PHILOSOPHY:

SOME STATEMENTS

Intro. to Philosophy:

Mr. Graves

Here are some claims about philosophy taken from philosophers and others closely involved with philosophy. (They were collected during my days as a student, which will explain, among other things, why their expressions are not more gender-sensitive.) Even though most of these writers come from closely adjacent schools of philosophy, some of these claims may not be in agreement with others; that suggests something about the philosophical process itself. Look for points of agreement, points of disagreement, and any patterns, which suggest what philosophy, might really be. And be prepared to compare and contrast these assertions with any you have already read and/or will read in this course.

≥The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things...≤

Lewis Carroll

≥Philosophy is the art of living.≤ Plutarch

≥Philosophy is a concern not limited to the specialist; for, as strange as it may seem, there is probably no human being who doesn't philosophize. Or at least every man has moments in his life in which he becomes a philosopher. This is particularly true of our natural scientists, historians, and artists. Sooner or later, all of them concern themselves with philosophy. Of course, I'm not saying that this is of great service to mankind; the books of philosophizing laymen -- be they famous physicists, poets or politicians -- are usually bad. Too often they present an immature, naive, and mostly false philosophy. But that is secondary here. the important thing is that we all philosophize and, so it seems, must philosophize.≤ J. M. Bochenski

≥Where the human intellect is grappling with some complex intellectual problem and there is no standard and established experimental approach to the subject, one can expect to find the problem within the domain of philosophy.≤ Cornman, Lehrer

≥Philosophy is the home of those intellectual problems with which others cannot cope.≤ Cornman, Lehrer

≥Philosophy must be something else than a reservoir for immature problems. Certainly it has exercised this capacity at times, but it is something more than that.≤ J. M. Bochenski

≥It is, if you wish, not in the nature of philosophy to contribute to our primary knowledge of the world.≤ Arthur Danto

≥It is not the task of philosophy to frame sentences about the world...≤ Arthur Danto

≥äthe philosopher has always tried to explain reality .... The philosopher, so it seems at least, is one who thinks rationally, who attempts to bring clarity -- that means order -- which in turn means understanding -- into the world and into life."

J. M. Bochenski

10. ≥In every age there are men who, aware of this distinctive intellectual temper (the cultural climate of the age), either give systematic expression or seek to modify certain aspects of it. It is they who carry on actual philosophic thinking and merit the title of "philosophers." because they are concerned with the conscious analysis of methods of thinking, and with the conscious formulation of a world outlook.≤

11. ≥It seems, then, that philosophy should neither be equated with the special sciences nor limited to a special field. In a certain sense, it is a universal science; its field is not restricted to something limited or particular like those of the other disciplines.≤ J. M. Bochenski

12. ≥Let us think of science in the broadest possible way, as a systematic endeavor to make true statements about the world.... (philosophy is) a science of science ....≤ Arthur Danto

13. ≥Philosophizing is one of the most wonderful and noble things in human life.≤ J. M. Bochenski

14. ≥...man is compelled to philosophize whether he wants to or not.≤ J. M. Bochenski

15. ≥Most propositions and questions, that have been written about philosophical matters, are not false but senseless.≤ Ludwig Wittgenstein

16. ≥It is often thought that the aim of science is to seek truth. The modern scientist usually feels that he doesn't know what truth is -- he has no definition of it.≤ I. Langmuir

17. ≥Please forget everything you have learned in school; for you haven't learned it.≤ Edmund Landau

18. ≥Curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice....≤

Lewis Carroll, "Alice in Wonderland"

≥...philosophy is a science of foundations. At the point where other sciences come to a standstill, where they assume conditions without further investigation, that is where the philosopher first begins to question. The scientists know -- he asks what knowledge is; the others establish laws -- he asks what a law is. The average man and the politician speak about meaning and purpose, but the philosopher asks what actually should be understood by meaning and purpose. Thus, philosophy is a radical science in the sense that it gets closer to the roots of the matter than the other sciences, and that it wants to question and investigate further at that point where the others are satisfied.≤ J. M. Bochenski (In his last claim, the writer makes philosophy sound a little like Lieutenant Columbo... BG)

20. ≥Philosophical arguments have always largely, if not entirely, consisted in attempts to thrash out "what it means to say so and so." Gilbert Ryle

≥All philosophy is "critique of language"≤... Ludwig Wittgenstein

22. ≥... -- for philosophy is merely the attempt to answer.... ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas.≤ Bertrand Russell

23. ≥Like any well-established discipline, philosophy defies precise definition. However, what philosophy is does not have to remain in obscurity. There are, first of all, two generalizations, which can be fairly made about philosophy. First, philosophy is not a body of knowledge to be learned but a discipline, which must be mastered. Learning philosophy is not primarily learning a set of facts but learning to handle facts and ideas in appropriate sorts of ways. Second, the prime component of the discipline of philosophy is simply hard thinking. To put it rather fancifully, philosophy is naked intelligence grappling with the riddles of life.≤ Jon Wheatley

24. ≥...philosophy consists of speculations about matters where exact knowledge is not yet possible...≤ Bertrand Russell, "What is Philosophy?"

25. ≥...what I should look to philosophy to do is to encourage people to act with vigor without complete certainty.≤ Bertrand Russell, "What is Philosophy?"

26. ≥I should say the business of a philosopher is not to change the world but to understand it, which is the exact opposite to what Marx said.≤ Bertrand Russell, "What is Philosophy?"

27. ≥...the responsibilities of a professional philosopher exhaust themselves in his profession; his political responsibilities are therefore nil. His political responsibilities as a citizen are identical with those of every other citizen, where, as a philosopher, he occupies neither a higher nor a lower place.≤ William Earle, "The Political Responsibilities of Philosophers"

28. ≥There is no profession that can claim with greater authenticity that its concern is the intellectual culture of the society or that it possesses the tools for the analysis of ideology and the critique of social knowledge and its use. If it is correct to regard the American and world crisis as in part a cultural one, then philosophical analysis may have a definite contribution to make.≤ Noam Chomsky, "Philosophers and Public Policy"

29. ≥Those outside of academic philosophy who perceive philosophy to be an esoteric, jargon-filled, impractical discipline concerned with how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or other equally arcane topics would see no point in attempting to apply to the world in which they live the answers one might get to such question. ...Those in professional philosophical circles who believe that philosophy is properly concerned only with logical connections and a priori thinking might admit that what they do is relevant to the world; but they would maintain that when one applied what they do to the world, one is then engaged in some enterprise other than philosophy.≤ Richard T. De George, Preface, PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

30. ≥I prefer theory modified by action to theory modified by more theory.≤ Ron Cobb

31. "Applied philosophy" may sound like a contradiction in terms to some people both in and out of professional philosophical circles. And indeed, if the term "philosophy" is taken narrowly enough, it would be a contradiction.≤ Richard T. De George, Preface, PHILOSOPHERS AT WORK

32. ≥For philosophy to see itself simply as thinking about a collection of riddles seems too small an ambition. But for philosophy to have the ambition of saving the world seems too extreme. Something in between has got to be right.≤ Hilary Putnam in U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT

33. ≥Might it not now be that in doing philosophy, whatever our problem, we are, after all, showing what philosophy is? So that the way to define philosophy just is to do philosophy?≤ Arthur Danto

"...the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race."

"What is a Caucus-race?" said Alice....

"Why," said the Dodo, "the best way to explain it is to do it." Lewis Carroll, ALICE IN WONDERLAND

≥Whereof one cannot speak, thereon one must be silent.≤ Ludwig Wittgenstein

Which of these seem understandable statements to you, and which do not? (Did any of the statements make other statements clearer?) Which statements seemed the most appealing descriptions of philosophy to you? Did any describe philosophy in the way(s) you expected it to be described? If so, which ones? Did any make philosophy seem much different than you'd expected it to be? If so, which ones?

How might you begin to describe philosophy now?

Remember, in reading and thinking about what you've read that an intelligent confusion is usually more valuable than a simple-minded certainty.

"...here, you see,[" said the Red Queen, "] it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place...." Lewis Carroll