All Paths Lead to Philosophy
Most people tend to picture philosophers as old men dressed in togas in Ancient Greece sitting around talking about the nature of “form” while slaves serve them grapes, while the rest think of contemporary stoned hippies talking about the meaning of life, man.
But philosophy is so much more than this. Philosophy exists in everything. Ethics, math, physics, economics, politics, psychology, law, and religion all have their roots in philosophy. Philosophy serves as a process of thinking in order to understand [insert concept] more completely.
“Philosophy” comes from Greek (surprise) and means “the love of wisdom or knowledge.” Philosophy is here to ask. To ask “why,” “what,” “how,” a laundry list of other questions, but perhaps most intriguingly “is it really?” Understanding definition and causation is important because it allows us to make sense of the world around us rather than it being only a series of disconnected vague ideas. — Did you see what I did there? That’s philosophical thinking about philosophy, you can’t escape it even if you wanted to.
You might have heard about the phenomenon with almost all Wikipedia entries leading back to the Philosophy page when clicking on the first link. This might be surprising to a lot of people, but it makes perfect sense to me.
[Philosophical problems] are, of course, not empirical problems; but they are solved through an insight into the workings of our language, and that in such a way that these workings are recognized — despite an urge to misunderstand them. The problems are solved, not through the contribution of new knowledge, rather through the arrangement of things long familiar. Philosophy is a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of our language — Ludwig Wittgenstein
The goal of the philosopher is to make sense of it all. First to try and break the universe down into little pieces of information that can be understood, then to put the puzzle back together again.
It became common to associate this role with simply sitting in the ivory tower and spouting off hopelessly vague questions that could never be answered. This is a lazy rebuttal to bad philosophy. Of course philosophy should be about more than simply sitting and thinking, but the opposite end of the spectrum, not ever thinking about cause and definition, is equally worthless. The pursuit of finding meaning and purpose should never be overlooked or cast aside.
I remember when I decided to major in philosophy at University, people asked if I was going to do anything useful with it. My line was that I planned on going to law school and that was usually good enough to stop people’s questions. At the time, I didn’t recognize the immense value in studying philosophy as its own ends and learning the analytical skills necessary to read critically and sculpt coherent arguments.
It’s difficult to show how important studying philosophy is when its purpose is to develop your thinking skills in general. When you know how to think, you can adapt it to any new circumstance you encounter. Recently there was an article in the Wall Street Journal explaining this idea and how it relates to computer programmers from liberal arts backgrounds, including philosophy, being even more valuable than those with computer science degrees.
As we are shifting away from the industrial economy into the creative economy, this ability to understand thinking will allow people to learn and adapt more quickly, which will be a highly valued skill. Instead of following the industrial model and focusing on field specific knowledge at the outset, it will be helpful to have a higher baseline for mental awareness, to which studying philosophy can contribute.
The good thing about learning philosophy is that it already permeates so many areas of your life. Music, literature, TV, and movies are riddled with philosophical themes and ideals (see here and here for an introduction). Training yourself to recognize the questions being posed in these mediums is a good ‘do it yourself’ first step to embrace philosophy.
Next is to start questioning your experiences, other people’s arguments, and especially your own assumptions about the world. And not just the big cosmic “WHY,” but break it down to things like “what would you do if you were in their situation?” or “what emotion or memory does it make you recall?”
When you do this, find others who have asked the same or similar questions and see what they have to say about the situation. This process will lead you to ask more questions and provide the hunger to continue repeating the process.
Inevitably, you will find “philosophers” that just don’t do it for you and who might make you throw down a book in anger (everybody does this, right?). But don’t let that discourage you. View it as an opportunity to identify incorrect assumptions or flaws in their logic so that you don’t make comparable mistakes in your own argumentation.
My hope is that we all become (or embrace being) part time philosophers. To put in the hard work of examining our lives, relationships, and perceptions of the world in order to live an enriched life. When people scoff at the idea of philosophy, I always feel like scoffing back. As Socrates would suggest, their unexamined lives are not worth living.
In the Philosophy Stream at the Exosphere Academy, we are looking to introduce new ideas and alternatives that might not have been previously considered. We are not going to tell you how the world is, but encourage you to find out for yourself and to promote the collection of knowledge not so that you can find the answer, but for you to learn how to continue to ask better questions.
As part of our inter-disciplinary approach with the other Streams in the Academy, we will have in depth discussions covering a range of topics: the problems with promoting habit-forming designs, coding into existence personhood in the form of artificial intelligence, hacking our bodies to extend life (both in terms of regulating safety and the implications of becoming immortal), and using the blockchain to alter the mechanism of economics and create new forms of governance. [Update: this program was from July-September 2016 — our new programs are slightly different but include even more overlap with several new and exciting streams.]
We want to ensure that the people with the passion or technical expertise in these areas do more than simply enhance their skills. We want them to realize how philosophy infects life and is the origin of change, either for better or for worse. We want the decision makers to choose for the right reasons and encouraging thought and reflection is the best way for that to happen.
Let me know what you think,
Hoss
If you are interested in joining the Philosophy Stream, apply now to the Exosphere Academy!
And if you enjoyed this article, see my follow up Well Let Me Ask You This…
