What is Philosophy?

[Skwim]

Sheesh.
you are making this more difficult than it should be.
As I said if I had wanted a wiki answer I would have looked.
So, obviously I must have wanted an independent opinion of what you(general) thought Philosophy was.

Not obvious at all. Because what you wanted could just as well have been to see if we knew or not. It's something teachers do all the time, so it isn't unusual at all.

That would explain why I considered a wiki answer cheating and without thought.

"Cheating"?!? So this is a contest or a test of some sort. How do you determine the winner, or grade the answer? I'm sure the posters here would like to know before submitting any more answers

 

[Sunstone]

To me, philosophy is an exercise in rational thinking. The idea is to see how far you can press logical reasoning by applying it to various cases and subjects -- such as the question of whether or not deity exists, or whether or not there is a rational basis for ethics.

 

[Rakhel]

"Cheating"?!? So this is a contest or a test of some sort. How do you determine the winner, or grade the answer? I'm sure the posters here would like to know before submitting any more answers

you are the only one turning it into a game, and are offended at the fact that I am not accepting a wiki answer.
Philosophy isn't about a grade or a winner. Though I am surprised with all the "philosophy"classes you claimed to have taken, you didn't know that.
However, if the wiki answer is the only thought you have on the subject, then I suppose I have my answer where you are concerned.
Rather simple if you ask me.
(Don't. It was a rhetorical statement, if you didn't get that.)

 

[Skwim]

you are the only one turning it into a game, and are offended at the fact that I am not accepting a wiki answer.

Not offended in the least. Just trying to understand what you want.

You wanted to know what philosophy is.
I told you.
But it's not an answer you like.
You don't like the answer because it comes from a certain source.
And, if it does come from such a source it's "cheating."
Yet you won't tell us why it's cheating.

Philosophy isn't about a grade or a winner.

Not talking about philosophy, but your post accusing me of cheating. YOU said "I considered a wiki answer cheating." So I'm wondering what kind of thread you're running where a person's answer is considered "cheating." The only two reasons that came to mind were that you're running either a contest or a test.
If neither of these are correct, then how is providing an answer from Wiki cheating? And whom or what am I cheating?

 

[Willamena]

Not offended in the least. Just trying to understand what you want.

You wanted to know what philosophy is.
I told you.
But it's not an answer you like.
You don't like the answer because it comes from a certain source.
And, if it does come from such a source it's "cheating."
Yet you won't tell us why it's cheating.


Not talking about philosophy, but your post accusing me of cheating. YOU said "I considered a wiki answer cheating." So I'm wondering what kind of thread you're running where a person's answer is considered "cheating." The only two reasons that came to mind were that you're running either a contest or a test.
If neither of these are correct, then how is providing an answer from Wiki cheating? And whom or what am I cheating?

Let it go. She has.

 

[Skwim]

Let it go.

You have a dog in this "fight"?

She has.

Really!! FYI she just spent 92 words responding to me. This isn't letting it go.

 

[Willamena]

You have a dog in this "fight"?

Yes. I'd like for this to be a debate and discussion forum again.

 

[Skwim]

Yes. I'd like for this to be a debate and discussion forum again.

No one is stopping anyone. Go ahead, say something debatable or worthy of discussion. If it piques my interest I may very well reply . . . or not. And maybe someone else will as well.

 

[Willamena]

No one is stopping anyone. Go ahead, say something debatable or worthy of discussion. If it piques my interest I may very well reply . . . or not. And maybe someone else will as well.

Ditto.

 

[Skwim]

Ditto.

Okay.

I think the definition I copied from Wikipedia is pretty good. Moreover, it's succinct (although I'm not fond of definitions that rely on examples).

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language."
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[Willamena]

Okay.

I think the definition I copied from Wikipedia is pretty good. Moreover, it's succinct (although I'm not fond of definitions that rely on examples).

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language."
​

I don't. It assumes that "existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language" have problems.

 

[Skwim]

I don't. It assumes that "existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language" have problems.

And it's a very valid "assumption."


EXISTENCE

"Existence raises deep and important problems in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic. Many of the issues can be organized around the following two questions: Is existence a property of individuals? and Assuming that existence is a property of individuals, are there individuals that lack it?"
SOURCE
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KNOWLEDGE

"The Gettier Problem
In his short 1963 paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?”, Edmund Gettier presented two effective counterexamples to the JTB analysis
Most epistemologists have accepted Gettier's argument, taking it to show that the three conditions of the JTB account—truth, belief, and justification—are not in general sufficient for knowledge. How must the analysis of knowledge be modified to make it immune to cases like the one we just considered? This is what is commonly referred to as the “Gettier problem”.
SOURCE
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VALUES

"Classical Consequentialism
Classical consequentialism is sometimes supported by appeal to the intuition that one should always do the best action, and then the assumption that actions are only instrumentally good or bad — for the sake of what they lead to. This reasoning is problematic in two ways: first, it only motivates a very narrow version of consequentialism, for it is possible to believe that actions have intrinsic value and still be consequentialist.
A larger problem for this reasoning is that non-consequentialists can agree that agents ought always to do the best action."
SOURCE
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REASON

"Practical reason is the general human capacity for resolving, through reflection, the question of what one is to do.
Deliberation of this kind is practical in at least two senses. First, it is practical in its subject matter, insofar as it is concerned with action. But it is also practical in its consequences or its issue, insofar as reflection about action itself directly moves people to act. Our capacity for deliberative self-determination raises two sets of philosophical problems."
SOURCE
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MIND

"Kant advances one of his most notorious views: that whatever it is that impinges on us from the mind-independent world does not come located in a spatial or a temporal matrix, not even a temporal one (A37=B54fn.). Rather, it is the mind that organizes this ‘manifold of raw intuition’, as he called it, spatially and temporally. The mind has two pure forms of intuition, space and time, built into it to allow it to do so. (‘Pure’ means ‘not derived from experience’.)

These claims are very problematic.
"SOURCE
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LANGUAGE

"In recent history philosophers have struggled with the question of precision in language and have sought to construct a system under which meanings can be discussed without danger of falling into circular or metaphysical traps. Two major approaches to this question have arisen in scientific circles of the twentieth century. Logical empiricism, also known as logical positivism, seeks to produce a language which consists of symbols combined precisely in accordance with specific rules; this would eliminate the philosophical convolutions that arise from the use of imprecise and confusingly ordered language (Sengupta 14). Ordinary language theory, on the other hand, suggested that these philosophical problems appear when language is used improperly."
SOURCE
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