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In the Theaetetus, Plato declared: “Philosophy begins in wonder.” If you’re like most students, you chose to study philosophy because nothing is conceivably more fascinating that ruminating over the ultimate nature of things, the search for meaning, or what constitutes the good life.

Aside from formal study, philosophy is something fundamental to the human psyche. Whether we are collectively sat around a campfire musing over life’s mysteries or applying reason and argument concerning which restaurant to dine at, we are each adept at discussing philosophical issues with friends, family or even ourselves. Unlike other disciplines such as mathematics, history, business studies or biology, the nature of philosophy is not routinely defined by its name alone. The term ‘philosophy’ covers a multitude of topics; one only has to venture into the philosophy section of a library to comprehend the scope of books ranging from personal therapy to UFO’s.

Even among philosophers themselves there is no unanimity on the precise definition of the discipline.  Ironically, the inherent preservation of the philosophic enterprise rests entirely on the absence of an irrevocable consensus on anything.  Philosophy, in other words, is simultaneously its own master and slave. 

In his book Philosophers, John Campbell asked in excess of 50 philosophers what their definition of the subject was. Perhaps unsurprisingly, over 50 different replies were given.  The most widely quoted of these was offered by Steven Pyke:

“Philosophy is thinking in slow motion. It breaks down, describes and assesses moves we ordinarily make at great speed – to do with our natural motivations and beliefs. It then becomes evident that alternatives are possible.”

While decidedly analytical, perhaps this definition is most renowned for its reluctance to draw a marked distinction between our everyday thinking and so-called philosophical inquiry.  Philosophers are seldom in a hurry.  And this certainly goes against the grain of the momentary nature of our thoughts during fast-paced productiveness or instinctual reactions to constant stimuli.  Yet this is not a separation of the two, it is simply that ‘philosophical’ thinking is necessarily slower than ‘normal’ thinking.  In other words, it might quantitatively differ (in speed), but it does not appear to qualitatively differ (in content).

So, what constitutes philosophy as a unique field of study?  The dominant style of philosophy in the Western world is that of the analytic tradition.  Generally speaking, it is characterised by an emphasis on argumentative clarity and precision, conceptual analysis and the use of formal logic where necessary.  Contemporary analytic philosophy is divided into three main categories, each enveloping a respective area of interest. These include: epistemology – the study of the nature of knowledge; ethics – the study of how we should live and act; and metaphysics – the study of the ultimate nature of reality. The fourth discipline underwriting these includes the study of logic. 

Within these facets are further delineations: throughout metaphysics we run into questions concerning the philosophy of mind (How does the mind operate? What is consciousness?), and within this, the issue of personal identity (Who am I? Am I the same person I was ten years ago?).  Nonetheless, these distinct categories naturally intersect one another. For example, the concept of personhood routinely raises epistemological and ethical matters. 

Furthermore, additional subdivisions in the analytic curriculum include: philosophy of language, logic, aesthetics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of religion.  While often on the periphery of academic timetables, this cluster in fact holds fundamental consequences for the abovementioned topics.  For example, logic is innately intertwined with both language and metaphysics, with some philosophers fundamentally asserting that all philosophical problems are caused by our problematic linguistic conventions.  

Often listed as distinct from the analytic tradition is the more experientially-focused school of continental philosophy.  This class encompasses thinkers from 19th-20th century mainland Europe, including notions such as phenomenology - the study of the structure of experience and consciousness; existentialism - the study of the experience of the human individual; German idealism - the view that all our conceptions of the world are mind-dependent; and post-structuralism, to name a few.

Philosophy also involves the abstract questions at the frontier of many other fields of knowledge. Therefore, there occurs a philosophy of science, philosophy of history, critical theory (in the arts) or even a philosophy of cooking, and so forth.  In this sense, philosophy is everything that it isn’t.  It is so basic to all human inquiry it remains unidentifiable.

That is to say, understanding something is synonymous with understanding its abstract principles.  And when we delve into those principles, we discover there is much still to be accounted for.  As we all know, to ask an initial question concerning any aspect of the world, one finds themselves undertaking a philosophical inquest leading to an infinite regress of potential explanations.

Why do birds sing?

Because they need to attract a mate.

But why?

Because of the necessity for the continuation of the species.

Why does this happen?

Because they must survive.

Yes, but why?

Well... to survive.  That’s just how biology works. 

Why does biology work like that?

Because of chemistry.

Why is there chemistry?

Well, ultimately because of the laws of physics.

Why the laws of physics?

Because that’s the way the universe was made.

And why was it made like this?

These discussions are usually initiated by an inquisitive child. Though, dialogue inevitably terminates when the parent, feeling their lack of basic knowledge has been exposed, succumbs to mere tautology after being exhausted of all conceivable answers, and replies with something like: “Oh shut up and finish your dinner!” As demonstrated, such discussion vacates science proper and arrives at metaphysical and epistemological questions comprising the philosophy of science.  

Herein, we notice that philosophy is ever-present, like a ubiquitous shadow lurking behind all of our conceptualisations, if only we ask the right questions. Usually, we are content to ignore the complexity of such questions and so proceed with our lives accordingly. As soon as we do address them, though, we realise that our prima facie explanations about life and the world are, at the very least, unsatisfactory. Yet, why bother with these questions?

In one sense they are entirely inescapable. All of our momentary choices descend from conscious and sub-conscious ideas (however one defines these) about the world. Anyone who speaks a language has tethered to their very linguistic conventions, unexamined systems of belief about the nature of things.  We might stretch as far to claim that the entire history of humankind is fundamentally an expression of philosophy. This isn’t hyperbole. Through a philosophical lens, it becomes apparent: we act according to our ideas, and these ideas are subject to debate.

We may think this characterises the philosopher's professional prejudice: that people who are defective lack a sense of metaphysical skepticism.  But it appears evident that philosophy is intrinsic to the human enterprise. Everyone is a philosopher. By virtue of thinking in classes, concepts, and comparisons you are philosophising. Because of this, the distinction between common-sense assumptions and ‘philosophy’ seems to be entirely arbitrary.  

Where can we affirmatively draw the line? Could the reluctance to step into so-called “deep” philosophical matters, for instance, during a conversation at a social gathering, occur at the layperson's imagined boundary of meta-analysis? In other words, instead of analysing the object of the discussion, we instead analyse the very conventions implicit in the way we talk about the object of the discussion.  

So, we may conclude that this leap from analysis to meta-analysis constitutes the division between common conversation and philosophy. However, as noted, it is important to realise that even our trite pre-analytical concepts are themselves riddled with philosophical assumptions about the world.  And so there merely appears to be additional layers to conversation, meaning the social taboo around philosophy treats it as more out of bounds than it really is.

Thus, it appears for one to opt out of philosophy is an unattainable alternative. A life bereft of so-called philosophical musing naturally assumes common-sense assumptions, enabling one to simply get on with living. But it is crucial to note: common-sense assumptions themselves represent answers to philosophical questions, and so to depend on these is still to depend on a particular philosophy. Therefore, a common-sense view on things merely accounts for one of a multiplicity of possible views. Scratch beneath the surface, and we find inconsistencies inhering in all of our presuppositions about the world.

Highly influential twentieth-century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, a logical positivist, addressed this by no less implicating philosophy's spiritual connotations:

“The job to be done in philosophy is really more a job on oneself. On one’s own viewpoint. On how one sees things.”

That said, let us imagine a very generalised pragmatic, forward-thinking businessman who wishes to live life by “facing facts” and “just getting on with things.” Perhaps he desires the acquisition of monetary wealth and material possessions, say, a car and a house, and so on. Yet, why does this person have these ambitions? Are they predicated on a search for happiness? Do they conceive of happiness as an end-point?  Or better, is the term itself even meaningful? If the person withholds such questions from themselves, then it seems they are in pursuit of that which they have no definitive idea of what it is they are really pursuing.  By avoiding these questions, they only contrive to loom over us indefinitely. For as the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates proclaimed, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”  

But why should our businessman care for these questions in themselves?  He would no doubt declare them impractical.  But what is practical?  Is living to a solely ‘practical’ cause practical in itself?  Aside from an inherent philosophical pragmatism and/or positivism, we may notice that the self-styled practical person, whose fulfillment perpetually rests on the next big deal, may never escape the constant anxiety to accomplish what he sets out for if this pursuit is done with a grim determination.  Upon a philosophical re-evaluation, he might discern rather that the pursuit itself is something to be enjoyed - instead of the fanciful postponement of a future that never comes, precisely if one always lives for it.  

The humdrum dismissal of philosophy as a subject is often articulated in the form: “There’s no right or wrong answers in philosophy.” Or as Peter Unger put it in his critique of the analytic tradition: “Philosophy is a bunch of empty ideas.” Both of these statements, however, ignore their own self-effacement. Firstly, to say there is no right or wrong answers in philosophy (in an attempt to negate it as a pointless discipline), is to assume that very statement itself is objectively true. Given the aim of the statement, namely that no explanations are right or wrong, we see that this proposal is self-contradictory.  

That is, making a statement about philosophy is itself a philosophical proposition.  Equivalently, Unger’s argument meets the same fate and therefore asserts its own emptiness. This is yet another instance that proves the symbiosis of every day thought and words with philosophy. For, we can never escape it precisely because it is self-implicational. Strictly speaking, we could even do away with the concepts of ‘common-sense’ and ‘philosophy’ altogether. 

Nevertheless, the emptiness of all such concepts and philosophical views about reality was something ancient Indian philosopher Nagarjuna expounded over two-thousand years ago.  Following the Buddha, his philosophy aimed at the cognitive realisation, or liberation, from all philosophical theories about reality, on the basis that they are fundamentally empty and contradictory. That is to say, if philosophy is a host of empty concepts, then given its inseparability from our everyday concepts and language, so too are all human endeavours.  But this does not evoke a sense of philistinism (the view that all great human intellectual quests are reducible to everyday prosaic matters), rather, that such doctrines are merely obstacles. 

Generally speaking, on the other hand, the inauguration of philosophy in Western culture was traditionally beset with the search for ultimate truth. This is substantiated by the traditional singular approach to understanding truth through rationality alone, treating the written word as the authority – just as the Judeo-Christian texts were taken as gospel (there are exceptions, most notably Socrates who never wrote anything down).  

In light of this pursuit, twentieth-century Western academic philosophy, with its penchant for logical analysis, became somewhat like any other technical inquiry and narrowly avoided being altogether apportioned into the science, linguistics and mathematics departments.  In his essay Notes on the Death of a Culture, William Earle humorously depicted the departmental philosopher of this period as someone who, bending over backwards for scientific status, would come to work in a white coat if they thought they could get away with it.  And, he added with irony, “must never stoop to lying awake at nights considering problems of the nature of the universe and the destiny of Man, because these have largely been dismissed as metaphysical or meaningless questions.”

Contrarily, Eastern thought (including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism) is generally predicated on the spoken tradition and the cognitive or experiential liberation from concepts as opposed to the idolisation of scripture.  However, this by no means dissuaded voluminous accounts of philosophical literature.  A better conclusion might be to say that the difference between East and West lies not in the goal but in the method of their respective philosophies.  

For example, the Buddha implied written dialectic is analogous to a raft, whereby one throws the raft away after having used it to cross the river (from samsara to nirvana) – something Wittgenstein's proverbial ladder replicated (knowingly or not) at the infamous ending of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - a tool he advises we dispense with after having surmounted it.  After all, climbing the ladder and throwing it away is better than never having climbed it at all.  

In summary of these respective stances, the philosopher Alan Watts, in both a genial and generalised manner, suggested all philosophical disputes could be “reduced to partisans of goo and prickles respectively.”  By this, he intended ‘gooey’ thinkers as those inclined to romanticism, grand syntheses, mysticism, continuity and waves.  Conversely, the ‘prickly’ conglomerate, he stated, prefer precise definitions, facing facts, intellectual toughness, discontinuity and particles.  The former charge the latter with skeletal, mechanistic thinking with no substance or feeling.  The latter accuse the former of vagueness and sliding over hard facts.  

However, the succinct ‘answer’ to philosophy, as Watts flippantly put it, is “prickly-goo and gooey-prickles.”  That is, either party would be obsolete without the other, since not only would there be nothing to argue over, but each respective view would be unknowable without its competitor.

Therefore, we may be wise to understand the point of philosophy is not to find better answers, but rather to find better questions. In its initial analytic vision, philosophy appears alike to the doctor who, if entirely successful in curing all his patients would put himself out of business.  And so many assume the philosophical format as something intending to get rid of itself by solving its inherent problems.  But even just framing it in this way emits a paradoxical air.  For the continuing attempt to solve such problems is to continue ‘doing’ philosophy.  

On the other hand, since such inquiry has endured since the Axial Age (roughly c.800-300 BCE), we might contend this is precisely what characterises philosophy as an ongoing activity. This is, though, not to trivialise it. Rather, it is to see that all such disciplines are fundamentally games - but vital games nonetheless.

Philosophy can appear as a bottomless mine, becoming increasingly difficult to dig if one continues their search solely for a final treasure.  Metaphysical wonder seems to be the capacity to ask such a question as “What is life?” which, as Wittgenstein would have it, is strictly inexpressible.  He believed wherever an answer cannot be formulated, neither can the question - since all questions and answers are mutually entailing; and hence he remarked, “the riddle does not exist.”  On reflection, the moment such a question is asked, one must in turn question the question and so on ad infinitum.  

In fact, if it were possible to answer, in what terms could the answer be defined?  As the ancient Taoist thinker Lao-Tzu queried: “If you define the words, with what words are you going to define the words that define the words?”  At this juncture, the logical positivists argued we reach a seemingly absolute limitation which becomes meaningless, suggesting the abandonment of metaphysics altogether and a return to conventional science.  But this neat logic does not appear to rid us of the innate desire to know - a desire ineptly expressed in the question itself.  

The point then, of the child who inquisitively interrogates their parent may be that such wonder craves an experiential answer rather than a verbal one.  Yet as demonstrated, the infinite line of questioning always implies a search for something basic to everything.  But since our linguistic concepts are analytical and selective, they carry an inherent dualism preventing the disclosure of an ultimately unifying substance.  

Speculative attempts to grasp this unattainable aspect of language occur in the form of “the Absolute,” “Being,” “the Void,” “God,” “Existence,” or the Hindu conception of “Brahman,” and so forth.  However, when used appropriately, these seem to constitute mere placeholders for what cannot be conceptualised.  Of course, whether there is an incomprehensible ultimate reality eluding our  linguistic conventions is not a discussion to be had here.  But either way, the conclusion would still adhere to our conceptions of what the answer would be.   

These titles, though, seem to ascribe a vivid, somewhat sensorily concrete experience.  Despite this, a logically-inclined response might declare such conceptions as excessive, by adding nothing of informative prosperity.  Just as we cannot say anything about everything, it might be contended, we cannot experience something underwriting all experiences, since this would be akin to seeing sight itself.  However, metaphysics, like philosophy as a whole, is not something to be cured or abandoned as if it were an intellectual disease.  

Like the layperson, the self-declared anti-metaphysical philosopher cultivates a tacit metaphysics of their own, lurking beneath the implicit assertion that all experience can be defined by concepts and delineations.  For example, the scientist who states “Everything is physical,” while balking at the discipline of metaphysics, says no more than “Everything is everything,” since defining all members of a set renders the definition itself logically meaningless and so relinquishes any explanatory utility.  

To describe the world as physical or material, the scientist must differentiate it from the spiritual or immaterial, but the very conception of the physical implies the notion of the spiritual.  This relativity admits of a metaphysical assumption of tacit unity as anyone could wish. 

Therefore, the spiritual component of rigorous intellectual inquiry is a philosophical marriage our one-track practical person might learn from.  The poet Rainer Maria Rilke encouraged that we “live the questions,” and when philosophy's work is done, it appears the questions themselves become the answers.  Novelist George Orwell supplemented this point (in an albeit less optimistic context) in his book 1984, stating “the war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.” 

And so if the ultimate philosophical questions are seen not to inhabit an end-point, understandably they appear pointless to the hypothetical outsider.  But philosophy’s purpose is precisely that: it is purpose-less in the most profoundly valuable and timeless sense.  Likewise, if philosophy begins in wonder, we have only done ourselves full justice if at the end, wonder remains.