The word philosophy which is derived from two Greek words- philos, meaning “loving” and Sophia, meaning “wisdom” means the love of wisdom. So, whenever a person desires for wisdom; and think, act accordingly to get that wisdom, the person is said to be doing philosophy. It is a way of living in which one constantly studies and better understands the world around him/her. Philosophy, which closely relates as well as differs from other branches of sciences has nature of viewing world in systematic and critical way; meet certain criteria to be good; and often is considered the mother of the sciences.
The nature of philosophy is that it tries to study most general problems existed in this universe. It tries to answer the questions related to existence, reason, mind, knowledge, values and language. It tries to solve the problem and answer these questions generally in systematic approach and is based solely on reasoned argument. Irrational and informal way of answering the fundamental questions of our existence, reason, mind and knowledge is out of scope of philosophy. Another nature of philosophy is that it is concerned with constructing the systematic and critical world view. The world view is the term used to describe the way people try to understand and figure out the world they experience. People interprets world differently depending upon situation. For example, a sad and frustrated person might view the world as being full of suffering whereas happy and satisfied person might view the world as the place full of excitement and enjoyment. Another example can be that the world view a person has while working inside the office can be quite different than the world view he/she will have while having fun time with the family or friends. In the systematic world view, a person tries to develop a rational world view in which a person views the world in integrative, holistic and interrelated manner. They don’t look at different world views separately in the fragmented form but one tries to fit them together. The critical world view nature of the philosophy is that it tries to investigate and analyze the presuppositions and consequences of the ideas and beliefs that a person possess. As an instance, we can take an example of the Hindu god ‘Mahadev’. People have the belief that Mahadev is god having three eyes. Besides regular eyes, he has a third eye on his forehead. In believing that Mahadev has third eyes, Hindu people have the presupposition that he has third eyes in order to see the wrong doing of the people which the other two regular eyes can’t see. People presuppose that since the god has third eye which can easily see any kind of wrong doing, he has the ability to punish the people who does wrong and sinful thing in life. The consequence of this world view of existence of the god ‘Mahadev’ upon hindu people is that they realize and believe that they should not commit sin as the third eye of the god can easily see the sin and consequently punish them. Thus the presupposition of having third eye in god has some positive and virtuous effect in the people.
The rules and criteria of good philosophy are that the philosophy should be coherent, consistent, adequate, applicable and communicable. The rule of coherency of good philosophy states that the various parts of a theory should “hang together” or work in fusion. They should not be fragmented making no relation with each other. For example, if a handicapped person who is blind at the time of birth believes one day that the suffering that he/ she is facing in present life is due to the wrong doing and sin committed in the past life and on the other day he beliefs that the suffering is just due to some genetic problem of his father’s sperm, then that belief is very incoherent. They didn’t match with each other. The first theory consists the concept of god and religion whereas the second one consists the concept of biological disorder, thus violating the criterion of coherency of good philosophy.
The rule of consistency of good philosophy states that the various parts of a theory should not be logically contradictory. For example, if a person believes that he is highly intelligent than any other person, and also at the same time if he believes that he is the dumbest person in the world there is the problem in consistency of the belief. It is like saying x is greater than y; and y is greater than x at the same time. There’s the logical contradiction in the theory thus failing the criterion of consistency.
The rule of adequacy states that a theory or belief should be able to incorporate new data and experiences in order for it to be rational. If one hold the same belief sets for his whole life even though there are lots of changes going on around his environment that proves that his belief sets are wrong and doesn’t hold true in new environment , then that person is failing to fulfill the adequacy criteria of good theory or philosophy. Suppose a businessman holds the belief that profit making is the main motive of the business so he should do anything good or bad to gain the profit. He believes that his business should gain profit even by cheating customer. But recent development in strategic and marketing management research proves that a business can gain more profit by providing quality services and products to the customer rather than by cheating the customer, as eventually the customers will find out that they are being cheated and stop doing business with the cheater. If the businessman cheats the customer even after knowing about this new research result that it will hamper his business in long term; and don’t accept the new information and idea that providing the customer with quality service and product will increase his profit, then his belief is lacking the criteria of adequacy. He is not letting the new ideas and information to enter and change his old ideas and belief, thus failing the criterion of adequacy.
The criterion of applicability states that a theory or belief should refer to conscious human experience. For example, if someone develops a model to interpret the cosmos that contains elements that do not refer to any aspect of conscious experience of the cosmos then the applicability criterion of good philosophy is violated. The final criterion for the good philosophy is communicability. It states that the theory should be articulated in such a way that other can understand it and critique it. For example, if someone says that he knows the secret formula for living the happy life. But when asked to put that formula in words, he says that it can’t be put or expressed in words, his belief or philosophy is failing the criterion of communicability of good philosophy as it cannot be the part of everyday discourse.
Philosophy is very much related with other disciplines or sciences like psychology, physics, chemistry, anthropology etc though they completely differ from each other. The philosophical mode of inquiry is the source out of which all other sciences emerged so it became the mother for other sciences. It is the science which is above or beyond other sciences. Philosophy has the responsibility for the various sciences like theological, exact, psychological, and linguistic sciences. It forms the basis for determining the validity of beliefs developed from other sciences. Philosophy does the critical evaluation of the claims and beliefs of other sciences to find out whether they make any sense. It asks questions that if the claims of other sciences fit the criteria of consistency, coherency, applicability, adequacy, and communicability. For example, if a mathematician proves A is not equal to A giving direct challenge to law of identity, then there comes the role of philosophy. It asks that mathematician if the new proof is consistent, coherent, applicable, adequate, and communicable. If the proof doesn’t fulfill one or more of these criteria then it is just a hoax rather than the mathematical proof. Thus philosophy plays the role of guardian of other sciences.
In conclusion, philosophy is the love of wisdom which tries to study and answer most general questions existed in this universe like the question of existence, reason, mind, knowledge, values, and language. It is the nature of philosophy to have the systematic and critical world view. In order to be a good philosophy or theory, it should fulfill criteria of consistency, coherency, adequacy, applicability, and communicability. As philosophy is the basis for other sciences and does the critical evaluation of the claims of other sciences, it is also called the mother of sciences.