The discussion of what philosophy is, is a long one. Some say it's a method of thinking, others say it's a set of topics to argue about, others will go and say it's a certain approach to life. All these suggestions probably have their merits and I'm happy to leave it at that. I just like thinking about things which I find interesting - as it turns out, most of these things I find interesting are usually the sort to be labeled as 'philosophy'. I'm not particularly fussed as to why these count as philosophy, I just like it. That's not to say I like all philosophy, I know very little about continental philosophy (whatever that may be exactly), and on the whole, if the discussion doesn't involve sets, or meta-language, or details on a particular failure in reasoning I probably avoid it.
So perhaps my only interest in being able to answer: what is philosophy, is so I can have some reasonable response to those people who ask what I do. Perhaps one day. There is however another, and perhaps larger, discussion about philosophy that I am more involved in. That is, how useful is philosophy?
Oh gosh, just thinking now the number of times I've had to respond to comments about the usefulness of my interest. That's not to say my critics are wrong - just that it's hard not to try and run in shame when my life long passion is likened to a DVD rewinder - utterly useless, but still able to pull a certain sort if people. "Am I a DVD rewinder buyer?!?!" I ask myself, panic setting in. I can respond with arguments about how the skills philosophy builds are extremely practical, that philosophy founded things such as the scientific method, computing, semantics. I'm not sure how successful this ever is. I typically just see nods and "mmm hmmm"s in humoring response, the thought probably being "but what does it do now?"
So maybe in the end philosophy doesn't do that much for the world. However luckily for me there is something philosophy certainly does, and that leads to the point of this blog. Philosophy makes distinctions. It's surprising how often two ideas can be confused for each other. Philosophers are very good at setting out and explaining why two (perhaps very similar) things are not one and the same.
Each post in this blog will be a short explanation of how two things are distinct. If possible I'll also try and explain how this distinction might ever matter. Hopefully this will achieve two things, some people's odd and demanding fetish for clean cut concepts will be satisfied, and also perhaps there will be less confusion in the world.
Willo
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