When it comes to philosophy, the reasons why philosophy is so important, vary. One of the reasons is Interest. Philosophy is the Love of Wisdom. To pursue philosophy on an intellectual level, allows you to discuss it's importance to the world. As your true conception grows, it allows you to find your moral discipline and opens the doors to an investigation into anything and everything. Whether that includes nature, causes/effects, or principles of reality. Philosophy challenges what we already know and what we have yet to find out. Knowledge is power, but a power that triumphs a systematically challenged value, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods. We can only inquire so much, without wanting to learn more about what we have inquired about. There is much more to an analysis of fundamental assumptions and standard beliefs. Philosophy disciplines us and makes us "wake up" to faux conspiracy and propaganda. It allows us to realize we can't control everything in our life, but we can make the best of the life we have. You can create theories upon theories based on ideas, beliefs, and activities; and most likely, you will not have the correct answer.
Philosophy could also relate to someone's personal ordinary way of thinking. Not just their basic beliefs, opinions, and attitudes; but the standards they set for themselves and others around them. This wonderful way of analyzing thoughts contributes to one's growth and is crucial, yet effective to oneself. Some may "brush off" philosophy, but realistically speaking that is their philosophy. The intelligent seek knowledge, the wise seek knowledge for, and the ignorant refuse to listen. Philosophy is for individuals who are both intelligent and wise. Those who seek a specific kind of knowledge and/or knowledge for another end, instead of truth are merely intelligent and not wise. Being academically endowed is helpful and often times has value, but it does not constitute as being supremely intelligent. Individuals who seek all knowledge in relation to the truth are both wise and intelligent and therefore deserve to be commended with the label of the "philosopher" but then again, there are many different types of philosophy thus many different types of philosophers. Everyone is different, therefore; everyone has a completely different perception of how they think and how they want to convey it through the spoken and/or written word.
Is a right something that is given to you by freewill or is a right something that cannot be taken away? Does one right make another one wrong? Should a right be undermined if it is right?
Is everyone's conception of reality influenced by history, culture, and attitude towards life? Is a preconceived notion learned behavior rather than experienced?
Is philosophy only required to find a way from unhappiness to happiness? Is everything we live and learn based on philosophy? If everyone had their own personal philosophy, would the world exist today the same as it would if this practice were put into play?
Personally, I take philosophy very seriously. I do not like to treat the matters in trivial form as it entails the beliefs of others and not just our own self. You can speak for yourself, as you should; but allow others to understand your remote way of thinking. Convey your thoughts accordingly. Philosophy is an analysis of the concepts that we take for granted, an analysis of the concepts that we use to understand our relation to the world, and our relations with each other. "Love of wisdom" really is passe, at least since Descartes. Philosophy no longer aims at "absolute truth" and creating systems, but at accurately describing what is before us and what is after us. The post-modern collapse from monism to multiplicity (Nietzsche, Deleuze, Derrida, i.e.) entails what philosophy can only interpret and that it has a fragmented access to the world that humans cannot understand. Heraclitean difference, it seems, has won over Parmenidean monism. Perhaps if we used more than 30% of our brains to think we may see what the truth actually is thus we may never know.
Contemporary philosophy is essentially Heraclitean. We use philosophy to question our native beliefs, to free ourselves from narrow ways of thinking. It teaches us to analyze critically, rather than to calculate and tabulate and in often instances--speculate. While some branches of philosophy are in danger of collapsing into psychology, there is much more to philosophy than trying to figure out what happens in our brain or in the brains of our enemies. There is moral philosophy, political philosophy, social philosophy, and many "philosophy of's" such as the philosophies of religion, art, technology, music, etc. Granted, each of these different branches of philosophy may or may not deal with psychology in their own respects, but once again they are not exhausted by it. Unless these skills are useless, philosophy will always have a place in the world, regardless of whether it spends its time coming up with new ideas or just studying the words of dead Europeans to make sense of how their words apply to us today. Science may be the way of the future, but philosophy is the guide of the future.
Whether you are a graduate of MIT with a doctorate degree in five different forms of philosophy or a homeless person using the computer terminal at the local library and regardless, of your stance or view on a particular issue, one thing is certain--the world needs you.
Philosophy could also relate to someone's personal ordinary way of thinking. Not just their basic beliefs, opinions, and attitudes; but the standards they set for themselves and others around them. This wonderful way of analyzing thoughts contributes to one's growth and is crucial, yet effective to oneself. Some may "brush off" philosophy, but realistically speaking that is their philosophy. The intelligent seek knowledge, the wise seek knowledge for, and the ignorant refuse to listen. Philosophy is for individuals who are both intelligent and wise. Those who seek a specific kind of knowledge and/or knowledge for another end, instead of truth are merely intelligent and not wise. Being academically endowed is helpful and often times has value, but it does not constitute as being supremely intelligent. Individuals who seek all knowledge in relation to the truth are both wise and intelligent and therefore deserve to be commended with the label of the "philosopher" but then again, there are many different types of philosophy thus many different types of philosophers. Everyone is different, therefore; everyone has a completely different perception of how they think and how they want to convey it through the spoken and/or written word.
Is a right something that is given to you by freewill or is a right something that cannot be taken away? Does one right make another one wrong? Should a right be undermined if it is right?
Is everyone's conception of reality influenced by history, culture, and attitude towards life? Is a preconceived notion learned behavior rather than experienced?
Is philosophy only required to find a way from unhappiness to happiness? Is everything we live and learn based on philosophy? If everyone had their own personal philosophy, would the world exist today the same as it would if this practice were put into play?
Personally, I take philosophy very seriously. I do not like to treat the matters in trivial form as it entails the beliefs of others and not just our own self. You can speak for yourself, as you should; but allow others to understand your remote way of thinking. Convey your thoughts accordingly. Philosophy is an analysis of the concepts that we take for granted, an analysis of the concepts that we use to understand our relation to the world, and our relations with each other. "Love of wisdom" really is passe, at least since Descartes. Philosophy no longer aims at "absolute truth" and creating systems, but at accurately describing what is before us and what is after us. The post-modern collapse from monism to multiplicity (Nietzsche, Deleuze, Derrida, i.e.) entails what philosophy can only interpret and that it has a fragmented access to the world that humans cannot understand. Heraclitean difference, it seems, has won over Parmenidean monism. Perhaps if we used more than 30% of our brains to think we may see what the truth actually is thus we may never know.
Contemporary philosophy is essentially Heraclitean. We use philosophy to question our native beliefs, to free ourselves from narrow ways of thinking. It teaches us to analyze critically, rather than to calculate and tabulate and in often instances--speculate. While some branches of philosophy are in danger of collapsing into psychology, there is much more to philosophy than trying to figure out what happens in our brain or in the brains of our enemies. There is moral philosophy, political philosophy, social philosophy, and many "philosophy of's" such as the philosophies of religion, art, technology, music, etc. Granted, each of these different branches of philosophy may or may not deal with psychology in their own respects, but once again they are not exhausted by it. Unless these skills are useless, philosophy will always have a place in the world, regardless of whether it spends its time coming up with new ideas or just studying the words of dead Europeans to make sense of how their words apply to us today. Science may be the way of the future, but philosophy is the guide of the future.
Whether you are a graduate of MIT with a doctorate degree in five different forms of philosophy or a homeless person using the computer terminal at the local library and regardless, of your stance or view on a particular issue, one thing is certain--the world needs you.
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