In relation to any empirical discipline, philosophy has two tasks, one prior and one posterior to the work of that discipline. The first task is to deal with the basic concepts and presuppositions which underlie concrete research—questions that cannot be handled in research itself because inquiry is based on them. The other task involves the speculative rounding out of the results of research and the effort to integrate them into a total picture of things by connecting them with ideas that lie beyond direct experience and objectively verifiable knowledge.

DEFINE: Clarifies philosophy's two distinct functions: grounding research presuppositions beforehand and integrating findings into a broader worldview afterward.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 36