My question to anyone here is:
What do you regard as philosophy and how do you regard yourselves as philosophers (if you do and why); any moments in life that changed you towards a certain direction?
Let’s start with the definition:
…the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.
Marcus Tullius Cicero put it this way:
Philosophy, rightly defined, is simply the love of wisdom.
And then there are the tools of philosophy: the rules of language, logic, pinning down [epistemologically] what we can actually know about something.
But then it would seem to come down to which particular aspect of your life you wish to be philosophical about.
And, in my view, if approached in that manner, you then have to ask yourself, what are the limitations of philosophy? What facets of the life that you live may well be beyond knowing logically, rationally, ontologically?
In other words, beyond what point does “wisdom” become just an exchange of subjective points of view…of personal narratives?
So there are aspects of our lives that we are able to communicate to others objectively and aspects that we are not.
In answer to the first question: philosophy is a creative engagement with reality. But this is a continental bias that will become clearer when I answer the second question. It just seems to me that (in contrast to more analytic/scientific approaches (philosophy is primarily literary in its ability to offer a different perspective on and framing of how things hang together. This is why the continental approach’s biggest weakness comes not from its practitioners, but its critics when they take it too literally when it should be considered more metaphorically. For instance, it would be silly to act as if Sartre’s assertion that existence is a matter of being-for-itself (a kind of nothingness (projecting out of being-in-itself (that which just is: Being ( towards being-in-itself out of a desire to feel “the fullness of Being” (that which being-for-itself lacks (is something that could be scientifically demonstrated in the same way that water, at atmospheric pressure, boils at 212 degrees. Still, in the same way we could a movie or a work of fiction, we experience the true in the way it resonates with our own experience and articulates on it. The same could be said of Baudrillard’s Simulacrum which we cannot, in any empirical way, prove exists. Still, understanding it can go a long way towards understanding our experiences in a contemporary techno-based society.
My answer to the second question is a little more confessional and leaves me vulnerable to attacks from so-called “serious philosophers”: I really don’t consider myself a philosopher. I just don’t have time for the reading list. And there are other types of books I would like to read and get to know before I die. I’m more comfortable with thinking of myself as a creatively and intellectually curious guy in a state of becoming writer who, like most writers, likes to write about what he is experiencing. And right now, that is primarily philosophy. I prefer to think of it as more of a journal or postcard from a journey that not so much describes a philosophy as describes my experiences with it. Consequently, I am far more interested with coming up with a good sentence that describes that experience than telling anyone what the truth is.
For me, it is primarily about taking in a lot of various inputs from various sources and seeing what outputs result.
Philosophy does not mean “love of wisdom”. Philosophy means “love to wisdom”.
The first definition would mean “wisdom’s love” or that “wisdom loves”, thus it would mean nonsense. The second defintion is the right one and means that “one loves wisdom” or “one has the love to (have or/and get [more and more]) wisdom”.
In German this “love to wisdom” is called “Liebe zur Weisheit” - you may compare it to “Wille zur Macht” (“will to power”), if you know the German nihilistic philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.
Instead of the preposition “zu” (“to”) one can alternatively use the preposition “für” (“for”): “Liebe für Weisheit” (“love for wisdom”) - for comaprison: “Wille für Macht” (“will for power”). But one should never use the preposition “of” in this cases because the terms would get an entirely different meaning.
I would reduce ‘philosophy’ to a fundamental impulse of continuous improvement that is almost as basic and critical as the need to breathe which is directly aligned to the optimal (indirectly with the maximal) well being of the individual and therefrom humanity. This is the essence of what is philosophy.
From this essence we can express philosophy in its perspectival forms where relevant. Note the definitions of the diversified form of ‘what is philosophy’ can be as many as those who attempt to define it.
To achieve the above we need the following;
- Theoretical and applied/practical philosophy
- Knowledge
- Wisdom (knowledge in optimal action)
- whatever principles (at the meta or otherwise level) that are necessary to serve the above.
I try my best to apply the above principles optimally to all aspects of my life.
The only change takes place in your thought structure, you begin to think differently and therefore to experience and feel things differently. Basically however everything remains exactly as it was. You can change your clothes and only wear the most ‘fashionable’ clothing just to be ‘in’, but inside you are still the same. Wanting to understand is only useful for changing small things in yourself. There is nothing you can do to change the past. In the hope of changing things in the future, you remain with the present, which is in fact the past.
d63, Thank you.
To change the clothes at any moment of the day due to fashion is to compensate for a lack of intellect, or to accentuate and hide certain body parts - indeed I agree with you that your essence will not change in accordance, like those transsexuals; but it may expose your behaviour tendencies and taste in music for example.
iambiguous & Arminius
Should philosophy not be more than just ‘‘love to wisdom’’; but rather to engage with the knowledge, thus courage - and above all, understanding.
If your understanding is merely about the correct definition; is it not immediately lowered to dictionary meanings and thus often limited to your own life-span and the current culture you reside in (words as an expression of the current).
Continues improvement; but always in touch with the past. Or do you see it otherwise?
The old does not always need to be replaced by the new, especially is the case with words - but to be in a chain of understanding from generation to generation is indeed a continuation.
But philosophy, how should it bring forward ‘‘the well being for humanity’’, not all would be regarded as pleasant for humanity - and to what standards belong people to humanity (sexual reproduction, intellect, ideology etc.,), from your point of view.
What particular knowledge and understanding do you think you possess in regard to what particular aspect of your life?
Is this knowledge and understanding true objectively? Or is it encompassed largely in the manner in which you [subjectively] have come to think about it?
That is always the chief task of philosophy in my view: to make this distinction.
And, in attempting to so, philosophers will come upon what seem to me to be the inherent limitations of philosophy. At least with respect to identity and conflicting moral/political values. And these [along with political economy] reflect my own chief interest in philosophy.
I am more interested in understanding how and why any particular individual came about [existentially] to believe what they did about their own identity and their own value judgments.
I root that in dasein: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
And here the dictionary itself is only of limited value. Philosophically, it is merely one place to start.
If you look at humanity, it is always a trend [net of ups and downs] of rising continuous improvements which can be gradual or paradigmatic.
Philosophy in essence is the fundamental that drives this trend.
If you look at Science and all its developments and improvements, underlying it is the Philosophy of Science.
For every aspect of reality, we have a meta-level of it where it is Philosophy of [whatever].
Note I mentioned optimal well-being, so there is always a trade off where the chosen option is net-positive from a mixture of negative and positive alternatives.
How we are to balance these options to achieve optimality is via the philosophy of moral and ethics.
“Philosophy” means what “philospohy” means. The definition of “philosophy” is about 2500 years old. There is no other definition possible. It is not debatable. There are no opinions about the meaning and definition possible, beacuse it has already its meaning and definition. It is not possible to change them, but it is possible to not know them or to forget them. 
The term 'Philosophy" was introduced by the Greeks.
However the term philosophy was later extended to the ancients before the Greeks i.e. as in Eastern Philosophy which extend way back to 5000-10000 years re Vedic philosophy.
Thus we need to establish what is the common essence in all these philosophies that stretch back > 10,000 years or more.
For example there are so many levels of Science and it was once part of philosophy. However the essence of Science is basically ‘to know.’
The essence of philosophy is ‘continuous improvement for optimal well-being’ and to achieve this human need ‘to know’ [essence of Science] besides other basic elements.
Then why have philosophers always and are still debating the issue? And likely always will?
I was just discussing this in another thread coincidentally. The thing that separates the real philosophers from the ones who can’t hack it is the concept of proof, and the only really sound proof is if you can prove, by removing all possible variables, that it’s impossible to have the discourse you are having if the argument is false. The rest just wade in the kiddie pool.