Philosophy

Philosophy is thinking about the most general issues of life. It is what is left over when you have no specialized discipline to appeal to. It is the most general form of criticism. But when there are specialized disciplines then they should be used. For example, in earlier centuries philosophy addressed some of the same issues that science or mathematics now address. So now if we want to know about motion and the components of matter, we go to physics. If we want to know how societies function, we go to sociology. If we want to know about formal structures, we go to mathematics. At the same time, philosophy has recognized that many of the problems that it had considered central are in a sense problems about how language is used. What useful role then can philosophy play?

Philosophy has a rich history and has produced a rich literature, so there is considerable room for the history of philosophy and criticism of philosophical texts. Also, there is still the need to look across all the specialized disciplines of our culture as a whole and see how they hold together, to examine their basic vocabularies, to see if they are meeting the goals we have for them. We have a need, in other words, for a general criticism of our culture, to help us think about what we are doing in different areas and how they are related. There is also a need for philosophies of life, going back to the original definition of philosophy as the love of wisdom. Philosophers can act like aunts and uncles or family friends who sit on the porch and offer their advice about how to pull together the different threads of our culture in order to live a good life in our particular time and place. The more they understand about culture and its different disciplines and practices, the better advice they can offer.

But philosophy as a self-contained discipline with its own problems for which there are definite answers and methods seems rather limited. Beyond a few basic observations about language, experience, and desire like the ones given in this chapter, it seems best to proceed to more specific discussions in culture criticism and the philosophy of life.