From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sun Dec 31 2000 - 15:56:39 MST
"J. R. Molloy" <jr@shasta.com> wrote,
>From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune@mars.superlink.net>
> > (Everyone here should take the time to tell us what they mean by
>philosophy in neutral terms before bashing it.)
>
>What seems like a definition in neutral terms to one person sounds like
>bashing to another.
>If I say that philosophy is the *art* of asking the wrong questions, as
>opposed to the *offense* of asking the wrong questions, some people may
>(or may not) find that this puts it in unacceptably positive terms.
That is not a definition. A definition is a test. If something
passes the test, it falls within that category by definition. If
something fails the test, it falls outside that category by
definition. Your "definition" does not offer a test by which to
classify things into or out of this category called "philosophy".
For a proper definition, you need to expand on what makes a question
"wrong". You also need to decide if you are really claiming that
only philosophy produces "wrong" questions. If not, then you cannot
use this as the definition of philosophy. It would only be an
attribute which is shared with other non-philosophical fields. A
definition must describe what is unique only to philosophy that
distinguishes it from fields that are not philosophy.
What is wrong with a basic dictionary definition of philosophy? My
on-line American Heritage Dictionary of Cultural Literacy gives the
definition below. Is this the kind of philosophy that you claim asks
the wrong questions? Or are you refuting a different kind of
philosophy?
________________________________________
"Philosophy: A study that attempts to discover the fundamental
principles of the sciences, the arts, and the world that the sciences
and arts deal with; the word philosophy is from the Greek for ³love
of wisdom.² Philosophy has subdisciplines that explore principles of
specific areas, such as knowledge ( EPISTEMOLOGY), reasoning (
LOGIC), being in general ( METAPHYSICS), beauty ( AESTHETICS), and
human conduct ( ETHICS). Different approaches to philosophy, or to
its subdisciplines, are also called philosophies. ( See EPICUREANISM,
EXISTENTIALISM, IDEALISM, MATERIALISM, NIHILISM, PRAGMATISM,
STOICISM, and UTILITARIANISM.)"
________________________________________
-- Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>
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