Philosophy Now Forum

Hello everyone,
I am trying to demarcate what is philosophy and what isn't philosophy, however, I am having a hard time with this. For instance, does talking about a concrete life experience count as doing philosophy? Aren't all academic fields born out of philosophy, but have know establish their own methodology to find empirical results? Like say linguistics born out of the philosophy of language.

Ctk wrote:Hello everyone,
I am trying to demarcate what is philosophy and what isn't philosophy, however, I am having a hard time with this. For instance, does talking about a concrete life experience count as doing philosophy? Aren't all academic fields born out of philosophy, but have know establish their own methodology to find empirical results? Like say linguistics born out of the philosophy of language.

Conceivably you can have a philosophy of just about anything. Even a philosophy of philosophy.

Before the advent of science all disciplines came under the umbrella of philosophy. Most philosophers up to modern times indulged in a wide range of philosophical topics. For example they wrote extensively in the areas of, geography, biology, psychology, ethics, astronomy, chemistry and so on.

You can view philosophy as either having specialized and matured into this study of all formal systems [not just the few classic ones historically sported as its branches / targets] or... [more pessimistically, cynically] that this was eventually the only purpose left to it after Science-Monster gorged itself silly over the last couple centuries. Along with its original lineage being replaced by or fading away into the so-called analytic/anglophone and continental distinctions. "Why do I wish to call our present activity philosophy, when we also call Plato's activity philosophy? Perhaps because of a certain analogy between them, or perhaps because of the continuous development of the subject. Or the new activity may take the place of the old because it removes mental discomforts the old was supposed to." --Wittgenstein

In essence: Producing a significant / useful description, analysis, review, critique of, or even the submitting of a new model to the working template of a profession or practice is being "philosophical". It is the investigation and understanding of the presuppositions, prior conditions and the framework of principles that an organized discipline, knowledge area, or institutional endeavor operates from / under. The study of all formal systems.