Let’s Stop Philosophizing and Start Working!

A title that would be more misguided is hard to imagine. Nevertheless, it emphasizes the elusive definition of philosophy. Probably, there is no science that would consider researching itself: of what it is and what it deals with. As with any other science, but especially with philosophy, as teachers of philosophy, we can ask ourselves whether to teach about that particular science or just do it: experiment, try, browse the archives, observe, etc. And the same goes for the question of learning it: which ways or approaches do we choose to learn the science by ourselves? In philosophy, this dilemma is even more pronounced because philosophical positions are all but final: they always leave room to be nothing more than mere possible hypotheses or ideas. In this sense, philosophical positions merely encourage further reflection, but do not provide a definitive answer to the initial question. Does it make sense to learn these experiments, or to teach them? Is everything that is certain in philosophy just that initial question? In this essay, I attempt to address these questions and dilemmas through an honest self-reflection on my teaching career.