The Worldview Interpretations of Philosophy and the Problem of Its Scientific Status

Abstract

The article discusses the issue of the essence and scientific status of philosophy. The case is made that philosophy is essentially related to worldview, because it revolves around the most general questions about the world, a human being, and its place in the world – worldview questions, or Big Philosophical Questions. This does not mean that philosophy is a worldview, or a collection of worldviews, or a science about worldviews. It is rather the realm of the search for answers to worldview questions and of the elaboration and rational critical evaluation of the arguments for and against different possible answers, as well as of the critical analysis and development of the categories and conceptual schemes used to think about such questions. Philosophy can also be considered as a science in the wide sense of a systematic knowledge-seeking intellectual activity aimed at truth, an important part of the community of knowledge disciplines that includes not only natural empirical and mathematical sciences but social sciences and humanities as well. At least, such a scientific character is to be expected from academic philosophy. The pluralism of opinions characteristic for philosophy does not undermine its scientific status, because on the one hand, other sciences also provide no guarantees that their accepted theories are true, and there is (to a greater or lesser degree) pluralism of opinions with respect to a number of fundamental issues, and on the other hand, philosophy produces important knowledge of several kinds: about ignorance, about fundamental categories, conceptual schemes and principles of thinking, and about the available alternatives with respect to philosophical issues and relevant arguments.