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The Nature of Philosophy

Gassendi1
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Posted 07/04/03 - 01:02 AM:	#1
Philosophers, it seems to me, should be the most introspective, and self-conscious of all reseachers. And the question, what is philosophy is a philosophical question, although, as for example, the nature of physics or of science is not, itself, a physical or scientific question, or the nature of mathematics a mathematical question, nor is, to take another example, the nature of geography, a geographical question. Nevertheless, the nature of philosophy is not very much discussed, even by philosophers. What do philosophers do?

180 Proof
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Posted 07/04/03 - 03:19 AM:	#2
philosophers ask questions of questions. every discipline offers answers which obscure questions that further obscure assumptions that conceal presuppositions and distinctions which are always eminently questionable. the nature of philosophy is related to the nature of asking. not only can men ask it seems that men must ask (or rather, that men cannot not ask!) asking is inexhaustable and urgent. it is inescapable. to this extent, at least, asking acquaints men most intimately with themselves as real. to philosophize is to ask because one is more-than-one's own mind can fathom or control or account for. one is in question because one is ... but one is also more than one. the philosopher's peculiar itch which he so rigorously scratches is this: does one ask or does that which is more-than-one ask? the real resists, thereby throwing (one) into question. the real asks but the philosopher merely guesses at what's been asked ... more prosaically, philosophers teach us to examine our assumptions and to ask that which can be questioned and not that which can't be answered. at best, we might learn to philosophize from them, that is, to pay attention to the questions that go unasked or are forgotten and pay attention also to our own asking (and being asked). as wittgenstein often stated philosophy leaves everything as it is; it merely clarifies what is obscured by familiarity and ubiquity. philosophy helps us perceive the nonphilosophical nonphilosophically. and i'd add it also helps us to perceive philosophy philosophically (aka skeptically.)
if X = -X, then -X. "existence" entails specifiable conditions (e.g. evidence, sound argument, search parameters, etc.) void, or perfect symmetry (i.e. no where/when/thing), necessarily is perfectly unstable. THAT there is something at all (i.e. broken symmetry e.g. quantum fluctuations) is "random"; however, WHAT that something becomes (e.g. universes) is not.

Hugh Nose
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Posted 07/04/03 - 05:27 AM:	#3
the nature of philosophy is related to the nature of asking. not only can men ask it's seems that men must ask (or rather, that men cannot not ask!) asking is inexhaustable and urgent. it is inescapable. to this extent, at least, asking acquaints men most intimately with themselves as real. to philosophize is to ask because one is more-than-one's own mind can fathom or control or account for. one is in question because one is ... but one is also more than one. the philosopher's peculiar itch which he so rigorously scratches is this: does one ask or does that which is more-than-one ask? the real resists, thereby throwing (one) into question. the real asks but the philosopher merely guesses at what's been asked ... (my emphasis) Elizabeth Anscombe, Cora Diamond, Mary Midgley, Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Mary Daly, Hannah Arendt, Ayn Rand, Hypatia, Susanne Langer, and on and on,... Hugh Nose

darkcrow
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Posted 07/04/03 - 06:45 AM:	#4
As I have been saying for some time: The nature of Philosophy is to answer questions about what is right or wrong, good or bad, beautiful or ugly but most importantly------to attempt to determine the truth or falsity of their findings, whatever the question.
"To the success of our hopeless task."

TecnoTut
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Posted 07/04/03 - 08:43 AM:	#5
My answer is similar to Darkcrow's. The nature of philosophy is identity. Philosophers try to identify certain predicates: the good, the mind, the truth, knowledge, etc. That is why I believe the paradox of identity should be one of the most important topics in philosophy.
He that dies pays all debts - Shakespeare's Stephano from The Tempest Truth is its own measure - Spinoza, Ethics IIp43s Those who deny [Aristotle's] first principle should be flogged or burned until they admit that it is not the same thing to be burned and not burned, or whipped and not whipped. - Ibn Sina (Avicenna)

Tobias
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Posted 07/04/03 - 09:19 AM:	#6
180: to philosophize is to ask because one is more-than-one's own mind can fathom or control or account for. one is in question because one is ... but one is also more than one. Yes yes, here we have something. It is exactly that 'is' that philosophers want to know, want to know but cannot know. Yet we always feel we are approaching it better than we did before.... The world opens up to us, it opens up like 'manyness' yet it seems in order, the many is made into one . But again the one seems like many when coming to think of it. The one we in the blink of an eye constructed, changes and changes and we try to keep up with it, try to predict in what all these things that are will change into. We see this change and we notice how the changing things seem to follow patterns and seem to interact with everything else. So the everchanging is In that constant interaction in that constant change, isn't than that motion that which 'is'? Isn't it than motion that keeps our oneness intact? But don't we also change? Yes we do and we try to keep up with it grab ourselves again, form it again keep it one, let it reproduce itself. Isn't there something that is, fixed, a point of departure, a nice fixed point wiith relations to everything, something everything has that does not change? Yes there is that is being. But did we ever see being? No because being is no category, it lies outside everything, we have to assign it to everything, but it means nothing. The moment something is only being, it hits nothing. There being and nothing slip into eachother. It is simpler than you would think, see for yourselve, your being holds the immediate promis of your not-being. It points to it. Everything points to its own not being. So even our fixed point of being is broken, yet intact. Just as you know that you are the creator of your world, that there will be no more world for you when you are out of it, because you made everything seem one, you are the one that says 'is'. You are the creator, but also the destroyer, because your finity is in you. Still you are also infinite because you also know that the world without you me as it was with you, it changes but stays the same and as that it is finite. So 'is' is staying the same in its difference. Now to get to grips with that paradox and its ramifications is the job of the philosopher. The predicates 'the true' the good and the just are predicates we pin on a changing world, but as Tecno says (but means differently I think), the paradox of identity, the one in many and the many in one is philosophy's subject. And no, philosophy does not judge, it examines the nature of judgement, what do we affirm what do we do when we judge, that is the question. Greetings Tobi
"The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you" "The Power of Kant compels you"

Woods
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Posted 07/04/03 - 10:38 AM:	#7
Originally posted by Tobias So 'is' is staying the same in its difference. Now to get to grips with that paradox and its ramifications is the job of the philosopher. Actually I think the paradox (in this case) is actually only due to the limitations of the language in use. I believe we can open up language to things which are neither simply nouns or verbs, or neither simply exist or don't exist. I believe it should be the first priority of philosophy to reconstruct language with third, forth, fifth, . . . options -where before there were only binary opposits to deal with. I would say Derrida broke ground. I believe Wittgenstein made a drive in that direction, but was still confined by the traditions of analytic philosophy and the empirical attitude they can sometimes foster. I've recently been introduced to Frege's "concept of a horse" scenario, thanks to Moore. I'm now inclined to understand philosophy today (a here if you will) as begining to come to explore the block that it's up against and restructure itself for surmounting the (here and apparently) insurmountable. I believe Philosophy is the totality, I go with Hegel on that one. But as far as philosophy-here-now I believe either coincides with the above in some way or another, or else is doing the (not entirely useless) task of cleaning up the old stuff.

darkcrow
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Posted 07/04/03 - 11:41 AM:	#8
Dammit woods we are not talking about a theory of conversation here
"To the success of our hopeless task."

Woods
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Posted 07/04/03 - 12:02 PM:	#9
So, philosophy is entirely other to what I described above? What is it, if not a dialectic with many contributers and heterogenus viewpoints conglamerating and growing, yet never explicitly escaping the confines of language while at the same time enveloping them within the ontological metaphysical-physical (and somewhat transcending this distinction itself) totality of the knowable? Don't like that one? How about: philosophy is a conversation with an open-ended ~about

DarkBeing
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Posted 07/04/03 - 12:39 PM:	#10
The nature of philosophy is a circle.

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