Is New Philosophy Necessary?

I would like to take an informal substantive poll of areas of philosophy and philosophical treatments with which members are not satisfied. This is an important subject because discontent would point to subjects that philosophy may need to address or readdress, thus providing an impetus for the development of philosophy. If, on the other hand, you are satisfied with the state of philosophy, I would like to hear from you as well. Please give as much detail as you can so other members can retrace your thoughts and provide applicable comments.

I have my own thoughts regarding this subject that are expressed in my book Philosophy of Happiness, but I do not want to run the discussion according to what I think.

I think that some of the topical subfields leverage contemporary concerns into important rethinking of core areas. For instance, environmental ethics calls on us to think of what has value and ethical concern beyond the human. This strikes at the core of ethics. Or, genetic modification may allow people to become something different from human, affecting the metaphysics of identity. (Throw in cloning!) Given that I believe that the world is in process, that genuinely novel things occur over the course of time, there will always be new concerns that philosophy can and must address.

Then again A.N. Whitehead noted something along the line that all western philosophy is a footnote to Plato.

In an East-West Philosophy Conference at the University of Hawaiʻi-East West Centre under Charles Moore, decades ago, there was a complaint that the Asian philosophers werenʻt talking about philosophy but about religion. To which an Asian philosopher replied "Our religion is our philosophy." Are there things Plato did not know (in his time) like there are Asians and they too ponder over the same issues called (using western terms) ontology, epistemology, etc.? I donʻt know Wittgenstein but Bertrand Russell did and he and George Moore (was it?) shepherded Wittgenstein so is it possible Whitehead didnʻt know Wittgensteinʻs position?Were the Asian (philosophers --mainly Indian, I might add, who were being spoken of) not also saying theyʻre living their philosophy? Or it doesnʻt matter unless you are? (I word it poorly.) Or the way you live is your philosophy (practically, in practice) which is much as I think Socrates saw "knowledge." Knowledge is thinking feeling and feeling thought (integrally)? Iʻm not a philosopher. Just interested.

>4 leialoha:

The word PHILOSOPHY carries a far different meaning today than it did in Plato's time and before, Today the word more or less refers to a "head" knowledge and a knowledge "about" life, not a knowledge OF life: it is more descriptive than experiential. One cannot help but to live one's philosophy, regardless of what one purports. To employ an old aphorism: The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

One thing that no longer seems to be done is philosophy of history.

May it be because historians seek to confirm history is a science? Scientists are not happy for the intrusion -- when E.O. Wilson founded "socio-biology," the furor was loud and clear. But Wilson won the day.

Historians must fight. After the linguists coined perspectives like "diachronic" and "synchronic" and environmentalists insisted that all people/events/things/ideas and their pasts and presents have contexts, linear and nonlinear, and many takes on whose, when, where, how, why -- philosophy and historians, concerned as they are with Space-Time in unique ways will have the last words, like poets and musicians who organize phenomena in astoundingly creative ways, often revolving into if also from love.

But not to worry. We are still reeling from Fanon, Foucault . . . .Philosophy is not self-contained, as it was once taken to be. Do philosophers deal with Quantum Theory, Wormholes . . .and matters that men know scientifically (like the Higgsʻ Boson) but do not yet understand, itʻs said, many things about it, leave alone never having seen the oldie, an electron. It is easy to see Comedy in Phantasy and believe thatʻs what weʻre now coming to acknowledge.
Ontology, epistemology, phenomenology . . .where art thou?

>6 petie1974: and >7 leialoha:
Given the way the word 'science' is currently used in English, it is taken to mean the natural sciences in general, and thereby automatically to exclude historical sciences (if I may be allowed to use 'science' in the medieval sense). Indeed, in the popular imagination 'science' is taken even more narrowly to mean 'something like Newtonian mechanics' even though it is more than a hundred years since Physics stopped subscribing to that. Wilson may have won some sort of battle but, as a natural science, socio-biology has in no way replaced any historical researches. Note also that, for instance, Astronomy is still generally regarded as a science, yet clearly it is a historical science rather than a natural science, that is, concerning with establishing objectively knowledge of the particular history of things rather than the universal nature of things. Interestingly, the Big Bang Theory, while it started as an astronomical theory, and continued so when it was recognised as a possible solution to Einstein's gravitation equation, but it is possible that theories in Physics may take the fact of the Big Bang a finite time in the past is part of the universal nature of things.

But the above is a digression, and a big topic which deserves its own thread. The main point I want to make here is that Philosophy can be neither a natural science or a historical science. There can be no "subjects" or "areas of interest" in Philosophy which can be taken as given, as waiting to receive a "philosophical treatment". When, for instance, Heidegger claims that Philosophy is the investigation of the meaning of Being, we cannot take this as any definition of Philosophy, otherwise anyone sceptical about whether Heidegger's concept of Being ('das Sein') has any meaning would be automatically barred from doing Philosophy.

Clearly my remarks are criticising the original post, but only to find fault with the particular way it is expressed. I am responding to it because I think it is worth responding to the question it asks. We can still ask, 'How is Philosophy discontent with itself?' and 'How is this discontent to be addressed, thus providing an impetus for the development of Philosophy?' Note that I have modified original poster's question to be, not about any particular person's feelings of satisfaction or discontent with regard to Philosophy, but the feelings of the collective "we" of Philosophy (as an enquiry) with regard to itself. I think that the original poster intended the question as modified, as is made clear by the statement of the purpose of the question. (Of course it is possible that the original poster will respond to this post with a rejection of my interpretation.)

But I find myself asking another question: Given that Philosophy is discontent with itself, how is it possible? How can it come about that Philosophy fails to be satisfied with itself?