Why is there a philosophy tag if philosophical questions are off-topic?

Question

The OP for this question queried that it was closed due to the following reason :

General philosophical or sociological questions are off-topic unless clearly asking for a doctrinal answer. See: On-topic and constructive examples.

They argued that since there was a 'philosophy' tag they had asked the question in sincerity :

If the "Philosophy" and "Evangelism" tags were not on this forum, I would not have posted. My concern is sincere.

This comment was answered by a Moderator but I wondered if a more full explanation might be helpful in this instance.

Answer 1

General philosophy questions aren't on topic here. Historical or theological philosophy questions can be. Here are some examples:

• What influence did Greek philosophy have on the formation of orthodox Christian doctrine?
• What influence did Greco-Roman philosophy have on the doctrine of "creatio ex nihilo"?
• What is the relation between the Logos of Greek Philosophy and the Logos in Christianity?
• According to Reformed Theology, how is Compatibilism different than Hard Determinism?
• In Aquinas's first proof of God's existence, what is the difference between accidentally and essentially ordered causal series?
• Are there any accidents (philosophical term) in God?
• What positions with regard to epistemology exist in Catholicism?
• How can Protestants authoritatively declare something wrong or heretical under Sola Scriptura?

The last one is maybe a bit of a stretch, but it concerns epistemology, which is definitely a part of philosophy. We probably need some more epistemology questions actually!

Answer 2

We have sex but you can't ask about Kama Sutra here either!

But this is a good question that I would like the community to help us moderators with, because I don't know what the difference between philosophy an apologetics is when it comes to this site. We've said for a long time that apologetics is on topic, but always said "general philosophical question" and I don't know how much more general philosophy you can get from something that is taught in every philosophy 101 class.

There is another site to ask [site:philosophy.se] questions, we don't often migrate there though, you're not apt to get a Christian answer either.

But in general, the tag is a noun describing the question. If the tag were anything else it would be a meta-tag. If you tag philosophy you don't make the question a philosophy question, you make the question about philosophy in general. Similarly you don't make the question an evangelism question, you make the question about evangelism. "How do I evangelize in this particular case" is not a question about spreading the Gospel it is a question about how to spread the Gospel.

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Furthermore, I've always thought that question about distinctly Christian philosophies (like the Natural Moral Law) were on topic as long as they were Thomistic, not just Aristotelian, I've gotten a moderate amount of pushback on that view and had some questions closed when they weren't clearly on the subject of Christianity, I appreciate that and won't try to foist it on the community just because I'm a mod and a Catholic. I don't really know if there is an Evangelical or Reformed philosophy outside of the Bible, I suspect not.