Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Philosophers' Roundtable again?

Dear fellow contributors to, and readers of, Q/P blog,

Recalling the surprising and encouraging level of interest in the Philosophers’ Roundtable at the recent FAHE conference at Earlham (which was the motivation for establishing this blog), and remembering the approaching (and early) due date for FAHE proposals this year (November 1st), I am wondering whether we should not be in the process of putting together a proposal for another Philosophers’ Roundtable at the upcoming FAHE conference at Woodbrooke. My suggestion - and I’m just floating something here, open to counter-proposals or revisions - is that we organize around a more focussed query this time (last year’s queries were great, but it turns out were far too extensive to even begin to discuss in the time we had), and invite three or four prepared responses (of a maximum of five minutes each, and from diverse philosophical perspectives - maybe from the more regular respondents to this blog?) that can serve as the stimulus to a broader ranging discussion for the rest of the session. The moderator should probably not be one of the presenters, so that the discussion that follows not be channelled to anyone’s response/interests in particular. Given the theme of the conference, perhaps our query could be: “In what ways does your Quaker faith impact upon your philosophical practice?” (There is a broader question implicit here, of course, as to how one’s Quaker faith impacts upon academic work in any discipline, so the discussion might be of interest to others too.) But I would be interested in what others would like to hear discussed as well. What do we all think?

Jeff Dudiak

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

One Response to "What is Philosophy?"

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.