Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline by Bernard Williams

Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline by Bernard Williams

1. In the formula “humanistic discipline” both the elements are meant to carry weight. This is not a lecture about academic organisation: in speaking of philosophy as a “humanistic” enterprise, I am not making the point that philosophy belongs with the humanities or arts subjects. The question is: what models or ideals or analogies should we look to in thinking about the ways in which philosophy should be done? It is an application to our present circumstances of a more general and traditional question, which is notoriously itself a philosophical question: how should philosophy understand itself?