Erin asked:

What is philosophy all about, I mean what is it, what do philosophers do exactly?

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My first reaction to your question was to say, "How can you possibly be asking that, when there are
all these examples of philosophy to go by? Have a look at the questions and answers, have a look at
the other pages on the Pathways site. This— for example, what I am doing now — is the kind of
thing that philosophers do!"

Then I began to wonder whether that answer is adequate. Am I a philosopher? Is what I am doing
now philosophy? Is what my colleagues are doing philosophy? All of it? All of the time? Or do we only
succeed some of the time, and fail at other times? In that case, how do you tell when an attempt at
doing philosophy succeeds, and when it fails? Or is that wrong? What I mean is, can't there be such a
thing as badphilosophy, or being a bad philosopher? Yes, but there must be some limits to how bad
a philosopher you can be, and still be a "philosopher", aren't there?

On reflection, I think it would be a complete mistake to define philosophy in a way that by definition
there couldn't be such a thing as bad philosophy. I would rather say that there is something that
motivatesus to do this — whatever this is — and it is that 'something', the source of philosophical
wonder, that serves as the fulcrum around which any acceptable definition of philosophy must turn.
Bad philosophy responds to that 'something' in an incompetent way, good philosophy responds in a
competent way.

Let's cut the rhetoric and get to the point. You can never know what philosophy is, no matter how
clever and elaborate the explanations and definitions, if you have never been motivated to
philosophize. You may not have realized what it is you were doing, the call you were responding to. In
that case, reading these pages may help after all. "So that's philosophy!" That won't be the answer
you are looking for, but it will be a start.

If you want my best attempt at defining philosophy, have a look at my talk, Can Philosophy be
Taught?.

Geoffrey Klempner