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“The Nature of Philosophy” from Problems of Philosophy: A Book of Readings by John A. Mourant and
E. Hans Freund. [This is the introductory part of the book.]

THE NATURE OF PHILOSOPHY

From its beginning, philosophy has meant many things to many people. It has
represented a diversity of viewpoints, a conflict of systems, and seemingly an ever-
changing set of ideas regarding man and his relation to the universe. Yet within all the
differences and changes are certain common ideas about the contents, meanings, and
methods of philosophy. Philosophers may disagree about what constitutes the true
philosophy, but they would no doubt agree with Royce that the truths about man’s relations
to the universe are manifold and that it is the function of the philosopher to discover such
truths.

Philosophy as Speculation. The meaning of philosophy originated with Pythagoras,

who described it as a love of wisdom. Among the early Greeks, philosophy as the love of
wisdom came to be identified with speculative insight – with a kind of cosmic point of
view. The very meaning of “speculate” – taken from specula, meaning watchtower –
implies a breadth of vision and a perspective that rises above that of the ordinary viewer.
As Spinoza so well put it, it means to “see things sub specie aeternitatis” – under the
aspect of eternity. This vision of all things, this striving after an eternal perspective, may be
one reason why Aristotle referred to the wisdom of philosophy as being divine. This
speculative point of view is frequently a detached one, resulting in contemplative insights
that rise above the ordinary practical concerns of man. Like Aristotle’s God, the
philosopher’s activity may be merely “thinking his own thoughts.” Philosophy as
speculation, however, must not be identified with detachment. For the deeper insights and
the breadth of vision that we attribute to the philosopher frequently issue from his more
detailed knowledge of the world and from his participation in the world.

Philosophy as Criticism. To criticize means to “judge,” to “analyze.” Philosophy in

its critical aspect questions, judges, and evaluates any and all principles and premises that
may be gained through speculation. It was the Greek genius again that saw the necessity of
supplementing the cosmic insights of the early Greek philosophers with a more disciplined
form of philosophy. There is no denying the value of imaginative insights, but uncritical
insights do not constitute philosophy. Philosophy sees the necessity of subjecting all forms
of thought and contemplation to a court of rational inquiry. Out of such a rational
evaluation of ideas will come a clarification of knowledge and insights that are more
valuable because they are tempered by reason and dialectic. Actually, philosophy as
speculation and philosophy as criticism cannot be sharply separated from one another,
because analysis of an idea and clarification of language and theory may lead to new
insights and more significant interpretations of man and his world. Speculation contributes
the insights and intuitions necessary for the development of new ideas, but such ideas must
be validated, and their validation – that is, their criticism and clarification – results in new
insights and adds to our speculative vision. We have but to read a dialogue of Plato to
become aware of this two-fold function of philosophy. For Plato, the philosopher must
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contemplate the eternal truths, but he must also apply the insights so gained to the activities
of men. Plato is the great contemplative, but he is also the dialectician, the destructive
analyst who forces the individuals to question their ideas and their ways of life.

Summing up, we may say that the meaning of philosophy is best revealed in its
speculative and critical functions. Since in its speculative concern it takes the broadest
possible perspective, we must not look for too specific a content. Philosophy is not about
atoms and electrons, plants and animals, the history of states and structures of
governments. Yet all these are the concern of philosophy insofar as they have bearing upon
man and his purposes. Similarly, philosophy is not merely a criticism of this or that specific
subject, but assumes to itself the right to judge of any subject and to evaluate all things that
come within human knowledge. It may conduct an inquiry, as Socrates did, into the
meaning of “piety; or it may analyze minutely the distinctions of the words “seems,”
“looks,” “appears,” to solve a problem of perception. As speculation, it may arrive at the
insight that the world is both divine and good, as analysis and criticism it may limit itself to
a prolonged consideration of the meaning of the word “good.”

Both criticism and speculation, then, have an integral place in philosophy. Without
criticism, philosophy would be sheer poetry; without speculation, it would be mere logic-
hopping. As Aristotle declared, the philosopher above all others is possessed of that “desire
to know.” But with the philosopher this is no mere idle curiosity; it is a reflective curiosity,
and out of this reflective curiosity comes the knowledge and the point of view that we term
philosophy. The greatness of philosophy, the reason for so many men’s having embraced it
with virtually religious fervor and made it a way of life, lies in this twofold strength that it
possesses – the balanced point of view that reflects both speculation and criticism. The
need of balance is important, for an excess of speculation may bring discredit upon
philosophy; uncritical insights have little value or too frequently become sophisticated
obscurantism. On the other hand, an excess of analysis narrows philosophy’s enterprise and
subordinates it to a minor role, making it perhaps a mere handmaid of logic, science or
theology.

The Divisions of Philosophy. To the average student aspiring to some knowledge of

philosophy, it will not be enough to say simply that philosophy is both critical and
speculative and to speak in generalities about the functions of philosophy. Nor should we
merely counsel patience and hold out the hope that after the student has studied many of
the philosophers, the meaning of philosophy will become self-evident. Certain guides are
needed for a more accurate understanding of the selections to follow. We have already
indicated that philosophy has a content, that it is concerned with the “general” in contrast to
the more specific concerns of the several sciences. Elaborating upon this notion, we can list
and define very briefly several basic divisions or disciplines of our subject. These are:
Ethics, Epistemology, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Political and Social
Philosophy, Philosophy of Art and Philosophy of Science.1

1
These divisions are not meant to be all-inclusive, and the ordering is more or less arbitrary. Logic has not
been included, for it has traditionally been regarded as an instrument (organon) or a means to the
acquisition of true knowledge. As a science of valid reasoning, its principles apply to all forms of
knowledge and not merely to philosophy. Where logic merges with philosophy it becomes metaphysics.
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Ethics. Ethics or moral philosophy is concerned with problems of human conduct.

It is usually termed a normative science, because it deals with the norms or standards of
right and wrong as they apply to human behavior. It is held to be prescriptive rather than
descriptive, because it prescribes what individuals ought to do rather than describing how
they behave. To assert that there are standards of right and wrong implies that there are
ends or goals that are desirable or undesirable. The moral philosopher is interested in an
analysis and evaluation of such ends and the determination of whether there is some higher
or ultimate end – for example, happiness, pleasure, virtue, etc. – that may be said to be the
chief good of man. Standards of right and wrong and evaluations of the ultimate ends of all
human conduct imply the freedom and the responsibility of the individual in the pursuit of
these ends. What constitutes an ultimate value of end for the individual depends upon his
insights and those of others and upon his character and moral excellence or virtue. The
determination of what constitutes the highest good for the individual will depend, for one
thing, upon our conception of the nature of man. And the attainment of such an end
requires not only the individual moral virtues but those higher social virtues that are based
upon our social nature and our relations with others. The rights and duties of the individual
and the ultimate values of the moral life have no existence outside the social order. Moral
philosophy merges into social and political philosophy.

Epistemology. The term “epistemology” is derived from the Greek episteme,

meaning knowledge. It deals with the various problems that arise concerning knowledge
and is more apt to exemplify the critical rather than the speculative function of philosophy.
It may consider first whether knowledge is even possible. The answer here may be some
form of skepticism or the contention that at least doubting is a necessary prerequisite to the
attainment of certitude. With respect to the origin of all knowledge, it may insist that all
knowledge arises from experience, or it may contend that some elements of knowledge are
given by the mind or discovered by reason prior to experience. The former position is
known as empiricism, the latter as rationalism. For some philosophers the primary function
of epistemology is the clarifying of our ideas through linguistic analysis. Such a method
they urge will cure philosophy of its ills and prevent it from falling into error. Others tend
to identify epistemology with methodology; they look to the scientific method as an ideal
and consider that true knowledge is that which can be verified or confirmed as are
scientific hypotheses. Finally, epistemology may be concerned with a number of highly
complex and specialized problems of knowledge, such as the distinction between belief and
knowledge (on the religious plane the problem of faith and reason), the nature of truth, or
the problems of perception, the external world, meaning, other minds, etc.

Metaphysics. Meaning literally “after physics,” this was a title given, in a later
collection, to a work of Aristotle that appeared after his Physics and that had been left
untitled. Since the time of the early Greeks, philosophers have generally agreed that
metaphysics is concerned with the nature of reality, of what it means to be. Some have
maintained that reality or being is basically material, others that it is mental or spiritual,
and still others that it is life, will, God , energy, force, etc. A materialist, for example, will
contend that everything is basically material and that life, mind, energy, etc are merely
different manifestations of matter. The principal distinction in the analysis of being is that
between appearance (how something actually looks or appears to us) and reality (that
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which something actually is “deep down under” all its external appearances). The inquiry
into the nature of reality also leads the metaphysician to other distinctions about the real.
He may assert that all things are determined in their causes or, alternatively, that some
beings (men) are free in their actions. Again, it may be argued that the universe is in reality
a great machine, mechanically ordered to all that occurs. Or that the universe is purposive
in its ultimate nature and order by reason of some divine intelligible cause. The former
view is termed mechanistic, the latter the teleological. To all such queries and many others
the metaphysician brings his insights and his critical skills.

Philosophy of Religion. To philosophize about religion means to consider the nature

of religion in the philosophical spirit. A philosophy of religion rejects an authoritarian
approach; it relies neither on faith nor revelations for religious knowledge. Its problems are
principally those that concern man in his relations to God – problems such as the existence
and nature of God, the meaning of religious experience and the various forms such an
experience may take, the values of the religious life and their relation to ethical values, the
meanings of good and evil from the religious point of view, the natures of religious belief
and of religious language, and the validity of religious knowledge.

Social and Political Philosophy. In this area the philosopher’s concern is not with
the particular issues or problems of the social order, such as the structure of a government,
foreign policies, civil legislation, etc., but rather with the more general problems and
principles that affect the entire political society of men. The interest of the philosopher,
then, lies in questions of the origin of the social order; the meaning and the ethical bases of
law; the origin, uses and limitations of political power; the rights and duties of individuals
in a political society; and the determination of that form of society best adapted to secure
the highest end of all individuals. Many of these problems and issues may also be
considered in the broader perspective of history itself, and this yields a philosophy of
history – the analysis and interpretation of history and the endeavor to discover if there are
any laws of historical development.

Philosophy of Art (Aesthetics). In this area, the philosopher distinguishes aesthetic

values from ethical values. He may propound various theories concerning the meaning,
function and place of art. More particularly he is concerned with the aesthetic experience
and the idea of the beautiful. The latter may be analyzed in terms of utility, truth, pleasure,
expression, form, etc. The meaning of the aesthetic experience in terms of the emotions and
sentiments of the individual may be evaluated. The nature of aesthetic judgment, standards
of beauty, and the objectivity of these standards constitute additional problems in the
philosophy of art.

Philosophy of Science. In recent years the progress and prestige of the sciences has
turned the direction of philosophical interest increasingly to the sciences. Out of this
interest has emerged what is now termed the philosophy of science. Such a discipline is
primarily concerned with the nature of scientific knowledge and with the methodology of
the sciences. It is interested in analysis of the basic theoretical concepts of the sciences; it
studies the meaning of induction, the nature of hypotheses, and the laws of nature. It is
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concerned with the meaning of scientific explanation and probability statements; it seeks to
understand how scientific theories may be verified or confirmed.

Thus far we have outlined very briefly the principal characteristics of the several
areas of philosophy. The selections we have chosen will supplement this outline with more
detailed studies of the different areas. The selections have been chosen to represent both
the problems of philosophy and their historical orientations.

The selection that immediately follows stands somewhat apart from the others in
the book. It has been selected as an exemplification of the philosophical method – of
dialectic, or the “doing” of philosophy. The term dialectic first appears in Plato’s Socratic
dialogue the Meno, and the term means essentially a conversation or discourse with the
purpose of discovering the truth. Plato expresses his conception of dialectic in the form of
the dialogue, but dialectic need not take this form. Dialectic is essentially an inquiry in the
form of a discourse into some problem. It is neither terminal nor is it dogmatic. Dialectic
clarifies, distinguishes and defines, but it also opens up new vistas for philosophical
inquiries. It is an interminable search after the truth -- interminable because human
problems and human experience are never closed to questioning.