It is quite possible that philosophy is not a clearly defined discipline. But philosophers consider themselves to have something of a method and something of a subject. This method, at least for analytically trained philosophers, is based on a careful, critical analysis of ideas, concepts, and claims, and an attempt to arrive at elaborate philosophical theories of important subjects: justice, rationality, equality, relativism, social construction.The subject is a bit harder to specify. But there is an open set of topics that have attracted the attention of philosophers over the past few hundred years: empirical knowledge, the foundations of mathematics, the nature of the mind, moral truth, political justice, and the foundations of religious belief, to name a few.
So, let’s take this group of methods and topics as one possible definition of philosophical thought; the question here is how can philosophical reasoning be centered on understanding the nature of society?
One of the clear areas of intersection is the philosophy of “knowledge of society” – the philosophy of social science. This raises epistemological questions: how secure is the knowledge offered by the social sciences; methodological questions: what research methods are well suited to the study of society; explanatory questions: what is required for a good social explanation; and ontological questions: what assumptions must we make about the nature of the social world in order to pursue social scientific research? It is quite clear how philosophers can contribute to the development of theories and perspectives on these issues.
Another area where philosophy is relevant to society is normative social philosophy, such as the theory of justice, human welfare, or communitarianism/liberalism. Here, the philosopher brings some organized thinking about values, ethical theory, and the messy facts of human social arrangements to the discussion. Here again, it is quite clear how rigorous philosophical thinking can clarify these issues; philosophy can help our understanding of these issues to progress.
But in addition to these fairly clear examples of philosophy about society, there seems to be another area of intersection between philosophy and society that is not as well defined. This is the “empirically and historically grounded study of social metaphysics.” Many of the posts on this blog fall roughly into this category. Here, the philosopher starts with some bits of knowledge about an aspect of the social world – economic development, the global food system, or social disputes; but then asks some pretty fundamental questions about how we should think about the components of these areas of phenomena.
For example, a recurring theme of this blog is thinking about the question “Social mechanisms or social patterns?” And the contributions here are not purely conceptual, purely empirical, or purely inductive; instead, they are “theory based on concrete examples of real social processes.” And this approach to the problem seems to be different from all the following: pure methodology, pure epistemology, ethical theory, empirical research, or the formation of traditional social scientific theory. Instead, this level of philosophizing seems to deliberately call for a synthesis of some empirical knowledge, some conceptual reflections, and some ontological considerations.