2

What is philosophy? What is

religion? What is philosophy of

religion?

Philosophy

What is philosophy?

N

o noncontroversial answer is possible, and this is not a book about
what philosophy is. So I will just say what I take philosophy to be,
and go on to do philosophy.^1 Philosophy is the enterprise of
constructing and assessing categorial systems. The tasks necessary to this
enterprise are thus philosophical tasks, and the requisite skills are
philosophical skills. The tasks in question, and the skills, need not be
uniquely philosophical.^2
A categorial system is, not surprisingly, a system of categories. A
category is a basic concept, primitive in the sense that it is not analyzable
in terms of other concepts. The categories of a full-blown philosophical
system will be concepts of things or entities (in the broadest sense of
thing or entity), thoughts, or values.^3 Philosophy is the enterprise of
constructing and assessing categorial systems. Much of Ancient, Medieval,
and Modern philosophy was deliberately pursued systematically. Plato,
Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke, Berkeley, Hume,
and Kant all constructed complex systems of philosophy. Their intent was,
as a later philosopher put it, “to see things, and see them whole” – to
develop an integrated account of things, of knowledge, and of ethics. Much
of contemporary philosophy has been suspicious of any such large-scale
endeavors and has tended to stick to particular problems. Nonetheless, in
dealing with particular problems, these philosophers too accepted general
claims that placed constraints on what they could consistently accept
elsewhere; even philosophy in the particularist mode is implicitly general.