[Erik Olson]

What John said is very true. Pope was a very philosophically inclined poet, and he supplied poetry with his Essay on Man, however in point of philosophy itself he fell short (that was his chief philosophical effort). I say this as a consummate Pope fan. For all its flours and embellishments of poetry, a Swiss philosopher Crousaz effectively criticized the Essay on the grounds of its philosophy.
For my part, I think matters that appertain to the art of living, ethics, and issues relating to the human heart are more amenable to treatment in poetry than epistemology, or metaphysics for example; yet even those I believe are not amenable to a systematic treatment in the way that philosophy proposes to do. What Pope did in the Essay on Man was supply poetry of philosophical concepts that were not at all revolutionary but already commonplace, yet in such a way that reading them they impressed the mind as though they were new. So I second what John said. Johnson criticized Pope for the philosophy in the Essay yet also allowed it showed:
"... his observations on the operations of the mind and the modes of life, shew an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excursive, vigorous, and diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and attentive to retain it." Still if philosophy is what one craves, for merely the ideas themselves alone, one might find better nourishment in Immanuel Kant, or Heidegger, Hume or Isaiah Berlin.