I originally posted this on the other forum but didn't get as many responses as I was hoping for. Maybe this forum will be more energetic.

One of the most fascinating parts of philosophy, in my own eyes, is one that tends to be neglected and taken for granted: that of meta-philosophy. What is the purpose of philosophy? How should philosophy be conducted? How do we tell the difference between philosophy and not-philosophy? Is philosophy even possible; is the philosophical method reliable and coherent?

To begin, I will assess the possibility of philosophy.

Philosophy is indebted to our intuitions. Intuitions are intellectual perceptions, to steal from Plato. Certainly, not all intuitions are reliable, and studying philosophy can and often will show this to be true. But when philosophical thought is analyzed, what we see is that all of our philosophical beliefs are based upon intuitions. It's intuitive that the law of non-contradiction is sound, for example. We cannot imagine a way around this.

What this means is that there is an inherent veil of ignorance between what we are presented with and what there actually is (Kant). That is not to say that all of our theories about the external world are automatically false; rather, it just means that we must be extra cautious when theorizing to make sure we do not overstep our cognitive abilities.

But how do we know that the law of non-contradiction is sound in the external world? Well, we can make a reasonable assessment that if we are a product of natural selection, an intuitive belief of the soundness of the law of non-contradiction would be extremely valuable if the world actually operated under this law. Evolution produced rational beings that can use this rationality to explore its own origins and validate itself. An irrational creature would not survive long in its environment, so we can at the very least proclaim that our cognitive faculties are reliable in our everyday environment.

Of course, we could doubt our abilities to see the world around us as it actually is, which is what I referred to as the veil of ignorance. Although it is impossible to know for certain that our beliefs are true, it would also be begging the question to doubt all of our abilities when there is no good reason to doubt them. As far as we know, our reasoning skills have and continue to serve us well, is there any reason to doubt their abilities? Is there any reason why we should assume the world around us operates in a different fashion than what we perceive? How would it be that the external world operates differently from us, and yet we have a different modus operandi, when we are made of but the same stuff?

But what even is philosophy? Most of us know when we see philosophy, and also know when we smell bullshit. So where is the demarcation between the two? What are the boundaries of philosophy?

Philosophy, as I understand it, is rational speculation. With this definition, any internal theorizing constitutes as philosophy. When a theoretical physicist looks at data found by experimental physicists, they come to a conclusion about this data. They form a theory. This action of forming a theory is philosophy. The data does not organize itself into a theory: this requires an agent of sufficient cognitive capabilities.

This means that the pop-culture "war" between science and philosophy is a myth, a myth sustained by the increasingly large amount of ignorance regarding what the hell science and philosophy even are.

With this in mind, the conclusion to this would be that all scientists are philosophers, but not all philosophers are scientists.

So what is the purpose of philosophy?

The "traditional" approach to philosophy is that philosophy is an intellectual enterprise that aims to answer the fundamental questions about reality. This is not exactly wrong, but I believe it needs some tinkering.

Philosophy, in my opinion, should be aimed at clarifying and explaining concepts while staving off the threat of ignorance, dogma, delusion, and stupidity.

Whether or not philosophy gives positive results is irrelevant. Unfortunately it seems like modern philosophy has to "prove" itself to the rest of academia, especially the sciences. Modern philosophy has broken itself in its attempt to be on the same level of scientists.

What this means is that philosophy should, ideally, be a way of life rather than a strict academic field. We should turn to philosophers for advice and clarification. The pursuit of wisdom should not be limited to the attainment of it, it should extend to the development of the individual into that of a wise person.

No wonder the public often has a disdain for philosophy: because modern philosophy has castrated itself in its insecurity. Philosophers have lost sight of what philosophy is even meant for. They attempt to provide positive results on the scale that science does, and unsurprisingly fail, which leads them to be seen by their peers as worthless.

Philosophy has given positive results, which often spawn scientific fields. But it's pathetically insecure for philosophers to tout these positive results around like they are an example of the entire field as a whole.

Philosophy should not be worried about providing positive answers, it should be worried about providing clarification to questions and dispelling the anxiety surrounding them. Philosophical questions are inherently existential in nature; they speak to the "soul", so to speak. It is inevitable that a person asks a philosophical question: and it should be the duty of a philosopher to address these questions and attempt to create an environment of equilibrium in which uncertainty is no longer a problem.

How do we know what a philosophical question even is? I personally do not have an answer to this, but to me it seems that the very first action philosophers must do before undergoing more serious philosophical work on a question is to make sure what they are investigating is in fact even a question, and not either a linguistic issue or a problem deemed better suited for the empirical sciences.

When a philosopher (or an idiot like myself) attempts to provide a philosophical thesis, it should not be taken as a claim of knowledge. Instead, it should be seen as simply another idea added to the mix. If I were to bake a cake, and you saw that I was missing sugar, you would be apt to add sugar to the mix before putting it in the oven.

I am not alone in this sentiment. The quietism of Wittgenstein, as well as Rorty, McDowell, and Nozick all advocate for a far more passive meta-philosophical stance.

It is quite interesting that philosophy is the only profession that has the ability to question itself. Unfortunately, I believe this ability has been neglected, leading to a general nihilism and apathy towards the field.