1.14. What Is The Purpose Of A Philosophical System? What Are The Different Types of Philosophical Systems -- and Anti-Systems -- We Can Distinguish From? And Will It All Matter In The End?

What is the purpose of a philosophical system? To give purpose, meaning, order and direction to any given body of knowledge or information. Philosophy provides the purposeful, meaningful, functional, logistical foundation for any particular body of information, stating in essence, the reason for existence of the particular body of information -- regardless of subject areas -- and both the abstract and specific dreams and/or goals that are behind the whole opereation -- the mission statement if you will -- of which the particular body of information is purported or designed to help us reach the desired mission statement.

It is imperative to make a clear distinciton between an epistemological philosophical system and an ethical philosophical system. The former type of philosophical system (epitemological) aims to answer questions about 'What is?' In contrast, the latter type of philosophical system aims to answer questions about 'What should be?' The first type of philosohical system aims to answer questions of 'realism' whereas the second type of philosophical sytem aims to answer questions of 'idealism'.

There are four other ways of classifying philosophical systems -- drawing from the classic Hegelian dialectical evolutionary model of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis', and adding a combination of Nietzsche's 'anti-system' philosophy and Derrida's 'Deconstuction(ism)as the fourth type of philosophy that attempts to 'deconstruct' and/or purge philosophy of any and/or all so-called 'systems' or 'Grand Narratives'. This fourth type of philosophy is like the 'anti-thesis' of any and all 'systematic' or Grand Narrative philosophies and presumably does not have its own 'system' of philosophy -- although Nietzsche had his 'Superman' philosophy which sounds at least partly 'systematic' to me. Nietzsche's Superman philosophy -- in combination with the philosophical work of Kierkegaard, Kafka (through his fictional stories), Sartre, and others -- some relgious, some non-religous -- spawned the birth of what was later to be referred to as 'Existentialism' or 'Humanistic-Existentialism'. The beauty of Hegel's dialectical philosophical system to me -- particularly when you 'existentialize' it and make it less 'idealistically deterministic' in the classic Hegelian mold -- is that it allows for all four types of philosophical systems (and anti-systems such as Nietzsche's later 'process or anti-' philosophy and Derrida's 'Deconstruction')to function together -- either harmoniously and/or in conflict with each other -- and dialectically work together and evolve off each other to build a hopefully better philosohical and/or anti-philosophical world. Now to be sure, I do not believe -- like Hegel did -- that this 'idealistic result' is a 'given' because you also have to factor in man's 'greed' and 'narcissism' and 'egotism' and 'territorialism' which may eventually result in a nuclear holocaust or a polluted world that will no longer support us. If this turns out to be the inglorious end to man's existence, then so much for man's 'idealism' and supposed 'spirituality'. We can/could say that man's idealism and spirituality was overpowered and died under a 'flood, an earthquake, an explosion, and/or a slow poisoning of uncontrolled human narcissism'.

DGBN, September 26th, 2006, modified Feb. 6th, 2007.