Maxwell, N; (2015) What Philosophy Ought to Do. Institute of Art and Ideas

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Abstract

Philosophy is unique. There is no other academic discipline that has laboured for so long under such a massive misconception as to what its task ought to be. The proper basic task of philosophy is to keep alive awareness of what our most fundamental, important, urgent problems are, what our best attempts are at solving them, and what the relative merits and demerits of these attempts are. Philosophy should also try to help improve our attempted solutions to our fundamental problems, by imaginatively proposing and critically assessing possible solutions, all the time making clear, where relevant, that different possible solutions have different implications for diverse aspects of life. As a result of improving our attempted solutions to our fundamental problems we may thereby contribute to the improvement of our lives, and help us make progress towards a good world. Unfortunately, academic philosophy of almost all traditions has failed to take on these important, basic tasks.

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