# What is Philosophy?
**URL:** https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604
**Category:** Philosophy
**Created:** [July 10, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604 "2013-07-10T01:44:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chrisk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Chrisk)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/1 "2013-07-10T01:44:42Z")
Hi I just wanted to get some different inputs on these questions, answer as you please:
- Does Philosophy have methods that can be agreed upon?
- Do Philosophical questions have a uniqueness or are all classically understood questions of Philosophy answerable by other means (Science in particular)?
- Is there such thing as progress in philosophy?
- If Philosophical questions are unique, what separates them from the inquiries of other disciplines?
Hopefully these can make for illuminating discussion.
---
### Author:  [@Dan1](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Dan1)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/2 "2013-07-10T01:52:39Z")
One of my own projects is to categorize and measure the best of philosophy.
Philosophy is definitely subject to the laws of nature, and it itself is entirely natural.
This means it will always have certain basically predictable qualities.
If philosophy was super natural, it could not be known.
Instead it is as know-able as it can be.
“Philosophy” to me is a category. It applies to a wide range of perceptive processes. The process, the mechanism, itself, may appear in all shapes, but it still must also be natural. This natural-ness permits a name, so that it is categorical. Good philosophers will examine things more fully than an unwise person would. The unwise is an example of anti-philosophy. Shoe-horning is a big part of it. Too much, too little, forced in, forced out, etc. Disharmony and imbalance is the essence of anti philosophy. Wisdom has a purpose, to produce the best life. Now this whole issue of “the best” escapes the masses. To the point where I might not bother saying what I think is the best, because it is like talking to a tree. Some people are like the tree, some aren’t. It’s up to our measure of wisdom to learn which is which.
---
### Author:  [@Chrisk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Chrisk)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/3 "2013-07-10T02:19:26Z")
Thank for that, I found that helpful, two questions for the sake of clarification though:
1. To your first point, to which I agree, it wouldn’t make sense if philosophy wasn’t natural, but to what extent are the questions of philosophy different from ones in science? I mean, if I were to inquire about the nature of something, that would seem generally a more scientific approach to inquiry, but what things in the natural world do we inquire about that cannot be reached by science?
2. By saying the “best life” I think that there is a moral connotation, are you thinking about wisdom being a guide for action in the moral sense, perhaps as it’s purpose, or do you mean that the life dedicated to wisdom is better than one that isn’t?
---
### Author:  [@James\_S\_Saint](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/James_S_Saint)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 2:28am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/4 "2013-07-10T02:28:50Z")
Science is about “try it and see”.
Philosophy is about “think about it and ‘see’”.
Religion is about “ask about it and believe”.
---
### Author:  [@Chrisk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Chrisk)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/5 "2013-07-10T02:37:57Z")
> [@James S Saint](#):
>
> Science is about “try it and see”.
> Philosophy is about “think about it and ‘see’”.
> Religion is about “ask about it and believe”.
The distinction between Science and Philosophy here doesn’t seem to answer my question. I know that Philosophy doesn’t align with the Scientific method and that can be a distinction but what are the differences between the questions that Philosophers ask and the ones Scientists ask?
---
### Author:  [@Dan1](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Dan1)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 2:45am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/6 "2013-07-10T02:45:35Z")
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> Thank for that, I found that helpful, two questions for the sake of clarification though:
>
> 1. To your first point, to which I agree, it wouldn’t make sense if philosophy wasn’t natural, but to what extent are the questions of philosophy different from ones in science? I mean, if I were to inquire about the nature of something, that would seem generally a more scientific approach to inquiry, but what things in the natural world do we inquire about that cannot be reached by science?
Science and philosophy is different in the way that painting with paint is different from drawing with pencil.
Science has its own culture now. Even in a century it has produced allot of culture.
Philosophy is older. It has a different culture to it.
They appear different, so many people think of them as different. They are both arts, but each unique.
> [@](#):
>
> 1. By saying the “best life” I think that there is a moral connotation, are you thinking about wisdom being a guide for action in the moral sense, perhaps as it’s purpose, or do you mean that the life dedicated to wisdom is better than one that isn’t?
I equate wisdom with natural bounty and super-abundance of health and prosperity.
An invention can make you rich.
Wisdom is like a good invention. Yes I’ve moralized it. I think it was meant to be moralized, because it is so often appearing with its partner : essential value.
---
### Author:  [@Chrisk](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Chrisk)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/7 "2013-07-10T03:07:33Z")
Yes certainly Philosophy and Science are unique and different, that’s not a point of disagreement. But there have been places where they have over-lapped and Science has come to challenge the things Philosophy used to say. Yes Philosophy is older, and it used to make claims about the nature of the world in an empirical, mechanistic way (such was much of the work done by Aristotle and even by Descartes); a domain of knowledge reserved for the practice of science. What exactly is the arena that Philosophy is now relegated to?
---
### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/8 "2013-07-10T03:17:01Z")
- Does Philosophy have methods that can be agreed upon?
Not necessarily by everybody, but yeah, sure.
- Do Philosophical questions have a uniqueness or are all classically understood questions of Philosophy answerable by other means (Science in particular)?
Some are answerable by science and some are not.
- Is there such thing as progress in philosophy?
Yes. You wouldn’t know that by reading this site, but yes.
- If Philosophical questions are unique, what separates them from the inquiries of other disciplines?
Their purpose.
---
### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/9 "2013-07-10T03:23:46Z")
By the way, if you’re wondering why my last answer is vague, it’s because your question is. If you were to try to ask a more poignant question, you’d probably be doing philosophy.
That might, or might not, help clear things up for you.
---
### Author:  [@James\_S\_Saint](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/James_S_Saint)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/10 "2013-07-10T05:41:58Z")
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> > [@James S Saint](#):
> >
> > Science is about “try it and see”.
> > Philosophy is about “think about it and ‘see’”.
> > Religion is about “ask about it and believe”.
>
> The distinction between Science and Philosophy here doesn’t seem to answer my question. I know that Philosophy doesn’t align with the Scientific method and that can be a distinction but what are the differences between the questions that Philosophers ask and the ones Scientists ask?
Science doesn’t “ask questions”. Philosophical scientists, often referred to as “theoretical physicists”, propose theories for a variety of reasons and “Science” tests the theory. Science merely verifies that something proposed was not wrong about its predicted results. Science has nothing else to do with truth nor inquiry into it. The results of science provide a foundation for more questions and theories that are progressively less likely to be proven wrong. But that is not a sure path to answering questions nor being certain of truth. It is merely better than what they had before.
The philosophy is all about the attempt to reason out a good functional ontology for the sake of either understanding and prediction or for sake of living a “better life” (whatever that might entail).
The field of Metaphysics (considered philosophy) is where actual immutable and absolute truth is found and provable. Science is merely a verifying tool for those speculating into the field of metaphysics. A scientist can be a metaphysicist, but Science is not. And frankly most scientists make very poor metaphysicists or philosophers. The construct of ontologies really isn’t their field. They focus on the technical precision of the tools, not the abstract ontological logic.
You don’t hire a technician to be a design engineer.
---
### Author:  [@von\_Rivers](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/von_Rivers)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 5:49am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/11 "2013-07-10T05:49:39Z")
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> - Does Philosophy have methods that can be agreed upon?
No.
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> - Do Philosophical questions have a uniqueness
No.
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> - Is there such thing as progress in philosophy?
No, atleast not linearly.
Anyone who disagrees may prepare themselves for debate and to be beaten argumentatively like a dusty rug.
---
### Author:  [@Mr\_Reasonable](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Mr_Reasonable)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 6:04am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/12 "2013-07-10T06:04:22Z")
Jesus Von, I’d noticed a lot of people saying you were wrong about stuff, but now that you’ve written a post of less than 500 words, and I’ve actually read it, I gotta say…you’re wrong man.
---
### Author:  [@Silhouette](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Silhouette)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 9:51am UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/13 "2013-07-10T09:51:30Z")
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> - Does Philosophy have methods that can be agreed upon?
They can be agreed upon, yes.
In practice they often aren’t.
Though in many cases they are.
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> - Do Philosophical questions have a uniqueness or are all classically understood questions of Philosophy answerable by other means (Science in particular)?
Philosophy has a uniqueness, demonstrated by people’s ability to recognise it as distinct from other fields.
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> - Is there such thing as progress in philosophy?
Yes, though as von says, it is not linear. Concepts and arguments are refined, though an approach according to a different value set may require a “back-track” in order to progress in a different “direction”.
> [@Chrisk](#):
>
> - If Philosophical questions are unique, what separates them from the inquiries of other disciplines?
This is the kind of question that will result in answers that will not be agreed upon unanimously - see my answer to your first question.
> [@Smears](#):
>
> Jesus Von, I’d noticed a lot of people saying you were wrong about stuff, but now that you’ve written a post of less than 500 words, and I’ve actually read it, I gotta say…you’re wrong man.
Is tldr your favourite four-letter-“word”? 😛
I detect that his overall opinion may contain some validity, though as usual he has chosen to present it in a provacatively exaggerated and beligerant way - as proven by his threat. He’s after a fight rather than constructive discussion, which is what makes him so intolerable as well as so apparently inept.
---
### Author:  [@Faust](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Faust)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 12:48pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/14 "2013-07-10T12:48:47Z")
Here’s a somewhat different answer to the general question, inspired by a PM I just read, from Dan~.
Humans can be usefully defined as the animal that requires narrative. We simply cannot function effectively without narrative. Science gives us one general type of narrative, along with machinery and useful processes. Philosophy gives us a different type of narrative. This is not to say that there is never any science in philosophy nor philosophy in science.
But let’s not get too subtle so early in the game.
Let’s get to one of the main activities of philosophy - argument. That’s what philosophers do - they formulate arguments. Your basic deductive argument is what in the context of science is called a proof. Philosophers use “proofs” but they also use other types of arguments. It was philosophers who struggled to work out the rules of proofs, and while this struggle was going on, philosophy was being done. The generation of the method itself, that is, was done by philosophers.
Enough progress was made that scientists, once they got around to it, adopted this method for their own work. The scientific method was a gift from philosophy to science.
Now, philosophers use certain perversions of that method to accomplish all manner of idiotic stuff, because those perversions are of no use to scientists, by and large. Although software writers do occasionally use a few of these methods. That’s because software writers are sometimes trying to mimic and accommodate the way we think and are not in search of much of anything else.
But the arsenal of arguments possessed by philosophers is larger yet. Philosophers never tire of trying to find new ways of arguing, although the number of ways must surely be limited.
Much of the progress gained in science is due to the fact that scientists can either believe in God or not and their results may not be affected by their belief, although often enough, those results are affected. Philosopher don’t have that luxury. Religious beliefs make a lot of difference in philosophy. Metaphysics makes a difference.
Metaphysics requires and generates a very different narrative in philosophy than a non-metaphysical view does.
In short - scientists can be blind to the larger questions and still be good scientists. Not always, but it’s possible. Not so for philosophers. Scientists are seeking a more narrowly-focused narrative. Philosophers don’t enjoy that restriction. This has produced a lot of lousy philosophy, but it also allows philosophers to throw a lot of stuff against the wall, just to see what sticks. Which is why there has been progress in philosophy.
That progress is not even recognised by many philosophers, but it’s there. Most philosophers are idiots, because most people are idiots. Most people are blinded by desire, by desires that don’t lead anywhere. Most philosophers are politicians. They want a nice, comfy group to belong to, even if that group doesn’t really exist. You often have to find the philosophy hiding in what they write.
So it kind of depends on what you call philosophy. Hobbes had a few grains of usefulness in his insane royalist babblings. Mostly, he wasn’t a philosopher at all. His argument was garbage and his goals were stupid. Just an example. But you could hardly take his work as an example of philosophy in order to find the answers to your questions.
That’s why it’s difficult to answer them.
---
### Author:  [@von\_Rivers](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/von_Rivers)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/15 "2013-07-10T14:21:52Z")
> [@Smears](#):
>
> Jesus Von, I’d noticed a lot of people saying you were wrong about stuff, but now that you’ve written a post of less than 500 words, and I’ve actually read it, I gotta say…you’re wrong man.
About the questions in the OP, you are the one giving a positive answer----not me. So, it falls to you to explain what you mean, rather than for me to explain everything someone could mean and then refute all of them. That’s just how the burden works with positive answers. IOW, please, have at it. Hopefully writing in full paragraphs isn’t as difficult for you as reading full paragraphs, because you may need to, to justify your answers. But if you can manage that, then I may even agree with you.
---
### Author:  [@James\_S\_Saint](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/James_S_Saint)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 2:30pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/16 "2013-07-10T14:30:15Z")
It is as simple as…
Science is about observation.
Philosophy is about reasoning.
---
### Author:  [@Silhouette](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Silhouette)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/17 "2013-07-10T15:18:04Z")
> [@James S Saint](#):
>
> It is as simple as…
> Science is about observation.
> Philosophy is about reasoning.
Please don’t be saying that philosophy isn’t about observation and science isn’t about reasoning.
Hopefully you’re implying some kind of overlap, even though you indicate otherwise by saying it is simple - that there is no complexity to it…
Maybe this explains why there is no reason in your science and no observation in your philosophy?
---
### Author:  [@James\_S\_Saint](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/James_S_Saint)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 3:23pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/18 "2013-07-10T15:23:06Z")
> [@Silhouette](#):
>
> …philosophy isn’t about observation and science isn’t about reasoning.
---
### Author:  [@Silhouette](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Silhouette)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/19 "2013-07-10T15:42:42Z")
> [@James S Saint](#):
>
> > [@Silhouette](#):
> >
> > …philosophy isn’t about observation and science isn’t about reasoning.
As hilarious as it is to partially quote someone in order to make it sound like they meant something they didn’t, you’ve twice made yourself look like a fool in quick succession.
As if you didn’t have enough to dig yourself out of already…
Bonus tip: stick to the topic and actually answer queries/address grievances - stop with the distraction and obfuscation and you might actually gain the slightest bit of respect around here.
---
### Author:  [@Dan1](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/u/Dan1)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604/20 "2013-07-10T17:41:21Z")
> [@Faust](#):
>
> That progress is not even recognised by many philosophers, but it’s there. Most philosophers are idiots, because most people are idiots. Most people are blinded by desire, by desires that don’t lead anywhere. Most philosophers are politicians. They want a nice, comfy group to belong to, even if that group doesn’t really exist. You often have to find the philosophy hiding in what they write.
>
> So it kind of depends on what you call philosophy. Hobbes had a few grains of usefulness in his insane royalist babblings. Mostly, he wasn’t a philosopher at all. His argument was garbage and his goals were stupid. Just an example. But you could hardly take his work as an example of philosophy in order to find the answers to your questions.
>
> That’s why it’s difficult to answer them.
This I wanted to reply to. The unwise are the unlucky of nature. The unwise are the ‘idiots’. They are deformed from birth and the world. The unwise try to fit things into where they normally can’t fit in, or don’t naturally fit in. In my rant I talked about how with wisdom, you put an apple in a container that is large enough for it, or you give away one apple in exchange for two. The unwise force the apple into a small box and mash it, or they drop it and it gets dirty. Etc. Now in philosophy, we take the sensual knowledge, and the unwise will fit it where it does not belong. For example, many people think they truly know the nature of god. False knowledge is the epitome of the unwise.
[Next page](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/what-is-philosophy/36604.md?page=2)