The Purpose of Philosophy

In this article I reveal, for the very first time, the objective purpose of philosophy.

1. An Academic Mistery

It’s a notorious fact that philosophers can’t even agree on what philosophy is supposed to do. Is it about truth? Knowledge? Something-something love of wisdom? Opinions vary wildly, which feels cosmically appropriate for a field where a total consensus is never agreed upon, ever. Here is the result of a 2020 PhilPapers survey on the matter:

The philosopher hurt itself in its confusion

Is the purpose of philosophy to pursue truth or knowledge? That seems… odd. Was Sherlock Holmes doing philosophy when he unraveled the mystery of The Hound of the Baskervilles? He was definitely pursuing truth—figuring out whether a spectral hound was terrorizing the moors (spoiler: it wasn’t)—but most people would say he was doing detective work, not philosophy. Unless we’re prepared to start handing out philosophy degrees to every private investigator in a trench coat, this definition feels like it might need a little fine-tuning.

Is the purpose of philosophy understanding? That also feels a bit off. Was Newton doing philosophy when he was studying the law of gravity? He was definitely trying to understand how it worked—formulating equations, testing ideas, figuring out why apples insist on falling down instead of up—but most people would call that physics, not philosophy. Again, a bit too broad.

And speaking of broad definitions, saying that philosophy is “the pursuit of wisdom” sounds less like a meaningful explanation and more like something you’d find on a motivational reel. It doesn’t clarify much—it just punts the question down the road to whatever definition you slap on “wisdom,” which, let’s be honest, runs the risk of being even fuzzier than philosophy itself.

While defining philosophy as the pursuit of happiness or justice seems to have the opposite problem—being so narrow and specific that it leaves out most of what people actually mean when they talk about philosophy.

So allow me (an annoying STEM outsider) to tell you what the goal of philosophy is. Ok, ok, not tell you what the goal of philosophy is—that’s way too ambitious—but just… let me float a proposal.

2. A Proposal

The goal of philosophy is to produce or refine useful memetic structures that do not explain or predict natural phenomena

Some explanations are in order. With a memetic structure I mean a cohesive system of interrelated memes—ideas, beliefs, or cultural units—that work together to form a conceptual framework that can be transmitted to other humans. By “useful,” I mean that these structures should contribute to significantly improve human well-being—not be merely entertaining or pleasurable. While the last part of the definition: “that do not explain or predict natural phenomena” serves to exclude physical models from consideration.

Some examples will help clarify further:

a. The Principles of Logic

Philosophers like Aristotle and later formal logicians developed the foundations of logical reasoning, including laws such as the law of non-contradiction (something cannot both be and not be in the same respect), the law of identity (a thing is identical to itself), and the law of excluded middle (something either is or is not). This is a memetic structure that proved to be extremely useful to humanity.

b. Normative Theories of Morality

Unlike descriptive ethics, which studies how people behave, normative ethics focuses on how people ought to act. Normative theories of morality are frameworks that provide principles or guidelines for determining what actions, intentions, or character traits are morally right or wrong, good or bad. Some of these normative theories can be very helpful in guiding people’s decisions towards better choices.

c. Davidson’s Principle of Charity

Derived from the work of Donald Davidson, the principle of charity suggests interpreting others’ arguments in the strongest, most rational way possible before critiquing them. It helps in being less biased and providing better criticism.

d. Wittgenstein’s Concept of Language Games

Ludwig Wittgenstein, through examples and thought experiments, introduced the concept of a language game, which is used to understand how words derive their meaning from their use within specific forms of life or social contexts. A valuable concept for understanding how memes function.

A meme that doesn’t make the cut as philosophy (it causes suffering)

e. Bacon’s Scientific Method

The scientific method is a systematic approach to understanding the natural world through observation, hypothesis formation, experimentation, and testing, leading to replicable and predictive knowledge in the physical domain. This memetic structure does not itself predict or explain natural phenomena; rather, it provides the framework or means to do so. Moreover, it is highly useful.

f. Ryle’s Category Error

A category error occurs when someone mistakenly assigns a property or characteristic to something that does not belong to its logical category. Category errors are significant in philosophy and logic because they highlight misunderstandings about the nature of concepts or entities, often revealing deeper problems in reasoning.

g. Kant’s Distinction of a Priori and a Posteriori

Immanuel Kant distinguished between a priori knowledge, which is independent of experience (e.g., '7 + 5 = 12'), and a posteriori knowledge, which is derived from experience (e.g., 'the sky is blue'). This distinction provided an inspiring framework for understanding epistemology. Furthermore, this memetic structure may have served as a precursor to modern understandings of the interplay between nature (biology) and nurture (social constructs) in shaping human knowledge.

h. Frege’s Analysis of Meaning

Gottlob Frege’s distinction between sense and reference clarified the meaning of terms in language. Frege thought that words have both a sense (the way in which they present an object) and a reference (the object itself). For example, "the morning star" and "the evening star" refer to the same celestial object (Venus), but the sense differs. This conceptual framework enables a clearer understanding of meaning and the use of language in conveying thought.

Of course, this list is by no means exhaustive, and I may have categorized some of these memetic structures under the rubric of philosophy mistakenly. This could be because some might not be useful (a claim that, in principle, is empirically verifiable) or because they pertain to the explanation of natural phenomena. For instance, if one is inclined to view how humans use language as a natural phenomenon, it could perhaps be argued that the concept of a language game—or others— belongs to physics. But we will not concern ourselves with these squabbles.

According to our new proposed aim, philosophy should also seek to 'refine' our memetic structures. This refinement, I think, should include critiquing them—sometimes to the extent of completely and utterly demolishing them. By this standard, we can start counting works like Feuerbach’s critique of religion and Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God as philosophy, provided they actually critiqued a memetic structure that wasn’t (or had ceased) helping humanity.

And what about arguments? A big chunk of philosophy is just constructing arguments. Do they count as philosophy under this new proposed?

I think the answer is yes. Arguments are basically tools to figure out what our memetic structures imply when we piece them together. You take the syllogism memetic structure, using some well-defined terms, and see what conclusion follows. Sometimes this process reveals inconsistencies or gaps that nudge us to refine our memes. Other times, it uncovers interesting new insights we hadn’t noticed before. Either way, arguments help us improve and explore our memetic frameworks. So yeah, they count.

3. Implications

For a memetic structure to be useful, it is generally advantageous for it to cohere with preexisting memetic structures that have proven useful. While this is not an absolute requirement, if a new memetic structure—for example—leads to a logical contradictions or is unintelligible, it risks being useless or counterproductive.

Similarly, if a proposed memetic structure conflicts with fundamental aspects of human nature—or with other memetic structures shaped by processes such as the Baldwin Effect—it faces a similar risk of failure. For instance, attempting to construct an ideology advocating for humans to work 20 hours a day neglects the basic biological necessity of sleep, which is essential for well-being.

While it is true that social influence and learned memes can modify certain aspects of our nature and lead to positive outcomes, attempting to forcefully override deeply rooted traits may result in unintended negative consequences. Balancing innovation with an understanding of these constraints is key to creating sustainable and beneficial memetic structures that may achieve the philosophy status.

This naturally leads one to consider which configurations of memes will function effectively given our nature. For instance, principles such as the law of non-contradiction or the law of the excluded middle might reflect epistemic norms that are either innate to humans or which humans are inclined to grasp.

In view of these considerations, intuitions assume a certain importance. If many people strongly share an intuition—such as the belief that innocents should not be made to suffer—it suggests we may be identifying something fundamental to human cognition. It’s no guarantee, but a necessary condition.

In this context, all the talk about intuitions that philosophers partake in—that initially may appear enigmatic or ungrounded—starts to make sense. If humans have innate normative intuitions, as I suspect they do, philosophers might look to identify these among their own intuitions as a way to guide the creation of useful memetic structures. Indeed, I believe this is precisely what philosophers are doing, even if they would not describe it this way.

Incidentally, there are two ways to figure out innate psychological predispositions: the armchair method and the scientific method.

Philosophers, unsurprisingly, are fond of the armchair approach. This involves sitting back, pondering all possible intuitions on a subject, and then playing referee—deciding which intuition feels most fundamental by weighing them against one another according to some criterion— like a metaphysical balance scale.

The scientific method, on the other hand, rolls up its sleeves and runs studies on actual humans to figure out what’s really going on upstairs.

I could dive into a long-winded argument about which method seems better to me but this is not the time or the place.

4. Upsides

Our new definition of philosophy has the benefit of separating what qualifies as philosophy from what does not.

Run a wildly successful cult built on some entertaining myths (cough cough Scientology)? Sorry, not philosophy—you're not improving collective well-being, so you're out.

Write something so convoluted that no one can understand it and people spend centuries coming up with wildly different (and possibly contradictory) interpretations? Your odds of making it into the philosophy club start looking pretty slim.

Invent a memetic mind virus that convinces millions of people of the existence of 'race-souls' and mystical 'Nordic-Aryan' spiritual essences transcending physical traits. Influential? Absolutely. Philosophy? Not a chance.

Not philosophy

Historically, plenty of things have been called philosophy simply because they were influential. But influence, on its own, is a terrible goal—shaking the world to its core for the sake of it isn’t exactly a noble pursuit. Our new definition of philosophy takes this into account.

Another upshot is that many people today consider conceptual analysis one of philosophy's primary goals. This method involves breaking concepts down into their fundamental components to clarify their meanings, resolve ambiguities, and refine definitions. Under our new definition of philosophy, conceptual analysis fits neatly as a subset. This seems quite reasonable and mildly pleasing.

5. Drawbacks

Here’s where my bias starts sneaking in: I can only think of one drawback right now, and it’s not even much of a drawback. Under this new definition of philosophy, mathematics would probably count as philosophy. But, honestly, the ancient Greeks thought of mathematics as part of philosophy, so maybe this isn’t such a big deal. Plus, when you start thinking about where to draw the line between logic and philosophy, it gets tricky fast—so maybe it’s fine to just let math have a seat at the philosophy table.

I’m sure there’s some other glaring flaw I’m overlooking, but at this point, I’m probably too invested to spot it. I’ll leave it to sharper minds than mine to refine my newly proposed memetic structure that does not explain or predict natural phenomena.