What is philosophy, ad infinitum.

[Dalek Prime]

Some on this forum talk of philosophy by stating it's etymology. Sure, it's the love of wisdom. But until you practice its essence, or know of it, philosophy will take you nowhere, fast. And its essence is quite simple; locate a safe starting point that is clear, and reason from it.

(Got that, Nick?)

[thedoc]

Does this count?

Years ago I was reading Zen, and I read that everyone is enlightened, but just doesn't know it. So I reasoned that since I am already enlightened and just don't know it, I would skip all the hard work, and play with my grandchildren.

[Dalek Prime]

Does this count?

Years ago I was reading Zen, and I read that everyone is enlightened, but just doesn't know it. So I reasoned that since I am already enlightened and just don't know it, I would skip all the hard work, and play with my grandchildren.

Sounds wise to me. Go play. You've earned it.

[Nick_A]

DP wrote:

Some on this forum talk of philosophy by stating it's etymology. Sure, it's the love of wisdom. But until you practice its essence, or know of it, philosophy will take you nowhere, fast. And its essence is quite simple; locate a safe starting point that is clear, and reason from it.

What in your opinion is the essence of philosophy?

[Walker]

Does this count?

Years ago I was reading Zen, and I read that everyone is enlightened, but just doesn't know it. So I reasoned that since I am already enlightened and just don't know it, I would skip all the hard work, and play with my grandchildren.

Sounds wise to me. Go play. You've earned it.

Is doc unwise when he does not play with his grandchildren? Or, because he once read that everyone is enlightened, are all of his other actions also defined as wise? If not, why not.

[Nick_A]

Walker wrote:

Is doc unwise when he does not play with his grandchildren? Or, because he once read that everyone is enlightened, are all of his other actions also defined as wise? If not, why not.

That IMO is the great fallacy of new age philosophy. We are all enlightened. Everything we do reflects wisdom. It is all just lovely. Philosophy should help to preserve quality in ideas but has devolved into the love of arguments which deny the recognition of objective value. So everything will remain just lovely until our species destroys itself.

[Nick_A]

D P suggests that I

locate a safe starting point that is clear, and reason from it.

A good safe foundation is the belief that I am god. Can't get much safer than that. I can make a reasonable argument of such precision that it will put Scientology to shame. Now that I know D Ps philosophical technique I can pursue the love of wisdom without further difficulty..

[Arising_uk]

A good safe foundation is the belief that I am god. Can't get much safer than that. ...

You'd better as your belief is wrong as 'I am God', you are a fraud and a false 'God'.

[Walker]

Walker wrote:

Is doc unwise when he does not play with his grandchildren? Or, because he once read that everyone is enlightened, are all of his other actions also defined as wise? If not, why not.

That IMO is the great fallacy of new age philosophy. We are all enlightened. Everything we do reflects wisdom. It is all just lovely. Philosophy should help to preserve quality in ideas but has devolved into the love of arguments which deny the recognition of objective value. So everything will remain just lovely until our species destroys itself.

There’s another layer.

Years ago I was reading Zen, and I read that everyone is enlightened, but just doesn't know it. So I reasoned that since I am already enlightened and just don't know it, I would skip all the hard work, and play with my grandchildren.

The logic of the statement only works when: I = everyone.

[Dalek Prime]

D P suggests that I

locate a safe starting point that is clear, and reason from it.

A good safe foundation is the belief that I am god. Can't get much safer than that. I can make a reasonable argument of such precision that it will put Scientology to shame. Now that I know D Ps philosophical technique I can pursue the love of wisdom without further difficulty..

You're not god. You suck at philosophy.

[Dalek Prime]

DP wrote:

Some on this forum talk of philosophy by stating it's etymology. Sure, it's the love of wisdom. But until you practice its essence, or know of it, philosophy will take you nowhere, fast. And its essence is quite simple; locate a safe starting point that is clear, and reason from it.

What in your opinion is the essence of philosophy?

There is thought, and there are things I can accept as existing, whether I am immediately aware of it or not.

[Dalek Prime]

Does this count?

Years ago I was reading Zen, and I read that everyone is enlightened, but just doesn't know it. So I reasoned that since I am already enlightened and just don't know it, I would skip all the hard work, and play with my grandchildren.

Sounds wise to me. Go play. You've earned it.

Is doc unwise when he does not play with his grandchildren? Or, because he once read that everyone is enlightened, are all of his other actions also defined as wise? If not, why not.

Doc is wise to have a sense of humour, and know who and what is important in his life.

[thedoc]

Walker wrote:

Is doc unwise when he does not play with his grandchildren? Or, because he once read that everyone is enlightened, are all of his other actions also defined as wise? If not, why not.

That IMO is the great fallacy of new age philosophy. We are all enlightened. Everything we do reflects wisdom. It is all just lovely. Philosophy should help to preserve quality in ideas but has devolved into the love of arguments which deny the recognition of objective value. So everything will remain just lovely until our species destroys itself.

FYI, what I read had nothing to do with "New Age Philosophy", assuming that it is something in the last century. The source I read was several centuries old if not a millennium or more. And the source was Zen, not something from western thought.

[duszek]

Philosophy is an art that is not like getting a driving licence.

You refine this art gradually during all of your life.

As a child you ask yourself questions and try to find answers, then you get more and more sophisticated.

Socrates was not able to read and write but he focused on thinking better and better.

We could try to rank ourselves and other philosophers using a scale between 1 and 100.

Can you think of a philosopher ranking 100 ?

I would put the big classic philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) at 90.

I would put myself at 20.

[Risto]

Many contemporary philosophers offered their answer to the question “What is philosophy?” on the podcast Philosophy Bites. Marilyn Adams: “Philosophy is thinking really hard about the most important questions and trying to bring analytic clarity both to the questions and the answers,” Peter Adamson: “Philosophy is the study of the costs and benefits that accrue when you take up a certain position,” Richard Bradley: “it is about critical reflection on anything you care to be interested in,” Alle Buchanan: “it generally involves being critical and reflective about things that most people take for granted,” Clare Carlisle: “it is about making sense of all of this,” Barry Smith: “thinking fundamentally clearly and well about the nature of reality and our place in it,” Simon Blackburn: “a process of reflection on the deepest concepts,” Tony Coady: “a science of presuppositions,” Donna Dickenson: “it is refusing to accept any platitudes or accepted wisdom without examining it,” Luciano Floridi: “Philosophy is conceptual engineering. That means dealing with questions that are open to informed reasonable disagreement by providing new concepts that can be superseded in the future if more economic solutions can be found — but it’s a matter of rational agreement,” Anthony Kenny: “thinking as clearly as possible about the most fundamental concepts that reach through all the disciplines.” Brian Leiter: “philosophy creates new ways of evaluating things — what’s important, what’s worthwhile,” David Papineau: “philosophy requires an untangling of presuppositions: figuring out that our thinking is being driven by ideas we didn’t even realize that we had,” Janet Radcliffe Richards: “philosophy is a mode of enquiry rather than a particular set of subjects … involving the kind of questions where you are not trying to find… whether your ideas are true or not, in the way that science is doing, but more about how your ideas hang together,” Michael Sandel: “philosophizing is reflecting critically on the way things are. That includes reflecting critically on social and political and economic arrangements. It always intimates the possibility that things could be other than they are,”

Massimo Pigliucci summarizes all the above about philosophy in his book The Nature of Philosophy like this:

“Indeed, the above is essentially a summary of what I — naively — thought of philosophy before approaching the field professionally: it is about reason, logic, arguments and analysis, not empirical evidence per se, though of course it better be informed by the best of what we know of how the world works, particularly from science; it is about examining common notions and discovering that they are more complex than often thought, or perhaps even arriving at the conclusion that they are incoherent; it is about the kind of broad thinking that helps us understand our reality as human beings in the vast universe described by science; and it has practical consequences for how we conduct our lives and structure our societies…”

I would conclude all of the above with a short definition: Philosophy is exploration of logical possibilities of solutions to general and fundamental problems such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, language, and science with regard to the aspects that other disciplines currently or ever cannot solve.