Ive experienced a wide variety of reactions in the last four years when Ive told people I study philosophy.

Many of these reactions illustrate popular misconceptions about the discipline. Having said that, some also illustrate truths about philosophy. For instance, a common response, to nod sagely, then say that you dont know what that is, but you know its difficult, is in some ways a pretty good answer. Socrates might well have approved. As the introductory article to this section, Ill consider a few of these, with a view to setting the scene to the future course of the section. The most memorable response Ive met with was Oh! Have you ever fallen asleep and dreamed youre really a butterfly? I didnt know what to say at the time, though looking back, the insinuation that philosophy students spend all their time dreaming is quite a good one. More seriously, though it was unclear quite what my questioner thought philosophy was, she seemed to hint at the common confusion, that philosophy is synonymous with radical scepticism, with doubting everything that everyone else holds dear. Similarly, people will say to you I see and is all this really here!? as though youve never heard the joke. For sure, scepticism is a long running issue in philosophy philosophers have expressed scepticism of an awful lot of things, and the practice philosophy often involves doubting commonly held assumptions. However, scepticism is not all philosophy involves; many philosophers have also spent a lot of time building up systems of belief as well as knocking them down. Nor, I feel, would it even be true to say the philosophy could be adequately characterised as a struggle between the doubting and justification of beliefs; to do so would be too simplistic. The butterfly question also seems to hint at a confusion of philosophy with mysticism, the study and pursuit of ineffable states of mind. Such states are said to uncover and enforce upon the experiencer otherwise hidden knowledge, typically knowledge connected with unity: the fundamental unity of the universe say, or the pervasive presence of God in the world. Though the direct mystical experience of God is often at the core of justifications of religious belief, mysticism can be secular in nature too. Being a mystic or mystical is often used as a pejorative term in academic philosophy, meaning someone who has absolute faith in their convictions, but cannot supply adequate arguments to persuade others of their claims, but this is probably an unfairly irrational characterisation of mystics. Whats more, such superciliousness distracts from the fact that elements of mysticism are very relevant to philosophy, even if the two are not the same thing. Both concern themselves with the fundamental nature of the world, and and some have said that the two differ only in method, philosophy favouring reflection and argument where mysticism favours prayer, meditation, ritual, or intoxication. For further discussion along these lines, The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, particularly Lecture 16. Returning to the issue of reactions, people often take the word philosophy to be akin to something like ethos. Someone might ask, So, whats your philosophy? Often companies will proclaim in promotional statements Our philosophy is, presumably because saying something like Our guiding motivation doesnt sound as profound, as caring, as succinct. Relatedly, sometimes the word philosophy is used simply as a word to communicate depth or sophistication. Case in point: on Elvet Bridge, practically within sight of the Philosophy Department, there is a beauty salon named Skin Philosophy. The use of the word to indicate something foundational, and something that might guide the course of a life has something to it. However, to suggest that the discipline of philosophy simply concerns a personal choice that we all make is incorrect; there wouldnt be much to talk about if it were simply a matter of that. It has perhaps not been noted enough that philosophy is a communal exercise, an attempt to make a case for a state of affairs to anyone who will listen, and perhaps the stereotype of the philosopher as a lonely, selftortured individual misleads us here.

Lastly, you do meet a few people, typically male, often philosophy students themselves, whose reaction is to see you as a challenge and come out with all intellectual guns blazing. Sometimes, this is of course because they have been waiting to vent their frustration on some topic. But sometimes such people seem to labour under the unconscious error that philosophy is akin to competitive debating, and ones aim in it should be to win every argument. No-one likes losing an argument, but it is well to remember, that from a philosophical point of view, if someone shows you are wrong, they are doing you a favour. It might seem a little pretentious, and a little mysterious, to say that the true aim of a philosopher must instead be truth. Perhaps a better way this has been put is that a philosopher instead aims at insight, or a clear view of an issue at its most basic level. [Andy Hamilton, Wittgensteins Therapeutic Conception of Philosophy, forthcoming article] Id better not ruminate any further. What philosophy more strictly is, is a more complicated matter, and that will have to wait for another article. The kind of questions Ive been speculating about here, questions of what the nature and methods of philosophy ought to be, are known, somewhat ridiculously, as meta-philosophy, and this one area Im keen to explore further in my editorship. Subject: FUCK, THE FORBIDDEN WORD An argument for the use of what is seen as one of the worst words in many different vocabularies, FUCK. It is a natural outcome for words to fall out of use or change due to the intermingling of languages, and social norms. The word fuck has lived on throughout a pretty long history and defies its demise because of its strong word structure, meaning the ease at which it is pronounced and its commonality; it needs no letters removed or changed around to adapt its spelling to fit other dialects; and it carries all the potential displays of emotional feeling the user wishes to express. Its almost an entirely self contained expression, inside its expression exists all that can be expected out of a word. Without needing the addition of peripheral words it proves itself to have more versatility than any other word in that it can be used in far more grammar forms than most other words. It expresses depths of emotion that range from whispered pillow talk, to an uncontrolled persons expletive. Now comes the social judgment, does it merit a conscientious rejection of its place in the language; who does it serve? What are the rewards gained by taking the freedom to use a free choice of words? Now I propose that the reason that it is so offensive to many, is because of only one of its meanings, sex! More specifically coitus. In the people that dont have a sensible controlling of their mind, they center on the sex definition, remaining blind to the many other possibilities of definition, all of which are determined by context, including the emotional radiations of the person using it. Quick example; The word fuck is more often spoken with the speaker never even coming close to implying the particular definition that means sex. When the speaker is not even thinking about it himself [sex] it shows when the other person is, by their reaction. When we use the word, the thought of sex wouldnt exist, if the other person didnt get sexual thoughts because they insist on their choice of definition. It is their embarrassment inside themselves that they resent. Proof; if one person that speaks the word fuck exactly as Im doing now, having no sexual implication, and another bristles at its hearing, if asked to say what was offensive about the word, he would relate those definitions of the word that were sexual, ignoring the many other choices of definition available. The listener chooses a definition that is out of context with the speakers intent. Compared to almost any other word the word fuck has a very long list of meanings since it also includes a list of all the emotional ranges as well. Since the choice of which definition is intended is up to the

speaker, it should not be the right of the hearer to insist that the speaker was using the definition their mind insists on applying. So in conclusion I say, that those that wrongly judge the word, cant allow that that same word can carry great tenderness or care, just as easily as it can carry the corrupted interpretation that sours the souls of those that insist on seeing it as a bad word. It is not wrong for us to expect the listener to consider the context of how the word is used, its up to them to listen; otherwise how could they ever understand someone that says, How fucking much I love you!? I would like to know if there are sound reasons I dont see that suggest the word should be eliminated.