Hello to everyone, and for all the new visitors, welcome to Areté! If this is your first time on the site and you’re interested in entering our fabulous cash-and-prizes-for-comments contest, this is an excellent post to start out with if you wish (see the details for the contest here). Don’t worry if you feel philosophically uneducated – we value and encourage the input of all you philosophers out there! So here’s a nice, accessible introductory sort of topic for everyone.
My friend and I were enjoying a meal yesterday in Valhalla, and began to discuss the inevitable stresses that come along with course registration time. What follows is the paraphrased transcript of our conversation. When asking about the classes she had signed up for, she made the comment that she got “stuck with a philosophy class.”
Why ever would she choose that phrase?
“Philosophy is just a big waste of time. You won’t ever really use it. I don’t know why you or anyone would want to think about that kind of stuff and just end up wasting your life,” she replied.
Ok, I responded, but if I were to ask you what wouldn’t be “wasting your life,” what kind of living you think is best, can you really be sure you are right? “The uncontemplated life is not worth living,” said Socrates. How can you stand living your life without really pausing to consider the best way to live it? You only have one shot in this game of life, and the risk of blowing it, or of living for a lie or in futility, is just too high to take. You agree that you want to be happy, but are you sure you know what happiness is – do you know that the kind of happy you want is really for the best kind? In philosophy, your quest is to find the best way to live and the best way of being happy; instead of blindly feeling around in the dark on a path you haven’t clearly seen and aren’t sure of the destination, philosophy can offer some light to live by.
“But what if you’re just wasting all this time for nothing? What if you never find the truth or whatever and let your whole life slip away while you’re reading what a bunch of dead people wrote? Why should I care what Plato said? I know he’s a pretty smart guy, but what if he’s wrong? Even if I live and do things without knowing it’s the best way, at least I’m still living, while you will just waste your entire life and never come up with an answer. Or what if you find the truth and it’s depressing? What if there is no point? I’d rather just live without thinking about it too hard, and be happy.”
Well, there is that possibility that the contemplative life will not make you happy. But it’s a chance you have to take. It’s better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied, said John Stuart Mill. You may not be happy as you’d normally think it, but that is only part of the whole truth of it. Your dissatisfaction is a better life than the carefree pig. Can the pig really be happy?
“Yes, pigs are happy. And they don’t think about the things we do. That’s how we should live.”
Pigs don’t think about things at all. They can’t be happy; content, probably, but not happy. Only we can ever really be happy. Let me tell you about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. (**Click on the link to read the story I told her about.) They’re content in the cave, all their needs are provided for, but you wouldn’t say you’d want to live like that. They’re not happy and can’t be, while living by the distortive, man-made fire (representing man-made, artificial knowledge).
Once dragged out into the Sunlight (that is, divinely-created, transcendent knowledge of the whole world outside of their little cave), they can think, and see for real, and know, and live and be happy.
“Ok fine. Here’s my life philosophy: I don’t want to think all the time about everything about life. I just want to be happy, and I don’t mean just little happiness. Like, I mean, lasting happiness. Not just, I don’t know, sort of happy now, but in a more lasting way. Real happiness.”
That’s actually what Aristotle says about happiness – or for the Greeks, eudaimonia or flourishing. That’s exactly the kind of happiness I think we all want, but you have to make you live the right way to get it! So you see, even you agree with Aristotle about something about life.
**** So what are your thoughts about philosophy? A big “waste of time” or is it the only way to live? Or maybe something in between, an enjoyable diversion to talk about at the coffee shop? Does it give us the answers to questions about life, or just more unanswerable questions? Is it even possible not to philosophize? (Consider Aristotle: "If you ought to philosophize you ought to philosophize; and if you ought not to philosophize you ought to philosophize: therefore, in any case you ought to philosophize. For if philosophy exists, we certainly ought to philosophize, since it exists; and if it does not exist, in that case too we ought to inquire why philosophy does not exist – and by inquiring we philosophize; for inquiry is the cause of philosophy.")
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Why study Philosophy?
Posted by Andrea Lowry at 1:53 PM
Labels: general philosophy
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
6 comments:
This is a very provocative post on an interesting topic. The reason why I study philosophy has very little to do with finding the truth. I'm just fascinated with the practice of philosophy and can't imagine living without it. In this respect it is not that different from golf. I think that golf is an enormous waste of time and anyone who spends time playing it is a loser. I'm sure the golfers think the same thing about my philosophical pursuits, but at least I can do it when it's raining! There will always be people who don't get philosophy, just like there are people like me who just don't get golf. For me though philosophy does not have as its goal happiness; it is itself one of things that makes my life very happy. And I would have never learned the joy of philosophy unless I took an course in it as an undergraduate, just as I never would have figured out that golf is not my cup of tea unless I tried playing it (and even took some lessons). So my answer to Andrea's friend is, take philosophy with an open mind. If you like it, you will be the better for it. If you don't, you'll never have to concern yourself with it again (just as I don't concern myself with golf). Either way, you're a better person for it.
Wow, you covered a lot of ground in there... I'll see if I can hit a highlight.
"In philosophy, your quest is to find the best way to live and the best way of being happy; instead of blindly feeling around in the dark on a path you haven’t clearly seen and aren’t sure of the destination, philosophy can offer some light to live by."
I disagree; I would claim that one's end need not necessarily be happiness-- for example, I do believe that there are people who desire power, respect, or authority above their own happiness. Additionally, I have met people who are very content-- and, perhaps, happy-- and yet they are not edified.
For myself, philosophy is not an end; like Dr. Papazian, I love philosophy, but I do not do it because I love it (I love video games, as well, but I am not devoting my life to optimizing my video game playtime). I'm not sure if it'll hold up, but I'd like to see how an argument fares that the value of philosophy lies in its training of one's edification through absolute subjectivity.
If I pursue an education in the business school, I will receive an objective training-- an individual ought to perform x action in y environment, given z context. If I pursue an education in golf, I receive a objective training in relative subjectivity-- learn the [objective] skills and techniques that will best allow you to play golf, that you might pursue an [subjective] end which will bring you (but not necessarily everyone else).
Philosophy, however, teaches the skills and techniques needed to pursue wisdom, truth, knowledge, happiness, and edification (among other things). One need not study it for the attainment of those things-- one can take a relative subjectivist approach, and study philosophy for similar reasons to why one studies golf. However, I do believe that philosophy can be utilized for ends which are necessarily subjective, and yet (unlike golf, history, and art) are absolute.
Religion can actually serve a similar end, but where as philosophy is objective training in absolute subjectivity, religion is only capable of subjective training in absolute subjectivity. Or that would be my argument.
I agree with you both that philosophy is not justified only in mere happiness nor does it have as its goal happiness. It seems worthy intrinsically. In hindsight, I could have said something better than what I did. (Remember, this is a transcript of what we actually said, but probably not what would have been the absolute best things to say - it's not the usual post of presenting an argument that would probably have been much better, more thought-out, and better-phrased.)
For a conclusion to the story, I'm happy to say that my friend went from the opinion that a philosophy class could in no way be something useful to her life or a class worth taking - to reconsidering those prejudices and becoming at least slightly more willing to be a little open-minded. Hopefully she'll keep that new opinion with her all the way to critical thinking in January, and who knows, maybe even end up enjoying it a tad in spite of herself.
ahh philosophy is something I definitely prefer to never think about. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ is a truthful statement, but it is a stupid way to live. Philosophy confuses and annoys me. I don’t enjoy thinking into depth into something I know I will never find an accurate answer to. Because philosophy is not opinions; it is thoughts. And as far as I see it, there are optimistic and pessimistic views on philosophy and feeling bad is a bad way to feel. I do prefer to be happy, but if I choose to relay my thoughts in negativity, it’s hard to be happy. Optimistic philosophy is beautiful, but it’s mere poetry to me.
Even though I do not enjoy reading on the subject of philosophy, nor philosophizing myself, I don’t feel as though those that do philosophize don’t get anything out of it. I think it’s a beautiful way to prime the brain, and I also feel as though there are great advantages. Thinking about things makes it easier to understand things. Those that don’t understand or choose not to understand (or choose to not think about it entirely) can become frustrated and burdened. So, without a doubt, I believe it’s good for the soul. I will, however, not seek to understand it. I am uninterested. Props to those that are; I’m sure they’ll lead a far more meaningful life than my own. I’m happy without one. ;)
I do however, enjoy watching and playing golf.
I have great respect for Amanda G Greene's position. I think she's right--philosophy is not for everyone. Neither is golf. The same can be said about math, music, religion, chess, baseball, bullfighting and just about anything one cares to mention.
And of course I have a purely selfish reason for wanting people not to like philosophy--I would have never gotten this wonderful job at Berry if there were more philosophy Ph.Ds competing against me.
This is ray marvin by the way. I'd like to defend andrea's position here on her post. Considering the practice of philosophy as a means to an end (happiness) I would like to expand this end further to not only this complex and abstract emotion but also to a pragmatic fullfillment. One could say pragmatic fullfillment is the same as the contentness of a pig, but I feel that contentness to a pig is a much different thing to contentness to a human being. The head of household in remote Africa most lilly feels hapiness within the pragmatic fullfilment Of knowing he has saved enough food for the rainy rainy season. Taking this under consideration, one can achieve the same hapiness knowing that an education In philosophy has created a more knowledgable and open minded citizen. Of course, an argument asserting why an open minded and knowledgable citizens are best; though I think this is obvious in a democratic republic like the united states. To summerize, we are not widgets to be sent out into the workforce ( despite the efforts of the math and science oriented administration of berry). Our happiness found in philosophy and the humanities is derived from the transformation of the moldable freshman mind tto educated members of society.
Post a Comment