Philosophy

"Philosophy" is from the Greek roots for love (philos) and wisdom (sophia).

I doubt very much that there is a single definition of philosophy that all philosophers would accept. It is an indisputable truth that "people disagree," and philosophers are people. What follows here is my own effort to express my philosophy of philosophy in as simple terms as I can manage.

The love of wisdom knows no bounds. Philosophy treats of all that is and is not, whether it is physical or metaphysical.

Philosophy defines and categorizes all human disciplines (e.g., logic, mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, metaphysics, epistemology, ontology) and every discipline may have its own philosophy (philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of biology, etc.; these are often called meta-logic, meta-mathematics, meta-biology, and so forth).

Need for names of ideas

Jargon is essential in all walks of life. We cannot distinguish one thing from another without a name to help us to distinguish what thing we mean in any particular sentence.

So, too, we need some name for each idea that we want to focus on, characterize, or explore. The labels we pin on our ideas do not exhaust the meanings we intend, but they do allow us to tell one idea from another so that we can compare and contrast one thought with another thought.

Philosophers have been thinking about thinking in the West since the earliest days of Greek culture, roughly seven centuries Before Christ. The vocabulary of the Western tradition is immense, and it has spawned huge jungles of conflicting ideas about everything under the sun, and a few other things besides.

I will try to talk about as few terms as possible. When I use an unusual term, I will try to explain how I understand it. I am well aware that other philosophers would use other terminology or would give different meanings to the vocabulary that we have in common. Such is life! I can only use my mind in the way that is characteristic of me; I am not capable of being a different person than I am. My mind is my chief philosophical instrument, and it is in my mind that I conduct various and sundry thought-experiments that interest me and that sometimes seem to be fruitful. As Martin Luther is said to have said in a very different context, "Here I stand. I can no other."

physical reality

The physical world is what we can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell; what we can know by the technical extension of our senses through the use of instruments such as microscopes, telescopes, radio receivers, interferometers, and the like; it is the realm of things composed of matter and energy that are found in the space-time continuum.

metaphysical realities

"Meta" is a Greek prefix that means "beyond." The question addressed in metaphysics is whether there are any realities that lie beyond the physical universe: God, angels, demons, saints, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, grace; truth, justice, beauty; particular ideas and truths by which we guide our thinking.

The ideal of pure reason

For me, my goal when thinking philosophically is to do my level best to shut out what I think I know from Revelation and to focus solely on what reason can disclose about the whole of reality, both physical and metaphysical. This is an exercise in self-restraint, and I may fail in this enterprise. My motives for seeking the truths that can be found philosophically is always religious, because I am a religious man. I cannot exclude the possibility of God's grace acting on my mind as I search for truth, because I am not God, nor can I directly observe God or His actions on and in my mind. I cannot see the boundary between my action and God's actions, so, when all is said and done, I cannot guarantee the purity of my reasoning about what is and is not, or what can and cannot be said about what is or is not.

Handmaid of Theology

Philosophy: tool in the workshop. Power tool. Help or hinder. Can be misused. Can throw off the yoke of theology and become rebellious.

All priests are required to study philosophy before doing their seminary theology. The Church believes that God has given us our intellects directly and personally as a spiritual power. In and of itself, our ability to reason from one idea to another or from one reality to another is good. God is the source of all truth, and no truth discovered by reason can ever be in conflict with the truths known from revelation.

Philosophy provides us with power tools that can be used for good or for ill. We can learn the form of a sound argument and avoid the pitfalls of common logical fallacies. We can develop our powers of critical thinking so that we restrain ourselves from hasty generalizations and accept only those ideas that have a solid foundation. Good philosophers develop a taste for truth and a love for truth that serve the development of the gift of wisdom.

Because it is intrinsic to philosophy to ask what we can know by the use of our intellects as they interact with the physical world, some philosophers close their hearts and minds to God's revelation, which tells us things that we cannot know by thinking about the universe. Such philosophers are in enmity with the Church.

Some modern philosophers take relativism as a self-evident truth. Their approach to knowledge--really, their rejection of the very concept of knowledge--cannot be harmonized with the teachings of the gospels.

Catholic Philosophy

A host of others

Random list without reasons: Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Newman, {Polanyi,} Pieper, William Wallace, Blondel, Maritain, Gilson, and Grisez.