I am going to be discussing four levels or stages of human experience. Philosophy happens primarily at the fourth level. How do we get up to it?

At level I, the prereflective level, we make use of ideas or beliefs without being self-consciously aware of having or using them. This is true from the moment a person wakes up till the moment she falls asleep, and may even be true during dreams. Most of these ideas are beliefs or assumptions that we take for granted and that help us view the world in a meaningful way. They are like contact lenses that you wear to see what is around you. You may not even be consciously aware that they are present; yet if the lenses were different, you would see things differently.

You walk up the stairs to the third floor of CH. You do not look at every step--you believe the next step will be there. If you ask somebody for directions to the room, you believe it's likely that the person you are talking to will understand English. You enter the classroom curious, but not nervous--you don't expect somebody to take out a weapon and start injuring people. You have all these beliefs and many more--but you are not consciously thinking, "I believe that there are no missing steps between the ground floor and the third floor of CH." "I believe that this person understands English," "I believe nobody will try to kill me while I am in CH today."

Operating at level I we are aware of things and other persons, but not consciously of our own assumptions. We may be aware of things as threats, attacks, opportunities, things that are pleasant or painful. We think, for example, "so-and-so is hostile to me," not "I am interpreting so-and-so's actions as hostile" or "I have a habit of fearing anybody who is like so-and-so."

At Level II you become aware of what you believe and develop the capacity to state it it in words. In order to describe the first level, I had to make you aware of some of the things that you believe but take for granted. There are many beliefs like that in everybody's life. We tend to believe, for example, that things that happen have causes, that it makes sense to seek explanations of them. We tend to believe that material objects do not vanish from the universe when we turn our backs upon them. We tend to believe that minds do not switch bodies, so that when you see somebody who looks exactly like your good buddy he or she will recognize you and remember things that you did together not long ago. We have similar beliefs about the trustworthiness of various persons in various occupations. For example, we tend to assume that store clerks will not try to cheat us.

When we go looking for our assumptions and state them clearly so that we can become aware of them, this is the first level of self-awareness. But it is the second level of experience. At level II we step back from the objects that seem to threaten us or promise benefit and become aware of our own thoughts about those objects.

We will be talking about doubt and belief. Now people believe things that they do not realize they believe, and doubt things about which they have never said to ourselves, "I have doubts about that." By formulating these beliefs and doubts, they enter Level II.

People who write diaries describing in detail how they feel about persons, places, things, and events, develop the ability to stay in Level II for extended periods of time. This is not automatic; it takes practice. It is a useful skill to cultivate, but it is not yet philosophy.

Level II is a basis for Philosophy but it is not yet Philosophy. You can keep a diary of your personal perspectives on things for years and never get up to the level of philosophy. However, it is not unnatural if philosophy starts creeping in.

Level II is involves self-awareness, but not critical self-awareness. Level III, which builds on Level II, which in turn builds on Level I, is critically self-aware experience. This is where philosophy starts.

"Critical" comes from the ancient Greek word for judgment (krisis). Self-awareness may ask, "How do I feel? What was I thinking?" Critical self-awareness asks, "Do I have a right to feel that way?" "Should I have thought what I was thinking?"

Self-awareness. "I was so mad when Dad would not let me borrow the car."

Critical self-awareness. "Should I (or anybody else in a similar set of circumstances) get mad when somebody (in a similar set of circumstances to my Dad) refuses to do me a favor involving his car (or a similarly valuable material possession)?"

Aspects of Level III:
1) What we discover at this level can support or challenge the beliefs of which we are aware at the merely self-aware level.
2) We now have to deal with general principles that are supposed to apply to others as well as to oneself.
3) At the critical level we are dealing with principles intended to guide belief (and, often, action as well).
4) These principles themselves can be tested critically by calling in other principles.

Consider the following:
1) A devout Christian praying to God (s/he believes that this personal God exists, but is thinking about the content of the prayer, the message she wishes to share with this God); the belief that God exists is prereflective here.
2) The same person is asked whether she believes in the existence of a personal God, her answer is, "Yes, I do." The person is now at the Level II, the first reflective level, the self-aware level. She has identified herself as a theist.
3) Finally, she is asked whether she thinks that everybody should believe in the existence of this personal God? This question gets us up to the critical level for the first time. (By itself it is not enough to keep us there.)

She may answer "yes" to this question too. She is now a theist of a somewhat more ambitious type. The person who says that everybody should believe in the existence of a personal God, has taken a stand on a philosophical issue, namely, how people in general should think about the existence of God.

The theist may have gotten up to the critically self-aware level, but may not stay there. What would keep her up there for a while might be the next question to be asked? OK, why should people be theists on this issue? How do you justify, support, prove that they should?

Another thing that keeps people at the critically self-aware level is the study of alternate possibilities. For example, one might think that whether God exists is a question that can never be answered one way or the other and that people should suspend judgment about it. In other words, one might hold the position of philosophical agnosticism.

Note that like the theist the agnostic can be on Level II or Level III. If he were asked, do you believe in the existence of a personal God, he would say I suspend judgment; I don't believe one way or the other on that. Many people who say that they are agnostics are only reporting their own belief; they may not have thought whether they recommend this view to others.

But an agnostic can suspend judgment in the existence of a personal God in a Level III way. He can hold that everyone, every reasonable person, should do likewise. And we can sustain the discussion by asking the philosophical agnostic what justification he has for his position, just as we could ask the philosophical theist what justification she had for hers.

With sustained critical self-awareness we are, it seems to me, doing philosophy or something very much like it. Socrates, one of the early heroes of philosophy and inspirations for later philosophy, is supposed to have said, "The unexamined life is not worth living for human beings." The idea of critical self-awareness is contained in the concept of "examination" here. The word "life" refers to a sustained activity, not something you do for two minutes and then drop.

It takes some work, or at least some directed activity to get up to the philosophical level and stay there for a while. But it is not natural for people to stay only at the prephilosophical level. The person who writes a diary but reports only about how she felt and never judges the actions of others by general principles has to consciously resist tendencies to evaluate what is being described. Suppose you are writing in your diary about an interaction with another person and you comment, "what she said about me was totally unjustified." A statement like that evaluates. It points to one or more general principles that you have in mind when you make the statement. Maybe you are assuming that it's wrong to say negative things about people who have never injured you. You are using this principle to evaluate the action of the other person.

We could keep the discussion at the philosophical level for a while by asking, "Can you justify your principle that you should never be negative about persons who have done you no injury? What if they are planning to injure you? What if they have injured somebody else? What if by criticizing them you can set them on a path towards improvement?"

Three answers: (1) Sometimes different views lead to conflicting practical conclusions-- views on abortion or gay rights, for example. If the chances of violence are to be minimized, society needs to thoroughly and calmly discuss these issues and follow the most reasonable course all things considered.

(2) Even when different views do not lead to conflicting practical conclusions, listening to views with which we disagree can teach us a lot even if they do not entirely persuade us--a position that leads to a wrong conclusion can still have correct parts within it. Attempts to defend the opposing positions can teach us how to construct a stronger case for one's positions. Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger, said the philosopher Nietzsche. We develop our mind by dealing with challenges to our beliefs; sometimes we revise the beliefs, sometimes we find better reasons for keeping them.

(3) Sometimes it is good to admit that one was wrong. Socrates always welcomed thoughtful challenges to his views-- he said to his conversation-partner words to this effect: "one of the greatest gifts you could can give to me is to persuade me that I am wrong--if I am wrong."