What is Philosophy?
What is the origin of Philosophy? What is the reason why men desire or need to think philosophically? And putting into practice the act of philosophizing or just thinking, what man really expects to find? Our thoughts tell us that such an uncontrollable impulse is part of human nature. (...) The origins of Philosophy would exist in the first deep thought the first man who first philosophized (...) When God created man, He did not make him of clay, but of thought, so, philosopher. There are many definitions of Philosophy, but there is only one which remains essential: Pythagoras’ Love of Wisdom. (Excerpts from JHPires contained in the Program Booklet of the Spiritist Philosophical Studies Project, fev.2001).
Luc Ferry, philosopher, former Education minister in France, concludes that every definition of Philosophy remains controversial, since most philosophers have been discussed it nowadays without coming to a deal. Among several definitions, we can mention: the formation of a critical and autonomous thinking, a method to meet the main aspects of a rigorous thinking, the art of thought rooted in a wonderment and questioning attitude (FERRY, L. 2006); it is through its methods, more than its subjects, that Philosophy must be distinguished from other arts or sciences (AYER, AJ 2008); Philosophy is the study of fundamental, abstract and general problems since they are concerned to the nature of existence, knowledge, morality, reason and human purposes (Teichman, J., Evans, KC, 2009). No one is absolutely sure about what Philosophy is (...), it can be understood in a traditional way, when dealing with the three Big Questions: What is it? How do we know? What do we do about it? (...) Other thinkers also said that Philosophy is much more defined through a particular method which could find reasons for conclusions and making them clear: finally, some people still say that Philosophy is a kind of attitude or way of life based on Socrates’ teachings (GARVEY, J.; Stangroom. J. 2009).
