What exactly is Philosophy? The obvious first answer is the literal translation of the word, “Love of Wisdom.” But all that explains is the intent of a philosopher, but not what He or She (from now on I’ll be using “He” to mean both) does. Some will say that he thinks about things. So is philosophy what he thinks about? Or how he goes about the process of structuring his thoughts? Surely the subject he thinks about is only incidental to the thinking process, as there are so many different subjects to occupy his thought. Of course he wants to gain in knowledge about the subject, but can only do this if he goes about thinking in a way that will ensure he examines each piece of new knowledge acquired in a considered and careful manner, going to lengths to verify the accuracy of the source. But the process of thinking can be equally applied to any subject no matter its simplicity or complexity, as his process of thinking will just scale accordingly with the subjects intricacies. Whether it’s the Philosophy of Science, Religion or Ethics, it’s the thought process of the Philosopher that is the same and universal to all of the subjects examined.
So what exactly is that thought process? What is the Philosophical Thought Process???
Well, it would have to be logical, structured, and analytical. The thought process would need to be able to arrange information and details in a structured way, so that it is easy to analyse the information in a manner that makes sure it’s all logically consistent. Meaning no two pieces of information both claim to be true, yet are mutually exclusive (i.e. contradict each other). Where this is the case, the Philosophical Thought process knows it needs to ask more questions, not only that, but it also needs to refine the question it’s asking. A simple example, “Is the sky blue?” Well sometimes it is, sometimes its not. To have a more definitive answer we need to make the question more precise: “Is the sky blue during the daytime?” again the answer is sometimes, if it’s not cloudy. The Philosophical Thought Process will keep refining the question, adding extra conditions to the same statement: “Is the sky blue, during the daytime, when it’s not cloudy”, yes - but what do you mean by “daytime”? The Philosophical Thought Process must be exact in its meaning so that it can fully explore all the questions raised by each answer. So instead of the Philosophical Thought Process answering questions, all it really does is create more new questions, but these questions are of a more specific nature. Meaning each question adds to the overall understanding as the subtleties of the subject become more apparent, with each question’s more detailed structure.
This process applies to all subjects, no exceptions. It’s the initial “Why?” that starts the ball rolling. Every answer received needs to be noted and taken on, when thinking about what new questions need to be answered. All that Philosophy is, is this process of questioning in a logical systematic manner with a great attention to detail. Meaning if a question leads to inconsistency with other answers then this must be address by analysing what it is about a the answers that contradict. It’s only when all the answers are sorted and structured that it becomes possible to see the logical and analytical inconsistencies inherent in the databank of “so called” Knowledge. It’s also from this structured dataset that we can clearly see what we have learned during the process of examination.
Everything that a Philosophical Thought Process considers knowledge must undergo inspection and examination, scrutiny of the highest possible calibre with what is believed to be correct and accurate knowledge. If this knowledge doesn’t exist then the Philosophical Thought Process must go about a means to create knowledge by testing all possible scenarios and meticulously examining the results. But this is now bordering on a Science, so to speak. It’s from this process that we have many of the sciences that are now in existence, they were born of the Philosophical Thought Process’ need for new information, acquired in a way that is also logical, analytical, and structured… the Empirical Scientific method of experimentation. From this Physics, Biology, Psychology, etc were born. The Philosophical Thought Process supplied the questions and the scientific method produced the answers needed to create more detailed questions.
So where does that leave us in trying to understand what Philosophy is?
I would say that it shows that Philosophy is a thinking process and not the subject we’re thinking about. As we could think about any subject we wish, but unless we’re able to go about a structured examination based off sound logical principles, all the thinking we did will leave us none the wiser. As the answers need to be examined in relation to each other, because taking each answer on an individual basis it could appear to be correct, but when seen in direct relation to all the other answers, the inconsistencies can be observed.
The argument for why the Philosophical Thought Process is the best way to approach thinking still hasn’t been made. But why is this thought process correct?
It comes down to logic. Humanity as a species survives because we can see abstract relationships between otherwise disconnected things. We use our gift of reason and logic to form knowledge and gain an advantage over nature. By understanding more about are surroundings we can plan for the future and make previsions for any eventualities. But this is only because logic is “a priori” to human existence, i.e. it’s an innate part of the Universe. We developed as a species that uses logic not because we invented it, but because we discovered what was already there. Logic has always been part of the universe and over time we grew to recognise and understand it through the intellectual development of our mind. In effect this underlying logic imprinted itself into our mind as our mind works to the extents and also within the limits of the Universe. While logic and structure are the fundamental requirements to good philosophy, our ability to appreciate and comprehend this has developed overtime to awaken our understanding.