Charting the Territory of Metaphilosophy

What is Metaphilosophy?

“What is philosophy?” is a question every student of the subject has gotten at least once by curious enough peers. Some usual reactions to learning that one is a philosopher-to-be are “I have no idea how you have patience for something so difficult,” or “I hated studying philosophy because it required too much reading,” or the most common response is simply a confused stare and contained laughter that masks the thoughts “you are one weird (expletive) for dedicating your life to this.” Some of the reactions are justified, but most rest on a misunderstanding of what philosophy is and what it investigates. In the interest of elucidating to myself and others my main area of study (metaphilosophy), I have decided to lay down some informal thoughts on the topic. Let us chart some of the possible answers to this often neglected question (even among philosophers): What is Philosophy?

The question of what philosophy is harks back to the earliest written reflections on the topic. Perhaps the most suited area of human thought willing to question everything, even its own approach and methodologies, philosophy is notorious for the self-awareness and self-reflexivity that is called upon in order to investigate its own form and contents. As an example, it is much more rare that people who are scientists will constantly engage in the questioning of what science is, what it set out to accomplish and how to get to this point. When they do start questioning these things they are labeled as “philosophers of science” since this activity differs greatly in form and content from standard scientific methodology. As a start, we can already see that philosophy is not a monolithic, it is not a revelation that results in “The True Way of Seeing the World” and it is not based exclusively on faith (religion), aesthetic expression (art) or experiments (science). It is possible that philosophy will rely on these modes of thought and feeling, but it differentiates itself from the other three ways of experiencing and investigating the universe by relying primarily on logical arguments. Or is that so?

Philosophy naturally lends itself to endless, regressive questioning. The philosopher feels more at home when formulating and refining questions than in providing definitive, self-evident and assured answers. This causes a lot of frustration among people who initially pick up on philosophy as a way of finding answers to life’s “Big Questions”: Is there a God? Do we have souls? What happens when we die? What is Good and Evil? What is art, science, religion? What is the ideal political arrangement? What is Truth, Beauty, Justice?

Western Philosophy, inaugurated (in the standard story) by Plato, has been obsessed with answering these questions and laying them down to rest. However, anyone who spends some time lost in philosophical texts will either quickly become exasperated with the sheer amount of possible answers, or they will start developing a sensibility to the various ways of seeing and experiencing the world. The psychology of philosophy will tell us that humans will not be able to maintain this suspension of belief forever, which is why most philosophers pick sides on arguments and debates (though framing these issues as “debates” is superficial and misses the existential importance of pursuing philosophy). However, it still stands that the primary mission of philosophy is not necessarily to solve once and for all the world’s riddles and paradoxes, but rather to be educated in the vast conceptual landscape and develop sensitivity to different ways of thinking about and living in the world, finding new ways of experiencing and acting in the universe.

In fact, as it has already been hinted, philosophers will dispute these characterizations and engage in more endless dialogue about them, which does not invalidate these musings and ramblings. At this point it is important to approach the question of what philosophy is with an open mind, trying to be attuned to the many possible functions philosophy may have in universal, cultural and personal development. This present investigation is a metaphilosophical one. The three most important questions in metaphilosophy, or the philosophy of philosophy, are: What is Philosophy? What to expect from Philosophy? How to achieve this?

The 4 Modes of Experience

Ever since humans developed language and communities they have engaged with the 4 major ways of dealing with the universe, this experience we call life and the problems raised by it. These are questions such as: Why are we here? What is nature? How to express emotions? What is the best life for a human? There are 4 modes of experience that have all dabbled in these questions, but they have different functions and approaches. They are: science, art, religion and philosophy. This way of conceptualizing sees these categories as functional, meaning that they have no defined content, just a general form. I am not making reference to any specific stage of scientific development, or a specific religion, or a definition of art and philosophy, but only the general objectives and ways of investigating, acting and experiencing associated with these 4 modes.

Science is a mode that relies mainly on experiments, on refining hypotheses through observation and empirical tests. Science’s targets of investigation englobes the objects contained in the universe, from atoms to rocks to plants to animals and stars; also known as Nature. Science is usually considered to be the mode of questioning which has evolved the most, the Enlightenment being the period where science became crucial in defining our anthropological self-images (the answers to what humans are and how to define our relationship to the universe). Science is primarily a cognitive enterprise, meaning that its business is that of fact-checking and discovery of truths. These truths are not eternal though, since science uses mainly inductive and abductive reasoning, which are probabilistic and hypothesis-based modes of reasoning. This is why Aristotle could say that gravity worked because everything pointed towards the center of the Earth, and after thousands of years of experiments we can disprove that theory but not prove the relativistic theory of gravitation proposed, among others, by Einstein, conclusively. Science does not deal in absolutes, though people who have looked up to Science for answers that are more at home in the three other modes of experience have found ways of turning Science into equal parts Religion and Philosophy. Scientistic people, who are those who think science is the only (or major) valid way of experiencing the universe, have usually displayed atheism and relativistic morality, since science is not equipped to answer two of the most important questions: “Does God exist?” and “What is Good?”

Religion, on the other hand, is more well-equipped to answer those, since it is not at all based on experiments that one can see or replicate, but based mainly on faith, intuition and revelation. It is complicated to give a functional definition to religion, since it has many. But, one can roughly say that religion is both a communal and personal search for the origins and end (eschatology) of the soul and the universe; a story of how human life fits in a vast universe where we seem to be aimlessly wandering, floating in a water-filled balloon. Religion is more interested in narrating the biggest questions us humans can ask ourselves: Why are we here? How did the universe came to be? How can we be good to one another? What comes after we die? Will the universe and time itself one day perish? These questions are far too broad for a scientistic worldview to provide satisfactory answers, which is why people tend to turn to religion, since it relies more on communal intuition, shared tradition and strong bonds. Religion, then, is concerned with how we attach value to the universe, how we construct self-images of what it means to be human in a universe that far exceeds our capacity for purely rational comprehension.

Art is a curious, unique mode of experiencing the world, since it does not rely on cognitive, truth-seeking or truth-revealing methodologies. Art is more a form of expression than the other two, which is why people tend to see art, both in its creation and interpretation, as a subjectivist activity. This means that art has no purely universal, objective appeal, but deals with the frustrations and neuroses of the artist that has released their emotions into the world, imparting these and other ideas in the mind of the audience that interprets it. Art is just as crucial as the other 3 modes though, because it allows us to question—through paintings, theatre, dance, poems, movies, music—all the mysteries of life without pretense of solving them once and for all, but with full intention of expressing the emotions and ideas elicited by the kaleidoscopic facets of being human. Art is mastery of technique in a medium and of conveying emotions and ideas through this medium.

Philosophy? Ah, philosophy is what we have been doing this whole time. It is syncretism and pluralism, taking the three modes of experience and putting them in a blender, usually presented in the logical form of arguments (premises + conclusions). Academic philosophy has become a dry, empty intellectual game, where people measure their numbered premises against the premises of others and engage in fruitless debate and counter debate. This could not be farther from the mission of philosophy. Philosophy is nomadism, it is being at home in all different modes and experiencing them before settling definitively into any one mode. Philosophy is borrowing from the three others and finding ways of balancing out elements to construct worldviews, to find ways of investigating, acting and making life. The philosopher is the artisan of synthesis, taking disparate questions and elements of experience and trying to make sense of them, or, as Sellars posed, to see “how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.” Philosophy, then, can rely on inductive, deductive and abductive reasoning, as well as aesthetic expression, in order to question everything and all things around us, inside us and above us.

Three Ways of Conceiving Philosophy

A metaphilosopher named Lawrence Cahoone sees in the history of philosophy three major ways of approaching the function of philosophy. These are: philosophy as episteme, as praxis, and as poiesis. These are all convoluted Greek words with long histories but they can be simplified as knowledge, action and formation, respectively. Philosophy as knowledge is the definition that can be characterized as the founding one for Western philosophy. This is how Plato conceived of the activity of philosophy, seeing in it a form of dialogue that takes us to Truth about the various matters of the world. Aristotle continued with this conception, though he brought it closer to a monologue, and this metaphilosophy extends to the Middle Ages, Descartes, Kant and most contemporary philosophers today. Philosophy as episteme tends to see philosophy as a privileged activity that has access to certain truths which the three other modes of experience tend to lack. These are truths discovered by reason, settled by correct ways of thinking and carving up the universe.

Plato and Aristole, in the middle of the painting by Raphael, may be disagreeing about particular philosophies, but they share the same metaphilosophy. Plato thinks that the answers to the riddles of the universe are in the World of Ideas, in the abstract. Aristotle thinks that they can be investigated in this world. Both think that philosophy has as its primary mission to know these answers, rather than to act or form worldviews.

Philosophy as praxis is more straightforward, and its first defenders in Western philosophy are the Greek schools of thought that emphasized philosophy as a way of life, rather than mere abstract knowing about eternal truths. The Stoics, Cynics, Epicureans and Skeptics all saw philosophy in this way, as a way of experiencing the world and, more importantly, acting on this experience. For these philosophers, it is crucial that philosophy is a guide to correct action, be that action personal or political. This mission was taken up by Montaigne and Marx. Montaigne saw philosophy as a form of self-criticism, of tentative ventures into experience that allows us to recognize our follies. Marx, on the other hand, famously proclaimed that “The philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” For Marx, philosophy is not at all about contemplation or meditation, but it is a self-awareness that allows us to escape from oppressive conditions of the government and of economic arrangements by being a direct catalyst to action.

Philosophy as formation is a bit more complicated, and it has taken many different forms after the reflections of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger and Rorty came into the world, to name a few. This is one way of seeing philosophy not as an act of discovery nor as a guide to action, but as a creation of the intellect and the soul. For Nietzsche, there are no facts, only interpretations, so we might as well make our lives works of art. We might as well create and recreate ourselves with the expressive power of art but extending that to our systems of thought in general, not just the conveyance of specific emotions and ideas. For Rorty, we have vocabularies that weave our patterns of beliefs and desire, vocabularies which are modified by “strong poets” who conceive of new ways of saying what a human being is and its relation to culture and the universe. This is philosophy as making and remaking, as forming our experience of the world through ideas, ways of feeling and the interactions between the three others modes of experience.

Worldview philosophy, proposed by the German philosopher Dilthey, comes the closest to synthesizing philosophy as praxis, poiesis and episteme. This is a way of conceiving of philosophy that balances the three elements of knowing, forming and acting, as well as utilizing the other 3 modes of experience to create a picture of the universe that attempts to answer all the questions already hinted at in this post, and all the others that may arise. Philosophy as worldview is a way of systematically answering the questions of metaphysics (what is reality?), epistemology (what is knowledge?), aesthetics (what is beauty?), logic (what governs thought?), and, perhaps most importantly, ethics (what is the good?). There are as many worldviews as there are cultures in the world, and the polychromatic prism of experience allows for many different ways of fashioning the world. All of these themes and approaches to philosophy will be explored more in-depth as this blog continues.

Aristotle claimed that philosophy begins in wonder, while Simon Critchley protested that it begins in disappointment. No matter the mood one chooses in taking up the task of philosophy, one has to recognize the immense polyvocality and polyvalence that philosophy allows us to experience. In trying to refashion our ways of investigating, acting, expressing and forming the world, we may turn to philosophy to allow for an open-ended education of the soul.