted:
July 28, 2008

Comments

Dear Unakil,

I started in engineering myself, and you may be interested in learning (if you don't already know) that the great 20th-century Viennese philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was also an engineer. I also think your method of testing is a pretty good one; but its reliability does depend in part on the capacities of the person to whom you're explaining things. There are those, I think, with a sort of "tin ear" for philosophy. Another thing to say about philosophy is that it is very difficult to state matters clearly because philosophical matters are so very complex and subtle. It really does take years to reach a settled way of stating many issues, and even then there remains an open-endedness about philosophical matters that may be intrinsic to those matters or perhaps to language itself that leaves them open to further articulation and revision and clarification. Something else to say about philosophy is that the issues it addresses, while in a sense perfectly ordinary and ubiquitous in life, are issues that people don't often think about in a serious way. Because of this, philosophical discourse is often strange or alien and therefore difficult for many people. Finally, I should say that philosophy is not fully or even substantially about problems, in the sense in which engineering is about problems. That is, much of philosophy is not about figuring our how something works or how to accomplish some task. Some of philosophy is, of course, about problems. For example: How does the mind relate to the body? What is the best form of government? Can a sound argument be constructed to demonstrate that the self endures over time? Can the practices of liberty be made consistent with demands of security and with justice? But much of philosophy is also about elucidating concepts, clarifying the meaning of terms, and assessing the soundness and cogency of arguments and reasonings. Philosophy is even about describing the condition of things, creating and conveying visions of our lives and our world, interpreting the meaning of human existence, and about sometimes speculating about things that can't be demonstrated in the way that solutions to engineering problems can be.