What is Philosophy?

Philosophy is the study of abstract concepts.

Philosophers are engaged in questions on the most abstract level. Philosophy at one time or other is at the core of nearly every aspect of human life, from mathematics to technology to architecture, theology, and the institutions of society.

It is best to use examples.

• Politicians are engaged in writing laws.
• Law enforcement officials are engaged in enforcing the law.
• Lawyers and judges are engaged in implementing the law.
• Philosophers (like John Rawls) are engaged in studying what stands as justice, and thus what stands as just law.

• A businessman, citizen, or government orders a building.
• An architect designs a building.
• A construction company builds a building.
• A philosopher (like Roger Scruton) engages in study of aesthetics, what aesthetics is and is its worth, the proper balance of form and function, etc.

• A school board determines curriculum.
• A committee of experts write textbooks.
• A teacher teaches what is in the textbooks.
• A philosopher (like John Dewey) establishes the theory of education.

Each field has its most subtle level of theory, that deals entirely in concepts. It is the foundation of what others implement, sometimes without knowing it.

Behind every institution there is a philosophical underpinning, a conceptual theory guiding it.

Who stands as a philosopher changes with the times. In the 19th century many authors wrote poetically about abstract subjects, often from inspiration. Today, a philosopher only includes one who gives arguments for suppositions, and argues those points in clear language. Hence today many philosophers of the 19th century (like Emerson or Nietzsche) would not be deemed philosophers at all by today's standard.

However, both forms of philosopher deal with the same kinds of ideas and have the same kind of influence.

Philosophers are accused of various things by non-philosophers. One is that they deal in non-realities. In fact that is itself a philosophical claim, though an un-thought-through one, and an unargued one. What stands as real is part of ontology, a branch of philosophy.

Philosophers are often accused of being wordy. However, in modern philosophy there is an emphasis on being careful not to be misunderstood, and to be precise, which does require a lot of words at times. But all those words are necessary.

Philosophers are sometimes accused of making things hard by using big words. The 20th century philosopher Bertrand Russell quipped about this charge.

My mother-in-law, a famous and forceful religious leader, assured me that philosophy is only difficult because of the long words that it uses. I confronted her with the following sentence from notes I had made that day: "What is means is and therefore differs from is, for ’is is’ would be nonsense." It cannot be said that it is long words that make this sentence difficult. (My Philosophical Development, Bertrand Russell)

Philosophy has many branches.

Ontology is the study of being, or what stands as most real. What really is real?
Epistemology is the study of what we know and how. What stands as a justified belief?
Logic is the study of formal and informal methods for justifying belief.
Aesthetics is the study of how things appear to the mind.
Philosophy of Mind is the study of what is real, and theorizes about the connection between mind and matter. It dovetails with ontology and epistemology.
Philosophy of religion studies the themes and concepts in religious traditions.
Metaphysics is the study of how things come into being, and requires inquiry into all of the above. 

There are also social-political philosophers, who study the justification of the grounds of society such as justice, fairness, etc.
Philosophy of science studies and critiques the methods of science. In the 20th century it has proved important to science itself.
Philosophy of language has been particularly influential since the start of the 20th century.

In the past philosophers usually covered the gamut of all of these areas, attempting at times to work them into a cohesive system. Today philosophers are more prone to specialize.

Meher Baba once joked that philosophy is the simple made complicated. "A simple thing made complicated is philosophy." (Back panel of Stay With God, 1991) This seems to be Baba being good humored, and was meant to address the accusation by some of his mandali that Brabazon's book, released in 1964, was too philosophical. This web page gives some fair answers to this concern. Do philosophers complicate things or do they expose the world as the complicated mess it is?

Philosophy that makes the simple complicated is bad philosophy indeed. But even the notion of simplicity as a virtue of good explanations is the product of a 14th century philosopher, William of Ockam. Baba knew that, so I believe was kidding around.

Baba said that after 70 years of his being laid to rest in his tomb, philosophers would come there to pay homage. (Lord Meher, 1986 print version, p. 5296)

One of Baba's favorite Christian saints was Augustine, one of the most famous and influential philosophers of all time.