p There are some questions that cannot be answered by the people who ask them but can be answered by others. There are some questions that have many answers. If one of these answers is correct, the solution to the problem is to choose the correct answer. This choice cannot be made blindfold. How then is one to know whether one has chosen correctly?

p In philosophy there are hosts of different answers to the question "What is philosophy?”. These answers cannot be described either as correct or as incorrect. The point is that every answer to a given question is above all an answer to another, more particular question. Thus, Aristotle’s definition of philosophy is essentially a definition of Aristotle’s own philosophy. But to what extent does Aristotle’s philosophy, or that of any other philosopher, represent an authentic expression of the essence of philosophy which, as we know, is subject to historical change? A rose is a plant, but not all plants are roses. As the history of philosophy shows, nearly all 66 philosophers have been convinced that their teaching is a genuine expression of the unchanging essence of philosophy.

p So, if there are many answers to the question "What is philosophy?”, its solution cannot be reduced to choosing the most correct of the available answers. What we must do is investigate this great variety of answers and, in so doing, we shall probably find that both the questions and its numerous answers compel us to take a look at the multiform reality which philosophy seeks to understand. Then, in order to find the answer to a question which overfrequent repetition has made distasteful to philosophers it will be necessary not so much to compare the available answers as to investigate the relation of philosophical awareness to man’s everyday and historical experience, to the so-called specialised sciences, to social needs and interests, because only the investigation of this historically changing relationship can explain both the fundamental nature of the question itself and the incompatibility of the various answers to it.

p When the question "What is consistency?" is asked, we are obviously concerned with the meaning of a term. When people ask "What is it?”, they usually point to the object that evoked the question, in which case we have no difficulty in answering if, of course, we happen to know what the object in question is.

p Needless to say, the question "What is it?" may be purely rhetorical, but then it expresses rather the emotional state of the questioner and probably requires no answer at all. In some cases the question "What is it?" refers to a phenomenon that has been discovered but not yet studied. A description may then provide the answer to 67 the extent that the phenomenon is observable. If the phenomenon cannot be described or a description is of little use, the question remains open because we simply do not have the necessary empirical data for a satisfactory answer.

p Things are quite different in philosophy. The meaning of the question "What is philosophy?" is bound up with the meaning of all philosophical questions in general and with the position philosophy has held throughout the millennia, and with the situation it is in today.

p Of course, the question "What is philosophy?" may be an expression of the kind of casual interest that will always be satisfied by any definite answer. For instance, a tourist may ask about a building that happens to catch his eye. He receives an answer, makes a note of the name of the building and goes on to the next name. This is the kind of casual interest evinced by the educated person who asks about philosophy merely because it is something that is being talked about at the moment. Some educated people like to have concise answers to all questions that are likely to be raised in current conversation; they simply don’t want to find themselves at a loss. But when it is the philosophers who ask themselves the question "What is philosophy?”, we can have no doubt that they are asking about the meaning of their own intellectual life, and even whether it has any meaning at all. To a great extent the fact that philosophers are asking themselves this question means that they are aware of the need to justify the existence of philosophy, to prove its actual raison d’etre. This means that doubt is being cast on the validity, if not of philosophy in general, at least on most of its past or still existing species. Evidently, 68 then we must study the origin of the specific differences between philosophies. Their historical origin is proved by facts. But are not these differences immutable? Until we have succeeded in proving the opposite, the question "What is philosophy?" will continue to sound like Pontius Pilate’s famous question "What is truth?”.

p We experience no particular difficulty in answering such questions as "What is Schilling’s philosophy?”, "What is Nietzsche’s philosophy?" or "What is the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre?" Not because these are simple questions but because their content may be strictly defined. But to answer the question "What is philosophy?" we must break away from that which distinguishes Schelling, Nietzsche and Sartre and many other philosophers from one another. But what is left after such an abstraction which rules out the distinctions between one philosophy and another? Abstract identity? But this is only an instance of concrete identity, whose significance is directly related to the significance of the distinction it implies.

p The existence of a host of incompatible philosophies makes the solution of the problem "What is philosophy?" extremely difficult. But this very circumstance testifies to the fact that the difficulty of answering increases in proportion to the availability of the factual data for its solution. Unlike the non-specialists in philosophy, the philosophers have these data at their disposal. So to them the question "What is philosophy?" appears particularly difficult. Thus the question has a different ring for the student who is just embarking on a course of philosophy and for the philosophers themselves, who are not outside philosophy, who put the question to themselves, 69 and who realise that the answer cannot simply be referred to in a textbook.

p Some educated people who regard philosophy as an occupation too serious or too exhausting to devote their leisure to it, and yet not serious enough to claim any of their working hours, are badly upset upon discovering that many notions, beliefs, concepts and truths that never gave them any cause for doubt turn out to be unclear, uncertain, and unsound as soon as they come up for discussion by qualified philosophers. They feel they have been cheated, when they find themselves deprived of the carefree certainty of what they imagined to be self-evident. And yet throughout the history of philosophy, an edifice in which every outstanding thinker instead of building the next storey begins once again to lay a new foundation, there are in fact no notions, concepts or truths that are not open to question. Questions that have been declared solved (and often actually have been solved) constantly revert to the status of problems. Is this not the reason why the question "What is philosophy?" has been discussed in philosophy from the time of its beginning to the present day?

p All outstanding philosophical doctrines negate one another. This is the empirical fact from which historico-philosophical science proceeds. This negation may be abstract, metaphysical or it may be concrete and dialectical, but it is negation that characterises every philosophical system and, hence, the specific nature of philosophy, despite the fact that its immediate implication is merely that some philosophical systems differ from others. These at first glance “antagonistic” relations between philosophical doctrines have always placed in doubt the unity of philosophical 70 knowledge. But if there are only philosophies and no philosophy, does not the question "What is philosophy?" lose all meaning? Is philosophy possible as a science? The significance of these questions has grown historically as the gap between various philosophical systems has widened. And the fact that the philosophical systems of the distant past are constantly re-emerging and developing in new ways gives even greater urgency to these questions, since it is not only the philosophical systems of a given historical period that oppose one another but all the philosophies that have ever existed.

p In philosophy there is no such thing as a single definition of concepts, not even of the concept of philosophy itself. We know that Ludwig Feuerbach often used to declare: My philosophy is not a philosophy at all. But no one would ever think of asserting that Feuerbach was not a philosopher. The rise of Marxism as a philosophy denoted the negation of philosophy in the old sense of the term, the abolition of philosophising, as opposed to the positive sciences and practice. Nevertheless this old philosophy has continued to exist and to evolve new systems. This does not mean that the old philosophy has not been abolished, for this old philosophy is already a system of obsolete views.

p In the positive sciences truth usually overcomes error in the course of a period of history that can be surveyed with relative ease, that is to say, it takes only so long as is needed to assimilate, check and look for fresh confirmation, and so on. The historico-philosophical process does not fall into this pattern. It is impossible to say how long will be needed for philosophical truth to triumph over philosophical error; some 71 philosophical truths established centuries ago still have not broken through the crust of prejudice. The reason for this lies not so much in philosophy as in the historically determined socio-economic conditions, which are not immune to change either in theory or practice. But whatever the reason, the fact still remains, and this forms, if not the philosophical, at least an extremely important source of the question "What is philosophy?”.

p It may appear that the incompatibility of most of the great philosophical doctrines, the incompatibility of the various interpretations of the very concept of philosophy makes it extremely difficult to distinguish philosophical questions from the non-philosophical. And yet philosophers of radically different schools usually agree with one another as to which questions may or may not be considered philosophical. No one would think of treating Lamarck as a philosopher because he wrote The Philosophy of Zoology, although certain philosophical questions are considered in this work. This applies not only to philosophers but to readers with a sound knowledge of philosophy, who are also quite capable of distinguishing the philosophical from the nonphilosophical. What is more, when reading a nonphilosophical work, such as a poem or a novel, they have little difficulty in picking out the philosophical ideas it contains and, when studying certain ostensibly philosophical works, are able to state with assurance that they lack philosophical ideas.

p So it is probably easier to distinguish the philosophical from the non-philosophical than, say, the chemical from the physical. The distinguishing features of philosophical judgement are nearly 72 always self-evident, since a negative definition of philosophy (i.e., a definition of what does not constitute philosophy) is not usually hard to make. But the specific nature of philosophy still remains a problem. So the question "What is philosophy?" may be classed as one of the basic philosophical questions and as such, to be discussed not by those who know nothing about philosophy but by those who have dedicated themselves to its study. Thus it becomes a question not so much for others as for oneself. The posing of this question testifies to the development of philosophy’s self-awareness, manifestation of its selfcriticism.

p Thus, philosophy differs essentially from other systems of knowledge in that it is constantly questioning itself as to its own nature, goal and terms of reference. This specific feature of philosophy was quite evident even in the days of Ancient Greece, when Socrates proclaimed as a philosophical credo the dictum of the Delphic oracle, "Know thyself”. As is shown by the dialogues of Plato, this task always leads to discussion of the actual meaning of philosophy.

p Hegel pointed out that the schools which followed Socrates’ dictum "Know thyself" are investigating the "relation of thinking to being”, trying to reveal the subjective side of human knowledge, in consequence of which "the subject of philosophy becomes philosophy itself as a science of cognition".  [72•1  The development of philosophy in modern times has demonstrated even more impressively that philosophy’s self- knowledge, the conversion of philosophy into a subject 73 of special philosophical inquiry is the sine qua non of its fruitful development.  [73•1 

p It should not be assumed, however, that whenever a philosopher asks the question "What is philosophy?”, the question always has one and the same implication, and it is only a matter of his being dissatisfied with the answers. In fact, what he is looking for is not a perfect definition but a new range of philosophical problems, which is counterposed to the old and is declared to be of great importance and actually defining the concept of philosophy.  [73•2 

p Thus, discussion of the question "What is philosophy?" constantly discloses the enrichment of philosophy, the renewal of its range of problems by the history of mankind. This is why the question has retained its meaning throughout the centuries. In our day it becomes particularly relevant because man has acquired power over the mighty forces of nature and this, owing to the antagonistic nature of social relationships, is not only a blessing but also presents an unprecedented threat to the very existence of the human race.

p The contemporary ideological struggle, which to some extent determines the course of historical events, again and again raises the old but eternally new questions of the meaning of human life and the "meaning of history”, of the nature of man and his relations to the environment, to external nature and to himself, of freedom of will, responsibility and external determination, of progress, and so on. Those who maintain that philosophy is a historically outmoded means of comprehending empirical reality naturally declare these and other problems to be pseudoproblems. This attitude in contemporary bourgeois philosophy often turns out to be an indirect apology for “traditional”, i.e., capitalist, relations. As for the thinkers who seek a positive solution to these philosophical questions, they ultimately realise the need for a radical solution of social problems. For them the question "What is philosophy?" coincides in some measure with the 75 problem of the rational refashioning of the life of society.

The scientific and technological revolution, its astonishing achievements, contradictions, prospects and social consequences give rise to what are in effect philosophical problems. Present-day philosophical irrationalism takes a pessimistic view of the “monstrous” scientific and technical advances of the present age. Such philosophical laments over the "breakdown of technological civilisation”, the "end of progress" and the inevitability of global disaster are closely connected with the question "What is philosophy?" because it implies an evaluation of human reason, of science. Thus this question, which in its original form arises from the empirical observation of a vast number of incompatible philosophical systems (in this form it is mainly of interest to philosophers), is today growing into a question of the historical destiny of mankind and thus becomes a social problem that concerns every thinking person. Now it is a matter of how far mankind is capable of understanding itself, of controlling its own development, of becoming the master of its fate, of coping with the objective consequences of its cognitive and creative activity.  [75•1