Philosphies are expressions by one person to explain some underlying hidden principle about the way the world works. The general problem with the whole subject is that the person expressing the thoughts doesn't have all the information that is necessary. Often he is clouded by other ideas. The philosopher is often so into his subject that he must invent words, or create new meanings, and spend so much time defining what the words mean before he uses them that the vast majority of people are wholly confused.
Not that they aren't smart enough, but that becuase of the necessity of work and survival, even in our modern world, they don't have the time to delve deeply.
Philosophies generally only trickle down from the thinker to professors to the graduate assistants to the students and finally out there to the regular people.
There are really only two sorts of philosophies -- those that by attempting to explain everything usually require their beliefs to be forced onto the unbelievers. Or those that are general in nature and thus can apply to all people whether they realize they believe it or not.
Like law -- there is a limitation version of philosophy -- and this covers most religions, and most self-proclaimed political philosophies like Marx and Hegel. They allow for the slaughter of anyone not believing in the philosophy, because they have the one true way.
The other type of philosophy is cooperative, or natural. It basicaly says, "it's all too complex to decide, but there seem to be some general ideas, and anyone can hold one or more or less of them, and still get through the day."
Most philosophies are political in nature, but they differ from mere political theory in that philosophy is about why people do things, or should do things and political theory is about how you should do things the leaders way. The political leader always, whether he realizes it or not, follows one of the two types of philosophies.
For most of history leaders have followed the limiting form of philosophy. The cooperative form is a growing trend, but it is in fact very new in the minds of mankind. Perhaps not just 400 years old. |
