What is Philosophy

Aristotle observed in Metaphysics that all human beings by nature desire to know. What does it mean to be human? Am I in charge of my own destiny? How should I live my life? What is the nature of space and time? What is beauty? How should we understand religion? Is life meaningful? How should we understand the boundary of self and world? What happens when I die? These questions are not merely abstract or academic. Philosophers debate questions of medical ethics, politics and international affairs, science, technology and public policy, and the philosophical questions of ordinary life.

The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we being to philosophize, on the contrary, we find...that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certanity what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. ~Bertrand Russell~