Philosophical questions are critical
Philosophy is,in part,an analysis of conceptions and meanings that are usually,at least in some field of endeavor,taken for granted.Every field of experience-science as much as religion-bases its attitudes and inquiries on assumptions that are accepted as starting points.They are accepted,as it were,on faith,and they are generally used without much critical examination.One of the principal tasks of the philosopher is to examine them and to evaluate them,to make their meaning explicit,to determine the limits of their application,to see the grounds on which they may be justified.Moritz Schlick and Austrian philosopher who believed that criticism was the whole duty of philosophy,emphasized the bearing of philosophy on the concepts and presuppositions of other intellectual pursuits when he wrote,
There are not specific “philosophical” truths which would contain the solution of specific “philosophical” problems,but philosophy has the task of finding the meaning of all problems and [of] their solutions.It must be defined as the activity of finding meaning.[3]
Many of the greatest philosophers of the past are remembered now not so much for the great systems and world-views that they propounded as for their painstaking analysis of problems and of techniques for solving them.David Hume’s analysis of the concept of cause,for instance,which we shall examine in Chapter 5,is a permanent part of philosophical analysis,acknowledged to be such even by those who disagree with Hume’s conclusions.Philosophers have made some of their most important contributions when they first discerned an assumption or learned to ask a new question that had been overlooked by their predecessors.Their questions were frequently more important than the answers they were able to give.
We shall see many illustrations of philosophical criticism of accepted but vague meanings;the discussion of common sense in Chapter 2 is such an analysis.We cannot answer a question such as “Is common sense dependable?” until we know what it means.Or consider the common philosophical question,“Has life any meaning?” I suppose everyone’s philosophy of life includes some sort of answer to this very vague question.But the philosopher analyzes the question before he speculates about an answer to it.Such questions must be made precise,or they cannot be intelligently discussed at all.Thus Spinoza and Hegel and Augustine tried to answer the question of the meaning of life after they had inquired into what it meant;while the same question asked by Job was not a precise question so much as an expression of puzzlement or intellectual bafflement.The man who asks the question usually wants consolation or some message that will satisfy him and either justify or still his rebellion against things.The philosopher quietly begins,“What do you mean by ‘meaning’?”
Philosophers by profession and amateur philosophers usually sin in opposite directions with respect to philosophical analysis and criticism.Some philosophers,like Schlick,think that analysis and criticism are the entire task of philosophy;they are certainly,to many professionally trained philosophers,the most interesting part of their work,and some never get beyond them.When a pupil once objected to Morris R.Cohen’s having criticized his beliefs but not having given him anything to take their place,Cohen is said to have replied,“Hercules was required to clean the Augean stables;it is not said the he had to refill them.”
Students and amateurs,like Cohen’s pupil,frequently become impatient with the fine-spun analyses given by teachers and textbooks in philosophy.“After all,” a student once said to me,“I came into this class wanting to find out how to make my life richer,and I heard long discussions about the concept of life and value and even an analysis of the word ‘how’,but I’m not a bit nearer to answering my main question than when I began.” I imagine,however,that the student was closer than he thought;for at least he had given up the naïve notion that the question he was asking was a simple one that I could answer or whose answer he could find in a book.I think the will never again be satisfied with facile answers of which the only recommendation is that they have a perhaps specious obviousness about them.
The philosopher does sometimes get so interested in his technique that he forgets the human interest that may first have led him and his students to philosophy;the student suffers from impatience to get to the main point.Some philosophers are like pianists who play only scales;on the other hand,some students are like beginners in music who are so anxious to play Beethoven that they resent having to learn scales.Each has exaggerated one aspect of the process of music-making or philosophizing.
Philosophical analysis and criticism are not ends in themselves,but they are a very important means to the working out of intelligible solutions to the deepest philosophical problems:
By removing prejudice and confusion,by spreading enlightenment through the clarification of basic ideas,[the philosopher] occupies an indispensable role as a guide on the however tortuous path of human progress.[4]