Mixed Philosophy

Reply to Josh Lee You absolutely can, and the history of philosophy is shaped by people who have.

“The Codex Quaerentis: Introduction”: After the first recognized western philosopher, Thales, in the period that we now call Presocratic philosophy, there were two broad schools of thought. One was the Ionians, following mostly after Thales' student Anaximander, who focused largely on reasoning about the natural world. The other was the Italiotes, following mostly after Anaximander's student Pythagoras, who placed heavy emphasis on mathematics.

That period ended with the work of Socrates, which incorporated elements of both schools of thought. But then in what we call the Classical era of philosophy, there were again two broad schools of thought. One followed after Socrates' student Plato, and echoed the more abstract leanings of the Italiotes. The other followed after Plato's student Aristotle, and echoed the more practical leanings of the Ionians.

The field was again united much later under the Scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas, which again incorporated elements of both Platonism and Aristotelianism, in what we call the Medieval period of philosophy. But out of that unified Scholasticism the field was again divided, at the start of what we call the Modern period of philosophy. One side of that division came to be called the Rationalists, following largely after philosophers like Rene Descartes and echoing the abstract leanings of the Platonists. The other were called the Empiricists, following largely after philosophers like John Locke and echoing the practical leanings of the Aristotelians.

Then Immanuel Kant once again briefly reunited philosophy, explicitly creating a synthesis of Rationalist and Empiricist thought. But following Kant, in what I like to call the Postkantian period (as historians disagree about where or whether the Modern period ended), philosophy was again divided. On the one hand, what was called the Continental school, following philosophers such as Georg Hegel, echoed the practical leanings of the Empiricists. On the other hand, the Analytic school, following philosophers such as Bertrand Russel, echoed the abstract leanings of the Rationalists.

My own philosophy aims to synthesize/hybridize those two current streams of philosophical thought, and also to take the best of both worlds on each separate philosophical topic.

“The Codex Quaerentis: Introduction”: When I discovered professional philosophy [...] I thought that that field was the place where I would find what I was looking for, and that that was the name for it: the right philosophy.

I didn't find it. But in time I found most of the parts of it. They just needed to be shaped and polished a bit, assembled together in the right way, and a few gaps filled in. While studying, I "tried on" the many different philosophies I learned of, but never found one that felt like "the right fit" — an existing, notable "-ism" that I could endorse without reservation. I found that often opposite sides of a philosophical disagreement each made strong points and weak points, and that their strong points were not necessarily in conflict, even as they defeated the other side's weak points. Yet I was disappointed that nobody seemed to espouse a position that combined all the strong without any of the weak. I found also that views on one topic depended heavily on views on another topic, but those dependencies were often not accounted for. Likewise, I found that solutions to problems in one area often had parallel solutions to problems in another area, appealing to the same principles but in different domains, which were again often not accounted for.

So I began this work, documenting my own views on the various topics within philosophy, the combinations of strong points made by everyone on every side of every topic, the missing pieces still unaccounted for after that, and the symmetries and interrelations between them, tracing both all of my own views and all of those I found problematic back to small sets of very general principles.

Haha your response is like a one shot kill, in the sense it answers everything.

Your first part gave me a quick run of the history of philosophy, really interesting.

Your second part bring about more complex concepts and ideas. I agree with most of it, and it shows the paradoxes and questions of the universe and how no one single philosophy has the absolute answer to everything.

I guess I wasn’t really questioning rather what I seek was affirmation on this idea, I still do hope that others will share their hybrid philosophy! Cheers :)

Reply to Josh Lee Glad it was helpful. :-) If you want to read more of my writing, and see the ways I hybridize answers on different specific topics, there's a link in my user profile. (I've been asked not to post the link here, unless @Baden wants to clarify some kind of exception to that for cases like this; @Gnomon still links to his project all the time, so some kind of consistent policy would be nice).

Oh yeah, on that note, Gnomon has a kind of "hybrid philosophy" too, that you might find interesting.