Who was this geared towards?

That's what I was thinking lol it's fine

@EliRodriguez11 It's further down this page @William_Mary

Welcome to the group then!

Join away!

@William_Mary Not at all, if I understand your question correctly. Philosophy is a well-defined discipline. It is possible to philosophise well or badly. If I may take your own post as an example I might critique it thus:

You went from my "standards" to your own "controlled maintenance". Are these the same things? If so, please demonstrate why you think so. If not, why change the meaning of what was said?
What do you mean by "standard of discovery" and "theory process"? Are these well-understood or self-evident terms? Unless they are, how can we introduce them or base any argument upon them?
Can philosophy actually "advance our knowledge"? You seem to think so, but why? What would you say to someone who claimed that philosophy was only concerned with clarifying our understanding of thoughts and not about knowledge itself?
This is very rough, but I hope it gives you an idea of what I mean.

@Gareth this kind of makes my case, or I should say theory. Philosophy is a study of matters. Standards would be a set of protocol to follow. That's what I see when I read your post. But to you, I'm wrong. You're already attempting to set your standards on me towards my ideal of philosophy as incorrect. This contradicts the ability of a group to toss ideas at each other if only your standard is applied. Limiting the ability to progress knowledge if one standard is enforced to the group. That is a controlled maintenance in my opinion.

@William_Mary
Thanks for the reply. Philosophy is a fairly well-defined discipline which I studied for 4 years as a young man. The standards I refer to are not my own, but those which are agreed on in the field, generally. Tossing out ideas is no more philosophy than recounting events is history.
In the spirit of genial dispute consider the statement : "Philosophical enquiry ought not to be subjected to pre-conditions or rules".
Is that itself a pre-condition or rule?
If so, the statement is self-contradictory.
If not, why not?

@Gareth yea, I'm not going to spend more time beating a dead horse over this. All you're doing, it seems to me, is going in circles in which you keep making my case. For the discovery of finding solutions to any matter there can be no "well defined discipline". I give you, Albert Einstein. As you refer to standards again, supposedly agreed to by the field. If Einstein had inhered to a discipline and standards of the scientific community in his time, in which they criticized his theory of relativity, it could have become impossible for him to further the knowledge of that same scientific community. Maybe they should have imprisoned him or put him under house arrest for the remainder of his years as was the case for Galileo. How dare he go against the standards of the churches beliefs! He should be more disciplined!?! "Philosophical inquiry ought not to be subjected to pre-conditions or rules". Exactly. If your main goal is to advance knowledge it can't have restraints.

@William_Mary I hope you'll stick around in this group and further your understanding of philosophy.