Introduction WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY? his book features a collection of esays on philosophy. But what i philesophy? What is it about? How do philosophers go about doing philosop! ory chapter addreses these questions Cur sim is to help beginning se lly students who have never taken a philosophy course or who have never utherwise exposed to philosophy—get an idea of what they will encounter chapters to follow. The word philosophy derives from the Greck words “philo” and “sophia” +h, when pur rogether, mean ” And while this love of wisdom and expres, it isn'ta very revealing ie nature of the enterprise. When asked what philosophy s. the ny and point at was Russell's way of indicating that the field of philosophy is v y topics and that its hard if noe impossible ra give a short answer tthe ques= that would be adequate. Indeed, trying to gave a short but intormative answer is question without conveying some idea of what all hose books include would ke trying to give a short but informative answer to the question, “What is oad no familiarity with physics, or chemistry, or biolo for any of the other sciences. Any short and informative answ {questions must be preceded by some indication of their subject matters With this in mind, we can follow Russells lead snd consider the sors of that we find in philosophy books what philosophy as a discipline is all Philosophers are interested in answering questions about various topics. ts consider a sampling of these questions and the asco h we can return (0 our question about philosopby.