How Does Philosophy Fit In?

Philosophy means love of wisdom. Many histories of philosophy, following Aristotle, cite Thales (626-548 BC) as the first philosopher. Thales was a pre-Socratic, an early philosopher predating Socrates and Plato, and like others of his era was keenly interested in cosmology (origin, nature, and development of the universe). He lived in Milieus, on the west coast of Turkey, about forty-five miles south of Ephesus. Along with many others, such as Democritus, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Pythagoras, and continuing on to the present, Thales engaged in speculative philosophy, the first of the two types.

Speculative philosophers often sort their work into different categories, such as these: aesthetics (beauty and the human response to it); epistemology (knowledge and how we acquire it); ethics (goodness and moral living); logic (reasoning and its analysis); metaphysics (nature of reality and the universe); and philosophy of science (inquiry and verification). Ethics and aesthetics are sometimes regarded as two branches of axiology or value theory.

Some speculative philosophers prefer to focus on their specific domains of concern. Here are a few examples, along with examples of issues that arise in connection with them: education (approaches to teaching); history (trends and directions); language (nature, limits, relationship to thought); mathematics (nature and significance of symbols); mind (nature and relationship to others minds); politics (forms and consequences of government); religion (nature and validity of religious truth-claims); and social behavior (nature and byproducts of social institutions).

Well-trained philosophers are concerned with logical precision, including tightly-framed and unambiguous definitions, and they are wary of grand inferential leaps, of what we tend to think of as jumping to conclusions. Logic, therefore, sits at the center of all philosophic activity.

All speculative philosophy depends on non-demonstrable premises, on presuppositions that cannot be independently or publicly verified. To this extent, therefore, they are expressions of a philosopher’s personal or subjective worldview. Once these premises have been set out, the philosopher is required to draw only those conclusions that follow from them, although a particular philosopher may attempt to show (demonstrate) that, based on whatever else he or she claims to know, the premises hold up. It is in the areas of metaphysics, ethics, and the philosophy of religion that speculative philosophers and Christian thinkers may part ways.

The other type of philosophy has to do with rigorous thinking, and Christian thinkers, especially theologians and other religious leaders, are duty-bound to demonstrate it. Often, a Christian’s foundational premises will be different from a secular philosopher’s. The Christian, for example, may not believe, as Karl Marx did, that class struggle lies at the heart of society’s troubles. But the Christian, while differing with Marx on premises, ought at least to try to reason as clearly as Marx. Both, therefore, should be constrained by basic principles of logic.

Although some religions believers insist otherwise, theologians also begin with non-demonstrable premises. There is no way objectively to prove that the Bible, or even parts of it, were inspired by God. Nor do all Christians agree on what “inspiration” means. Did God dictate the words (in ancient Hebrew) that the author of Malachi wrote down, or did God prompt Malachi to have certain thoughts which Malachi then recorded? These are only two of several possibilities. Turning to Jesus, is there an objective way to prove he was God’s son and our savior? Or does coming to this conclusion depend on what some have called the inner or internal testimony of the Spirit?

Whether a philosopher or a theologian, indeed anyone who takes on the job of formulating a doctrine or dogma, the person should at least ensure that all premises are unambiguously articulated (clearly defined) and do not contradict one another. He or she ought also to make sure that conclusions follow irrefutably from the given premises, so that any intelligent person granting those premises would also have to agree that the conclusions follow.

Christians often mistrust philosophy, partly because they may not know much about it and partly because some philosophers have been both outspoken and staunchly atheistic. If you are a Christian, you are not required to accept any speculative philosopher’s premises, and if you do, you may run the risk of being led away, rather than toward, God.