What counts as doing philosophy thinking or reflecting?

[Ctk]

Hello,
I am interested in knowing what counts as doing philosophy? Which one of this three methods is the correct one: problem solving, reflecting, or thinking?

1) Problem solving: What I understand by problem solving is solving a word problem. For example, in my algebra class we were asked, "This year 14000 students entered medical school. If the number goes up by 2%. How many will there be next year?" In order to solve, this problem you need to identify the different parts, break it down it down into smaller parts, and apply the percentage formula.

14000(current medical students)+14000(2/100)(percentage formula)=280( new students), then add the new students(280) to the number of current students(14000) and the answer will be 14280(students) next year.

When doing this form of problem solving, it is a impersonal way of solving the problem, you simply look at the problem, identify its parts and then apply the formula. Therefore, there is a procedure to solve this problem. Another example would be drawing the missing leg of a table in a picture. You are looking at a problem and adding what is missing.

2) Reflecting: How I define reflecting would be brainstorming, not discarding ideas and bring my personal experience. For example, when I was reflecting about race in my class of philosophy and race. I was reflecting about the difference between "american hate racism" and "latin america explicit racism" therefore, when I was reflecting of american "hate racism" I was reading about the mobs in the south and how they committed hate crimes. While when I was reflecting on latin american racism I thought about this guy I used to know who would use racial slurs but not being necessarily malicious in his intend. Therefore, I was bringing my personal experience, comparing and contrasting the personal experience with the historical text that I was reading. However, I had no structure in the way I was reflecting, I could simply visualize this guy being racist, or image of the mobs trying to attack someone. What I am trying to get add is that there was no linearity in the way I was thinking about this issues and it was very open ended. I could also repeat the same pictures in my mind and try to find new interpretations.

3) Thinking: What I define as thinking would be a form of reflecting with the aim of making a decision. For example, if I were to decide if I should go to buy juice. I would simply put the premise " Should I buy juice in store A or store B?" Reasons why I should go to store A: 1) It is closer to where I live 2)It sells apple juice, reasons why I should go to store 1)it has a friendlier staff 2) I like the bright lights of the store better. So if I choose the store B because of reason a, then I will discard store A and I will not continue to thinking about it again. This is because I have already made my decision. In contrast, with reflection, even if an idea is wrong, I would still be considering it because I don't have an specific purpose in mind, I am simply going through ideas again and again.

Well this are just some thoughts I have, I might be completely wrong, but I just following what AJ Meyer said on having the right attitude, of asking trying to figure this out.

[Bill Wiltrack]

.



Philosophy is a state of being.


Words may lead us to a certain state and help us to stay there but in the end words must fall away.

Words; linear thoughts, are part of a function. The intellect is a function of being human.


We will never find the right answer because there isn't a right answer.


None of us know why we are here.


In that way we are all the same. We are all beggars.







................................





Just my $0.02.



.

[NielsBohr]

Hi Ctk,

As you partially answer to your three questions, and as you discard algebra from your own topic question, let me give you briefly my "reflected thoughts".

• Algebra as you describe it seems to belong to basic school, and is either no philosophy, or very poor. But you already guessed it, as you do not mention it in your title. Why isn't it? -Because (according to me), the beauty of philosophy, is to make emerge new ideas from existing. Nevertheless, the algebra you describe consider a problem as being only the sum of its parts. That last fact cannot be a rule in (thinking about) reality. By example, in chemistry, all is more than the sum of its parts. I think it goes the same way in philosophy.
• Reflecting give a good symbolic idea of its way of progressing (or processing), due to the optical reflexion. However, in the reflexion of thoughts, there is not question to restitute exactly a same idea (inverted), as it can be the fact in optics. You "derivate" your thoughts from the firsts, make as some "refractions" this way - sometimes, you make parallels in some analogies.
  -I think reflecting is the only proper way to the main of philosophy.
• Opposed to reflected thoughts, I mean the simple thoughts, are not for so philosophy. For me, it can be just "Art". The main way doing this lead to speculation, what is not the proper of philosophy.

I hope I could help you in seeing more clear.

[The Voice of Time]

None.

Philosophizing is any manner of thinking which aims to make a point inside a discipline of philosophy: such as ontology, epistemology, logic, ethics, and so forth. You can figure out your own methodology to reach conclusions, but it has to strictly be within the disciplines, and to be taken seriously there are corrective rules as to what is a significant question to ask and what is not.

Many enough people for instance have a tendency to think that free thought always qualifies as philosophizing, that merely because you make an opinion or even informed opinion you are philosophizing. It is also important to note that conspiracy theories, and spiritualism, are not part of serious philosophy. Philosophy targets a depth at which some fundamental truth is discovered by the individual, empowering it in its decisions and other thought. Without this fundamental truth empowerment, you end up with a product of thought that has no innate quality to it that would make you "wise", as philosophy in its origin is first and foremost the pursuit of wisdom. You are "selecting" instead of properly developing a philosophy, and that renders there to be no "philosophizing" going on.

[Gary Childress]

Well this are just some thoughts I have, I might be completely wrong, but I just following what AJ Meyer said on having the right attitude, of asking trying to figure this out.

Who is A J Meyer? Is he a philosopher?

[Ctk]

Well this are just some thoughts I have, I might be completely wrong, but I just following what AJ Meyer said on having the right attitude, of asking trying to figure this out.

Who is A J Meyer? Is he a philosopher?

I meant AJ Ayer, a philosopher, that was a type error. By the way, thank's for the responses so far.

[NielsBohr]

You're welcome.

Was I understandable enough ?

[Ctk]

None.

Philosophizing is any manner of thinking which aims to make a point inside a discipline of philosophy: such as ontology, epistemology, logic, ethics, and so forth. You can figure out your own methodology to reach conclusions, but it has to strictly be within the disciplines, and to be taken seriously there are corrective rules as to what is a significant question to ask and what is not.

Many enough people for instance have a tendency to think that free thought always qualifies as philosophizing, that merely because you make an opinion or even informed opinion you are philosophizing. It is also important to note that conspiracy theories, and spiritualism, are not part of serious philosophy. Philosophy targets a depth at which some fundamental truth is discovered by the individual, empowering it in its decisions and other thought. Without this fundamental truth empowerment, you end up with a product of thought that has no innate quality to it that would make you "wise", as philosophy in its origin is first and foremost the pursuit of wisdom. You are "selecting" instead of properly developing a philosophy, and that renders there to be no "philosophizing" going on.

The Voice of time, here I spot a problem, you say that philosophizing, has to be in inside this areas of philosophy,however in my example of reflecting I was specifically talking about the area of comparative philosophy called "philosophy and race". Therefore, I do think it counts as philosophizing, as the students were trying to understand the concept of race, therefore, we were comparing different forms of racism. Will that make it a valid form of philosophizing? I suppose the main question in the area is to understand "What is race?" Therefore, it would lead to other questions like " what are the different forms of racism?"

[Ctk]

You're welcome.

Was I understandable enough ?

Well, I found it hard to understand what you meant by reflecting, if you could give a concrete example and expand on it would be great.

[Gary Childress]

Well this are just some thoughts I have, I might be completely wrong, but I just following what AJ Meyer said on having the right attitude, of asking trying to figure this out.

Who is A J Meyer? Is he a philosopher?

I meant AJ Ayer, a philosopher, that was a type error. By the way, thank's for the responses so far.

No worries. I know who A J Ayer is.

[NielsBohr]

False edition - I wil re-write what I wrote. Mistook myself between the "Edit" and "Quote" buttons.
--------
So I re-write the most possible what I wrote before:

racism means not a lot of things, it is bad since it lead to the apartheid, what is a separation of a whole part of the population, upon "common"* criteria.

It goes the same for discrimination, what - originally - was only a selection mentally done.

*Race, according to Albert Jacquard, has no foundation. But it was when we believed that 97% of DNA was useless (called "junk" DNA).

But we know nowadays, that 80% at least of DNA is useful.

[The Voice of Time]

The Voice of time, here I spot a problem, you say that philosophizing, has to be in inside this areas of philosophy,however in my example of reflecting I was specifically talking about the area of comparative philosophy called "philosophy and race". Therefore, I do think it counts as philosophizing, as the students were trying to understand the concept of race, therefore, we were comparing different forms of racism. Will that make it a valid form of philosophizing? I suppose the main question in the area is to understand "What is race?" Therefore, it would lead to other questions like " what are the different forms of racism?"

That's in fine language called taxonomy. It is not philosophy, it is indeed using your mind, but no philosophical truths are derived from it. Taxonomy is a convenience tool, and not a truth tool. There is no truth in talking about races, species etc., it is just a manner of dividing things up and putting them in groups given some rule which you assign randomly or for some convenient sake.

[Gary Childress]

Interesting questions in the OP, CtK. Are you saying/thinking that in order to be done "correctly", philosophizing must involve either "problem solving", "thinking" or "reflecting" but cannot involve all three or any combination of them? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your OP?

Regarding "racism":

I would define "racism" as; a form of "discrimination" based upon the criteria of "race".

"Race" is of course often associated with skin color or other physical features of the human body that might be common to a relatively large group of people. In its most fundamental scientific sense, "race" may be defined simply along genetic lines. Of course, theoretically the genetic difference of a single individual could, under the right circumstances, eventually lead to a whole race of people with similar features.

"Discrimination" is essentially unjust and prejudicial treatment of others. [based on definition Googled]

Something is "unjust" if it is morally unfair or wrong. [based on definition Googled]

Something is "prejudicial" if it is based upon assumptions involving potential "future" outcomes. [based on definition Googled]

Therefore I would say that "racism" is a bit more fundamentally the following:

A form of morally unfair or wrong treatment based upon assumptions involving potential future outcomes (discrimination) that is based upon the criteria of skin color or other physical features of the human body that might be common to a relatively large group of people (race).

Of course, as Voice of Time says, "race" is ultimately a human taxonomic construction based upon grouping people according to criteria that are not necessarily congruent with the physical world of objects. Much of what we think and do are examples of things based upon "taxonomic" understandings of the world around us (putting people and things into groups and types).

[NielsBohr]

You're welcome.

Was I understandable enough ?

Well, I found it hard to understand what you meant by reflecting, if you could give a concrete example and expand on it would be great.

I only made the comparison to the optical reflexion, as a game - this was not really important in itself, but it was to evoke that it was consisting essentially in making derivations and analogies.

The main purpose - what you unconsciously made - was moreover that philosophy is - or should be - more than assembling or subtracting some part to other (in an absolutely complementary way - that is almost never the case). This is why my analogy to chemistry was surely better, knowing:

A whole thing is more than the sum of its parts.

[Ctk]

The Voice of time, here I spot a problem, you say that philosophizing, has to be in inside this areas of philosophy,however in my example of reflecting I was specifically talking about the area of comparative philosophy called "philosophy and race". Therefore, I do think it counts as philosophizing, as the students were trying to understand the concept of race, therefore, we were comparing different forms of racism. Will that make it a valid form of philosophizing? I suppose the main question in the area is to understand "What is race?" Therefore, it would lead to other questions like " what are the different forms of racism?"

That's in fine language called taxonomy. It is not philosophy, it is indeed using your mind, but no philosophical truths are derived from it. Taxonomy is a convenience tool, and not a truth tool. There is no truth in talking about races, species etc., it is just a manner of dividing things up and putting them in groups given some rule which you assign randomly or for some convenient sake.

I think that you are misunderstanding my example, what I meant is not exactly the content of the sentence but rather the form. Meaning that, if I am thinking about topic A(racism), then it would lead to a subtopic A.1(races). It could also be used with other examples, as I am talking about a way of reasoning and if that way is valid and if it can be considered as doing philosophy? This leads me to a question, what do you mean by philosophical truths?