What Is Philosophy?

Philosophy is very likely the oldest form of human inquiry. In the East, it is commonly accepted that philosophy began with the Vedas sometime between 500 and 1000 BCE. In the West, it is commonly accepted that philosophy began in the 6th century BCE in the Ancient Greek city of Miletus, which is on the coast of modern day Turkey.

Philosophy is old. Very old.

In fact, according to some definitions of philosophy, it is very likely that it began much earlier than our written records indicate. For example, philosophy is often thought of as a special kind of thinking — something we do, an activity. It is a kind of thinking in which we rationally reflect on life’s ultimate questions, and try to develop answers. That is, we use our ability to reason. Reason is what allows us to think, analyze, synthesize, question, form judgments, and justify our answers to philosophical questions. 

Understood in this way, philosophy very likely began when homo sapiens first evolved from their early ancestors (homo sapiens literally means “thinking human”). Although we will never know the exact details, philosophy began when one of the first homo sapiens asked the first philosophical question. Well, human philosophy at least.

It is entirely possible that, in the entire 13.7 billion years that the universe has existed, the first philosophical question was asked by a human being. Personally, I don’t think that this is likely. Even if we assume that our universe is the only universe that ever was, it seems unlikely that reason made its first appearance with homo sapiens roughly 300,000 years ago. If there are, or were, any rational beings other than us, then philosophy did not begin with us (this assumes, of course, that if a being has the faculty of reason, then it can or will use this faculty to ask philosophical questions).

If you read any history of philosophy, you will likely find the same story (especially if it’s a history of Western philosophy). The standard story is that philosophy began with Thales of Miletus, who is the earliest philosopher that we know of. What we know of Thales comes to us from Aristotle, who wrote about Thales between 200 and 300 years after his death. Aristotle, in writing his account of the history of philosophy, made Thales famous by stating that he was the first physiologoi (“natural philosopher”), and the founder of this kind of philosophical thinking. The term “physiologoi” is an Ancient Greek term which derives from the words “physis”, meaning “nature”, and “logos” meaning “speech”, “reason”, or “account”. In short, Aristotle declared that Thales was the first thinker to speak about natural phenomena in a reasoned manner. Thales was famous for not only developing the idea that nature was composed of a single material substance, but that this substance was water.

Thales’ answer was famous not because of its content, which many laugh at today, but because of its form. In hypothesizing that everything is reducible to a single natural substance, Thales was the first reported thinker in the West to offer an ultimate explanation of reality that did not originate in religious or mythological thought. Thales’ great contribution to the history of ideas was that he attempted to explain natural phenomena in a new way — by offering a rational explanation with which it is possible to disagree.

As a result of Aristotle’s history, Thales is often referred to as the “first philosopher”. But, this is inaccurate. As I mentioned above, Aristotle thought that Thales was the first natural philosopher. That is to say, Thales was the first philosopher to attempt to answer fundamental questions about nature and reality by providing a logos (an account or defense). There is more to Philosophy, however, than the attempt to answer fundamental questions about nature and reality. 

Aristotle himself was famous for dividing philosophy into three main branches: theoretical, practical, and productive. The kind of philosophy that Thales practiced was theoretical philosophy. Theoretical philosophy concerns the study and contemplation of mathematics, nature, reality, and being itself. Practical philosophy, meanwhile, concerns the study of good action and how to live a good human life. The main question of practical philosophy is Socrates’ question, which is “how should one live?”.

Understood practically, Thales was certainly not the first philosopher. Although there is evidence that Thales founded a new style of philosophy, the earliest humans certainly engaged in practical philosophy from the very dawn of human reason. Even Aristotle’s own history supports this claim. Aristotle argues that theoretical philosophy did not begin until “almost all the necessities of life and the things that make for comfort and recreation had been secured” (Metaphysics, Book One, Part Two). What this implies is that practical philosophy came first. In order to make theoretical philosophy possible by securing the conditions of comfort, human beings first had to answer the most pressing practical question —  “what should I do?”. This unavoidable question is one that confronts all parents preparing to navigate pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing, from the beginning of human history to the present day.

The standard story of Western philosophy holds that prior to Socrates, philosophy was almost exclusively theoretical rather than practical. It was Socrates who, in 5th century Athens, not only raised the question “how should one live?”, but also argued that it was the most important question of all. Socrates was certainly not the first human being to ask such questions, although the style in which he did would go on to change philosophy forever. Prior to the recorded history of philosophy, human beings have been thinking philosophical thoughts as long as they have been around. We do not need historical evidence to support this claim. We know this to be true because thinking philosophically is part of what it means to be a human being. It is something that we all do in one form or another. Philosophy is a fundamental part of the human condition, the human form of life. It always has been, and it always will be.