The Starting Point of Philosophy

There is an absolute starting point for geometry: It is the axioms of Euclid. There is an absolute starting point for Newtonian physics: It is Newton's Three Laws of Motion. There is an absolute starting point to legal theory: It is whatever constitution is in place.

There is no absolute starting point to philosophy. There are only subjective starting points to philosophy.

The reason is that philosophy, defined as the love of wisdom, is concerned with illuminating man's own life by reason. I use the phrase own life because in the act of philosophizing, I am not attempting to illuminate your life by reason, at least not primarily, but I am attempting to illuminate my own life by reason. The starting point of philosophy, then, is each man's own life. 

Geometry and physics can have absolute starting points because their object is abstract, timeless knowledge that bears no necessary relationship to any individual's life. A man may get on well enough in life without ever knowing that the sum of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees, or that acceleration is proportional to force.

But philosophy just is that mode of thought that concerns man in his own concrete existence. That concrete existence is the starting point of philosophy. Philosophy degenerates when it loses touch with concrete existence and turns into an indifferent playing about with concepts, an ever present temptation in philosophy.

Consider Socrates in the Crito. Socrates is in prison awaiting his execution, and Crito visits him with news that his friends are willing to bribe officials to enable his escape. Crito provides an argument as to the rightness of escaping: By remaining, Socrates is playing into the hands of his enemies, and besides he has a duty to remain alive to nurture and educate his children. It is obvious, however, that Crito is offering rationalizations that are covering, and not very well, Crito's own desire not to lose his friend. Socrates responds to Crito with the following:

For I am and always have been one of those natures who must be guided by reason, whatever the reason may be which upon reflection appears to me to be the best; and now that this fortune has come upon me, I cannot put away the reasons which I have before given: the principles which I have hitherto honored and revered I still honor, and unless we can find other and better principles on the instant, I am certain not to agree with you; no, not even if the power of the multitude could inflict many more imprisonments, confiscations, deaths, frightening us like children with hobgoblin terrors.

The import of Socrates's response is that as a philosopher, his life is guided by reason, and that means he must submit to his reason in the here and now, when fortune has turned against him, just as he did in happier times discussing philosophy pleasantly in the agora. Were Socrates to rationalize an escape, he would falsity his own nature as a philosopher, a fate Socrates fears more than imprisonment or death.

The fact that there are only subjective starting points to philosophy, and not an absolute starting point, does not mean that philosophy is purely relative or can't gain a knowledge of the truth. The starting point of philosophy is not absolute, but the end point may very well be. We may start our travels in different cities, but it doesn't follow that our destinations must be different.

What is the absolute end point of philosophy? It is the Absolute Being Who is the Source of each of our individual, contingent beings. It is in the light of that Absolute Being that our own lives will finally become intelligible.