Definition of Philosophy

Landing page (from Philosophy) of Definition of Philosophy.

= BMJ definition = Philosophy is the study of fundamental questions and the concepts derived thereby.

Nagel teases this when he says: "We couldn’t get along in life without taking the ideas of time, number knowledge, language, right and wrong for granted most of the time; but in philosophy we investigate those things themselves". This is a useful quote, because it helps us to grasp what a "fundamental question" is—it is a question about something which people take for granted.

= BMJ explanation =

Inquiry v. Philosophical inquiry
Baseball is a non-philosophical activity. Watching baseball is a related non-philosophical activity. Recording the outcomes of each unit of play (ball?/pitch?at bat?) is related non-philosophical activity. Calculating statistics based on these data is a related non-philosophical activity. Reading a published set of these statistics is a related non-philosophical activity. Observing a decline in a statistic which (allegedly) quantifies the batting success of the Tigers in the second half of game which the Tigers lost is a related non-philosophical activity.

However, the following are philosophical activities:
 * asking why the Tigers' batting performance declined,
 * asking whether the hand injury suffered by the Tigers' star batter half-way through the game caused this decline, or
 * asking whether this decline in batting performance caused the Tigers to lose.

Now you might say, "that's not philosophy, that's just amateur baseball data analysis"—the act of questioning is just run-of-the-mill inquiry, not specifically philosophical inquiry. And you would be correct. These questions have a philosophical quality, however we do not consider these "philosophical questions" because they are questions which people do not take for granted. Most of the Tigers' fans and players would not simply accept that the decline in the Tigers batting performance is a fact of the universe and move on. Rather, they would feel compelled to ask the above questions, because they perceive that a knowledge of the answers has the potential to improve the future performance of the Tigers team

Practical inquiry v. Academic inquiry
However, what if a fan in the stadium on the evening in question, asked:
 * why does the pitcher stand on a mound?
 * why can he not pitch from closer?
 * why must he always use regulation baseballs and not an exploding ball?
 * why is there only one ball in play at any time?

Now, you might say that these questions relate to the history of baseball. Most likely, sometime at the beginning of baseball, the players felt that the game was better if the pitcher had to stand a certain distance away and throw a certain kind of projectile, in order to make it appropriately challenging/safe for the batter. And I agree—this is historical inquiry—however, we are now asking questions about things which lots of people do take for granted. Indeed, there will be lots of baseball fans who haven't ever thought about such questions, and some who wouldn't find the answer interesting.

So, is the second set of questions an example of both history and philosophy? I would say no, as I imagine you would too. But I would say that they are simultaneously more fundamental, more philosophical, less practical, less tangibly goal-oriented, less relevant and absolutely academic.

These questions are more philosophical, because they are more fundamental—i.e., they are questions about the foundations of the entity in question (baseball)—they are questions about the aspects of baseball which people take for granted. And people take these aspects of baseball (i.e., its historical origins) for granted, because these aspects are not relevant to the activity of baseball (i.e. a team can succeed with or without the answers to these questions). Hence the questions are not practical. Furthermore, it is less clear why someone would be motivated to ask them—i.e., the questions are less tangibly goal-oriented compared to the first set of questions asked by Tigers coach who needs to know why his team is losing, in order to find a solution, in order to make them win.

Now you might say that a historian would probably find the second set of questions more interesting than the first, because the historian gets a bigger kick out of historical facts than the potential for the Tigers to succeed more in the future. And I would agree, but I would still claim that the second set of questions is less "relevant", since it is less relevant in general, since normal people care about the first set of questions while specialists care about the second set. What makes the fans normal and the historian a specialist? Well, my argument rests on the observation that the historian is called a historian, while the screaming people in the stadium are not baseballians. You might argue that they are called Superleague Baseball fans, and there are more historians in the world than Superleague Baseball fans with an interest in the Tigers. Firstly, I am not sure that this is true, but if we are to play fairly, we must compare the number of "people with an interest in the performance of the current Tigers team" to the "number of baseball historians". Also, remember that pretty much every baseball historian became a baseball historian because they were an extra-curious baseball fan, so for every 10 baseball fans, maybe 2 are interested in the history. Further, I don't think "normal people" and "specialists" are distinguished purely based on numbers, rather there is something special about the baseball-history buffs—this is what makes them "specialists". In other words, the world is not split into "normal people" and "specialists", rather specialists are special-kind of normal person.

And if we ask what makes the baseball history buff a special (or unusual) kind of baseball fan, we realise it's because they "go deeper" than than the typical fan—i.e., they ask deeper questions about baseball, aka., more fundamental questions What makes these questions "deeper" or "foundational"? It is the fact that normal people see the building and take for granted the foundation underground which holds it up.

Academia v. Philosophy
So, am I again trying to claim that historical inquiry is actually philosophy, since it asks fundamental questions that normal people (but not specialists) take for granted? No—I agree with you if you say that these questions an example of historical inquiry rather than philosophical inquiry. And I agree with you because these questions are not fundamental enough, i.e., we cannot say that people take the answers for granted. And I know that people do not take these questions for granted because History exists. And if the academic subject history exists, then I know that there must be a large enough group of people (historians) to come together to form an academic discipline.

However, I will not deny that there is a philosophical quality to both sets of questions—the questions go beyond the practical, they go deeper, they are more fundamental than other questions which could be asked. And I would argue that the fundamental quality of the questions is a characteristic which identifies the questions as a specialist activity. Now, the first set of questions might be asked by any semi-interested fan, does that make them a specialist? (Yes, but only slightly, since lots of fans think this way). A more technical version of the first set might be asked by the coach, does that make him a specialist? (Yes, definitely).

Practical inquiry v. Academic inquiry (rehashed)
But is there any difference between the first set of questions asked by the coach, and the second set of questions asked by the historian? And the answer is yes—the first set of questions are evidently goal-oriented and practical (to make the Tigers win their next game), whereas as the motivation of the second set of questions seems to be "for learning's sake (they are not evidently goal-oriented or practical). Now if you ask the historian why she wants to know the answers to the second set of questions, she may say "for learning's sake" or "out of curiosity" or "because other people want to know this stuff too", or she may have previously examined her motivations and explain her belief that "a deeper understanding of baseball's roots is beneficial for the sport, greater emotive connection in fans, helping to elucidate long-run narrative arcs which confers deeper significance to the performance of contemporary teams, and facilitating more enlightened debate around the structures and rules which determine the way the game is played".

So both the coach and the historian are specialists, but for the coach, the act of asking and answering the questions is a means to achieve an end (team success), whereas for the historian, the act of asking and answering the questions is an end in itself (it sates her curiosity). And out of this distinction, the idea of "academia" is born. Since the motivation of "history" is the love of historical knowledge (without the prospect of transparent, direct, real-world gain), it is deemed an "academic" specialisation. Meanwhile, the motivation underlying baseball coaching is the transparent prospect of direct real-world gain, so it is deemed a practical or technical specialisation.

To give another example, why does the coach want his team to improve? Because that is his job, and he wishes to do it well. Why does he want to do his job well? Because his career prospects would improve, because he wants his wife to be proud of him, because he's stubborn and someone once told him he'd never make it and because after three years coaching the Tigers he actually hates their rivals (the Penguins) and really wants to beat them.

Now if you are interested in whether or not a coaches performance actually translates into higher pay in future jobs, that's the academic discipline of economics. But if you are the CEO of the Tigers and you want to motivate the coach you might want to know how much of a bonus to put in his contract to increase his win-rate. Clearly you are motivated by practical gain (more wins, more fans, more money) and this is the practical domain of business rather than academia.

If you are interested why men desire to make their wives proud, or why a dismissive comment leaves a chip in the shoulder long after the dismissor has been proven wrong, or under what conditions fully grown men develop hate for an entertainment company called The Penguins, you might enjoy a job as an academic psychologist. However, if you were the coach's psychotherapist, you would be interested in the answers to these questions in order to solve the coaches problems.

Academia v. Philosophy (rehashed)
And so we arrive at the final question: since all academic specialties are characterised by the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake and the asking of fundamental questions, what is the difference between philosophy proper and just regular academia (history, economics, psychology, anthropology etc.)?

And the answer is that when an field of fundamental study becomes established, its scholars become specialised within that field, and the field gets a name (like history or psychology). At this point, it is no longer philosophy--just a regular branch of academia. The evidence for this, the ancient Greek philosophers dabbled in so much more than what we call "philosophy": the most prolific ancient author, Aristotle, wrote extensively about biology, psychology, astronomy, economics, linguistics, theatre. Yet he was known as "The Philosopher", and at the time he was theorising, there would not have been a clear division between the philosophical and non-philosophical subjects—rather the theorising of Aristotle was characterised generally by the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake. Philosophy literally means "the love of knowledge". However in the modern era (i.e. since the Renaissance), the various sub-branches have broken away and been given their own domains separate from philosophy. The best example of this is "Natural Philosophy", which became "Science" in the mid 1800s.

So why doesn't philosophy totally disappear, and melt into other academic disciplines? Well, I believe it's because it is impossible to go deeper than philosophy. If you go deeper than philosophy, by asking fundamental questions about philosophy, this is called meta-philosophy, and one of the key questions asked by meta-philosophy is whether meta-philosophy is truly distinct and more fundamental than philosophy. To anyone with any common-sense, this is clearly a philosophical debate. And so, that's the bottom.

What marks the border between philosophy and regular academia? I would argue that the branches of so-called Applied Philosophy (the philosophical portion of a branch of regular academia) is the border. And the philosophy-side of the border is defined by having lost all connection to the real-world. Asking how we can prove that cigarettes cause smoking is a question with a philosophical vibe, but it is very much connected to the real-world. The follow-on question, "what is causality", fits within the philosophy of statistics, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of biology, etc., and therefore to no one real-world context or domain, hence I would describe this as philosophy.

Summary Ideas

 * Distinguishing Nonphilosophical academia v. Philosophy (Philosophy is a diagnosis of exclusion)
 * Can you ask a more fundamental question? Can you go deeper? If yes, then not philosophy.
 * Is this question specific to a context? If yes, then not philosophy.


 * Statements of fact
 * Academia is both the act and the result of philosophising (asking fundamental questions for the sake of knowledge rather than success)
 * Philosophy is what remains when all the context-specific domains are labelled and removed.
 * [I'm not 100% sure if all Nonphilosophical domains are "context specific" (aka "applied") domains]

Interesting follow-on questions

 * Examining the alleged difference between knowledge and wisdom
 * Is there truly a discriminating gap between "knowledge for practical gain" and "knowledge for knowledge's sake" (or is "knowledge for knowledge's sake" just an indirect way of achieving the typical base desires)?
 * Is curiosity similar to the desire to blow something up because it's beautiful? Hence are art and academia siblings?
 * The proper relationship between academia and industry? Must they be fully separated/merged?
 * What determines the scope and direction of academic inquiry? (Is it ultimately a function of human need?)
 * What is the benefit/harm to society of academia? (Can curiosity kill the societal cat?)
 * Why is [the definition of] philosophy important to society? What is the relationship between academia/philosophy and ideological activism?

= Terse definitions =
 * Philosophy is the study of the fundamental structure of the universe

= Describing philosophy =

Paul Pardi
Pardi, in his 2018 article, in lieu of a definition of philosophy, described philosophy as being:
 * the foundation of all subjects
 * a framework—"an approach to questions rather than a bunch of answers to the questions themselves"
 * practical—"humans existence is wholly dependent on ideas and philosophy is all-consumed with better understanding ideas"
 * truth-conducive—"philosophy can help get us nearer to what is true about the world"

BMJ contra Pardi

 * 1) All study "gets us nearer to the truth"—by definition, I would argue—hence this is not a unique identifier of philosophy, although I think Pardi is selling the subject to cynics who might believe it is just talking drivel.
 * 2) All study is either directly or indirectly practical. And philosophy has an above-average indirect:direct ratio, hence this is poor way to define philosophy, although, again, Pardi is preaching to the cynics who claim it is 0% practical.
 * 3) Philosophy is not a framework—philosophy creates frameworks, by identifying the essence within the particular. Hence, even if were true that philosophy is defined by a broadly-identifiable investigative method or conceptual framework for study, this method/framework would have been the output of philsophy, and hence philosophy must have existed before this. Thus, I would argue that philosophy cannot be a framework, although the creation of frameworks is a quintessentially philosophical activity.
 * 4) Pardi is correct in his observation that philosophy is the "foundation of all subjects". However he spends time apologising for this (again as prophylaxis against cynics), rather than identifying why this is the case—i.e., because philosophy is the subject of fundamental questions.

= Philosophy contra other disciples =

Contra science
Philosophy is not science. Philosophy is a kind of science in the general sense of that term (as philosopher Bertrand Russell noted in the introduction to his famous A History of Western Philosophy): there are procedures to follow, hypotheses to test, outcomes to work towards, and experiments to run. By saying philosophy is not science, I mean that philosophy doesn’t study the things the hard sciences—chemistry, biology, some disciplines in physics—studies. The methodology might be similar in some respects but the objects of study are different.

Contra pscyhology
Philosophy is not psychology. One of my graduate school professors frequently would ask people what they think philosophy is. One of his favorite answers was, “psychology misspelled.” The more philosophy I study, the more affinity I see between it and psychology. Both are generally focused on the mind and what it does, both worry about how the mind relates to the world around it, both are interested in behavior. But philosophy focuses less on how to live in the world as a thinking thing and spends more energy on what it means to be a mind. Philosophy also studies the mind’s contents--ideas or concepts. Psychology helps humans to understand why things go wrong and how to make them right again (and what that means) while philosophy is concerned with understanding the structure of things like beliefs, a moral behavior, and sense experience.

Contra linguistics
Philosophy is not linguistics. This one may be a bit controversial since philosophers spend a lot of time with words. Philosophy isn’t really about the structure of language but it is does focus on the content of words. Put differently, philosophers don’t care too much about why there should be number agreement between nouns and verbs in English sentences or why the nouns in Latin-based languages have a gender. But they do care what the definition of “existence” means and the difference between believing “God exists necessarily” and “Necessarily, God exists.”

Contra theology
Philosophy is not theology. Thomas Aquinas famously stated that philosophy is the handmaiden of theology. While I certainly would not want to attempt to cross intellectual swords with someone like Aquinas, I respectfully see things the other way around. The study of questions like, “Is there a god?,”What is good and evil?,”Do humans have a soul?” have all been studied by theologians but those theologians have been doing philosophy. Theology is particularly concerned with the nature of God (assuming God exists—a question philosophy tries to answer) and his relationship to the universe. Philosophy tends not to deal with such questions (though some philosophers play around in this space) and is concerned with whether a being like God is an idea that makes sense given everything else we think we know.

= References =