Philosophy is one kind of human activity.
It is something we do, and like any other activity it always
stems from a particular perspective on the world which includes
something like an aim we have in view. (In other words the activity is
supposed to achieve something, or satisfy some need or demand.)
Also, as I shall explain, philosophy has its own special
relationship with all the other things we do. If we tried to say what
philosophy is, out of the context of what it is trying to do
in relation to these other activities, we would be missing the point.
Philosophy can only be understood when we see what it does
with science, with art, and with practical activities in general.
What philosophy does
Firstly, philosophy is the act of stepping back
from the activity in focus. This often means breaking up the
spontaneous perspective we were already engaged within. That activity,
and that spontaneous perspective is then placed in a more general and
encompassing perspective. So it is no longer an activity that
is in the focus of our awareness, but the activity seen in its
relationship with its context, and in relation to our other activities.
Understood this way, the activity of the
scientist is clearly a kind of philosophy (- it is no
accident that the older term for science is "natural philosophy").
Science does precisely the thing I just described: it takes a step back
from an everyday practical or technical activity, and creates a more
general and encompassing perspective.
Any practical task, whatever it may be, has its own set of
relevant knowledge - knowledge of materials, working methods, and
"tricks of the trade". The scientist looks for ways of generalising the
practical principles across a broader range of contexts. She is, in
other words, exploring more general patterns of causation than are
evident in the original practical engagement.
Transformation of the practical scene
As we know, these explorations often lead to
new practical activities and new technologies - which the everyday
technician would be unlikely ever to have thought of. The astonishing
success of modern science over about 5 centuries is the story of the
development of more rigorous and effective methods for this kind of
exploration.
Explanatory power
This success, for all the negative
side-effects which are becoming increasingly evident on the global
ecological scene, implies that the methods have real exploratory power
- which it is then the task of the philosopher to gain a better
understanding of. 
Success and failure
Part of this task is to consider what makes
some activities "work" and others to "fail" - and to explore what kinds
of rigour in the process of inquiry actually lead to more effective
methods. (There is usually some philosophy involved in any radically
new scientific departure - but usually it is science which takes the
credit.)
Philosophers' questions
The philosopher is doing exactly the same thing
as science, but in a broader range of contexts - which includes art,
ceremony and custom of all kinds, religion, politics and morals. She
will ask questions like: "How is doing science different from doing
art?" or "How is manipulating a group of people different from
manipulating a set of levers on a machine?" or "How is writing a poem
different from making a pan of soup?"
Contrasts and commonalities
With all these questions, it is a search for
differences but also with an eye to discover what the compared
activities have in common. (With manipulation, for instance,
there is always an intention to mould or channel what is happening so
as to conform with the desires of the manipulator. The effect and the
implications of manipulating people, however, are very different from
those when non-living things are manipulated)
When philosophy is going well, it helps give us
a clearer picture of what we are doing - whether as an artist, as a
scientist, as a politician or as a home-maker. We already had a glimpse
of what this means in relation to science; now we shall take a brief
look at art. Art is amongst the oddest of all our activities - the
artist appears to be doing or making things for no purpose at all
beyond the sheer expressivity of the art itself. And yet, though art
seems to have no intention of pursuing a useful end, it turns
out to have an irreplaceable function in all but the most
routine of our other activities. (This function is something that only
a philosopher would find out - or in other words, the act of finding it
out is exactly the kind of thing that we call "philosophy".)
The moment of wild intuition
There are crucial moments when the scientist or
the philosopher has to become like an artist, breaking free from the
immediate practical or logical frame of reference and leaping to a new
and untried perspective. A nice example is the chemist who was
struggling to understand the chemical structure of benzene. He had
already worked out that each molecule contained 6 carbon and 6 hydrogen
atoms. The puzzle about how these could possibly fit neatly together
was solved when he had a dream about a snake swallowing its own tail.
"Aha!"
Science and philosophy could not progress at all without these moments
of confusion and disorientation, followed by a leap to somewhere
completely daft, and (sometimes but not always) getting an "Aha!" There
have to be these moments of wild intuition, or else scientists and
philosophers would remain forever trapped in their old conceptions.)
Giving up the quest for certainty
Philosophers, like priests, have often been in
the trade of peddling certainties. We can see that this
clearly contradicts the demand for these moments of wild intuition when
we jump into the void and have to let go of all our certainties. So it
has gradually been dawning on philosophers that the quest for certainty
(which means also the quest for firm foundations on which everything
else is supposed to be built) is doomed to failure.
Philosophers cannot find, and so they cannot give us, any
firm foundations; The act of philosophising can only start from where
we are at the moment, and try to make sense of the bigger picture
starting from here.This means we have to accept that the
ground we are standing upon may not be very firm, and we have to be
willing to take our share of these disorienting leaps into the void.
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Lacking foundations, and unable to provide
foundations, philosophy is able to do something far more important and
valuable for us: it enables us to question and criticise the unconscious
foundations which underly our cultural life. Thus we no longer
have to submit to being led around by the nose, by our old,
unquestioned habits of thought. Instead we have the opportunity to
reach for more informed choices about what it would be best to believe.
And this newly won freedom extends further than mere belief. We can
also bring the same questioning attitude to our values, desires and
commitments. We do not have to be dictated to: we are free to explore
and reach for better choices.
Socrates the stirrer
This is philosophy as a kind of impudent
questioning - first recorded in the accounts of Socrates,
wandering around the streets of ancient Athens. Socrates made a
specialty of challenging and upsetting everyone who was willing to
spend the time of day with him. I think this is an important role which
we need to learn to fulfill for one another. I deal with it more fully
in the section called "action-research seminar"
- but in summary, it involves starting to be more honest about what we
really believe, and then being willing to suffer the consequences - for
now we are opened up to how deeply our own beliefs and values may be
negated or challenged by the other people's.
Wild intuitions of our own
This also means being willing to suffer those
moments of disorientation and confusion I spoke about, and opening a
space for wild intuitions of our own. If we really start to do this, we
will be bringing philosophy back out onto the streets. It can fullfil
its original promise and become a catalyst for cultural revolution -
leaving behind the dusty classrooms and bookshelves where it has so
often languished in the past.
Note -
where did the philosophy come from,
which is
set out on this page?
Broadly, I am reflecting here the "Classic
American" tradition of philosophy - which in my view was the twentieth
century's best attempt to gather the wisdom of the past and integrate
it into a comprehensive and forward-looking perspective. This is not to
deny the value of other views, but to say that their respective value
is probably better realized within the perspective of the Classic
American tradition. There was a sad tendency throughout the twentieth
century for different schools of philosophy to wilfully misunderstand
one another. I am not sure of the reasons for this - sometimes I see it
as a "mafia" kind of phenomenon, a ruthless competition between rival
gangs for power and influence. Needless to say this is a travesty of
the true spirit of science and of philosophy. (For a good account of
the school I personally favour, see VICTORINO TEJERA ( American
Modern: The Path Not Taken)
The best accounts of the philosophy of science I have found are in
Charles Peirce (summarised in BUCHLER, JUSTUS(1939), Charles
Peirce's Empiricism, Kegan Paul (London) and Harcourt Brace (New
York)), in A.N. WHITEHEAD(1926) Science in the Modern World,
Cambridge University Press and JOHN DEWEY (1929,1958) Experience
and Nature, Dover Publications NW and (1929,1960) The Quest
for Certainty, Putnam Capricorn NY. My perspective on art is
strongly influenced by JUSTUS BUCHLER (1974) The Main of LightOxford
University Press.
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Michael Roth, March 2009
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