What is Philosophy to Me? (V.1)

Not everyone can be philosophical – one requires a specific mindset of rationality and reasoning, but more specifically one needs the capacity to be reflective, critical and open-minded as philosophy, at nature, is a reflective activity requiring an attitude of critical thinking and systematic thoughtfulness. To be philosophical is to be critically reflective about what we know – we should question the assumptions behind the claims that we hold in order to come to our most basic beliefs about ourselves and about the world in which we live. Doing philosophy is about exploring these sets of beliefs and critically examining them – this enables us to delve into the ideas and words which we profess to accept and believe so that we can come to understand the basic fundamental workings of the universe and our lives. But, questioning our assumptions is not an activity which we do on our own – philosophical thinking requires collaboration; we need to coherently articulate our ideas in a clear and convincing manner by providing explanations and justifications for our views and basic beliefs about society (the beliefs which we derive from our critical reflection). Furthermore, the articulation of our ideas – along with open-mindedness – allows us to further develop our thinking by building upon the critical criticism and thinking of philosophers in the past and friends in the current; this necessitates us to partake in discussion and argumentation: the virtue of humanity is to think reflectively, explore our human experience and converse with one another in order to further understand the meaning of our life. Essentially, the philosophy which we develop explores in a concise and convincing manner the beliefs we hold about ourselves after much critical deliberation, contemplation and collaboration.