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What
Is Philosophy?
by marriah,
26th July 2001.
This essay attempts to define once and for all what
philosophy is, and isn't.
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I am going to attempt
to clarify something. No matter where I go, I encounter thinkers
perceiving a very simple subject in absolutely the wrong way,
largely because they are trained in the wrong places, using the
tools given to them by thinkers who are too limited in scope. If
someone asks you, "What Is Philosophy?", your first response should
be, "Why Ask The question?" because, at a basic level, in a perfect
world we really don't need philosophy. It's a completely useless
subject, much like a car is useless for traveling when you have
nowhere to go. Why don't you have anywhere to go? Either because you
like where you are, or because it is simply impossible to go to or
create an alternative destination.
As you can tell from
these last few words, Philosophy is, at root, about BEING through
THINKING and FEELING combined. It is about finding out who you are,
and making sure that who you are inside reflects the world outside.
Thus, if the world outside does not reflect the way you want to be
inside, philosophy turns into POWER, so that you make the world
conform to you. If, on the other hand, you like the world outside
more than you like yourself, philosophy is about personal
transformation, so that you can improve yourself by imitating the
world around you. As you can probably see, the philosophical process
involves questioning, to find out FIRST whether you like who you
are, and if so, if the world is allowing you to be the way you like
yourself to be. If not, then you question how to influence it until
it is amenable to your needs. If you don't like the way you are, but
you like the world outside, you again question to find out how you
can connect with that environment and improve. The key, though, is
that philosophy does not exist for the SAKE of questioning. It does
not exist only to question. Instead, it exists to serve you,
personally. Questioning is just a path to that.
That's the
simple answer. On a deeper, more fundamental level, philosophy uses
questioning for a single purpose: making sure you can be who you
want to be all the time. In other words, it seeks absolutes on which
you can base your life so that, in the end, there is no growing to
do because you are perfectly content with yourself. Along the way,
of course, philosophical inquiry helps you identify markers on the
path to any sort of mental, spiritual, emotional, or physical growth
that you want to undertake. But, these markers are really trouble
shooting techniques, like the old joke of the person who ordered a
plumber to come fix the pipes. The plumber fixed the pipes by
hitting them, then charged 5 dollars for hitting them, and 90
dollars for knowing where to hit. Philosophy is the plumber, but
instead of charging you for a service that he will likely render
again, hit gives you the knowledge to fix the pipes yourself. That
constitutes growth. In the end, after all the trouble shooting is
over, you essentially have a PROGRAM to run on, to use computer
terminology. It uses algorithms, or a set of instructions for
whatever situation, environment, circumstance you find yourself in
to achieve a predictable and desirable result. Because the results
are 100 percent predictable and accurate, there is no need to
question them. Instead, you simply act. You do whatever the
algorithm dictates to achieve the desired result, and you end up
basically BEING the action. The Thought is directly translated to
action. No need to ponder, question, or express doubt: just do it!
Because of this, philosophy is inherently results- or
action-oriented. It cares only about the consequences of applied
thought. But, it also knows that the consequences are directly
related to the processes. Hence, it rejects the concept of chaos
automatically and tries to discern the order or pattern hidden
within a mess. By doing this, it enables the individual using
philosophy to become more intelligent by figuring out patterns
everywhere, and using the knowledge of those patterns to respond
effectively to the world.
But here, philosophy divides. This
division characterizes the two dominant schools of philosophy.
First, in order to perceive the patterns correctly, philosophy makes
sure that you are perceiving correctly, period. Thus, philosophy
makes sure that your windshield is clean, that you can read any
gauges on your car as you travel, that you don't have any blind
spots behind you, that you can read the symbols on the map
correctly. This is analytic philosophy, and deals chiefly with the
truth of propositions, logic, cognitive perception, the accuracy of
language, and so on. It also deals with the foundations of logic, to
make sure that you actually do know what you think you know. This is
Analytic Philosophy, otherwise known as modern philosophy. Its
practitioners are Ayer, Quine, Wittgenstein, Putnam, and other
modern philosophers in the Anglo-American Tradition. It also
includes Kant and Hume, as well as Locke and Berkely.
Second, philosophy helps you figure out which destination
you are trying to get to, and which route to take in order to get
there. It proposes conditions for the world, ideal states of being,
ideal processes for changing the world or ways of understanding it.
Ways of thinking and feeling so that you can coordinate yourself
effectively. This is Continental Philosophy, or traditional
philosophy. Its practitioners include Plato and Aristotle, the
Scholastics of the medireview period, the German Idealists,
including Hegel, Fichte, and Schiller, as well as the British
Romantic writers and poets, The British philosophers JS Mill and
Bentham, and Nietzsche, as well as Comte, Marx, and Marx's
followers. Their emphasis is on psychology - producing the
psychological tradition of Freud, Jung and others - science, ethics,
morals, religion, and other subjects concerning the human
individual. Kierkegaard kicked of the Existentialist school that
focuses exclusively on the individual.
The crucial thing to
understand about this division is the dilemma of freedom versus
necessity. For the analytic school, facts determine everything,
because it is almost impossible to do anything if you don’t perceive
the world correctly. But these facts come exclusively from outside
the individual. Thus, they take their cue almost exclusively from
the British Empericists, and don't really take any discussion
seriously unless it involves propositions and observable facts. Yet,
this pretty much denies the natural - even though sometimes
erroneous - thought processes and emotions that normal individuals
have on a daily basis. Because of this, analytic philosophy can
easily provide wonderful ways of discerning the truth of a
statement, and figuring out if a statement has one meaning versus
another. But they can't really figure out how the human, or social
world works. They take the cue of science as the sole motivating
force in the world, even though this is flat wrong.
The
Continental school focuses exclusively on the human condition,
producing such thinkers as Montaigne and TS Eliot who think of the
self as it relates to itself, and the self as it relates to the
world. This kind of philosophy is so expansive - since the human
condition is so expansive - that it can easily encompass literature,
poetry, music, plays, and any other form of artistic or non-artistic
statement. The central question it asks is, what is humanity, and
why do people do the things they do? Then it asks, how can we
improve the human condition? The last sentence resembles the
romantic twist to continental philosophy. It never really asks
whether it is possible or desirable to improve the human condition.
Because of this, a lot of people in the analytic philosophy
tradition thing it is a waste of time since it has no real impact on
the world, or an undesirable impact at most. But, most of what we
call "personal philosophy" or "personal truths" come from the
Continental school of philosophy. The analytic school has a dickens
of a time - finding it nearly impossible in some cases - to verify
that any of this stuff actually pertains to anything real. So, most
of analytic philosophy critiques continental philosophy as nonsense.
In contrast, people who feel lonely, miserable, or even happy, turn
first to continental philosophy and ignore analytic philosophy
because they find continental philosophy so personally useful.
Therein lies the rub. Continental philosophy and analytic
philosophy are not mortal enemies of each other, but are two sides
of the same coin. Look at them as if they were two sides of a subway
coin. Analytic philosophy clears your head and makes sure that you
are actually holding a subway coin, that you are in a subway, and
that both of you actually exist. That's why it deals with
consciousness, logic, cognitive processes, and truth propositions.
As Spock said, "I find the question, "Why are we here?', typically
human. A more logical question is, "Are we here?'" That is the sole
purpose of analytic philosophy: verify, verify, verify. If one way
of verifying has been tried, make sure you aren't missing any blind
spots. Thus, analytic philosophy engages in thought experiments. It
is right in line with mathematics and physics, and any other part of
the natural sciences.
But, once you verify that you are in
that subway, the next question is, obviously, where do you wan to
go? Thus, Continental philosophy is chiefly concerned with
destinations, either of your own spirit, or of the human race. It
forces you to consider which destinations are desirable, and what
the paths are to them. In this way, it is identical to religion
because it deals with eschatology, or the ends of things, as well as
ethics and morals - or the paths to get there and the rules along
the path. But Philosophy is one step above religion, in two ways.
First, it doesn't require you to have faith in anything. Analytic
philosophy gives you the confirmation of knowing. Second, you need
not believe in any one person of thing. Simply choose, and act. As I
said before, if you can't choose and act, then you don't need
philosophy since its sole purpose is to teach you how to choose and
act, and for what purpose.
But why doesn't philosophy make
you believe in any given path or deity? Why doesn't it require you
to have faith, above and beyond you knowledge - which, admittedly,
can be limited? Because philosophy rests on two basic premises.
First, it is a connector. It recognizes that ideas exist independent
of humans and events, and in effect controls them. That was Plato's
first crucial insight. Philosophy shows you the ideas and concepts
that shape the world - all behavior, all emotions, etc. But how does
it do that? It does this by springing directly from the human
consciousness. If I were to say that philosophy is supposed to tell
you how to choose your own path, you would call me a relativist, and
rightly so. The difference here is that while I am telling you to
choose your own path, there are in effect only so many paths you can
take. Human behavior - thought, emotion, relationships - is governed
by certain rules. They are predictable because, throughout history,
you can see them playing out time and time again. All philosophy
does is tell you what those rules are and how to recognize then or
work with them.
But what is a rule? No, it isn't something
that says "you must do X". Instead, it is simply a parameter. My
favorite example is cellular automata. You start with a set of basic
arrangements with given rules for behavior. After many iterations
(in which the actors play by the rules again and again) you get a
very discernable pattern of behavior. You start small, and you
eventually get very complex. The essence is that a given pattern
will produce specific results. The outcome and the starting point
are very much connected. This would be easy enough with few starting
points and few outcomes. But life entails a twisted fine, whereby
the starting points and outcomes are twisted into a Gordian knot.
Thus, you can reach crossroads where paths overlap. You can take one
path or the other, which is a choice you make. But the outcomes are
predictable. The job and sole purpose of philosophy is to teach you
where they connect, what the starting points and outcomes are, and
help you decide which you prefer. Then, with that knowledge in hand,
it teaches you the signs along the way so you know which direction
to go in. In this sense, philosophy dictates your behavior -
constituting a religion - but only because you want it to.
This points to philosophy's complete definition of truth:
what you want to be the case, and what actually is the case, are
identical. Your desire matches the reality. The reality matches your
desire. In this way, when philosophy is functioning well, it makes
everything perfectly predictable, perfectly understandable. No
surprises, no questioning, no wondering. All is known before you
even have to ask a question. The way philosophy does this are a bit
intricate and involved. For instance, it helps you learn how to
mentally step out of yourself so that you can see your interaction
with your environment, and understand the patterns.
The most
common problems philosophy has dealt with in the past have involved
these two questions. Is there such a thing as free will? And is
there a final destination to where we are heading (or, is there some
kind of plan, or God)? But these really don't mean anything when
philosophy works properly. If you have free will, then philosophy
helps you figure out what to do with it. If you don't have free
will, then philosophy is irrelevant since you can't do anything with
your life anyway. Thus, philosophy only comes into play when you can
make decisions freely. As far as a plan, or final destination,
philosophy's main concern is timing: when will the destination be
reached? Then it does two things: help you figure out if you
actually like the given destination, and where to go in the
meantime. Though philosophy helps you figure out destinations, it
helps you figure out the destinations along the journey as well. It
gives you ultimate freedom in the sense that it helps you want to do
what you actually should do. It helps you like what is already
preordained, and it helps you preordain what you like.
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| Member Ratings |
| Member |
Date |
Overall |
Agree? |
Writing? |
Enjoyment? |
| alpaca |
26 Jul
2001 |
Absolutely
sensational |
Strongly
Agree |
Don't touch
it! |
Standing
Ovation |
| Excellent analysis
that is much appreciated. This artice is a must-read for people
interested in philosophy. What I personally deeply enjoy about it is
that when indulging in it you can set aside everything that you are
and have learned and follow pure strings of thought -- allowing you
to find out whether you really are who you think you are. It's a
great tool for self-knowledge. |
| merey |
27 Jul
2001 |
Absolutely
sensational |
n/a |
Don't touch
it! |
Standing
Ovation |
| pat |
28 Jul
2001 |
Absolutely
sensational |
n/a |
Don't touch
it! |
Standing
Ovation | |
| Philosophy
is, at root, about BEING through THINKING and FEELING
combined.
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