As a general rule, philosophy is pursued in the hope that it will provide understanding, guidance, or meaning. Let us call these the alethic, teleological, and therapeutic modes of philosophical inquiry insofar as the first is focused on truth, the second on purpose, and the third on the easing of suffering. In most philosophical schools, these three philosophical projects are considered to be thoroughly interrelated and, therefore, pursued jointly, though it is typical for the alethic to be given the central or foundational role. Plato, for instance, gives pride of place to the pursuit of truth, not only because he believes that most beliefs are generally unfounded and, at best, partial truths, but because he is convinced that once we overcome our default state of ignorance we will discover both the depths and heights of the form of the Good, which can then guide belief and action and, being eternal and immutable, offer a stable calm against the vicissitudes of life. Alternatively, we may consider the Buddhist philosophical system whose primary aim appears to be therapeutic but bases its prescriptions on profound truths about existence, such as the ubiquity of suffering. Stoic philosophy grounds its therapeutic prescriptions on a deterministic metaphysics that leaves no room for relief in anything other than mastery of one’s own thinking. Aristotle, perhaps most famously of all, derives his moral prescriptions from his observations about human nature, arguing that what we ought to do and what we will find fulfilling will follow from knowledge of what kind of creature we are. And so on.
One can certainly conceive of a discipline that puts the reduction of suffering ahead of understanding. For instance, if suffering can be alleviated by medication, then there is the possibility of finding relief in life directly rather than via the pursuit of any truth other than the truth concerning which medication eliminates which symptoms. So, there is certainly room for direct medical therapy as distinct from the indirect philosophical kind.
One can similarly imagine purpose being found in traditions that are adopted without any particular interest in prosecuting their evidential basis or truth simply because they offer a narrative context in which daily activities and life goals find a place. Hence, there is room for religious or cultural institutions to serve the pursuit of guidance and meaning in ways that are distinct from the traditionally philosophical ways of so doing.
We see, then, that what distinguishes philosophy from other pursuits that aim at purpose and peace is the commitment to grounding the latter two in the deepest possible understanding of ourselves and reality. Philosophy seeks to address the most important human problems via the pursuit of truth rather than via tradition, religion, fads, or medicine. This is not to say, of course, that addressing the problems of life in these latter ways is necessarily inappropriate or wrongheaded. It is just to say that what makes the pursuit of purpose or meaning philosophical is to approach it through the deepening of one’s understanding of the world rather than some other path.
It is, furthermore, possible that non-alethic pursuits will be of service in the philosophical journey. For instance, perhaps the experience of addressing anxiety via the ingestion of psychedelic substances will lead to new hypotheses concerning human consciousness that can be tested scientifically, thereby allowing us to come to a deeper understanding of the nature of mind. Still, what makes the pursuit philosophical is the ultimate nature of the pathway to purpose and meaning, i.e., whether the road is the road of deeper and higher quality truth or something else.
The examination of the history of philosophy leaves it all but impossible to deny any of this. From Thales to Democritus to Pythagoras to Plato to Aristotle to Aquinas to Descartes to Kant to Schopenhauer to Russell to Chomsky, the common thread is manifest: if we are to address the deepest problems of the human condition we must understand it at the deepest possible level, even if our investigations ultimately lead to the conclusion that we are incapable of such understanding, for that then is, on this skeptical view, the deepest understanding from which the truths of purpose and meaning will be derived (perhaps that there is no purpose or meaning).
This is a large part of why philosophical writing is often unnatural, fine-grained, and technical. The philosopher aims to go beyond and below ordinary thinking, so there is a real danger that standard terms and concepts will not be well-suited to the job; hence, a semi-mathematical, logical vocabulary that is stripped of the connotations of ordinary language is employed as an inoculation against importing the pre-conceptions of the superficial level of thought into the pursuit of secrets of the deep. At the same time, the opposing danger lurks as philosophers can be guilty of creating jargon that masquerades as deep thought but in fact functions as no more than an opaque repackaging of trivial ideas or the expression of meaningless nonsense. To do philosophy properly, let alone well, is no easy feat and there is no guarantee of success even after diligent, honest labor.
Another reason that philosophy is often written in semi-mathematical “logic-ese” is its long-standing and historically symbiotic partnership with natural science. 2500 years ago, Pythagoras argued that the nature of reality is mathematical, and ever since Newton natural science has progressed primarily in proportion to its mathematization. To paraphrase Galileo, mathematics is the language of nature. Nonetheless, human nature has resisted our attempts, mathematical or otherwise, at comprehensive understanding. To this day such questions as the nature of language, perception, consciousness, truth, the mind-body relation, and so on, remain about as mysterious as ever. Still, given that we are part of nature, and that non-human nature is best understood in mathematical terms, there is a perfectly understandable, even if ultimately misguided, urge to understand humanity by working out theories in terms of some kind of formal language, as seen in philosophers such as Plato, Leibniz, Frege, Russell, early Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, etc.
Analytic philosophy is often accused of “logic chopping” i.e., of focusing on minute semantic or syntactic distinctions that are divorced from any larger concerns such as purpose or meaning. It is understandable why one who is accustomed to the grander, narrative style of a Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault, or Rorty would feel this way. And, while it is certainly true that some analytic philosophy pursues question of no serious significance, I do not think the larger complaint is on target, for the reasons just outlined. Philosophy, whatever it is, is the alethic route to purpose and meaning and if one wants deep purpose and meaning then it is natural to want deep investigation into the nature of reality. Hence, the search for the right language, the right framework, and the right tools, are all of genuine importance. It is not a surprise, then, that philosophy since the beginning of the 20th Century has ended up significantly preoccupied with questions such the nature of language and logic, even if it goes overboard at times.
Should philosophy, especially of the analytic variety, be more focused on issues of meaning and purpose? Perhaps, but it is not as if such questions haven’t been pursued by analytic philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, Adolph Grünbaum, Nicholas Rescher, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Dennett, Thomas Nagel, David Lewis, John Leslie, Shelly Kagan, Samuel Scheffler David Benatar, etc., etc. The questions are asked, answers proposed, objections considered, and the logic of the language used put under scrutiny. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it is certainly squarely in the 2500-year tradition of philosophy.
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