Renaming Philosophy - NYTimes.com This is a response from the author to readers who commented on his previous essay for The Stone, Philosophy by Another Name. My conception of philosophy is broadly Aristotelian: the subject consists of the search for the essences of things by means of a priori methods. Thus, for example, we seek the essence of knowledge by investigating what is involved in the concept of knowledge - where knowledge turns out to be true justified belief (give or take a bit). The things whose essential nature is sought range from space, time and matter, to necessity, causation and laws, to consciousness, free will and perception, to truth, goodness and beauty. There is nothing parochial about this conception of philosophy; it certainly includes ethics, aesthetics and politics. Philosophy doesn't need to mimic physics in every way to be properly designated a "science." I suggested in my earlier essay that philosophy so conceived is best classified as a science, because of its rigor, technicality, universality, falsifiability, connection with other sciences, and concern with the nature of objective being (among other reasons). I did not claim, however, that it is an empirical science, like physics and chemistry; rather, it is an a priori science, like the "formal science" of mathematics. The dictionary I consulted to derive the definition of a science as "a systematically organized body of knowledge on any subject" was the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, Eleventh Edition, definition 2, for those who wondered. So it is quite beside the point to insist that philosophical claims are not testable by means of empirical experiments: neither is pure mathematics, though it is a science nonetheless. Anyone remotely acquainted with contemporary symbolic logic, philosophy of logic, analytical metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and even modern theories of justice, will appreciate the motivation for according such philosophy the status of a science. This is not a matter of dubious public relations for a languishing field of study; rather, it is simply the recognition of the intellectual substance of the discipline - its power and achievements. Just take a look at any current professional journal of philosophy and you will see my point. It is no part of my position that philosophy should be limited to purely theoretical matters, divorced from questions of value and how to live - though a large part of it is thus theoretical. There is plenty of room here for ethics, philosophy of art, value theory, and even "practical wisdom." In my terminology, we might label these parts of philosophy "axiological ontics" - that is, the study of the nature and being of value in all its forms. Thus I see no discontinuity with earlier philosophers, such as Socrates, whose main concern was how to live - many contemporary philosophers have this as their main concern too (we call them ethicists: I do this kind of thing myself). But that is not all there is to the subject. In Cambridge University, philosophy is called "moral science" - and there is no oxymoron in this appellation. The word "science" here simply connotes a systematic, organized, rigorous study (the word comes from the Latin scientia, which means "knowledge"). It is not necessary to mimic physics in every way to be properly designated a "science." Nor am I suggesting that philosophy should not include human culture, as with social theory and aesthetics: it certainly may, but it also includes much more. My main question was what to call this subject, in view of the confusions wrought by its current name and the ancient origin of the word. Since it can be aptly described as the general study of being (by a priori or conceptual means, not observation and experiment), we need a word to register this aspect of the subject. The word "ontology" fits the bill quite nicely, in view of its etymology and currently accepted sense ("the study of being as such"), and I have no objection to it semantically or stylistically. However, in its present acceptation it refers only to a part of philosophy and is generally contrasted with the part called "epistemology"; so it would be confusing to try to make it apply to philosophy as a whole. To get around this problem I favor "ontics," because it preserves the semantic connection with being without already having a well-established use. The word is already in philosophical circulation, being employed by philosophers as disparate as Heidegger and Quine, but it has no entrenched and potentially misleading meaning - so it would work better as the new label we need. This is why I prefer "ontics" over "ontology" as the new name for the subject formerly known as "philosophy." Imagine if the subject now known as "physics" had stuck with its old name "natural philosophy," while all the other sciences had changed their names. Imagine too that the subject now known as "philosophy" had long ago abandoned that label in favor of "ontics." Then a physicist (a k a "philosopher") would encounter much incomprehension from outside the field when she announced her occupation as "philosopher." Given the vernacular connotations of the word, relating to wisdom and matters of value ("My philosophy of dieting is..."), this "philosopher" would have to explain that she didn't practice that kind of philosophy, but rather the kind that deals with the laws of matter and energy. This might well provoke accusations of misleading labeling at best and treachery to the subject's historical mission at worst ("Philosophers used to be concerned with how to live and now all you do is measure objects in motion!"). In such a scenario, surely it would be well past time to change the name of the subject; and "physics" seems like a nice choice - even though it may seem a bit ugly and strange at first (like "ontics"). This is what I am saying is essentially the situation today with regard to the subject now called "philosophy." Does this mean we should stop awarding titles like "Ph.D"? Not at all: this title is awarded across a variety of disciplines, indicating a high commitment to achieving knowledge and success in doing so. Here the generality of the word "philosopher" is just what we need - anyone who loves knowledge, no matter what his or her specialism may be. What I am objecting to is employing such a highly general word for one subject among many - that particular subject we now call "philosophy." Why call one subject by a name that applies equally to all? Thus someone who achieves a high level of expertise in ontics might well be granted the degree of "doctor of philosophy," just as a biologist can be granted a degree so described. The general reaction to my original essay from people not professionally involved in philosophy rather proves my point about the need for linguistic reform. There is precious little understanding of what the subject is really like, but a lot of opinion about its demerits and betrayals of its historical ideals. To be sure, we will not cure such ignorance and hostility - either from the dogmatists of empirical science or the disappointed fringe mystics - by simply relabeling the subject; but we should at least forestall some of the ire that stems from the etymology and popular meaning of the word "philosophy." Other academic subjects don't encounter this kind of uncomprehending hostility - though it must be said that prejudice and narrow-mindedness can afflict various regions of human intellectual inquiry, as with evolutionary biology and creationism, and astronomy and Biblical literalism. What I find most depressing and pernicious today is the philistinism of so many practicing scientists when it comes to philosophical questions - but that is a story for another occasion.