The dominant orientation of the Department is analytic philosophy. But it is easy to describe the principal tasks and methods of philosophy. The concepts or ideas philosophy tries to clarify are those that play an important role in the general understanding we have of ourselves and the world we live in. Because philosophy tries to clarify concepts or ideas, philosophy has to be concerned with meaning and language. The clarifications of concepts or ideas is the conceptual-analysis aspect of philosophy.
Philosophy tries to solve issues and problems.
The issues and problems are general and theoretical. Philosophy is not primarily interested, e.g., in whether Johnny's behaviour last night is morally wrong or not, but in what it is about human actions that makes them morally wrong or not. The attempt to solve such issues and problems is the theoretical aspect of philosophy. Philosophy is made up of many different sub-fields. Logic and ethics are two that are well known.