What are we doing when we are doing philosophy? The worldview response

What is philosophy? What are we doing when we do philosophy? There are a number of good (and mutually compatible) answers we can give to this question.

Graham Oppy says the following:

"Philosophy is, I think, primarily a domain of inquiry. . . . I suggest that philosophy is the discipline that addresses questions for which we do not yet know how to produce—and perhaps cannot even imagine how to produce—agreed answers using the methods of other established disciplines." (Four Views on Christianity and Philosophy, Zondervan, 2016, pg 23.)

He goes on to say:

"[worldviews are] comprehensive accounts of our world and our place within that world. In principle,  worldviews are comprehensive normative and descriptive theories. In principle, worldviews are descriptively, explanatorily, ontologically, normatively, methodologically, epistemologically, axiologically, and etiologically complete. In practice, however, what we call "worldviews" are none of these things." (24)

Furthermore:

"One of the most important tasks for philosophy is comparison and adjudication of worldviews. Given our account of worldviews, assessment of competing worldviews must do at least the following three things: (1) it must assess and compare the descriptive components of the competing worldviews; (2) it must assess and compare the normative components of the competing worldviews; and (3) it must assess and compare the fit between descriptive and normative components in the competing worldviews." (24)

Later on, Oppy reiterates:

"One the primary goals—if not the primary goal—for philosophy is evaluation of worldviews." (41)

Continuing:

"When we assess and compare the descriptive components of worldviews, we assess those components in terms of familiar theoretical virtues: simplicity, fit with data, explanatory depth, explanatory breadth, and so forth. When we assess and compare the normative components of worldviews, we also assess those components in terms of familiar theoretical virtues . . . However, in the case of comparison of normative components of worldviews, it is not immediately clear that there is anything that plays the role of data. Some say that we can and should treat intuitions—intuitive judgments—as data when we compare the normative components of worldviews; others say that it is inappropriate to treat intuitions as data." (25)

[As much as I appreciate Oppy's work, sometimes he does this where he acknowledges disagreement on a topic and does not offer his own evaluation, leaving the reader wondering what they are supposed to make of the issue. A simple, "My position is that we can use moral intuitions as data, as I defend in my paper..." would suffice. If Oppy is agnostic on the issue, it might be worth noting that, though you could say this is implied by Oppy's silence. Also, Oppy offers no examples of scholars who support treating intuitions as data and scholars who reject this, leaving the reader with nowhere to turn were they to desire to further explore this question. I believe Terence Cuneo's The Normative Web is a place readers can go to see moral intuitions used as data. I don't know of any philosophers who think moral intuitions should not be used as data.]

Finally, on the dialectical aspect of philosophy:

"Philosophy is a cooperative enterprise between all of the people on the planet. One minimal aim of that enterprise is to improve the worldview of each by allowing the worldview of each to be fairly tested against the worldviews of everyone else." (47)

With the preceding discussion in mind, I'd like to share a few visual metaphors to help us wrap our minds around what we are doing when we are doing philosophy.

I imagine the True Worldview as being this massive planet-sized structure. My worldview is represented by that little cyan dot. Think of our sun next to Pluto. The red stuff represents all the true facts that are not included in my worldview. Thus, it represents my ignorance. As humbling as this picture is, we can get even humbler by noting that the cyan dot is not drawn to scale. Really, it shouldn't be visible. When we zoom into the cyan part, we find something like this:

Here is a chunk of my worldview. Worldviews are complex, multidimensional theories made up of layers of concepts, propositions, and conclusions. The blue cubes represent things that I believe that are false. The gray cubes represent things I believe that are true – that overlap with the True Worldview. Really, we should see red, gray, and blue streaks and spots permeating blocks to represent how many of our beliefs are a mix of true, false, and a lack of truth.

Of course, worldviews are made out of propositions, not shapes, but the blocks nicely represent the kind of building out of our beliefs that we engage in. As we learn more, we add more blocks. One way to define what it means for an argument to be successful is for an argument to cause someone to gain a gray block or to change one of their blue blocks into a gray one (and to do so not by accident, but by the proper interaction between the logic of the argument, the truth of the premises, and the rationality of the evaluator of the argument).

Here is another humbling visual metaphor:

The True Worldview:

My worldview:

Credit:

https://www.vecteezy.com/photo/28859215-futuristic-city-at-night-with-skyscrapers-and-high-rise-buildings

https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-and-red-shed-2869503/

Here we can think of our worldviews as a house we are building for ourselves to live in. We indeed "live" in our worldviews in a sense. As we build out our worldviews, they grow in size and complexity. Just as we outgrow the small bedrooms we grow up in, we outgrow the worldview we started with.

When we zoom out and see the big picture in this way, it can seem like our worldviews are truly pitiful. But I think this isn't the right way to think. Instead of focusing on how hopeless it is for us to get anywhere close to the True Worldview, there are two very important things to keep in mind:

1) The vast majority of information included in the True Worldview is utterly irrelevant to our lives. We do not need all that information to flourish.

2) We should compare our current worldview to the one we started with. When we focus on how far we've come, we see the incredible progress we have made as individuals. By keeping things in perspective in this way, not only do we avoid falling into a kind of epistemic despair, but we can even come to really admire what we've accomplished. While our worldviews are sheds and shacks compared to what's out there, they are mansions and castles compared to where we've been. How cool!

So what is philosophy? Three components:

1) Philosophy is the practice of building theories in an effort to understand the world and how we ought to live in it. All your theories put together form your worldview.

2) Philosophy is the practice of taking responsibility for your worldview. It means playing an active role in forming your beliefs rather than just blindly adopting the beliefs of those around you, or believing whatever is most socially convenient for you to believe, or outsourcing your thinking to a "thought leader." Philosophy is about thinking for yourself.

3) Philosophy is a dialectic – an investigation by dialogue. Philosophy cannot be done well, or really even at all, as a solo adventure. Philosophy, at its best, involves community, communication (including: meeting people where they are at, meaning, adjusting your communication to account for the needs and knowledge of the person you're speaking with), and the subjecting of one's beliefs to scrutiny from others, as scary as that may be. If you can't convince reasonable, well-informed folks of your beliefs, or at least convince them that your beliefs are respectable, then perhaps your beliefs are mistaken. The simplest way to know a theory has strength is this: because reasonable, well-informed folks are convinced the theory has strength.

While it's important to form your own conclusions and not be easily swayed by public opinion, it's also important to give due deference to experts, and to be aware of just how much work will be cut out for you if you were to argue against the dominant beliefs of your time. Of course, in philosophy, just about any meaningful claim is controversial, so our work is cut out for all of us.

Philosophy therefore involves reading philosophy, writing philosophy, and having philosophical conversations. And, it involves doing these things a lot. We have a common saying: "Practice, practice, practice." Philosophy is no exception. Like any good work, it can be grueling. But if you love it, it will give you as much energy as it takes, and it will give you life.

But what does "philosophy" refer to in the phrase "reading philosophy"? In that case, 'philosophy' refers to written works of philosophy. So the word is truly polysemous. There are even more components to philosophy than these.