Topics Philosophy

Question I was hoping that you could resolve a dilemma that I have recently discovered. It has to do with the art of philosophy and not with the subsequent ideas generated by philosophizing. Before I state the dilemma, I want to ask: Does determination of nature precede determination of action? In other words, can we practice philosophy without necessarily defining the terms and the nature of the act we which to practice? It seems that we ought to first ask: What is philosophy and how ought we practice philosophy? The problem arises when we attempt to answer the two questions specified above. How exactly do we answer these questions without philosophizing? The very act of contemplating the nature of philosophy requires philosophy; this is logically inconsistent. We cannot study the existence of X by presupposing that X is true to begin with. This is the dilemma; it is a dilemma of definition and how an approach to philosophy must first be preceded by a method of thought detached from philosophy. What is this alternative thought? Because it seems to me that philosophy can never be practiced until we resolve this dilemma.

Accepted:
September 8, 2010

Comments

One thing is clear: people actually do practice philosophy. (Some of my best friends...) And so whatever the reasoning you've offered shows, it can't show that no one can do philosophy because people clearly do do it. But then, most of us can't say what most of our activities amount to in any depth or detail. We just do them.

It's a logical oddity that asking what counts as philosophy counts as asking a philosophical question. That's a bit unusual, but it's not inconsistent. Of course, read in another way, asking what counts as philosophy doesn't even have this peculiar character. If someone asked me what philosophy is, I might give them a collection of examples, hoping that they got the idea. I might say "trying to figure out if there is such a thing as free will counts. So does asking what knowledge is. So does thinking about the nature of right and wrong." That doesn't exhaust the field, but it's accurate as far as it goes and (experience tells me) often helpful to the person asking the question.

But I'd make another couple of points. You say "we can't study the existence of X by presupposing that X is true to begin with." This puzzles me. There really is philosophy; that is true. Some of it is good, some less so, but there is such a thing. The fact that we can't sum up what it is by a tidy definition doesn't show that there isn't any. Indeed, we can go further. I rather doubt that there's any one thing that philosophy is. Philosophers have long gotten used to the idea that lots and lots of important, useful concepts aren't subject to strict definition. Philosophy itself may well count as one more example.

The fact is that most of the philosophers I know don't spend much time trying to sort out what philosophy "really" is. It's an optional question, even for a philosopher. Your worry about it hints at a reason, though. If we refused to do any *other* philosophy until we'd settled the matter of what philosophy really is, we'd never get around to all the far more interesting questions that philosophers mostly think about.