What Philosophy Is All About?
We do not exclusively think like scientists or like religious people. Philosophy is neither an Art nor a Science. Philosophy is what it does…writes Ajay Mohan
We shall try to make a minimal and naive understanding of Philosophy by providing a short description of Philosophy. Our aim is to provide a holistic impartial discription of it. To provide a holistic description is to synthesize different models of Philosophy. For an impartial description it needs a metaphilosophical enquiry.
The description proceeds in two ways. First is to state the main features of Philosophy. Second is to show the activity of philosophizing. The Former is given as the contents of this article and the latter is the way it is shown. It is because an attempt to understand Philosophy itself is a Philosophical problem.
I
We can broadly classify the entire philosophical landscape into two- Western and Eastern. Obviously they have a lot of differences. Finding the common thread in these models is our first task. A fundamental difference between them lies in their inclinations. Western Philosophy (WP) functions more as a part of the intellectual activity of human kind whereas Eastern Philosophy (EP) is more interested in the human life and its perfection. EP presupposes human life as existing in a
world which conditions the existence of
it. EP proceeds to positive and negative theorizing of this conditioning. The positive is more popular and it suggests conditioning of knowledge as the major form of conditioning. The unconditioned human state is the state of having unlimited knowledge in which will enable us to see the real nature of everything. That means there is a state of higher knowledge. This higher knowledge is either the knowledge about God or knowledge of categories or knowledge of Reality.
We have already seen that EP presupposes a world and our situatedness in it. The minimal understanding of the concept of World is as a structure with a set of entities and a set of functions. We also saw that highest knowledge is knowing everything. This 'everything' should be understood as the ontological space in a particular system. It is not a kind scientific of knowing some facts. But it is a holistic kind of knowing which includes the nature of self and world.
WP did not presuppose the conditionality of knowledge. It did not presuppose the situatedness as the basic problem, for them the existence of object and objectivity is the major issue. Not only that, conditionality of knowledge is a skeptical position, a kind of remote possibility.
In WP Ignorance is ignorance of something. It will vanish when the particular knowledge comes in. So if our ontology consists in infinite number of objects, knowing is an endless process. But this problem does not arise because WP presupposes that we are equipped with the ability of reasoning. In EP ignorance is our empirical state of existence. It can be overcome only when we achieve the highest knowledge. In some systems of EP this knowing is not mere understanding, but realizing fact. The element of hope in WP is Rationality (in a broad sense as an intellectual ability) and the element of hope in EP is the concept of Realization or enlightenment.
EP uses human intelligence for the purpose of achieving higher knowledge. In this process we are supposed to figure out the nature of Reality. WP uses human intelligence for finding the real or fundamental nature of the World. Using the reason to understand the nature of Reality is the general character of Philosophy.
II
The broad question of Philosophy which is the question of Reality or Truth is related to several other basic questions. For example: Reality and appearance, the substratum of everything, the problem of creation, etc.
The broad question of Reality has to be understood as the question of Absolute Truth. The sub-question of Reality is the problem of Real and appearance. One of the best ways of understanding the concept of Reality is to look at the usage and origin of the word Reality. In that direction I could say that the word Reality has an extended use in philosophical issues. The basic meaning of 'Reality' can be figured out when we distinguish between illusory experience and non-illusory experience. In a sophisticated philosophical endeavour we extend this meaning and question whether the world as such is real or an illusion.
We can see different questions in Philosophy which aim to figure out a holistic picture of Reality. We often deal with these things because of intellectual curiosity or spiritual desire. But how far they are significant in our ordinary life and thinking? One way of dealing with this question is considering these questions as the fundamentals of our thinking. A soft version of this answer is considering them as back grounds of our thinking. In these cases we can say that philosophy will provide us with a clear understanding of anything and avoid errors in thinking. Philosophy can give the best way of dealing with some problems. It is also possible that there are different thinking patterns, so that there are no basic concepts. In that case Philosophy is a study of the different presuppositions of different thinking patterns. One Philosopher can argue for one pattern by providing arguments for that. What if these questions are neither fundamental nor presuppositions of any pattern? Philosophy will survive even if there are arguments which state that there is no Philosophy at all, because to prove them is also a Philosophical endeavor.
III
We have seen that Philosophy is an intellectual activity of dealing with a set of significant questions. This activity of philosophizing is an activity of reasoning. We contemplate over these philosophical issues. This contemplation or reasoning is guided by some Logic. The minimal understanding of Logic is a set of rules for thinking. The Logic can satisfy reasoning to an extent. It will be in trouble when the presupposition of Logic itself is philosophized. This may lead us to think that we do not want to depend completely on only one kind of Logic; rather we can have different kinds of Logic. We can provide reasons for religious beliefs and scientific belief by providing Logic which states their plausibility. We do not exclusively think like scientists or like religious people. Philosophy is neither an Art nor Science. Philosophy is what it does.
We do Philosophy neither because we know things nor because we do not know things, but because we are not sure whether we know or do not know. Greatest minds in history have tried to put the anchor at some point. The failure or victory of their struggle is not important. What is important are the insights they have given and the new horizons they have opened. We shall pay respect to their endeavors and hope for new insights.
Ajay Mohan M
M. Phil Research Scholar
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"We can provide reasons for religious beliefs and scientific belief by providing Logic which states their plausibility"
ReplyDeleteWhat does this mean? One can always find reasons for any thing
It is not simply providing reasons, but the logic of reasons. That means, providing a system or a logical space in which we can make sense of that reasons. A sort of contextual understanding.
ReplyDeleteFor religious beliefs, we can see that a religious man may or may not know the reasons for his beliefs. But Philosophers insist to fetch reasons to make his claims. (That's why we write "kusumanjali", "bhakthi sutras" and gives arguments for the existence of God.
In ordinary sense, I can make a claim like "I am blogging" and in ordinary sense I provide a reason like "I like it". In Philosophy we never stop with that, we will go on with 'why questions'. We do maieutics.
Philosophy does not necessarily ask and stop at 'why' questions. We can go one step ahead of 'why' questions. ex. In the philosophy of explanations, (I am not sure whether it exists as an independent branch of philosophy, but it comes as a part of philosophy of science)we analyze the status of 'why' questions. Responding to Ajay's claim that "philosophy provides a logic of reasons", it is not the exact reason that is provided, rather a formal framework which is a prerequisite for understanding the logic of any reason for that matter. I dont think we're doing something 'eternal', while doing philosophy. An understanding of the logic of reason can be given from the available formal tools of 'ordinary' states of affairs.
ReplyDeleteFormal frame work is logical frame work. So logic of reason means formal frame work in which we make sense of reasons.
ReplyDeleteif that is the case then it might undermine your claim for neutrality of philosophy
ReplyDeleteAn important point to the writer...
ReplyDeleteYou have made a distinction between EP and WP. Although EP naturally includes (at least in the minimal geographical terms) the non-Indian streams of thought,it seems you have confined only to the so called Indian and especially the orthodox systems of Indian thought.think We cannot confine the whole of EP to something in such a way. I think you may had the the heterodox systems of IP in mind when you made the distinction. Given this article, the actual distinction you had in your mind might be IP and WP.
Moreover your claim that the hope of EP is in enlightenment seems to be a contentious claim because as far as I know (if I am right)not all schools of IP(I am equating your EP as IP)aim at enlightenment or the so called moksha. Charvaka sytem shows you an instant in which there is no need and scope for moksha. This straightway leads to contradiction.
I am seeking you a piece of information.I have not read any system of EP other than the 9 systems of IP. I would like to know ,if u have read the non-Indian systems of EP,whether their supreme ideal is moksha or a conception similar to this state,or they also had a non-liberation system(s) like the Indian charvakas?
@ Shinod. It doesn't. At any point of time philosophy has to uphold some logic in terms of understandability.(Even skeptics has to do it.)Not only that altogether I tried to maintain a meta philosophical stand.
ReplyDelete@ Robin. Your criticism was partially correct. What I was trying to do is not explaining EP or WP, but figuring out a common platform of Philosophy. That is why I was interested in two extremes in thinking. IP can be one extreme. Other EP's will come in between WP and EP. But still I'm not justified in my reduction. So I'm accepting it.
My generalization of IP is correct. Not only the orthodox schools but also Buddhism and Jainism follow the theory of Karma and Moksha. Not just that, these theories are the back-born of these system. Apart from these systems, other Indian systems like Bhakthi, Tantric, and Siddha systems follow this theory. Charvaka was not accepting it, but that could be seen as one kind of response to the theory, as I said in the essay- a negative sense. In a statistical sense I can ignore this exception in my generalization.
One more thing, up to my knowledge, there is no systems in EP, other than ours, preaching Moksha to the extent we do. Taoism may come to closer to our ideals, but not same.
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Hi friends.
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to see the debates in this blog. Let me try to clarify some of my dilemmas here. Ajay has stated that “Philosophy is what it does”. I am eager to know that what you people think about this way of characterizing philosophy. It seems to me that it is a very ambiguous as well as misleading manner of characterizing philosophy. It is ambiguous because it appears as if it doesn’t tell us anything about the nature of philosophy. As I understand it, it simply suggest that, ‘you go and look what philosophers does’ and then understand what it is. So it looks as if it gives us a direction in understanding what philosophy is rather than defining it. Now the question is how do we understand what “philosophy does” (as Ajay put it). I think that this (metaphorical?) way of characterizing philosophy is misleading. It is misleading because it is not the case that philosophy is the subject of the action. It is people who do philosophy. So the expression “Philosophy is what it does” can be understood at its best as “philosophy is what philosophers do”. But again, this also does not help us much. This does not help us much because one cannot recognize a philosopher unless s/he knows what philosophy is. May be some of you can help me to clarify these confusions. Thanks.
@ sreejith,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the discussion. Ajay's claim that philosophy is what it does can be understood in a way where one may interpret philosophy as an activity. You claimed that philosophy is not a subject of action, but if you go by the above interpretation, it can be understood as an activity as Wittgenstein said. Of course philosophy is a human activity after all. Your claims are so serious that I don't think it can be answered in one or two paragraphs and its not my aim to answer you either as it is Ajay who is the right person to begin with. The above said things are my intuitions which may carry the discussions forward.
Having read the discussions, it becomes clear to me that Philsophy is of course a human activity and it is what it does, basically Philosophizes. And of itself it never does anything. Only Philosophers do. Thus Philosophy is What it does through philosophers. Now a philosopher is not some one who has the answer of the problem, but the one who raises the questions. In this sense even a child is a philosopher in a strict sense. However, we consider philosophers only to those people who raise questions of importance and try to give answers. Thus Philosophy is what it does through Philosophers.
ReplyDeleteWe are still their with Sreejith's worry.
ReplyDeletePhilosophy is what philosophers do and philosophers are those who do philosophy. A clear case of circularity
This logical circularity continues to remain and one may not be able to provide a fitting definition of philosophy without circularity. I still think that 'philosophy as a (human)activity' may be the only way out of this vicious circle. This may sound as logically odd, but one can make use of the advantages deriving out of the possibilities of interpretation.
ReplyDelete@Robin: I understand that Wittgenstein holds that Philosophy is an 'activity' and I tend to agree with it. But my problem is the following.
ReplyDeleteWhen one say "philosophy is what it does" it sounds like "philosophy" is an agent which can do some action; but we know that it is not. (This is why I am saying that philosophy is not the subject of action but it is an activity done by humans) that is why i said that this way of characterization is misleading.
@ Robin. Why should we live with this circularity?! We know that all the human activities do not constitute philosophy; but only some of them do so. So why don't we try to understand that what are those activities which are legitimate to call as philosophy and define it accordingly other than simply repeating the slogan that "philosophy is what it does" and "philosophy is what philosophers do"?! I think both of these does not say anything about the nature of philosophy at all. This way of saying is as good as saying nothing. It sems to me that it is simply tautologous.
ReplyDelete@ Sreejith-
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you that Ajay's definition of philosophy is plainly circular.I was trying to show a way out for him by sticking on to the principle of charity. That is why I said that an extended interpretation is the only way out if there is any. Let Ajay join us and try to find a way out of this circularity by giving further clarification.
I'll consider the problem in two- one is particular and the other is general. Particular is my use of philosophy as philosophy does.It appears to be uninformative here. This should be understood on the basis of context as the conjunction: philosophy is what it does and not what science does and not what art art does. Now it is informative.
ReplyDeleteSecond is a serious general problem of circularity. It is a natural problem as far as I am concerned- a problem of a verificationist theory of epistemology. The problem lies in our understanding about the working of language. And our vague understanding of the cleavage between identification and understanding. May be the difference is only of degree, but it means much to our problem.
Let us see how we are introduced to the word Philosophy. The word didn't stand alone, but had meaning, in order to be understood. This is I think is the identification of meaning. This meaning is so primary and can be ill founded. But the joining of word and meaning is done on the basis of a prior principle. Understanding will continue with our life.
Our Primary understanding or identification of philosophy is nothing but the philosopher's activity. So we don't define philosophy as philosopher's activity but we understand it like that. So it is not a definitional circularity. Our understanding of philosophy presuppose a principle of form-content relation. This will enable us to recognize philosophy as philosopher's does, with out any prior knowledge of the concept 'philosopher'. Philosophy as a subject must be come from some human beings. The other way also possible. So our understanding is also not circular.
So that when we enplane the meaning of a word we should say what it is. We can teach the meaning of the word bachelor as unmarried man to some one who does not know the meaning of bachelor. If he don't know the meaning of unmarried we can go on trying it in his language. still he don't understand, beware, he might be a beast who does not have a social life.
A definition will help for a preliminary understanding. But in order to understand what philosophy is we have got no other options than that of reading what philosophers have done.