What Is Philosophy – Part 1

Many of us think we know what philosophy or art is. At least until we are asked to explain them. A universal, clear definition eludes us. That does not mean we should stop reflecting on it. On the contrary, it makes things more interesting! Earlier this year, one more contribution to the debate arrived in the form of an academic paper. The journal “Ideas and Ideals” published an article by philosopher Kuzin Vasily ambitiously titled ‘What Is Philosophy?’^* In it, the author proposes his answer and, what makes it even more exciting, he does so by comparing philosophy with religion, art, and science. It is his art-philosophy comparison that intrigued me most and that I want to discuss in the series of posts over the coming weeks. In today’s first part, I introduce the context of the ‘four ways’ examined in Kuzin’s article.

Four Ways

In the beginning, Kuzin sets the stage for his explorations. While his primary focus is suggesting an answer to the question ‘what is philosophy’, he starts from a broader context of human culture. In his view, throughout our history, humanity has developed several ways of dealing with difficulties and problems in life. 

According to Kuzin, there are four ways human culture has come up with to alleviate suffering: art, philosophy, religion, and science. 

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Suffering here has a broad meaning, encompassing anything from physical pain to subtle and nuanced feelings of shame, grief, anxiety, etc. He describes the condition of suffering as “the disharmony between the world and the individual, the mismatch between our desires and the state of affairs in the world” (2023, p. 15, my translation). Overcoming suffering is the common ground linking all four cultural expressions of striving for it – the four ways Kuzin identifies. Each way differs in its approach, its means of achieving this underlying goal. 

If this sounds a little too bleak – isn’t there more to life than just overcoming suffering?! – not to worry, we can understand the same idea in more optimistic terms: art, philosophy, religion, and science are four ways humanity has created to improve our lives, to make things better. Moreover, in addition to alleviating suffering, Kuzin recognises another common task connecting these four cultural expressions: 

“They are sources of delight, joy, pleasure. These two tasks are designed to make human life easier, more attractive and even happier.”

_{Kuzin (2023, p. 14, my translation)}

Understanding by Comparison

I want to draw your attention to the author’s method because we can learn something valuable beyond this article’s scope. His goal is to distinguish philosophy, science, religion, and art, to show how they differ and, therefore, what makes each unique. The ultimate task Kuzin sets himself in this paper is, after all, to offer an answer to the question ‘what is philosophy’. How does he go about doing it? He begins by analysing what these four ways have in common. 

Therefore, to define what philosophy is, it is crucial to put it in a broader context of culture and determine how philosophy differs from religion, science, and art as other cultural manifestations, which first requires a recognition of their similarities, their shared ground that permits the comparison. 

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There are valuable insights here. First, it is difficult, if not impossible, to define and understand what something is in isolation, out of context of its relations to other things, as if ‘in itself’ (for more on this idea, see my post on two ways of thinking about identity). Second, whenever we compare ‘things’ (including living beings, such as people) intending to discern their differences, their unique features, it is worthwhile to remember that the comparison is possible because there are enough similarities and common ground to make the whole exercise comprehensible. 

If there aren’t enough similarities, if what we are trying to understand by comparing it to something familiar is, in fact, very far removed from anything known to us, we can either recognise it as the current limit of our capacity to comprehend and see what we can do about it (for example, non-human animal dream-states), or we can fail to acknowledge this and base our further reflections on faulty self- or anthropo-centric implicit assumptions (for instance, thinking of disembodied AI as human-like intelligence). 

On the other end of the understanding-by-comparison spectrum is the risk of being (sometimes wilfully) blind to the many shared factors. Here we have cases when we want to emphasise the differences so desperately we forget that what makes it possible for us to understand the comparison is that there is sufficiently in common to bring the compared ‘things’ into a close-enough connection. Many different varieties of social prejudice come to mind as examples of this (for instance, flawed identity narratives).

Overcoming Suffering a Common Theme

Although Kuzin describes only four ways of cultural expression that aim to overcome human suffering, we do not have to see it as an exhaustive list. Surely he would agree that people have a bigger selection of activities to improve their lives. Here are just some examples: sports, industry, business, politics. My former employer, one of the world’s largest re/insurance corporations (Swiss Re), states its vision boldly and publicly on their website: “We make the world more resilient”. 

While we can debate to what extent global companies and various politicians are indeed devoting themselves to improving the world or whether these are slogans society (shareholders and voters included) expects of them, the fact remains that there are plenty of human activities that, at least in theory or declared intention, aim at overcoming suffering in some form. If it were irrelevant, why display it on your website – your online ‘face’? 

Therefore, we can see the alleviation of suffering and bettering our lives as the common underlying theme of most (perhaps all!) human endeavours, but listing all of them is not the point of Kuzin’s paper. He specifies four ways that serve as the cultural context within which he offers his answer to the question ‘what is philosophy’. Before I proceed to more closely explore the way of philosophy, the way of art, and their comparison, here is a summary of all four ‘ways’, according to Kuzin’s interpretation:

• science solves life’s problems by means of knowledge;
• religion solves life’s problems by means of faith;
• art solves life’s problems by means of imagination;
• philosophy solves life’s problems by means of understanding.

Interestingly, Kuzin groups his proposed four ways of dealing with suffering into formal pairs based on the direction of their effected change. To deal with life’s difficulties, he suggests, we either focus on changing the problematic situation or our awareness of suffering. 

The first group directs its efforts into the world, attempting to influence it in practical ways. Here, Kuzin places science and religion: in science, we try to change the situation by relying on our own powers, and in religion, we call upon supernatural, divine powers.   

The second group directs its efforts upon the person, attempting to influence their experience of hardships. Here, Kuzin positions art and philosophy: through art, we lessen our suffering by shifting attention from the problematic situation to something imaginatively created, and through philosophy, we deal with suffering by interpreting and understanding it, giving it meaning.  

Stay tuned for next week’s post – part two, where I talk about the ‘way of art’.

keep exploring!

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P.S. Thank you for visiting me here on the humanfactor.blog! If you enjoyed this post and are interested in more philosophical content, I invite you to explore the blog, leave a comment, like, and subscribe to get notified of new posts.

^*Reference and link to the article (original in Russian; abstract translated to English at the end of the paper): Kuzin V. What Is Philosophy?. Idei i idealy = Ideas and Ideals, 2023, vol. 15, iss. 1, pt 1, pp. 11‐34.  

_{Featured image credit: my photo, taken inside the McEwan Hall, the University of Edinburgh, in Edinburgh, Scotland.}