Thanks for the compliment. The true key in philosophy is in what the Oracle said about Socrates, "Socrates is the wisest of men because he knows that he knows very little" (paraphrased)Well, I am not a philosopher, I'm an historian. @Maggot is our resident philosopher. Really! Trained in it and rather capable, despite some points of view here on SH.
Based on facts.
On does not work as a philosopher when it comes to history. Philosophy provides the basis for religions, political systems, how one lives their lives. It is an important and, these days, an overlooked field. But the great philosophers were just that... great! And they shaped a lot of history. But they didn't record or interpret it. That's for us mere mortals.
Cheers,
Sirhr
Philosophy very simply means "The love of Wisdom" I had always been held by the Biblical passage " Seek after Wisdom, make her your constant companion." When I had to decide on a major in college that just seemed a natural.
There are many branches of philosophy, from ethics which discusses what is acceptable by a given society, or in an absolute sense, the metaphysics, the study of the nature of reality itself. Much of it is just exercise for the mind, not unlike Escher's drawings...questions that have no or obtuse answers that cause you to think outside your daily system. Read about Zeno and Parminides.
And religious philosophy. Some of our religious zealots here would do well to read Augustine or Aquinas.
Immanuel Kant wrote an amazing book, one of the standards, 'A Critique of Pure Reason' in which Kant reasons out the limits of reason itself, deciding that in the end reason can take you only so far, at some point on must make a transitional leap to something else.
As to facts, Wittgenstein wrote the classic on that...Tractatus Logicus Philosopocicus
* The world is all that is the case.
1The world is the totality of facts, not of things.
1.11.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their beingall the facts.For the totality of facts determines what is the case, and
1.12also whatever is not the case.The facts in logical space are the world.
1.13The world divides into facts"
Maggot out.