Why Philosophy is Philosophy: A study on the definition and distinction of the discipline

‘You should not raise questions about God,because you can never have the answer’-he said, confidently, as if he was not confused at all about this idea of perpetual confusion that he so boldly projects. I said nothing because I know that religious people get angry when you question their fundamental beliefs and I had no time to waste to deal with some futile disgruntlement. I was indulged in a deeper thought. Why would there be an eternal question of God’s existence if there was no answer to it? If universe is posing a question,it is only natural that it would want us to at least try to find the answer to it.

                         To my judgement that was my first philosophic endeavor. It was not religion and not science and it was distinct from traditional thought. It was philosophy because it deals with one of the central questions of life in a ‘hyper general way’(Charles C. Verharen,9/8/2015 Lecture).

But the author of ‘Thinking it through’, Kwame Anthony Appiah, might disagree and try to classify my primitive philosophic thoughts as Folk philosophy. (page 339,Thinking it Through)A somewhat funky name to describe the disorganized thoughts of non-academics who don’t do philosophy in a systematic way(page 343,Thinking it Through). But a just a few paragraphs later the writer introduces a new symbol for the same kind of thought and names it Traditional Thought(page 341,Thinking it Through) but fails to provide any kind of fine lining between Folk Philosophy and Traditional Thought. He seems to have no problem in letting the traditional thinkers use the term philosophy in their unsystematic line of thought but he again discerns their works from what he calls Formal Philosophy.

                             Soon we see that Folk Philosophy and Traditional Thought has merged into one single body and he is criticizing both of them for not being able to justify their convictions. He says that a formal philosopher is different from a folk philosopher and/or traditional thinker because he could provide valid arguments to support his thoughts. But again,he defines Philosophy as a general and systematic account of our thought and experience, one that is developed critically, in the light of evidence and argument(page 378,Thinking it Through). Therein lies the contradiction of his argument of merging traditional thought and philosophy together because if Folk Philosophy is Philosophy,then it must be supported by valid arguments.

                            In my judgement,it is wrong to discern folk philosophy or traditional thought from formal philosophy because both are basically the same thing. The thinkers of the beginning never thought if their thought would be called folk philosophy or formal philosophy but they did philosophy anyway and did it quite well. If any broad conceptual concept backed by valid argument is philosophy-then everybody can be a philosopher. Even common people who writer falsely discards as traditional thinkers.

                            Philosophy,no matter who does it,is a pure cognitive analysis of the basic questions of existence in a broad and interdisciplinary manner and backs it up with valid arguments which conceptual and/or empirical.

                             Yes,I do think that Philosophy requires empirical evidence too. In my judgement, it is not only wrong to think that anything that requires physical data is not Philosophy but it is misleading. It is just an easy way out for distinguishing science from Philosophy. The assumption is unmindful of the fact that Science or Natural Science was born from the very womb of Philosophy and much of the early scientists are more famous for their Philosophic works. Author Kwambe does concur with this statement of mine by stating ‘...this(based on the use of empirical data) way of making the distinction between philosophy and science seems to me to be too simple. Much theoretical physics is very difficult to connect in any straightforward way with empirical evidence, and much philosophy of mind depends on facts about how our human minds happen to be constituted. It will not do, either, to say that the use of empirical evidence in science involves experiments, while in philosophy it does not. For thought experiments play an important role in both science and philosophy, and many branches of the sciences—cosmology, for example—have to proceed with very few, if any, experiments, just because experiments would be so hard to arrange.’ (Page 364,Thinking it Through)

                            But the way of distinction the author has chosen is not too strong either. He says that, although Philosophy and Science both require empirical data, the data for Science is collected more systematically than Science(Page 364,Thinking it Through). He proves the weakness of his argument in the very next sentence where he says this difference is also a matter of degree as some Philosophy,like that of language requires meticulous collection of data about the subject matter. This clever example serves only to prove how confused the author is about the use of data in Philosophy and Science and falls back to square one with the mistaken academics who he so passionately discredited in the previous paragraph. He differed from them only in the question of degree which is not that much different at all.

                         In my judgement, the question of distinguishing science from philosophy is much like asking the difference between a tree and its branch. Do they look alike?They do. Do they have the same characteristics?They do. Do they use the same source of nutrition? They do. Do they have the same function? They do. What is the difference? One is a more specialized version of the other. They have almost same characteristics and the smaller one has some additional usage. You can use the branch to beat Donald Trump with and you could use a smaller branch to pick your nose. But the tree cannot do that,it is more concerned with creating oxygen so that the whole world can live.

                         Philosophy is more like a tree,it is more concerned about the central questions of life when natural science is trying to ask distinct narrow question about physical world.

Science asks the How of the world when Philosophy asks the Why? This is the basic and most probably the only real difference between Science and Philosophy.

                          This concept is named Division of Labor by Dr.Appiah and he says that this institution has been productive(page 365). He also concurs that the two disciplines are intertwined and overlaps in a manner that it is hard to distinguish where one ends and another begins.

                           This vague contrast between Philosophy and Science is a complete antithesis of the relationship between Philosophy and Religion. I strongly belief that contradicting religion is one of the factors that gave birth to formal philosophy. Because the very basis of the disciplines are antonyms of each other. Religion thrives on belief beyond reason when Philosophy seeks for reason beyond belief. As Dr.Appiah says, ‘The urge to give arguments and evidence for what you believe, and to make your beliefs consistent with each other so that they form a system, is one of the marks of formal philosophy.’(Page 343)

                     Dr.Appiah has been very successful in discerning Religion from Philosophy in his discussions in pages 360-364. He says that philosophy is free of the bounding rituals that Religion has. One can do philosophy lying on top of his lover but Religion is a wholly different thing. Though some subfields of Philosophy like metaphysics and theology do tend to ask questions related to God,they do it in a less formal way.

                     But it is not particularly illogical to look for dissimilarites even when the difference is so obvious. Because sometimes Religion does try to solve Philosophical problems and (rarely) give very good answers to them. I would even argue that every Religion started off as a Philosophy. And it was a happy marriage when the concept of ‘faith’ rooted in and everybody started to believe that in order to be religious,you must stop asking questions about your creed if you are a true believer. That is the death of Philosophy. Where there is no question,there is no urge to find an answer. Where there is no urge to find an answer,there is no Philosophy.

                     Which brings us back to my personal first meeting with Philosophy. I endeavoured to ask a question where religion discouraged me to ask. It told that I should better belief what the holy book said and follow the rituals that the holy book said I should follow. But I understood that only because my ancestors told me it was holy and true does not mean that it is. It’s holiness is a matter of scrutiny and reasoning too. Nothing is true until I am satisfied of its trueness.

And I was to be satisfied only by rational arguments supported by quantifiable empirical or conceptual data.

That is when I started my journey in Philosophy.

And I welcome you to the never ending intellectual adventure too.

Works Cited

1. Thinking it Through,by Kwame Anthony Appiah

            Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-516028-2

            Available for free on the internet. Weblink:   http://www.spiritual-minds.com/philosophy/assorted/Thinking%20it%20Through%20-%20an%20Introduction%20to%20Contemporary%20Philosophy%20-%20Kwame%20A%20Appiah%20(Oup,%202003).pdf

      2.   Class Lecture by Charles C. Verharen

             on  8/9/2015 at Howard University,FDMH room 223

             for Representative Thinkers-Phil 082 Course.

It is not okay to call me a Malawun anymore.

I was born in a Hindu family,and therefore I am a Hindu by birth. Religious belief aside, I truly am a member of the Hindu community. And I should not be ashamed of that. But maybe I have been. Maybe I have been trying to hide my communal identity all of my life. I did not realize this till I got admitted to Howard University and took the Composition for Honors-class. Because the title for the course is-the mattering of Black lives. Due to the nature of the title,we went on deep analysis of racism and the Black experience in America. I have come to know the tendency of some African-Americans to try to blend into the society and forsaking their cultural and racial identity for doing so.

Man is a political animal-as said by Aristotle and politics is an art of compromise. Which means you must either compromise your cultural identity to blend into the mainstream,or you must forsake it. You must laugh along with the others in their micro-aggressive jokes. You must act like you never heard the hateful names they call your people and you to be precise. You must join in the ridicule of your own community if you want to be a part of the band of the jokers. The elite,the many, the 'Majority'-that's who we want to be.

I mocked my own religious practices a thousands of times. Some of which I would protect if it were not my own religion because I believe that you should respect someone else's belief even when you yourself disbelief or even despise it. But I joined in the mockery. I mocked it even more to make them feel less awkward about mocking my community. I took great pride in the fact that I did not act Hindu,I did not look Hindu and I did not talk Hindu. I thought it was a great success that I did not know when my religious festivals were and I did not care what my religious rituals were. Because that is when my friends and loved ones(who were non-Hindus in most cases) would feel most at home with me. I had forsaken myself to be one of the other.

That is when I made myself-the other.

The American Negro is one of the most oppressed people of the world. And the journey of the American Negro from the plantations to the White House is a benchmark of minorities all over the world. It is the Black Americans that prove that there is some fare ground and some scope for ‘pursuit of happiness’ left in the American society. And the societal bond of the American Black community is the true mother of that achievement. In my short acquaintance with the black community, I have seen the way microaggression is addressed and fought against-and I know that it is remarkable. I say this because I have seen minorities hide behind their illusion of safety and resigning to the status quo. I say this because I myself had resigned in the status quo and the American Black community awakened me.

It’s the N-word, the word that sparks immediate anger among the Blacks of America that caught my mind. It hung on for days. At times I thought it was an overreaction but as soon as I found out about the past of the word, I found out the symbolism of the word as an embodiment of oppression and torture. I too started to despise the word.

Maybe that is when one of my close ones called me ‘Malawun’. It is an Arabic word that means the cursed. Some extremist terrorists use the word to describe Hindus. And this is how they legitimized the mass slaughter of Hindus during the Liberation war of Bangladesh.   

I was going to laugh at her remark. Maybe I was going to make another additional joke to make her mockery stronger and then I stopped. I realized that how weak I am as member of my community. I realized that I was afraid of my own identity, that I failed to rise up against an atrocity against my own ancestors. That I endorsed a battle cry against my own forefathers.

I disgusted myself. I felt like I was not one of my own. I felt like ‘the other’. Because if I was a Bangladeshi,not even a Hindu, I should not have endorsed such a mockery. I should take offense just like a Black American would because such a communal remark is against the very fabric of the secular nation that I love and admire.

I understood that it was my fault all along. and I am ready to change myself.

It is not okay to call me a ‘Malawun’ anymore. I will be really offended if someone calls me so even in a lighthearted conversation. Because several of my forefathers died because of this communal rant and I cannot continue to endorse it anymore. If someone is still to refer me in this hateful manner or to make any communal remark-I will be offended and I will discontinue any further relation with them and protest the remark to my highest ability. Because I just realized that I have some responsibilities that were passed down to me by my forefathers,and these are the responsibilities I cannot forsake and I will not forsake.

I will not forsake my identity anymore.