Here are my notes from PHI6 on 1996-1-8, instructor Kurt Roggli.

1. Working Definition of Philosophy (in Western Sense)
“Philosophy is concerned primarily with analyzing, questioning, and criticizing fundamental concepts, assumptions, and principles.”

Philosophy teaches us to question and challenge authority on an intellectual level.  Moreover, philosophy is concerned with producing grand theories and world views.

Philosophy involves philosophical dialogue or dialectic, a conceptual give-and-take process where in one gives reasons for a view, or offers criticisms, back and forth.

2. Why waste time doing philosophy?
This itself is a philosophical question.  Indeed, the assertion that philosophy is a waste of time is a philosophical assertion, and so if this assertion is true, then this assertion itself is a waste of time.  The skeptic about philosophy cannot win this one (See Aristotle’s argument for rational thinking).