Philosophy is neither poetry nor mathematics, but a discursive development. Poetry may give us visionary symbolism or language-on-language texturings that deautomate perception. Mathematics offers a paradigm of exactitude, and develops many beautiful structures. But philosophy is the home of ethics, dialogue, and interpretation. It is — dare I say it — the home of the human.
Poetry and mathematics each in their own way show us an other-than-human beauty that we as humans can be inspired by. Ethics on the other hand is the specifically human beauty, the beauty of creatures that can talk and share meaning with one another.
The Postmodern Peripatetic 