Introduction
With the rise of rival methodologies for the acquisition of knowledge, especially the natural sciences, philosophy in the 21st century is forced, more than ever, to justify its merits
as a valid way to reach the truth about man and its surroundings. As such, it is important to look at the ways in which philosophy is conducted and in which way it still contributes to the enhancement of our understanding
of the world.
In this present essay I do not seek to provide a thorough clarification on that matter but rather my intention is to focus on a quite specific issue that is part of the general debate
mentioned above. Namely, the purpose of this essay is to separate what I will call the original ideas of Philosophy from the remainder of the body of work that constitutes philosophical production. It is my belief that those
original ideas of philosophy are in fact the type of philosophy that drives human knowledge further and constitutes the core of philosophy's importance in the world of the 21st century.
I propose that a division should be made then between three different kinds of philosophical ideas or works. The first kind concerns the great works of philosophy that propose original
ideas and thus move philosophical inquiry forward. The second type concerns all types of replies, commentaries or clarifications of those original works. A third kind is composed of an infinity of academic commentaries that
dissect the knowledge exposed in the first two kinds of works of philosophy.
Works of the First Order
Works of the first order are those that concern original ideas and legitimately advance the scope, depth and accuracy of the pursuit of knowledge. In fact, as the very name of philosophy
indicates (in Greek philosophia means love of wisdom), the very existence of philosophy, since its beginning, was to pursue forms of wisdom, knowledge and truth. As such, those original works which aim
at providing the answers to the great questions, compose the foundation for the discipline of philosophy.
Going back to the very beginning of the discipline, we can identify the original works that laid down its foundations, such as those produced by Thales of Miletus, Pythagoras, Parmenides,
Plato, Aristotle or Epicurus. Those first philosophers were concerned with finding convincing answers to the fundamental questions posed to us by our very existence and nature such as "where did we come from?" ; "who created the world "; "What is the meaning of life?" ;, "what is the essence of morality"; ; "what is knowledge and how can we acquire it?";
The works of the first philosophers had the purpose of answering these and other questions about man and its surroundings and were the foundational stones for philosophy and human, or at least western rational beliefs.
In the same vein, other great thinkers throughout the history of humanity have continued to produce great original ideas as forms to answer the great questions concerning knowledge about
the man and the universe. Many of those thinkers added their contribution to the field of philosophy, others to science, some to both and a few have given birth to other disciplines of knowledge of a more specific nature such
as economics or psychology.
What identifies the philosophical works of the first order is that they constitute original responses to fundamental questions about the nature of man and the universe that surrounds
him. This is definitely a chief characteristic found in the works of the great philosophers, yet it is also found in the works of the greatest modern philosophers. In Political Philosophy, for instance, Niccolo Machiavelli
put forward, in his seminal work The Prince, original notions about how a ruler should govern his people that had not been present in the same way in any works up to that point. Even though the Greek
masters had previously offered models for optimal governance in works such as Plato's The Republic; and Aristotle's Politics, none had quite arrived at the same answers
as those presented in Machiavelli's work.
In a similar fashion, in his magnum ops Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes offered an alternative perspective on the nature of government and what a ruler should be like
and how he should be perceived by the ruled. In the following century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract would build on some of the notions put forward by Hobbes yet subvert them in
order to create an opposing view of the state by arguing that the institutions deemed vital by Hobbes were in fact responsible for the oppression of men and women in society. Almost one century after that, Marx and Engels
published their Communist Manifesto, offering yet another distinct interpretation of how societies should be structured and governed and about the duties and rights of those who are governed and those
who govern them. All of these works were original ideas conceived to answer the fundamental questions about how societies should be structured and governed.
All of those great thinkers, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau and Marx can thus be considered to have produced philosophical works of the first order in the branch of
political philosophy. Many other thinkers throughout the ages have produced similar works of the first order in this field by presenting their own, unique and novel explanations of the political phenomenon. Each of those original
works has contributed to enrich our knowledge of politics, just as each original work on ethics or metaphysics has contributed to enrich our cumulative knowledge on those fields.
Of course, not all works of the first order are necessarily right. Some of them contain mistakes that compromise the theories either partially or totally. Some
of those mistakes only become apparent due to its practical consequences. For example, the atrocities committed by communist governments in many countries in the world have certainly compromised the notion of communism as
an Utopian society as put forward in the works of Marx and Engels. In a different way, many of the theories espoused by the Greek philosophers in the fields of epistemology and especially metaphysics have later been disproved
by the advancements of the natural sciences.
Nonetheless, it is not the purpose of this essay to prove that all works of first order in philosophy are right or infallible. In philosophy, as in science or mathematics,
not all theories are correct. Many theories are eventually proven incorrect and sooner or later replaced by newer, often better, theories. The quest for truth is not linear, but a succession of educated guesses. I do intend
to assert, nevertheless, that the key works of philosophy are, almost without exception, the ones that I have described as those of first order. Yet, even works of second order are of utility to philosophy as I wish to propose
next.
Works of the Second Order
Although philosophy is driven forward by primarily works of the first order, most works of philosophy are of a different nature. Most of the philosophical production throughout history
as well as in our time is actually composed of works of second order or below. If works of the first order consist of original answers to fundamental questions concerning humans and their surroundings, works of the second
order consist of responses and commentaries of those great works. While works of the first order carry the ambition of answering directly to the great questions posed by humanity, the philosophical works of the second order
do so only indirectly. Instead, their focus is on the ideas first exposed by other philosophers.
It could then be said that whilst the object of study of works of the first order is the nature of man and the universe, the object of study of works of the second order is philosophy
itself or, in other words, the body of philosophical knowledge previously established by works of the first order. Works of the first order are independent, whereas works of the second order exist in relation to works of the
first order.
Works of the second order can broadly be fit into three major categories. They are sometimes replies or criticisms to original ideas. Other times, they seek to expand upon a particular
idea laid out in a work of the first order by another philosopher. And sometimes works of the second order seek to clarify the contents contained in works of the first order. No matter what type, however, or indeed its level
of sophistication, these secondary works always have a previous work as their object of study, and cannot be fully grasped without some knowledge of a previous work.
After having defined and categorized philosophical works of the second order, I would now like to discuss their value and purpose. After all if, as I suspect, there are many more works
of the second order than works of the first order in existence, one would certainly expect works of the second order to bring a great deal of added value to philosophy. If this weren't the case, why would so many
philosophers decide to produce works of the second order instead of focusing on the production of works of the first order?
Perhaps the best answer to that question are contained in the three categories of second order philosophical works I have established. For example, a second order philosophical work
that constitutes a response, criticism or refutation is intended to essentially assess the validity of an original idea. This has considerable value since these types of work are essential if we are able to determine which
theories contained in works of first order are true and which ones are false. These types of secondary works are then essential to philosophy insofar as they essentially filer ideas by allowing us to keep the good ideas and
discard the bad.
A second category of works of second order is concerned with expanding the original ideas contained in works of the first order. These works can be extremely valuable to philosophy since
they perfect and enlarge the theories of knowledge proposed by the original works.
The third category of works of the second order is also valuable, although perhaps somewhat less so. Its main focus is to clarify the somewhat obscure, confusing or incoherent ideas
presented in works of the first order. Although these works don't necessarily change the knowledge contained in the works they are subordinate to, they refine that knowledge making it easier to discuss, understand
and disseminate.
In fact, a close look at most modern libraries' philosophy sections, may they be private, public or academic would probably reveal somewhat of an imbalance between the volume
of works of the first order and the works of the second order. It would seem that, in some ways, the original works of the great philosophers of the past have become almost like the sacred scriptures in the sense that they
are accessed by readers not directly but indirectly. Just like most Sunday mass attendees are willing to receive the biblical messages from the mouths of an intermediary in the figure of a priest, most students of philosophy
often learn the theories of the great thinkers not by reading their original works, but by listening to the lectures at University, watching documentaries or reading books written by modern philosophy scholars that clarify,
classify and often simplify the original works, making them more palatable for modern audiences.
This process of clarification accomplishes the mission of perpetuating the original messages contained in the works where they first appeared. What it does not do, however, is advance
philosophy as a whole by answering the questions that philosophy proposes to answer. These philosophical works do not create knowledge nor is that their purpose or intention. Their function is simply to catalog and disseminate
the knowledge that was created by the works of the first order they are subordinate to.
In this sense, a philosophical work of the first order could be compared to an original novel such as The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, whereas a philosophical work of the second order can be compared, in the same analogy, to a book that criticizes or analyzes The Old Man and the Sea or Hemingway's body of work. In a work of the first order, in philosophy or literature, the author is seeking to produce an original work that expands
the content and boundaries of his or her field. In a work of the second order, the author is focused on dissecting the accomplishments or shortcomings of the first author and his works.
Works of the Third Order
In reality, it is possible, and even necessary, to introduce a third category to complete this theory of metaphilosophy, since not all works can be considered works of first or second
order. Some, I wish to argue, can only be described as works of the third order.
As we've seen, works of the first order are those that try to directly answer some of the fundamental questions about humans and the universe. Questions such as Where
do we come from? ; Who created the universe?;Is there a God?; or ; How can one live life righteously? In works of the first order, philosophers use
reason and experience in order to construct feasible answers to those questions and hence increase knowledge as a species.
Works of the second order, on the other hand, have different purposes. They seek to criticize, expand upon or clarify the ideas espoused in works of the first order. Unlike the former,
they do not exist independently, but are instead subordinate to the existence of other works. Works of the second order can only be said to answer the fundamental questions of philosophy indirectly, as an exploration of the
answers provided by the works of first order.
There are some works, however, that exist only in relation not only to works of first order, but also to works of the second order. In other words, they are commentaries or works of
the second order which are themselves commentaries on works of the first order. As an example of this, consider Machiavelli's work of the first order The Prince. In his work he tries to answer the fundamental question of how should a ruler govern a state effectively and retain as much power as possible. A work of the second order
could be an assessment of the ethical implications of Machiavelli's theory. In this case, an example of a work of the third order would be an essay or a book discussing the views exposed by the author of the work
of second order about Machiavelli's The Prince.
The fundamental problem regarding works of the third order is that they are at least two degrees removed from the fundamental questions that drive philosophy forward and inspire philosophers
to create works of the first order in the first place. One is then forced to ask how those works, twice derivative in nature, can ever hope to make a meaningful contribution to philosophy's chief goal, the pursuit
of truth. I suspect that a more in depth examination of the issue would be necessary in order to provide a conclusive answer. Yet, at first glance, I believe we should strongly suspect that, the more derivative a work of philosophy
is, and the more it is removed from direct contact with the fundamental questions, the less useful and meaningful it ultimately is. It follows from this that, because of their very nature, works of the second order are less
useful than works of the first order, works of the third order are less useful than works of the second order and so on and so forth. We could then deduce a pattern of diminishing returns propagating itself ad infinitum;
the more removed from the original questions philosophical works are.
Should we then assume that philosophical works of the third order are utterly useless and therefore a waste of the philosopher's time? Perhaps such a conclusion would be too
radical and would altogether overlook the great strides made possible by the careful and multi-layered dissection of ideas produced by the careful examination of original ideas by philosophers dedicated to studying the works
of other philosophers. However, even though works of the third order, especially good ones, can have considerable value in themselves they will never have the kind of originality necessary to reframe our understanding of the
universe and of ourselves. For that, we must commend ourselves to works of the first order. As such, in an era when most of our philosophy is arguably produced by professional philosophers employed by philosophy departments
in universities across the world, we should ask ourselves what kind of works we should want them to produce, and if their current focus on producing works of second, third or lower orders is warranted.
After all, considering that the most valuable kind of philosophy is that of high originality and close contact with the fundamental questions, it would only be logical for philosophers
to focus their efforts on producing these kinds of works. Instead, it is obvious that most professional philosophers are currently primarily engaged in the production of articles and books that focus on the discussion of the
works of the first order produced by well known philosophers or on the discussion of works of second order produced by their peers. In the midst of all this activity, one can argue that works of the first order, arguably the
most important kind, are often overlooked.
This seemingly strange situation, almost illegal in nature, is however not only odd or unusual but instead a natural consequence of human nature and its natural repercussion in our educational
systems of which universities are a part of.
Most professional philosophers are, after all, a product of said systems of education. In order to become professional philosophers, one has to take into account their gradual percourse
as elementary students, middle school students, high school students, undergraduate students and lastly graduate students. During all that time they've been given the task of studying and learning from books produced
by higher ranked individuals. In the study of philosophy, they've learned philosophy by studying the works of philosophers and philosophy professors. In that process, they invariably develop a great dose of reference
for works of famous philosophers and their professors, and all the work they are asked to produce is of a second order at best and most likely of a third order or lower.
It is then not surprising at all that, when these lifelong students become professors themselves, their mind is molded in a way that does not favor the production of original works or
works of the first order. They are instead wired for the production of derivative works anchored by the higher authority that derives from the works of first order they relate to.
The Universe of Philosophy
After having introduced the three categories of philosophical works based on the nature of their object or, in other words, their proximity to the fundamental questions about Man and
the universe, I now wish to propose a vision of Philosophy as a universe of knowledge in constant mutation. Such a philosophical universe, so to speak, is in fact not so different in structure from the physical universe in
which we inhabit, as I shall argue.
Let us imagine then an infinite universe composed not of space, time and matter but of ideas and their creators. Such is the Universe of Philosophy. In the physical universe planets
orbit around stars thus forming planetary systems such as the Solar System. In the Universe of Philosophy the stars are the great original works of the first order and their creators. Around them, systems composed of multiple
planets form, but in this case the planets are the works of second order written in function of the star works of first order. Some less well known works of the first order might only have five or ten
or fifteen works of the second order orbiting around them, but other more influential works such as Machiavelli;s The Prince or Nietzsche' Thus Spoke Zarathustra will invariably have hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of books and articles written about them. And, just like in the physical universe the bigger planets have satellites orbiting around them, some
of the more renowned works of second order will also have a number of works of the third orderaround them, which in this case means written as an exploration, critique or otherwise commentary
about them.
Furthermore, just as in the physical universe stars are grouped into galaxies with supermassive black holes at their center, in the universe of philosophy the great works of first order
are also often grouped together in schools, currents or approaches to a particular philosophical issue such as rationalism, empiricism, existentialism, relativism, social contract theory, scepticism, utilitarianism, communism,
pragmatism or feminism.
In the physical universe, galaxies come together in groups or clusters which commonly share a gravitational center. In the philosophy universe, different schools or approaches are all
part of a particular branch or field of philosophy such as metaphysics, epistemology, or ethics, and all of those fields have commonly a central group of questions that define them. All of those clusters or groups of galaxies
form the physical universe, just like all the fields of philosophy together make up the Universe of Philosophy.
Both in the physical universe and in the universe of philosophy as presented here, the stars or their analogs, the works of first order, are the main units of organization of the universe.
The planets and satellites surrounding them cannot exist without them, just like works of second order and lower cannot exist without a work of first order anchoring them.
Also, the universe of philosophy, as its analog, is not fixed. Instead, it is always in motion, expanding as new stars are born or works of the first order are written, and works of
lesser orders forming around them in the same way as planets and satellites form around the stars. As more stars are born the universe expands and as more works of the first order are written the more our philosophical knowledge
expands. And, just as stars decay and die, so do some of our great philosophical ideas, either disproven or fallen into obscurity.
Conclusion
The defining question of metaphilosophy is What is Philosophy? In this essay, however, I tried to answer a similar yet somewhat different question, What
types of Philosophy are there? In doing so, I haven't focused on the traditional division of Philosophy in terms of its branches, such as Epistemology, Metaphysics or Ethics, which concern different fundamental
questions about Man and its surroundings. I also haven't focused on particular schools of Philosophical thought such as Existentialism, Pragmatism or Empiricism. Instead, I have proposed an organization of philosophical
works and authors based on the proximity of these works to the fundamental questions of Philosophy. I have called the philosophical works that provide original and direct responses to philosophical problems works of first
order. These works that are written in response or in relation to previous philosophical works I have labelled works of the second order. And finally, those works that have been written in function of works of the second order
I have labelled works of the third order.
I believe that such a novel organization of the broad field of philosophy is important because it reveals which works are indeed trying to expand our knowledge by answering fundamental
questions directly, and those whose object is simply to discuss previous works containing those answers. I have argued that, in spite of having some value, works of second and third order do not substantially enhance our knowledge
of the fundamental mysteries of the universe that Philosophy tries to unveil. Those works can be likened to literary reviews or commentaries, which albeit being of some value, cannot truly be compared to original stories,
novels, poems or plays.
Whilst invariably the study of Philosophy must concern itself with the study of the works of the first order produced by the great philosophers in history such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant
or Nietzsche, one should not mistaken those studies with Philosophy itself. To produce Philosophy one must put aside the crutch of citing the opinions of others and evoking well known and well proven thoughts had by others
and discussed by many, and venture into the dangerous world of conceptual imagination. In essence, to produce real philosophy, one must do what works of the first order are willing to do and works of the second and third orders
are not. One must be willing to think for himself or herself, no matter the consequences. That is what creating Philosophy entails.
In the world of the 21st century, more than ever, Philosophy must be capable of being true to its name. It must be a way to pursue wisdom. At a time when Science is, once again, ushering
the world into a new scientific and technological revolution, the Philosopher must find his purpose and his value as a man of wisdom. In order to do this he must find the courage to abandon all crutches and expose himself
to the world and all its skepticism and criticism. This is not something that can be achieved by producing Philosophy of the second, third or lower orders. This must be done by engaging directly with the great questions of
our time and of eternity.
The vision I have proposed is that of a philosophical universe composed by works of the first order (stars), surrounded by subservient works of the second order (planets) and works of
the third order (satellites). Both universes, the physical and the philosophical ones, are constantly expanding through the birth of new stars. It is my hope that in the decades and centuries to come we see the appearance
of many and more works of the first order produced by original thinkers committed to expanding the boundaries of philosophical thought and making a name for Philosophy in the Age of Technology.
Bruno Franco Netto
