Philosophical questions are related to decisions a...
This is,perhaps,another way of saying that philosophy is a search for wisdom instead of information about facts（knowledge）.For wisdom,as we have seen,is an attitude of valuing and weighing courses of action so that they will fit into a reasonable interpretation of the human situation.Arthur E.Murphy has said.
The subject-matter of philosophy is the things that men take seriously,not for limited purposes,but in the basic commitments which determine,on the whole,what they make of their lives and of the world they live in.[2]
Except within very narrow limits,science does not tell men what they should do.Granting that certain ends are desirable,science can,in many cases,tell them what they must do in order to achieve these goals.Science tells us that hydrogen cyanide is a very good poison and that penicillin is a very good germ-killer;but science alone cannot tell the scientist or anyone else whether euthanasia is morally justified or not.By virtue of science alone,we do not know whether we ought to use the penicillin or the cyanide.
What the ordinary man is interested in is not just how to accomplish a certain purpose,important as that knowledge is.He wants to know what purpose to choose from among those open to him.The ends and purposes to be chosen usually stem,directly or indirectly,from religion.But the religious answer,rightly or wrongly,now satisfies fewer people than heretofore,Many people in our society have doubts about the truths claimed by religion.These people are not sure that the standards of conduct that religious teachers set up long ago are the best ideals for conduct today.Others grant the truth of these teachings,but do not see how they can be applied in our complex society.It is not our place here to examine and evaluate these doubts and hesitancies;but they do exist,and they cry out for resolution.
One of the purposes of philosophy is to evaluate this kind of doubt.Philosophers do discuss questions of ultimate value,and most philosophical questions raise,either explicitly or implicitly,the issue of the nature of values.Philosophical conclusions about the universe and the place of ideals and values within it eventually lead to decisions as to which of our conflicting ideals are most worthy of pursuit.Even philosophical discussions that are not explicitly about values have a bearing on the value decisions we make.For instance,how one answers the question,“Does God exist?” may determine his answer to questions concerning the standards to be used in judging conduct and guiding choices.Similarly,questions about the relation of the mind to the body or of the best ways of knowing will,when answered one way or another,suggest attitudes and theories about values and about the obligations of men.
Philosophers also deal explicitly with questions of value.Moral questions are studied in that part of philosophy called ethics.In aesthetics,philosophers discuss the nature of beauty and the standards used in criticizing and appreciating works of art.Logic deals with the formal principles of reasoning and with relations between propositions that can be taken as norms for judging the validity of various ways of thinking.Philosophy of religion discusses the values in religion;philosophy of history deals with the meaning and value of the historical process and of the methods for discovering the facts of history.Philosophy of law and political philosophy seek to establish reasonable criteria for judging the aims and functions of government and law.Philosophy of science questions and evaluates the methods of scientific thinking and tries to determine the value and significance of the scientific enterprises as a whole.There are also philosophies of business,of education,in fact,of every field of experience about which men think deeply.Whenever men,no matter what work they are doing,stop to inquire into that work from the standpoint of its ultimate values and significance in the whole scheme of things,they are then philosophizing.