UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

What Philosophy Ought to Do

Maxwell, N; (2015) What Philosophy Ought to Do. Institute of Art and Ideas Gold open access

[thumbnail of Maxwell_128 What Philosophy Ought to Do.pdf] Text
Maxwell_128 What Philosophy Ought to Do.pdf
Access restricted to UCL open access staff

Download (85kB)

Abstract

Philosophy is unique. There is no other academic discipline that has laboured for so long under such a massive misconception as to what its task ought to be. The proper basic task of philosophy is to keep alive awareness of what our most fundamental, important, urgent problems are, what our best attempts are at solving them, and what the relative merits and demerits of these attempts are. Philosophy should also try to help improve our attempted solutions to our fundamental problems, by imaginatively proposing and critically assessing possible solutions, all the time making clear, where relevant, that different possible solutions have different implications for diverse aspects of life. As a result of improving our attempted solutions to our fundamental problems we may thereby contribute to the improvement of our lives, and help us make progress towards a good world. Unfortunately, academic philosophy of almost all traditions has failed to take on these important, basic tasks.

Type: Article
Title: What Philosophy Ought to Do
Location: UK
Open access status: An open access publication
Publisher version: http://iainews.iai.tv/articles/what-philosophy-oug...
Language: English
Keywords: Philosophy, Fundamental problems, Rationality, Academic inquiry
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Science and Technology Studies
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1482208
Downloads since deposit
1Download
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item