Ugh

There are those who would have philosophy be like a science: the so-called "analytic philosophers".

Method

What? Am I saying that there is no single method for doing philosophy? No, I am saying that there is no systematic method for arriving at a philosophical explanation.

What Philosophy Is(n't)

Philosophy is like science in that both seek to provide explanations. And explanations facilitate understanding. But philosophy is not a science, because with philosophy there is no method — there is only explanation.

Purpose and Value

Teleological thinking (that things have a purpose) is a useful heuristic, and a related view is that certain things have intrinsic value. Both are psychological phenomena that should not be taken too seriously, and both can be harmful when they impinge upon an autonomous agent (an entity having perceptions, beliefs, desires, and the ability to act on them).

Purpose and value come into the world with agency, they do not precede it.

Nostalgia

From The American Heritage Dictionary (quoted from dictionary.com):

1. A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.

From Dictionary.com:

1. a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time: a nostalgia for his college days.

The past is no less real than the present; it is a real time with real things, persons, and situations. But the important thing to remember about the past is that you can't get there from here. And the things, persons, and situations you can get to from here are quite different from the ones remembered so fondly. One cannot return "in fact" to what one is longing for — it is simply impossible.

Of course, one can return in thought. The interesting thing is that one counldn't even want to return "in fact" if one could not return "in thought" (you have to think it to want it in this sense). And the queer thing about human psychology is that if we can think it, we can want it. Even if it is impossible.

What Philosophy Is(n't)

Philosophy is not the answering of empirical questions, although sometimes it involves the creation of a systematic way of answering them. And often it involves the displaying of a confusion underlying the formation of certain questions.

Leaving Graduate School

I'm leaving graduate school with a Master's degree in philosophy, and without going into too much detail, I'd like to explain why: It simply is not possible, having a wife and two kids, to both develop my own philosophical thought and jump through hoops. I'll take the former over the latter anytime.