Some philosophy.

The approach here to systematic philosophy is to begin with a single broadly scoped question the analysis of which will suffice to draw out the entire system. There are probably many different questions which might be used in this way. The one I have chosen is "What should we do?".

A first approach to answering this question might be as follows: Before we can decide what to do, we must have some idea of what we hope to achieve. This involves values. Given some enlightenment on that, we then need some idea of what kind of action would be most likely to realise the desired outcome. This involves a body of knowledge of a factual character.

The components of this analysis, insofar as they are philosophical, fall under the general headings of practical (concerning values) and theoretical (concerning knowledge) philosophy, though philosophy itself may fall short of providing answers in either domain, contenting itself with methodological or metatheoretic matters.

In the first analysis it seems that the philosopher may be less definite in his response than might be hoped for. I'm going to suggest here that insofar as the question is taken in a broad sense, thinking of it as inviting debate of humanity about its future, a philosophical answer is of necessity.