Pseudophilosophy

Pseudophilosophy is a term, often considered derogatory, applied to criticize philosophical ideas or systems which are claimed not to meet an expected set of standards. The etymology of the term is based on appending the prefix pseudo- ("false") to the word philosophy ("love of knowledge"); another term to describe false philosophy is "cod philosophy".

The term has been used against many different targets, including:

According to Christopher Heumann, an 18th-century scholar, pseudo-philosophy has six characteristics:

According to Michael Oakeshott, pseudo-philosophy "is theorizing that proceeds partly within and partly outside a given mode of inquiry."

Pieper notes that there cannot be a closed system of philosophy, and that any philosophy that claims to have discovered a "cosmic formula" is a pseudo-philosophy. In this he follows Kant, who rejected the postulation of a "highest principle" from which to develop Transcendental idealism, calling this pseudo-philosophy and mysticism.

Nicholas Rescher, in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, describes pseudo-philosophy as "deliberations that masquerade as philosophical but are inept, incompetent, deficient in intellectual seriousness, and reflective of an insufficient commitment to the pursuit of truth." Rescher adds that the term is particularly appropriate when applied to "those who use the resources of reason to substantiate the claim that rationality is unachievable in matters of inquiry."

According to Pieper, for Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle philosophy is the human search "oriented toward wisdom such as God possesses". It suggests that philosophy includes, in its essence, an orientation toward theology. Pieper notes:

Thus something is being expressed here that clearly contradicts what in the modern age has become the accepted notion of philosophy; for this new conception of philosophy assumes that it is the decisive feature of philosophical thought to disentangle itself from theology, faith and tradition.

The term "pseudo-philosophy" appears to have been coined by Jane Austen.

Ernest Newman (30 November 1868 – 7 July 1959), an English music critic and musicologist, who aimed at intellectual objectivity in his style of criticism, in contrast to the more subjective approach of other critics, published in 1897 Pseudo-Philosophy at the End of the Nineteenth Century, a critique of imprecise and subjective writing.

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