Philosophers agree that the modes
of philosophy contribute a lot to its health
Philosophy
is said to be a discipline of problems because it keeps asking the question of
‘why’. One sets out to find out the reasonability of any activity or any
perceived reality. Philosophy asks questions that ought to be reflected on and
if possible be answered and the answers will also be questioned. The great Rene
Descartes introduced the narrative ‘cogito ergo sum’ (I think therefore I am) while he was searching for the
indubitable truth. He doubted everything and thought about each of them and
came out with what he called the indubitable truth. Philosophy can also be
referred to as the mother of all subjects because it provides an opportunity to
ask ‘why’ on anything in any subject. It can be presented in three modes or
styles as follows
Speculative philosophy is the way of thinking about all that is or about everything that exists.
The human mind is inquisitive and wishes to see things as a whole which makes
them not contented with one aspect of reality. It wishes to understand how all
different things that have been discovered together form some sort of
meaningful totality. Speculative philosophy searches for order and is applied not
only to particular items or experiences but to all knowledge. Kneller (1972, 2)
summarizes speculative philosophy as an “attempt to find a coherence in the
whole realm of thought and experience.” We can therefore conclude that
speculative philosophy aims at finding order against disorder, chaos,
unconnectedness, or disjoint bits of anything. A relationship among the
details that make up something must be discovered.
Prescriptive philosophy
is the mode of philosophy that seeks to establish standards for assessing
values, judging conduct, and appraising. It tries to examine what is meant by
good and bad or what is right and wrong. It asks whether these qualities are
inherent or learned. Are things themselves or they are projections of
our own minds? For example if one says that a cat is black. Could it mean that
is actually black and someone else can see as though? Or it is that person’s
projection? The prescriptive mode of philosophy points us to ontology (things in
themselves).
Prescriptive
philosophy wants to evaluate the worth of human behavior which would be
described as worthwhile or worthless. It wants to discover and recommend
principles for deciding what actions and qualities are considered most
worthwhile or worthless.
The analytic mode of philosophy
capitalizes on language and semantics (meaning of words). Many people often
think that philosophical questions are problems of language which is at some
point true but largely not. It analyses how words influence the world. Language
is always meaningful in a given context. This means that a word and its context
are fundamental to understanding a given communication. In logic, we have what
we call ‘words’ and ‘terms’ in which a word can mean different things in
different contexts while a term means the same in all contexts. The analytical mode
of philosophy is very paramount when trying to understand the meaning of a given language.
The analytical mode of philosophy examines notions such as cause, mind, academic freedom, and
equality of opportunity to asses different meanings are got in
different contexts. It shows how inconsistencies and illogicalities occur when
we apply the same words in other given contexts. It does not take things or
words for granted. Analytical philosophers are normally skeptical, conscious, and disinclined to build systems of thought.
Most
philosophers agree that all three modes of philosophy contribute a lot to
the health of philosophy.
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