What Counts as Philosophy and Why it Matters
In a certain sense, philosophy as a developed or sustained activity must count as a luxury to human life. For so conceived, it exists as either a vocation or avocation – in either case, something we must devote ourselves to at length and consistently in order for it to be worth our while, and yet something not everyone has equal opportunity to do.
This is not to say that philosophy in the seminal sense is not with us from the very beginning of the existence of our species, homo sapiens, the human rational animal distinct from all previous species of homoin showing clear signs of interest in truth, goodness, and beauty beyond the confines of animal survival. Philosophy in this sense is not yet a resource for us to draw on, but a promise of the possibility of future enlightenment.
As vocation or avocation, philosophy is a specialized human activity that could not yet have existed in developed form throughout most of the existence of our species, during which time we were in the hunting and gathering mode of existence, a mode not given to specialization, but rather to a collective carrying out of all the basic human functions. To be sure, anthropological evidence clearly shows that the latter included musical, artistic, religious, investigative, educational, and judicial functions, all of which we can see as in some way vitally related to philosophy as we know it. Still, these functions were carried out by small groupings of people that fluctuated according to the seasons and to the availability of food, breaking up and reshuffling according to necessity, with little if any time to devote, or even think of devoting, to philosophy as a disinterested activity. The “philosophy” done then was done in small chunks that got shuffled around and redealt, or like seedlings that kept having to be pulled up and replanted, at times growing together, at times separated, but never fully coming to fruit. Philosophy, then, was but a subtle aspect of those basic human activities mentioned above, activities which were considered consummated in their performance or in the completion of their practical product. This contrasts with philosophy in its developed form, which as an activity is perennial, and whose product is never finished, but continually honed.
For philosophy as a developed activity to emerge requires the kind of specialization that only occurs in the agricultural mode of existence. In passing from hunting and gathering through pastoralism or horticulturalism and finally into developed agriculturalism, humans gradually began to fall into an increasing division of labor which would not only allow eventually for some of us to choose philosophy as a vocation, but also allow any and perhaps all of the rest of us to become philosophers by avocation. That we are so enabled is on account of the greater efficiency of production that comes from division of labor, creating, for the first time, genuine leisure, such that now it is considered inhumane to be deprived of such leisure.
A question for us to ask is, given that we have the leisure to do so, ought we all be engaging in philosophy as a developed activity? Is philosophy unlike so many other specialized activities in that it is not something we can or should rely on others to do for us? If so, is it something we all need to do? If such, in turn, is also the case, then what would count as successfully engaging in this activity? Is it, in other words, paramount to human happiness that given the leisure to do so, we successfully engage in ongoing philosophical thought and discourse?
In the first place, it is more than evident that it would be logistically impossible for us all to choose philosophy as our vocation. Bread needs to be baked, buildings need to be built, food needs to be farmed, etc. Nor is it beyond argument that we actually need philosophy to exist as a vocation. Socrates, hailed by many as the greatest of all philosophers, was not a career philosopher. Nonetheless, he pursued philosophy vehemently as an avocation, and urged those around him to do so as well. We can’t imagine Socrates admonishing anyone that it was simply not his or her calling to engage in philosophy.
Which returns us to the point wondered about just a bit earlier, namely whether philosophy is something others can do for us; it seems outrageously absurd to give any answer but a resounding “no”. Of course it is not something others can do for us. But why? Is it not the case that we are social animals given to specialization, and that philosophy as a developed activity counts as specialization? Is it not the case that according to the ordinary arrangement of the division of labor, we typically rely on others to do many if not most things for us, we ourselves returning the favor with our own specialized contributions? This is in contrast to another set of activities which we could not imagine others doing for us – some physical, some not – such as eating, drinking, socializing, worshipping (if we are to worship at all), loving, caring, etc. These are things we all must do ourselves, whether exteriorly or interiorly. (To be sure, we may receive substantial specialized assistance in doing so. In going to the bathroom, we depend on plumbers; in eating, we depend on farmers; in caring for others, we depend on health care professionals, etc.) If common sense shouts out to us that we are not to rely on others to philosophize for us, and we have reason to conclude that it is an activity which needs to be done,this in combination with the above would bring the conclusion that it is something each of needs to do, in a sense similar to needing to eat, drink, socialize, care, love, etc. That this be so would suggest that the vital benefits of philosophy come in doing philosophy and not in simply in having it done.
To answer these questions requires us to go back and look again at the role seminal philosophy played in our human past prior to developed agricultural society. We can make this reflective journey not only thanks to anthropological studies, but also because the transit from one mode of existence to the next in human history was not made evenly. Some of us are less thoroughly imbued than others in contemporary cosmopolitan culture; many of us, in fact, have at least some decidedly traditional roots still in our cultural memory, e.g. back to pastoral or horticultural times if not all the way back to hunting and gathering. The transitions between these are not sudden, and they are not one-way; distinct cultural traces remain with us of this past, which stands as far end of the spectrum between the traditional and the modern or cosmopolitan, making it not beyond our abilities to envisage them.
What we see when we look back is that philosophy in its seminal form played an important role in upholding and maintaining the quality of communal life, in harmonizing our animal survival with our nagging concerns for integrity, truth, goodness, and beauty. That this was done piecemeal was due to our lack of the luxury then to devote ourselves to it at least as a sustained avocation. But even as incomplete as it was, it was vital to human communal life, since without it, our rational awareness would have no ongoing social expression. Philosophy in this sense is our rationality.
We don’t have to go all the way back to the beginnings of our species to witness this effect; it suffices to be in contact with a culture traditional enough that leisure is routinely absent for its masses. Such culture lacks the luxury of developing increasingly consistent abstract systems of thought. To be sure, knowledge among humans is always amassed, but not always processed systematically.
Still, even in the best of cases, philosophy – even developed philosophy – is an infinite process. At any one time, we still harbor contradictions and conspicuous gaps in our abstract thought – not only in the innocent form of work yet to be done, but also in the culpable form of self-deception, whose contradictions and gaps are more resistant to scrutiny.
But even self-deception in the long run cannot resist sustained virtuous rational scrutiny, which is what philosophy is at its best. All the more reason to conclude that philosophy is something we need to do; and since philosophy is not something we can reasonably allow anyone else to do for us, it is something we all need to do. That is to say, to the extent that we have the leisure, we all need to dedicate ourselves to philosophy as an ongoing avocation.
This is not to say that philosophy is merely an individual activity that each of us is to do on our own; no, just as with philosophy in its seminal form, philosophy in its developed or sustained form is a social activity; one in which we all need to participate to the extent that leisure permits. The need we have for it is commensurate with the work that needs to be done in developing our abstract thinking into something integral – that is, lacking in contradiction and conspicuous gaps – and responsive to our orientation toward truth, goodness, and beauty. Central to this task as a whole is our perennial battle against our own self-deception.
Thus, a short answer to the question of what counts as philosophy is that it is that sustained activity developed from its seminal form of human rationality which develops our abstract thinking integrally in effective response to our orientation toward truth, goodness, and beauty.
The longer answer can be extracted from this by elaboration as follows.
As concerned with the development of our abstract thinking, by implication it is not, therefore, a brand new area of inquiry, but draws its questions and problems from all areas of our lives as rational creatures, from the more practical to the more theoretical. That its concern is with abstract thinking implies that it is a higher-order activity, not seeking answers to questions that are answered by mere calculation, observation, or any mere combination of the two, but by argument, or dialog. In this sense, philosophy addresses questions properly open to argument, as opposed to mathematics and logic in the strict sense, which answer questions by calculation; or the sciences, which answer questions by observation and calculation.
Of course, there are open questions to be asked about mathematics and the sciences, as well as of their subject matter, properly speaking. This is what makes philosophy relevant to them, and what makes them relevant to philosophy.
Just as importantly, since philosophy is charged with the task of combatting our own self- deception - something to which we are all prone, to the point where it would be haughty of us to expect others to consider us beyond its sway, whether collectively or individually – its method must be such as to clearly distinguish it from deception, assiduously avoiding polemical methods aimed at winning arguments, or shoring up one side of a cause without due concern for and attention to the other side. This implies rigid adherence to the policy of charitability, whereby no argument is criticized without being firs duly presented and defended in its strongest form, to the same degree as could reasonably be desired by its own proponents. It also applies abstinence from all fallacious forms of reasoning, such as argument by attrition, cherry-picking, and criticism by counterargument. Genuine philosophy is not being done unless opposing positions of a controversy are engaging in dialog over the same arguments, one by one, rather than criticizing one argument by presenting another argument to the opposite conclusion, an activity tantamount to the parallel talking stage of toddlers. These are all of the ways we deceive ourselves; if we use these same methods in philosophy, philosophy, the salt of the earth, goes insipid; what then will we use to salt it?
Philosophy as a developed enterprise has to compete against other competitive rhetorical styles with which many of us are far more accustomed, so much so that advocating against these methods seems strange to many. Many of us, for example, have been so accustomed to playing the role of the stock skeptic sitting on the cat bird seat to recognize the grave fallacy in doing so, which is that it implies that doubting itself requires no justification; as if doubt itself were not a type of belief. Of course, we readily acknowledge outside of competitive contexts that any doubt is to be judged as reasonable or unreasonable, which implies that it would be fallacious to put the doubter – any doubter – in the cat bird seat, or a position not requiring its own justification.
There are too many common fallacies to list them all here; the point is that in doing philosophy, we have to be most mindful of avoiding methods of competitive argumentation; particularly those used or useful in deceiving.