I am not one who takes pride in doing oral explanations of things, so I tend to trivialize what I study to avoid further questions. Or, I simply walk away. It’s the same thing, then and now. People used to ask me what the social sciences are, and now people ask me what philosophy is or what its subject matter is. Thing is, I don’t know what it is. I can’t begin to explain what it is, it seems too broad. It’s a question I thought I knew the answer to, but now I know that I don’t.
Well… perhaps you could take “refuge” in the idea that Socrates - the most famous of arguably all, if only western, philosophers, came to the same conclusion. More over, he was and is still revered for being the “wisest” of men (although it’s not intuitive). It is a mark of Western philosophy, rife with its own power and political struggles through 3 millenia, to remind oneself that, as Bertrand Russell put it, “certainty is an intellectual vice”.
So you are absolutely and perfectly ok, if those words can mean anything at all, in thinking or believing that you don’t know what philosophy is or how to explain it to people. More over, for what it’s worth - even though this response is an obvious contradiction to the virtue of brevity, you should pride yourself in not taking pride in the typical long winded bullshitting that is associated with Philosophy.
But I would argue that you do know what philosophy is. Jesus would argue that you do. Sidharta (or Buddha) would argue that you do. Plato and Aristotle would argue that you do. The Taoists would argue that you do. The Gnostics would argue that you do. The Atheists would argue that you do. And especially the humanists would argue that you do.
You know what philosophy is, because it is what you are doing all the time. For as much it is a truism - to be curious or as academics would call it “to be in the pursuit or love of knowledge” - if such things are possible at all, is to be a human. And, having a healthy amount of skepticism for what people present through language as truth - i.e. reality - is just as much a part of it.
So what is philosophy? It is many things - all of which are supported by in one way or another, or stem from, reason and knowledge. It really is Science. It really is Mathematics. It really is theology. It really is the intellectual side of politics. It really is a or the way of life, detained in the marks, sounds, and patterns of many languages that human beings have been putting together for thousands upon thousands of years.
It is not something to be trivialized by simple responses, nor the orthodox or dogmatic or scholastic veins. You should feel no problem or anxiety in expressing or believing at any the proposition “I dont know”. Because it’s perfectly acceptable and perfectly reasonable.
