Why Philosophy?

Start here: a question science can’t answer

Think of a question that no experiment could ever settle. Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing? What makes an action right or wrong? What happens to a person after death?

These are real questions, and every human being eventually asks them. Science is superb at telling us how things work, but these questions ask why, and about things that cannot be weighed or measured. That is where philosophy comes in.

What philosophy is

Philosophy is the knowledge of things through their highest causes, gained by reason alone. Each part of that definition matters:

• Knowledge: philosophy is not just opinion or feeling. It aims at what is actually true, and gives reasons.
• Highest causes: it asks the deepest questions, such as what something is, what it is for, and why it exists at all.
• Reason alone: philosophy uses the natural powers of the mind, the same ones every person has, whatever their beliefs.

Philosophy has several branches, and this course touches on the main ones: logic (how to think well), epistemology (how we know), metaphysics (what is real), natural theology (what reason can know about God), psychology (what a human being is) and ethics (how to live well).

Philosophy, science and theology

It helps to see how philosophy relates to its neighbours.

These are not rivals. Each has its own method and its own questions. A biologist can tell you how the eye works; a philosopher can ask what it means for an eye to be for seeing; a theologian can tell you that the person who sees is made in the image of God.

Truth exists

Many people today say, “That may be true for you, but not for me,” or “There is no absolute truth.” It sounds humble, but look closely.

The statement “there is no absolute truth” claims to be absolutely true, for everyone, everywhere. If it were true, it would be false. A position that refutes itself cannot be the foundation for thinking about anything.

So philosophy starts from a simple conviction that every reasonable person already lives by: truth exists, and the human mind is able to reach it, even if slowly and with effort.

Faith and reason

The Catholic tradition has always held that faith and reason work together. The same God made both the world and the human mind, so genuine truths discovered by reason can never really contradict genuine truths revealed by God. When they seem to clash, someone has made a mistake.

St Thomas Aquinas thought the highest questions were worth our effort even when our answers are incomplete. In his view, even a little knowledge of the most important things is worth more than complete certainty about trivial ones.

Read the text

Read Summa Theologica I, q.1, a.5 and Aristotle, Metaphysics I.1–2 (links below). As you read, ask:

1. What reason does Aquinas give for valuing knowledge of higher things even when it is uncertain?
2. What does Aristotle say first moves people to philosophise?