Understanding Philosophy: Meaning of Philosophy

Intended Learning Outcomes:

1. Define philosophy; and
2. explain key concepts in philosophy.

1. The Meaning of Philosophy

Let us begin by saying that the task of defining philosophy is not much different from that of
defining any discipline. By this, we mean that it is often the experience that for a discipline with the
character and history as philosophy, there would be as many definitions as there are experts in the
discipline. With this said, from etymology, the word philosophy is a combination of two Greek words,
Philo (meaning love) and Sophia (meaning wisdom). When conjoined, philosophy then becomes the love
of wisdom and a philosopher, a lover of wisdom. In ancient times, a lover of wisdom could be related to
any area where intelligence was expressed.
This could be in business, politics, human relations, or carpentry and other skills. In this sense,
philosophy was used to describe the whole of life in antiquity. In contrast to this, some modern
definitions restrict philosophy to what can be known by science or the analysis of language. So, as used
originally by the ancient Greeks, the term “philosophy” meant the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake,
and comprised all areas of speculative thought, including the arts, sciences and religion.
In today’s intellectual society, there is a popular use of the word philosophy. Philosophy is a
term applied to almost any area of life. Some questions may express this general attitude: what is your
philosophy of business? banking? driving a car? or your philosophy of the use of money? If this popular
use of the word were to prevail, one may admit that anyone who thinks seriously about any subject is a
philosopher. If this general definition is accepted, then everyone rightly qualifies to become a
philosopher, but this would be ignoring the understanding of philosophy in the strict, technical and
professional sense as academic disciplines or study.
Put differently, if this loose definition prevails, it would mean that a philosopher is anyone who
says he is a philosopher. Because of this inadequacy, it becomes apparent that we have to look
elsewhere for a definition of philosophy. And so, because the original meaning of the word, philosophy,
does not give us much for specific content, we will turn to descriptive definitions. A descriptive
definition of philosophy is such that it seeks to describe its functions, goals, and reasons for existence. In
the following pages, a number of these definitions will be set forth and examined.
But let me reiterate what we said earlier regarding having as many definitions as there are
philosophers. This would come as a note of caution to the student who is just beginning to have first
contact with philosophy. The beginner may despair over diverse definitions. Students who come from a
scientific background frequently expect concise, clear, and universally accepted definitions. This will not
be true in philosophy and it is also not universally true concerning all issues in any science or non-
scientific study or discipline. The diversity of opinion in philosophy becomes a source of embarrassment
for the beginner when asked to explain to parents or unknowing friends, just what a course in
philosophy is all about. It might naturally be expected that philosophy, being one of the oldest
disciplines or subjects in academia, should achieve some uniformity or opinion in terms of definition, but
this is not exactly the case.
Yet, in spite of diversity of opinions, philosophy is important. Plato declared that philosophy is a
gift the gods have bestowed on mortals. This may reflect man’s ability to reason about the world as well
as man’s life within it. Socrates’ famous statement, “Know thyself,” reflects this aim of philosophy. Plato

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also warned against the neglect of philosophy. He wrote that “land animals came from men who had no
use for philosophy. . . .” In light of this, it might help to inform you that men live by philosophies.

A. The Historical Approach

Remember our question: what is philosophy? According to the historical approach, philosophy is
the study of historical figures who are considered philosophers. One may encounter the names of
Thales, Philo, Plotinus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Don Scotus Erigena,
Immanuel Kant, David Hume, Karl Marx, Georg Wilhelm Fredrick Hegel, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig
Wittgenstein, and many more. All these are known philosophers. But one may ponder as to what
actually holds them together within the philosophical bracket, since they are so diverse in many of their
views? One answer lies in their common set of problems and concerns. Many were interested in the
problems of the universe: its nature and origin; the issue of man’s existence, good and evil, politics, and
other topics.
The argument for the historical approach is that no real understanding of philosophy can be had
unless one understands the past. Philosophy would be impoverished if it lost any of the names above.
Some argue that knowing the history of philosophy is required for a positive appreciation of philosophy,
and necessary if one is to make creative contributions to the advancement of philosophy.
This definition of philosophy has its problems: (i) it tends to limit philosophy to the great minds
of the past and makes it an elitist movement, (ii) it restricts philosophy to an examination of past
questions and answers only, (iii) it is not really different from the study of history of ideas. This would
make philosophy a sub-unit of history.
The value of the historical approach is that it introduces the student to the great minds of the
past and the confrontation one has with philosophic problems that are raised by thinking people in all
ages. This is desirable in itself even though this is not the best definition of philosophy.
The history of thought shows that philosophers are always concerned with, or motivated by,
life’s fundamental questions, or what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Big Questions’, such as: How
should we live? Is there free will? How do we know anything? What is real? or, What is truth? While
philosophers do not agree among themselves on either the range of proper philosophical questions or
the proper methods of answering them, they do agree that merely expressing one’s personal opinions
on controversial topics like these is not doing philosophy.
Rather, philosophers insist on first attaining clarity about the exact question being asked, and
then providing answers supported by clear and logically structured arguments. Such well-constructed
and logically structured arguments are meant to primarily analyze and critique such fundamental
questions and the ideas we live by in every facet of our existence. Philosophy is thus a critical and
rational activity concerned with the most fundamental questions of human existence and an analysis of
usually taken-for-granted worldviews, beliefs, knowledge claims and ideas about human existence.
Hence core philosophical activity is summed up in three questions: What is real (the
metaphysical/ontological concern)? How do we know (the epistemological concern)? What is the moral
life (the axiological/moral concern)?

B. Philosophy as the Analysis of Language

This is one of the more extreme definitions of philosophy. This definition began as an emphasis
in philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century. A growing revolt took place against the metaphysical
systems in philosophy. Metaphysical systems in philosophy explained everything from the standpoint of
a great idea like ‘mind’ or ‘spirit.’ The reaction was primarily against the philosophy of idealism which is
a highly developed metaphysical philosophy. The analysis-of-language-emphasis rejected metaphysics
and accepted the simple, but useful modern standard of scientific verification.

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 Their central thesis is that only truths of logic and empirically verifiable statements are
meaningful. What does scientific verification mean in this context? If you can validate or reproduce an
experiment or whatever, you can say it is true. If there is no way to reproduce or validate the
experiment in the context of science, there was then no claim for truth. How do verification and
language work together?
Try this example. How do you know when to take a statement as referring to a fact? We can use
three sentences: (i) God is love, (ii) Manila is in the Philippines, and (iii) love is wonderful. These
sentences are constructed in a similar manner. But only one is factual, in that it can be scientifically
verified. Many people travel every day to Manila and anyone who doubts can go see for himself. But you
cannot scientifically verify that love is wonderful, and that God is love. I can say factually that I love a
person and may even witness events that point to this, but how can I verify the word “wonderful”? God
is not seen and love is not seen scientifically. Are these statements meaningful?
The conclusion reached by the philosophers (known as analytic philosophers) who champion the
language approach is that anything not verifiable is nonsense. All of the systems of the past that go
beyond verification are to be rejected as nonsense. This means that the realm of values, religion,
aesthetics, and much of philosophy is regarded only as emotive statements. An emotive statement
reflects only how a person “feels” about a topic. Declaring that love is wonderful is only to declare that I
feel it is wonderful. We may seek your agreement on the issue, but again it is not an objective truth, but
two “feelings” combined.
Other analytic philosophers moved beyond the limitations of the verification principle to the
understanding of language itself. Instead of talking about the world and whether things exist in the
world, they talk about the words that are used to describe the world. This exercise in “semantic ascent”
may be seen in contrasting talk about miles, distances, points, etc., with talk about the word “mile” and
how it is used. Language philosophers such as W. V. O. Quine spend entire treatises on the nature of
language, syntax, synonymous terms, concepts of abstractions, translation of terms, vagueness and
other features of language. This is a philosophy about language rather than being interested in great
issues that have frequently troubled the larger tradition of philosophers.
It is important to state at this point, that language analysis as the definition of philosophy, it
changes philosophy from being a subject matter into a tool for dealing with other subject matters. It
becomes a method without content.
This definition is as one-sided as the definition is rejected. The analysis of language has been an
important part of philosophy from the time of Socrates and others to the present. But language
connected with verification and restricted by that principle places great limitations on areas that
philosophy has often regarded as important. This limitation is seen particularly in the areas of morals
and ethics. Morality cannot be verified in a scientific way. But it does seem obvious that we can discuss
actions and adopt some means of objective evaluation in terms of reason.
Moreover, it does not seem obvious that some moral distinctions are merely “emotive feelings.”
It appears quite reasonable and acceptable to most people that there is a big difference between
paddling a child by a concerned parent, and the child-abusing parent whose discipline kills the helpless
child. If verification is required for the statement – it is wrong to kill the child – then all moral standards
are at an end, and philosophy is turned into non-meaning-making activity.
At its simplest, philosophy is the study of knowledge, or “thinking about thinking”, although the
breadth of what it covers is perhaps best illustrated by a selection of other alternative definitions given
below:
 Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts
of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine
knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).

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  Philosophy is an investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or
values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods (American Heritage
Dictionary).
 Philosophy is the study of the ultimate nature of existence, reality, knowledge and goodness, as
discoverable by human reasoning (Penguin English Dictionary).
 Philosophy is the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics
(WordNet).
 Philosophy is the search for knowledge and truth, especially about the nature of man and his
behavior and beliefs (Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary).
 Philosophy is the rational and critical inquiry into basic principles (Microsoft Encarta
Encyclopedia).
 Philosophy is the study of the most general and abstract features of the world and categories
with which we think: mind, matter, reason, proof, truth, etc. (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy).
 Philosophy is the careful thought about the fundamental nature of the world, the grounds for
human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct (The Philosophy Pages).

Questions for Discussions:

1. Distinguish between Philosophy in the popular sense and Philosophy in the strict technical
sense.
2. Briefly explain the Historical Approach to the understanding of Philosophy.

Reference:
Course Guide for PHL 101: Introduction to Philosophy by Prof. Francis Offor, Department of
Philosophy University of Ibadan (UI) Ibadan, Nigeria.
*****nothing follows*****

Prepared by:

Marlon P. Tuiza, LPT, DPA

Professor V

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