What Is Philosophy?

What is philosophy? That deceptively simple question has been at the root of an ongoing debate for hundreds of years. Generally speaking, little has been written about the fundamental nature of philosophy. As Deleuze and Guattari (1994) suggest, over time there has been “too much desire to do philosophy to wonder what it was” (p. 1). This consistent desire to enact philosophy has resulted in precious few discussions focused on the what and why of its existence. The term philosophy is derived from two Greek words: philo, which means “love,” and sophia, which means “wisdom.” Therefore, literally speaking, philosophy means “love of wisdom” (“Philosophy,” 2013). In other words, the early Greek philosophers were lovers of wisdom, which meant they endeavored to study the ultimate nature of reality (the very principles underlying life and thought). Thus, at its most basic level, philosophy can be defined as “a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means” (“Philosophy,” 2019). That simple definition, however, does not accurately portray the much deeper descriptions and implications that have surfaced intermittently throughout history. Once revered as a source of wisdom and rational alternative to myth and religion in the age of ancient Greece and Rome, more recent descriptions of philosophy are often less flattering. Bertrand Russell (1912/2016) noted that many are “inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless trifling, hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which knowledge is impossible” (p. 135). More than a century later, Catapano (2016) echoed Russell’s concern that philosophy was perceived as cryptic and out-of-iouch with modern circumstances, and therefore “somehow deficient, an impractical, even indulgent intellectual pursuit” (p. xiv). Despite such criticisms, others have made more earnest efforts to explore the essence and potential purposes of philosophical thought. American pragmatist phiiosopher William James (1911) viewed the core of philosophy as its ability to “fancy everything different from what it is… . It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices” (p. 7). In other words, James asserts that philosophy arouses the curiosity in us, and as a result opens our minds. Kwasi Wiredu (1980) describes philosophy as ranging from a “guide to the living of life to the narrower concept … as a theoretical discipline devoted to detailed and complicated argument” (p. 32). Both identities, he suggests, help us understand the world and (it is hoped) change it for the better. Channeling Gramsci, Cornel West (1989) defines the task of philosophy as “nourishing and being nourished by the philosophical views of oppressed people themselves for the aims of social change and personal meaning” (p. 231). More broadly, West defines philosophy as a “form of cultural criticism … a continuous cultural commentary” (p. 5). In The Claim of Reason, Stanley Cavell (1979) frames philosophy as a learning process comprised of change and growth, which denotes the “education of grownups” (p. 125). The anxiety and effort required in this education-for ourselves and as we teach others-are what constitute the essence and value of philosophy as both an individual and communal enterprise.