In a comment to Jeffrey's posting below, I noted the difference between answering this question in conversations with other philosophers, and answering the question for a broader audience. And so I thought it would only be fair if I offered my own response! Here is one way I answer the question to those not already immersed in philosophy: this is something I wrote for the Philosophy Blog at the college where I teach.
A summary here: I have two related answers.
1. (Following Plato): Philosophy is love of wisdom. What is wisdom? Perception of goodness. What is goodness? It is like a light that shines down on the world, illuminating it in a certain way. You can choose to just focus on what is, or you can see in a more complex way, also perceiving the way that the "light" of goodness plays on this world of "what is": what that light illuminates, and what that light casts into shadow. The philosopher is the person who learns to see in this more complex way.
2. Most (all) other fields of study investigate what is in various ways. The natural sciences focus on physical reality. The social sciences focus on psychological tendencies and social forces. The arts train both in techniques of expression, and in examining and interpreting what others have expressed. The humanities study the ways that people make sense of life and construct meanings. All of these fields do employ critical analysis of what they investigate as well.
Some of philosophy overlaps with some of these, but philosophy does something else besides. It doesn't just study the world of what is, and critically investigate this world. It also acknowledges the reality (at least in human consciousness) of a world of what should be. It acknowledges that our lived experience is comprised of a dual awareness: our awareness of what is is constantly attended by another awareness of what should be (even though we may get this wrong sometimes -- just as we sometimes get wrong what is), and we are always trying to reconcile these. And so philosophy does examine directly this other modality of experience as well. It investigates our critical faculties. It even critically examines our critical faculties! Or, like I said in the above-linked posting, philosophy includes the normative study of normativity itself. I do not think that any other fields of study do this.
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5 comments:
It seems, in some respects, that we're back to Welling's question about the nature of Truth. I like to think of philosophy as "love of wisdom," particularly as I start my semester exegeting Israel's Wisdom literature. But I'm not convinced that there's a Platonic "Truth" that we're investigating (or better yet: I'm convinced that there is no "Truth" as Plato thought of it). Even the biblical wisdom literature emphasizes the importance of discernment--figuring out, for instance, which proverb is appropriate to a given context (e.g., "look before you leap" v. "he who hesitates is lost").
I can understand your response to the psychology professor, but his discomfort is also my discomfort. I don't have any patience for a wishy-washy, anything-goes postmodernism, but in the investigation of values (which philosophy certainly does) we come up with multiple and mutually exclusive answers to some questions. Some are preferable to others, and some can be rejected outright, but we're still left with radically different ways of viewing the world that don't seem to be reconcilable.
I like the image of watching the the light and how the light casts shadows, rather than the things upon which the light falls, but it seems the "light" in this metaphor is the way in which we use our reasoning (and therefore philosophers can--do--lay claim to almost any field). But perhaps that's what you meant--my dislike of Plato may have blinded me to the intention of your post!
Craig,
How do you interpret Plato's conception of Truth (which you disagree with)?
I'm realizing that I don't think I understand what people mean when they say some version of "I don't believe in capital-T Truth."
I do understand that there are many knowledge claims that are highly contested. I also agree that some kinds of knowledge are socially constructed. And because knowledge claims can be closely tied to claims to power, I certainly understand why it is often wise to be skeptical and examine what is at stake for people when they are passionate about certain claims to truth.
But what I have a hard time understanding is why some think that because all of this is the case for some knowledge claims, the very notion of truth should be called into question.
Maybe I am missing something?
Earnestly and respectfully,
Laura
Laura,
my concerns aren't so much rooted in concerns about power structures and social construction (although I think they're important) as they reflect post-Kantian ideas about the limits of knowledge, particularly reflected through Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Neither of them are giving up on the idea of "truth," but it isn't unitary, eternal and objective.
I'll continue to chew on this, though.
Craig
Today I was just re-reading a portion of Richard Bernstein's Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, and this sentence struck me: "Since the relativist believes that there is (or can be) a nonreducible plurality of ... conceptual schemes, he or she challenges the claim that these concepts can have a determinate or univocal significance" (p. 8). Then I read your latest comment here, Craig, and it strikes me that you may be getting at the same thing.
I wonder if Wittgenstein's notion of "family resemblance" can help us. Wittgenstein realized that some of the most important concepts we have cannot be defined in the one perfect way that captures its true essence, such that the definition includes all that we want to include in the concept and excludes all that we wouldn't want to count within the concept. But even so, this doesn't make those powerful, complex concepts meaningless. He said that there is still a network of related meanings, held together by "family resemblance."
George Lakoff takes on a similar challenge in trying to develop a theory of how we categorize, in his book, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. I find his account very promising. Are you familiar with this book?
I don't think of myself as a relativist, but I think I see your point. Perhaps "family resemblance" is the right tack here, although I don't remember Wittgenstein applying it in quite this way. It does serve to rule out the "anything goes" problem I see with relativism.
I recognize the title of Lakoff's book, but the only thing I've read by him is the collaboration with Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh. I'll have to dig that back out to see how they address the question of truth. Perhaps I could have framed my original response differently: what do we mean when we use the word "truth," and is that what Plato would have understood (with two related questions--can we know what Plato meant, and does it matter?)
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