Philosophy and philosophy of (social) sciences?

Abstract

When a philosopher is asked, by friends, about the nature of his job, then, if he answers frankly, his answer is often followed by an embarrassed silence. Though there is a lot of disciplines that lay people understand only very obscurely, probably no one gives such a vague impression as philosophy. I think that the reason is that the concept of philosophy truly is vague and that what we see as falling under it are often so diverse methods and attitudes that assembling them under a single concept is in fact quite problematic. In the article I argue that the old notion of philosophy as an activity quite close to the sciences is still valid. Then I argue that one of the most interesting construal of philosophy is its construal as the philosophy of science and especially of social sciences. Thereby I do not mean building new scientific theories, but useful clarification of various problematic and borderline questions, which the sciences face.