Sep 23, 2025 06:17 PM
(This post was last modified: Sep 23, 2025 07:44 PM by Magical Realist.)
What would you say is the aim of philosophy, in the sense of a kind of thinking about things that gets to their essential nature and fundamental meaning? Here to spark your mind are a few suggestions.
"What science tells us" refers to the objective, descriptive account of reality provided by disciplines like physics, biology, and neuroscience. This is a world of particles, forces, and causal laws, where humans are complex biological organisms. Sellars called this the "scientific image."
"What life demands of us" refers to our lived, subjective experience. This is the world of intentions, values, morals, art, and purpose, where we see ourselves and others as persons with responsibilities and agency. Sellars called this the "manifest image."
The quote argues that the great task of philosophy—and of any thoughtful person—is to "reconcile" these two perspectives. We must create a unified, coherent worldview that accepts the truths of science without eliminating the meaning, value, and normative aspects of human experience. It's about understanding how we can be both a collection of atoms and a person with purpose."
“The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term. Under 'things in the broadest possible sense' I include such radically different items as not only 'cabbages and kings', but numbers and duties, possibilities and finger snaps, aesthetic experience and death. To achieve success in philosophy would be, to use a contemporary turn of phrase, to 'know one's way around' with respect to all these things, not in that unreflective way in which the centipede of the story knew its way around before it faced the question, 'how do I walk?', but in that reflective way which means that no intellectual holds are barred.”
― Wilfrid Sellars
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement… get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”— Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Heidegger's point is that philosophy's beginning, the pathos of astonishment, is also its principle. As such, it is not something left behind as philosophy progresses, but something that pervades and guides her at every step. This, I would add, is one of the differences between philosophy and (positive) science. The aim of the sciences is to dispel wonder, perplexity, astonishment and replace them with understanding, an understanding that makes possible the prediction and control of that which is understood. Philosophy, by contrast, not only begins in wonder but is sustained by it and never succeeds in dispelling it."
Invariably it always seems the case that the philosophical impulse, just as a human mode of thoughtfully being in the world, is spurred by perplexity, when things don't go as expected for us. Normally no one would invite the problematic into their lives. We tend to float along in programmed mode, giving no more thought to anything than is required to get us thru our day. So it is only when something goes wrong and interrupts our everyday trance or causes us to question our assumptions that philosophizing rises up in us, inducing a state of introspection and generalization beyond our lives towards universal themes and implications. What begins as a sudden onslaught of seeming meaningless confusion thus ends, not in some pat resolution, but in a new resignation and openness to wonderment and awe in the presence of the Being. And a philosopher is someone who has learned to creatively evoke this wonderment in themselves and in others just in how they examine and ponder the vast interwoven tapestry of human experience. Philosophy then as a chosen way of life or a spiritual calling even, as Socrates described it: "The unobserved life is not worth living."
"What science tells us" refers to the objective, descriptive account of reality provided by disciplines like physics, biology, and neuroscience. This is a world of particles, forces, and causal laws, where humans are complex biological organisms. Sellars called this the "scientific image."
"What life demands of us" refers to our lived, subjective experience. This is the world of intentions, values, morals, art, and purpose, where we see ourselves and others as persons with responsibilities and agency. Sellars called this the "manifest image."
The quote argues that the great task of philosophy—and of any thoughtful person—is to "reconcile" these two perspectives. We must create a unified, coherent worldview that accepts the truths of science without eliminating the meaning, value, and normative aspects of human experience. It's about understanding how we can be both a collection of atoms and a person with purpose."
“The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term. Under 'things in the broadest possible sense' I include such radically different items as not only 'cabbages and kings', but numbers and duties, possibilities and finger snaps, aesthetic experience and death. To achieve success in philosophy would be, to use a contemporary turn of phrase, to 'know one's way around' with respect to all these things, not in that unreflective way in which the centipede of the story knew its way around before it faced the question, 'how do I walk?', but in that reflective way which means that no intellectual holds are barred.”
― Wilfrid Sellars
“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement… get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”— Abraham Joshua Heschel
"Heidegger's point is that philosophy's beginning, the pathos of astonishment, is also its principle. As such, it is not something left behind as philosophy progresses, but something that pervades and guides her at every step. This, I would add, is one of the differences between philosophy and (positive) science. The aim of the sciences is to dispel wonder, perplexity, astonishment and replace them with understanding, an understanding that makes possible the prediction and control of that which is understood. Philosophy, by contrast, not only begins in wonder but is sustained by it and never succeeds in dispelling it."
Invariably it always seems the case that the philosophical impulse, just as a human mode of thoughtfully being in the world, is spurred by perplexity, when things don't go as expected for us. Normally no one would invite the problematic into their lives. We tend to float along in programmed mode, giving no more thought to anything than is required to get us thru our day. So it is only when something goes wrong and interrupts our everyday trance or causes us to question our assumptions that philosophizing rises up in us, inducing a state of introspection and generalization beyond our lives towards universal themes and implications. What begins as a sudden onslaught of seeming meaningless confusion thus ends, not in some pat resolution, but in a new resignation and openness to wonderment and awe in the presence of the Being. And a philosopher is someone who has learned to creatively evoke this wonderment in themselves and in others just in how they examine and ponder the vast interwoven tapestry of human experience. Philosophy then as a chosen way of life or a spiritual calling even, as Socrates described it: "The unobserved life is not worth living."
