Why Philosophy is Important (to me)

[jojosue]

Before I jump right in, I wanted to clear some things up first. I’m not an expert on philosophy. I do philosophy as a hobby so my explanations on what philosophy is or why it’s important may not be explained as well as it should be. This post is more just a causal explanation of what I think philosophy is and why it’s important to me. In any case, I still hope you find some usefulness out of reading this. Feel free to express your thoughts and opinions, even if you don’t agree with me. We learn the most when we discuss and share our ideas.

What is philosophy? Well, the word apparently translates to “the love of wisdom.” This means that philosophers are always trying to learn and gain knowledge. However, there is one thing that all philosophers strive for and that is the truth. To be a philosopher really, means to be a truth seeker. This means that they do not concern themselves with anything else except for the truth. This means getting rid of your biases and they are able to look at things from multiple perspectives. It means to be open minded and being able to think critically. This also means being ready to accept that you may not know as much as you might think you do. One of the great things about philosophy (although some may say it’s the scariest thing) is that everything can be and will be questioned. Nothing is off limits, especially your own beliefs.

Now, the way philosophy (usually) works is that someone will bring up a question and then someone else will try to answer it. Of course, these aren’t just simple questions, these are the BIG questions. For example: What is our purpose in life? What does it mean to be a good person? How do you decide what is right? Is God real? Is time real? Is lying ever ok? How do I know what is real? Do any of these questions really matter? Does philosophy matter? Do we matter?

Now, you may think “jojo, I get what you're saying but what’s this gotta do with me? I mean, I’m just trying to get by in life you know?” Yes, I understand. Philosophy may seem like nothing more than just theoretical talk with no real meaning behind it but believe when I say that philosophy can open your mind to a new way of thinking. Really, philosophy can be related to almost anything. If you asked your boss for a raise, you better give them reasons for why you believe that. I’m not just talking about persuading someone of your ideas, but understanding that what you believe in needs to have some reasoning behind it. If you are doing something for no reason, then why are you doing it? Also, I guarantee you that you've all done some philosophy in your lives. Anytime you're tasked with making a decision, guess what? That’s philosophy! When you are using logic to determine your actions, you are using philosophical tools to decide what you should or should not do. Like deciding when to get out of bed, what to eat, who to talk to, what to work on, etc.

Philosophy was introduced to me when I was the most confused in my life I’d say. I had no understanding of what I was really doing other than just going through the motions of life, I had no real understanding of why I was doing the things I was doing, I had no sense of direction. Philosophy helped me with these struggles because it gave me the tools to be able to answer and better understand these questions. Although I may not have the complete answers, the truth is out there for me, and it’s out there for you too.

 

[jojosue]

For those that want a more formal/organized explanation on what Philosophy is, I recommend this video:

This channel actually has a whole series of videos discussing and explaining different types of philosophical ideas. He doesn't go super in depth but he does a good job giving you a general idea of the topic. I highly recommend the series but you could also just watch the ones that seem more interesting to you.

For a more academic and more in depth look on philosophical ideas or theories, I recommend this website:
https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html
You can look up almost anything here and it will direct you to an article about that subject (ex, beauty, happiness, morality, virtue, etc.) Usually you'll want to click on the first link that shows up.

 

[JitterUp]

can confirm philosophy is cool

 

[toomuchzelda]

we live in a society

 

[Setery]

we live in a society

 

[Plague]

Oi!
I used to read (western analytic) philosophy too! I kinda stopped that as I got older and life got busier. Still, I can attest to a couple facts:

First, like all humanities, it would be counter-productive to judge philosophy according to whether they give material benefits the same way as the sciences do. I see that comparison drawn too often on the interwebs, and I think it's misplaced. Like most humanities, philosophy serves to broaden our horizons that nurtures our soul. Philosophers have mastered the skill of (written) argumentation, articulation and analytical and critical thinking. I know that's cliche, but I think it's true and evidenced by the fact that philosophy majors in the US tend to do well in law school. And Politics, Philosophy and Economics programs in the UK have produced many outstanding and renowned public servants.

Second, philosophy is a very diverse field of knowledge. Basically, any inquiry that can't simply be answered by empirical observations falls under philosophy. (*Deep breath*)

There is political philosophy: liberalism (of the classical variety) is one of the most influential ideologies in Western civilization and can be traced to Enlightenment-era philosophers such as John Locke. Their ideas became the bedrock of many new republics such as the United States and France (this isn't to say the enlightenment thinkers got everything right). Liberalism was further extended upon and defended by 20th century philosopher John Rawls. And it's not just political liberalism, the biggest threat to liberalism - Marxism - was the brainchild of a German philosopher. Political philosophers have theorized about race, feminism, individualism vs communitarianism, civil rights and disobedience, colonialism, conservatism, freedom of speech and much, much more. For laypeople, I think Philosophy Tube's videos on YT are good intros, though he is pretty left.
There's ethics: questions regarding the morality of abortion, the nature of consent, retributive justice (including death penalty) etc.
These two fields are interrelated of course and are often the 'gateway drug' into philosophy for activist-types. Though these two fields are not what got me interested in the field. I was more of a metaphysics guy: Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that tries to understand the most basic structures of reality and concerns itself with what really exists. For example, the early modern philosopher Rene Descartes thought that mind/consciousness was inherently a non-physical soul and did not depend upon the brain/body to exist. With the advance of natural sciences, however, the atmosphere gradually became more materialistic, to the point that most philosophers of mind subscribe to some sort of physicalist point of view where consciousness and the mind are definitely dependent on the physical brain (but exactly how is very perplexing and is a source of controversy and debate in the philosophy of mind). This is probably the hottest field of western analytic philosophy. Other issues in metaphysics deal with the existence of free will in a deterministic world, whether God exists (which is it's own subfield called the philosophy of religion), whether abstract objects like numbers exist, possible worlds, persistence through time, the nature of causation and the nature of time. Theoretical physicists often weigh in on these issues and tend to have their own opinions on the matter; e.g. modern physicists almost unanimously subscribe to an eternalist spacetime picture of time is all points of time are ontologically equal and the passage of time is an illusion.
Epistemology deals with how we acquire and justify knowledge, though personally I find this field a tad boring so I won't talk much about it.
Logic might be seen as the art of reasoning to the layman, but in western analytic philosophy, it is mostly concerned with formal deductive logics and proofs such as those used in ZFC set theory, which forms the foundation of modern mathematics, computational theory etc.
There are many other fields that I can't write on for now.

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg and only considers the contemporary western tradition. There were important eastern and African philosophical traditions (and I guess there still are, though european colonialism seems to have disrupted these cliques (or maybe I'm not looking hard enough)). Confucius seems to have been very influential in China and the Far East in general. My knowledge of that is limited to this meme video.

....
God that was long.

 

[Lexplosion]

I got reccomended this today, after watching that video

 

[Onett]

I would like to share a phrase that has really shaped my philosophy about life:

"If a man does not have the sauce, then he is lost. But the same man can be lost in the sauce." -Gucci Mane-