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What It Means to "Philosophize"
I find philosophy to be not only an endlessly fascinating, and tremendously important, subject in and of itself, but interesting just for what it is, at a “meta-” level. The touchstone or hallmark of what is known as “philosophy” lies in large part in its “interdisciplinary” nature; that is to say, it has the capacity to survey and assess the contours of any discipline. The interesting and not-immediately-obvious corollary to that is that it has the recursive capacity to treat of “itself,” that is, in the form of “metaphilosophy,” or “philosophy of philosophy,” which is itself philosophy (as in this very essay). Philosophy seems to be unique among disciplines in that it a “meta-” consideration of it turns out to be another example of the thing itself. In other words, while “philosophy of biology,” for example, is not biology, but philosophy, “philosophy of philosophy” is itself philosophy. As I see it, this self-reflexive property that philosophy turns out to have is a manifestation of its foundational nature: when the “study of” a certain kind of discipline turns out to be another iteration of that same discipline, you know that in that discipline you’re dealing with a treatment of the most fundamental questions it is possible to ask.The breadth of philosophy does not just consist in “philosophies of…,” but also areas of thought which are considered to belong exclusively to philosophy itself. Epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics are among these fundamental realms of thought which fall squarely into the lap of philosophy. I would suggest that such areas of thought are already fundamental, or “unmediated,” enough, that any consideration of them at all runs straight into philosophy, without the mediation of a set of “givens,” which constitute a more surface-structural discipline. For instance, take “sociology:” quite implicit in it is a set of background assumptions, such as what a “person” is, how basic economics works, even that time has a uniformly forward flow of which all persons share a common perception. Considerations of sociology itself take these things for granted, and may or may not be reducible to such more-basic considerations as those given: the interplay of factors in phenomena becomes ever-more complex the further “down” one proceeds reductionistically, so for simplicity’s sake, it becomes convenient to take many fundamental ideas for granted and proceed on a “bigger picture”-level. Philosophy, on the other hand, seeks to isolate any isolable consideration in a matter (at the level of phenomenology, metaphysics, et al.), as well as examine more secondary, tertiary, and so on, relationships that may be explicated (i.e., the aforementioned “philosophies of…”).
To really “do philosophy,” it is not enough that one should have an interest in thinking about fundamental issues. Philosophy is a social enterprise: if it consisted of each self-made philosopher, completely on his/her own resources, simply building from the ground up an entire treatise of reality and then publishing it to the world without any consideration of what others have already thought and published, philosophy would clearly be pretty fatuous. If everyone did philosophy in this way, no progress would be made, and fairly quickly, the superstructure of philosophical thought would become a wild and unkempt jungle almost impossible to reconcile into a systematic whole. There was a time when I, personally, was perfectly content to “armchair-philosophize” on my own without much of a care for what other people had already thought and written. Appropriately, such was not enough to truly and fully get me into Philosophy, qua formal academic enterprise. I guess it just took a little more development of maturity, and less laziness, on my part, to get past that. Clearly, the interactive superstructure of philosophy (which itself could well be referred to as “metaphilosophy”) is crucial and is the linchpin that holds it together. Actually, that’s a truism for any discipline, but it seems necessary to point it out for philosophy; as it would seem at first blush, as it once did to me, that one can rely entirely on one’s own thoughts, almost solipsistically, as it were, in one’s pursuit of it. Philosophy is unique, but not so unique that it stands apart from other disciplines in that its progress is not corporate and interactive.
Philosophy is often associated with “questioning,” first and foremost (at my college graduation, graduates from each departmental discipline had the mortarboards of their caps decorated with something reflecting their major; philosophy grads had a question mark taped on the platform of theirs). This association is, in itself, quite appropriate: after all, “inquiring minds want to know.” But my personal view of philosophy—the way I would sum it up as simply as possible—is to describe it as an endeavor to make as many true statements as possible: not only making existing statements as correct as possible, but branching out into saying as many interesting and helpful things as possible about the contours of any particular issue. I like to think of it in this “positive” sense; that by analysis, the philosopher seeks to elucidate every possible relationship that really exists between known ideas, in any way it can be explicated. This kind of idea really seems to capture the scope and penetration that philosophy is capable of, as well as what has essentially been meant by “analytic philosophy” over the past several decades.
And just to bring this little discussion full circle: to attempt to “capture” something in terms of something else, like stating the essence of philosophy in terms of “making as many true statements as possible,” is just what I’ve been meaning by “philosophy” in the first place. And, that’s exactly what I meant in the first paragraph by saying that “philosophy of philosophy” is itself “philosophy.” Now, could one ask for a more direct encapsulation of the essence of a thing? Such is philosophy itself. Finally, why do philosophers philosophize? Because they're philosophers. Birds fly, dogs bark, artists are artistic, and philosophers philosophize. It really is that simple.
Originally written: Thursday, April 29, 2004
Last updated: Monday, August 1, 2005
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