Philosophy asks about our foundations as human beings.
These foundations are the most basic elements of conscious life. All of our thinking, all of what we are as conscious beings, depends on these most basic questions and their answers. Because these questions and their answers are the basic elements of what we are as human beings, the effort to ask and try to answer these questions does much more than it initially seems. In asking and trying to answer, philosophy is immediately and directly activating and making grow what we ourselves in fact are. Further, since part of being human is to be with others in a world, philosophy is also the direct growth of our relations with other people and with the world around and in us.