My previous 3 posts in this mini-series were:

Heidegger’s Hegelian Phenomenological Method (Part 1/2)

Heidegger’s Hegelian Phenomenological Method (Part 2/2)

Dr. Carlo Alvaro and Dr. Richard Carrier Debate the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Philosophy has to do not only with the “what” of ideas, but also “how” philosophy is being done. Moreover, we have to ask why philosophy is being done, because it is unique as a discipline of inquiry in that it must accomplish something for and in the practitioner. Anthropology, by contrast, is indifferent to transforming the human condition of the anthropologist, as is geography for the geographer.

Prof John Bagby notes:

• By Socrates’ analogy, the philosopher must do more than engage in arguments and explanations: there is an attunement of the psyche, the development and influence of which makes or breaks the philosophical viability of all thinking and discourse. Along with thinking, we need a philosophical temperament, tenor and expertise; a spirit of fairness, a yearning for truth, the courage to admit our errors, confront our ignorance, and work in open dialogue with others. Rooted in the spirit of invention, philosophical discourse provides an occasion to collectively work together to better attune ourselves to the work of philosophy, to the complex confluences and dissipations of movements transpiring in our psyches and to one another’s perspectives and needs.

But what is the question philosophy is attempting to deal with? For Heidegger in his reading of philosophy from Anaximander to Nietzsche it was the problem of existential homeless, that the human condition is fundamentally opposed to human nature and how we might work to begin to overcome this.