What is Philosophy Dr' Peter S' Fosl Department of Philosophy Transylvania University Lexington, Ken

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What is Philosophy?Dr. Peter S.
FoslDepartment of PhilosophyTransylvania
UniversityLexington, Kentucky

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What is Philosophy?

• A Special Science?
• An Investigation of the Most General Things
  Possible?
• A Set of Critical Techniques?
• An Attempt to Determine the Meaning of Life?
• A Rational Investigation into Essentially
  Indeterminate Questions?
• Conceptual Analysis and Clarification?
• A Way of Reaching God?
• A Specific Kind of Nonsense?

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A Special Science

• Moral Facts
• Aesthetic Facts
• Theological Facts
• Metaphysical Facts
• Epistemological Facts
• Logical Facts
• Conceptual Facts
• Axiological Facts
• Political Facts

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Investigation of the Most General Things Possible

• What is sulfur?
• What is 22?
• What is a vole?
• Who wrote the Gettysburg Address?
• What is Being?
• What are numbers and logic?
• What is life?
• What is time, and what is history?
• Can we know anything at all?
• What is the self?
• What is a fact?

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A Set of Critical Techniques

• Logical Criticism
• Is it inconsistent?
• Is it self-subverting?
• Does it entail something false, improbable, or
  absurd?
• Social-Political Criticism
• Is it just or politically desirable?
• Moral Criticism
• Is it right or permissible?
• As such philosophy claims to set one free.
• Free from custom, tradition, and habit
• Free from ignorance and irrationality
• Free from simple-mindedness

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An Attempt to Determine the Meaning of Life

• Does a meaningful life require a belief in
  something divine?
• Can the meaning of life be found in the natural
  world?
• Are we wholly the creators of whatever meaning
  there is in life?
• Is there any meaning to life at all?

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A Rational Investigation into Essentially
Indeterminate Questions

• Are some questions essentially irresolvable?
• Are there better and worse ways to think about
  such questions?
• Is being more rational about such questions part
  of what makes some ways to think about them
  better?
• Is it meaningful to say that one can be more
  reflective and deliberate about such questions?

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Conceptual Analysis Clarification

• Some problems are conceptual problems.
• Philosophy is about unpacking and clarifying
  complex concepts like justice and truth and
  mind.

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A Way of Reaching God

• Natural theology claims that we can use the human
  intellect to determine truths about God.
• Philosophy has sometimes claimed to offer a
  preparation of the soul for revelation or
  salvation.
• On the other hand, some philosophy claims to
  show that the very concept of God is senseless.

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A Specific Kind of Nonsense

• Philosophy is said to have no relation to real
  life.
• Philosophy is said to be nothing but word games,
  confusions, and jibberish.
• Philosophy is said to be a way of making you
  poor.
• Philosophy is held to be anti-social.

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Thank you. Now, go and philosophize.