The Aim of Philosophy

The Definition of Philosophy

The word “philosophy” is derived from the Greek words “philein” meaning to love and “sophia” meaning wisdom. Hence the true philosopher is a lover of wisdom.

The philosopher strives, as Plato so finely puts it, to attain a synoptic vision of things, to see things as a whole or together, that is, to see all the main features of experience, life and conduct in their inter-relationships. The philosopher strives to be “the spectator of all time and existence.” This does not mean that the philosopher must compass in minute detail all knowledge and all experience. It means rather that, in trying to reach a unified and consistent view of things, the philosopher will not neglect to consider the general significance of any of the main fields of human experience, knowledge or conduct.

A complete philosophy includes a world-view, or reasoned conception of the whole cosmos, and a life-view, or doctrine of the values, meanings and purposes of human life. Philosophy, like science, consists of theories or insights arrived at as a result of systematic reflection or reasoning in regard to the data of experience. It involves, therefore, the analysis of experience and the synthesis of the results of analysis into a comprehensive or unitary conception. Philosophy seeks a totality and harmony of reasoned insight into the nature and meaning of all the principal aspects of reality.

Plato distinguished between Ignorance, Right Opinion, and Knowledge or Wisdom. Ignorance is not to know, nor to know why you do not know. Right Opinion is a belief which corresponds to the facts but is devoid of reasoned insight into its own foundations. Knowledge is belief with reasons. If one knows wherein his own ignorance lies or the limitations of the possibilities of the subject, he may be rightly said to possess knowledge of the subject.

Philosophy is more fundamental and comprehensive than science, otherwise they are identical in their aims. Philosophical knowledge has these three characteristics:—

1. It is fundamental knowledge.

2. It is most comprehensive or generalized knowledge.

3. It is most unified and consistent knowledge.

The aim of philosophy is to discover the full meanings and relations of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness and to determine their places in the universe of reality. Philosophy is an attempt to interpret reflectively human life in all its relations. The philosopher aims to “see life steadily and to see it whole.” Plato says “the unexamined life is not a truly human life.” Philosophy is rational reflection upon experience, belief, and conduct. It is closely related to science, conduct and religion. Science is a careful scrutiny of the grounds of our common sense beliefs. It analyzes and describes our common experiences. It is organized common sense. The special sciences are the children of philosophy, and can never replace philosophy. All the sciences give rise to philosophical problems and theories. Among the Greeks philosophy included all science. In fact Aristotle was the first to map out the field of knowledge into distinct sciences. In the course of intellectual history the various sciences have gradually been split off from philosophy in the following order—mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and sociology. But this separation of the special sciences from philosophy does not mean that, with their complete differentiation, there are no longer any philosophical problems involved in the work of the special sciences. Indeed, there are three sets of problems of a philosophical character which have been rendered more acute by the development of modern science. These are as follows:—

1. All sciences make assumptions. Philosophy examines these assumptions.

2. The mutual adjustment of the principles of the several sciences into a unified and coherent view of things is a philosophical task.

3. The adjustment of the principles of science and the principles and beliefs which underlie the practical conduct of life is a task of philosophy.

The data of the sciences are really sense-data or perceived facts. In reducing these data to orderly and compact bodies of conceptual description and explanation, science makes assumptions. These basic assumptions of the sciences, philosophy must critically examine; e.g., the uniformity of the causal order—like causes produce like effects. Moreover, it is generally assumed in the practical affairs of the common social life that each individual is responsible for his own acts. But if we are machines, as the physiologist might assume, this is not true. Philosophy is thus a clearing house for the sciences, adjusting their several conclusions to one another and to practical life.

In brief, the assumptions and conclusions of the several sciences call for critical examination and co-ordination, and this is a principal part of the work of philosophy. For example, what are Matter, Life, Mind, Space, Time, Causality, Purpose? What are their interrelations? Is the living organism merely a machine, or, is it something more? What is the mind or soul, and what are its relations to life and matter? What are Space and Time? Is the world really boundless in space and endless in duration? What are the enduring realities? Or, does nothing really endure? What is the status of purpose in the universe? Does everything that happens happen blindly and mechanically? Are our human beliefs in the permanent significance of the purposes and values achieved by the rational individual illusions? What may we hope for in regard to the realization and conservation of the highest human values? Such are the exceedingly difficult and important questions to which philosophy seeks reasoned answers.

Judgment should not be passed as to the meaning of human life and its status in the cosmos until all the evidence is in. The one fundamental faith or postulate in philosophy is that nobody can be too intelligent. Great evils have come in the past through lack of intelligence.

The Relation of Philosophy to Practical Life

Natural science is impersonal and indifferent to human weal or woe. It is not concerned with the values of life; it is essentially non-human. Material progress does not necessarily mean improvement in human nature.

In short, the standpoint of natural science in regard to the ethical and other personal interests of human selves is neutral. The business of natural science is to consider everything which occurs, whether in the physical world or in human nature, as an inevitable event in the endless march of physical causation. Its fundamental postulate or working principle is that of a thoroughgoing mathematical and physical determinism. But there is, besides the physical realm, the human realm of psychical interests, purposes, ends; in short, the realm of human values. Two chief kinds of human values may be distinguished, viz. —

1. Instrumental values, which are of use as means to realize ends;

2. Intrinsic values realized within the self, experiences valued in themselves or for their own sakes.

The good life is the life which contains great intrinsic or satisfying values. Ethics deals with intrinsic values or goods for selves. Ethics is thus the philosophy of intrinsic or immediate values. Aesthetics, dealing with the beautiful, is also a part of the philosophy of values.

Religion claims to answer the question: How do values endure? The life that is best is the only one that endures, on account of its harmony with the supreme purpose of the the universe,—such is the central tenet in religion. All religion is faith in the supremacy in the universe, and therefore the permanence, of the best life, the life having the most worth. Religion is close to conduct because it attempts to give firm foundation for the intrinsic values of life.

The atheistic or materialistic view of the universe is that blind physical forces will finally overcome any effort, and engulf all human values. Philosophy is interested in what nature is, but also in what are the values of life, and what is the status of the highest human life, i.e., philosophy asks: What is the status of values in the real world?

What are the highest values of life, is the problem of ethics, an important branch of philosophy. Religion affirms dogmatically that what a society or individual members thereof regard as the highest values are promoted and conserved by a Higher Power. Religion pictures the highest values of life as incorporated in the Supreme Reality or Perfect Power who rules the Cosmos.

Religion and Philosophy

The procedure of philosophy is intellectual, finding reasons for our beliefs and rejecting beliefs that are inconsistent with the facts or with well grounded principles. Religion is not primarily intellectual. It is based chiefly upon tradition and feeling. Hence, Religion is one of the most conservative and unchanging factors in human life. For the power of Tradition makes for social conservatism, for the maintenance, unchanged, of the social institutions inherited from the past; and Feeling, or the Native and Emotional Reaction of the individual, is the most intimately personal and unvarying psychical factor in the self, since it strikes its roots deep down in the subsoil of man’s inherited and unconscious primal appetites and needs, from which spring into conscious action all his aversions and strivings, loves and hates, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows. The emotional life early takes, in childhood and youth, a set or bent which the individual can never greatly alter in later life. He may gloss it over or deck it out in new garb, but he cannot uproot it or alter its direction. The future character of the individual is probably fully determined before he is much past twenty-one.

It may happen, especially in changing cultural conditions, that an individual, with pronounced native idiosyncrasy and sensitiveness to the currents of the cultural life, will revolt against the prevailing traditional forms of religion, because they are not in harmony with the ideas and emotions of his own soul. Thus arise prophets, recreators, reformers, innovators and critics in the religious sphere. Thus an individual may, in company with a few like-minded persons, try to reform the actual religion of his social group; or he may reject it as hopeless and either join another group or endeavor to form a new group. Religion is pre-eminently a group matter. It is only in highly sophisticated societies, and even then among the minority, that an individualistic type of religious attitude appears... 


Seldom does the individual break away from the religion of the group. Even in advanced civilizations the influence of social traditions and group sentiments, intermingled in some measure with individual peculiarities of ideation and emotion, chiefly determine a man’s religious attitude.

The method of philosophy is sustained rational inquiry. Philosophy originates and flourishes in the rational activity of the individual mind. The group-mind is seldom guided by reason. Moreover, the scope of philosophy is wider than that of religion. Philosophy must determine not only the nature and meaning of religion, but also its relation to the principles of the sciences and to other main interests of life, such as moral conduct, social order, art and culture.

Philosophy has two main problems, viz.—

1. The interpretation of nature, and,

2. The interpretation of human values.

Why the conflict between religion and philosophy? Religion is conservative and philosophy is not conservative but radical and constructive. Since religion is based largely on social customs and personal feeling it is not always very careful as to whether there is consistency in its beliefs or not. Philosophy seeks consistency above all things else.

Does philosophy make assumptions? No.—But it has progressively realized that there is some kind of intelligibility in the world, that the world can, in part, be understood, and that we have experiences which, if properly interrogated, will yield answers to our questions.