In the last post I said that I understood life and the world pretty well. That is a grand claim. Based on what I’ve seen, most academic philosophers try to avoid such claims. I once heard a professional philosopher on a podcast say, “I don’t know what philosophy is.”

“So you’re charging students to teach them something you don’t even know the definition of?” I said to my laptop screen.

The problem is with the definition of ‘understanding’ and in fact the definition of ‘definition’.

When scientists say the word ‘definition’ they mean a conceptual box that holds all instances of the thing being defined and nothing else and there are no instances of that thing that lie outside the box. It’s supposed to be a perfect box without any holes. No exceptions. Nothing leaking out. Nothing sticking half in and half out.

When philosophers say, “We don’t know the definition of knowledge,” what they mean is that we don’t have that perfect box for the concept of knowledge. They don’t mean that we don’t know what knowledge is. In fact, the famous Gettier cases that showed that the definition “true justified belief” was not as perfect as assumed, rely on the common sense understanding of what knowledge is. The examples show that someone can hold beliefs that are both true and justified, but instinctively we know that it can’t or shouldn’t be called knowledge.

So the philosopher on that podcast was saying, “I don’t have a perfect box for the concept of ‘philosophy’.” And that is a very different claim than saying, “I don’t know the subject I have a PhD in and teach to kids in exchange of money.“

These strict and perfect definitions work great for science, but cause paralysis in philosophy. Philosophy should not be done like science. Everything within philosophy that can be done like science, eventually ends up becoming a branch of science. We should not be trying to end philosophy and replace all of it with science. I don’t think that’s ever going to be possible.

There will always be domains that have too many variables and concepts that don’t fit into neat little boxes. Philosophy is better suited to dealing with such concepts. This does not mean that anything goes in philosophy. We don’t have to completely eliminate rationality and logic from philosophy. We just have to learn to be okay with a certain degree of looseness that science can’t tolerate.

So when I say I understand life or the world, I don’t mean it like a scientist. When a scientist says, “I understand how gases behave,” they mean that they understand everything about it. To the point that they can predict the future in regards to how that gas is going to behave under given circumstances. And their predictions turn out to be true for things they understand. Where they can’t predict accurately, they don’t claim to have a complete understanding.

I instead mean it in a philosophical sense. I mean that I no longer feel the anxiety that’s caused by a lack of understanding, when thinking about the world or about life. All of us do this at one level or another. I call it sensemaking.

Some people buy into a readymade worldview and life philosophy. That’s the easiest way of sensemaking. Others piece together their own worldview and life philosophy from various places. Philosophy is just one of many ways of sensemaking. It’s where you use your own head to figure out what to keep and what to discard; as opposed to relying on others (gurus, experts, scripture etc.). That’s what I’m trying to do.

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