Why Philosophy?
Who are we? Why listen to two guys named Mike rant endlessly about esoteric philosophers and complain about politics? We can't tell you what to do with your time, but each of us wrote a small essay about why you should care about Philosophy.
Mike's Take
First, let’s break down what I mean by “Philosophy”. Two meaningscome to mind. The first is what I think most people would find pops up in their mind when the word “philosophy” comes about; namely, old white dudes writing complex, long and boring books about nothing practical. Properly understood, this is the history of philosophy. I’ll get back to this.
The second meaning is much less well known, but is much more accurate and thus important – the active questioning of an assumption or group of assumptions. This is proper philosophy. The history of philosophy is merely a record as to the questions and assumptions of people in the past. That history can come in handy (who wants to do more work than they absolutely have to?) when you have more pressing assumptions to question. More on this below.
It’s harder to answer the question of why. For myself, it is due to the two-fold benefit of practicing philosophy. The first is the benefit of being less wrong. Philosophic questioning can generate answers to question, but usually it works by eliminating the wrong answers (and sometimes questions) from the equation. You might think that being less wrong is just as bad as being very wrong, but if you think that, you are incorrect, and I can prove that to you.
Don’t believe me? Well, imagine that you are talking to two people at a party, and the topic of conversation is the Titanic (the boat, not the movie). Your first friend says that it was a tragic loss of life during World War I. Your second friend says that the loss of life could have been avoided if they had utilized the Titanic’s sweet unicorn rescue system (U.R.S. for short). Now, the facts of the matter are that the Titanic sunk in 1912, two years before the beginning of the First World War, and the loss of life is usually attributed to a lack of adequate safety measure, including lifeboats, etc. Both your friends are wrong in their beliefs about the Titanic. But you’re second friend is obviously much more incorrectly informed about the nature of, well, reality. The first friend got the date wrong; the second believes in unicorns, believes that unicorns have been domesticated, believes that domesticated unicorns can be used as floatation devices, believes that domesticated floatation unicorns were present on the Titanic, and also believes that those domesticated flotation unicorns that were on the Titanic were overlooked during the sinking of the ship. That, my friends, is MORE WRONG.
The second benefit of practicing philosophy is akin to the practice of a martial art for the mind. Just as a martial artist gains an instinctive feel for combat through countless hours of training, so too does the practicing philosopher gain an instinctive edge in their mental kung fu. The practicing philosopher begins to be able to sniff out bad arguments before they are even made; they can refute a point and offer a counter-point in the blink of an eye, and most importantly, they can call “BULLSHIT!” when they see it, and avoid dumb conversations revolving around mythical beasts and nautical disasters.
By becoming familiar with the forms of logical arguments and past arguments that have been debunked, the practicing philosopher wastes less time on idiocy, and becomes more correct. The practicing philosopher knows a bad argument when they see it, and can therefore leapfrog over it and attack the sweet, goey center of his or her opponent’s belief. For example, “all politicians cheat; I know this because several politicians have been caught cheating” (fallacy of generalization) or “if we let the gays get married, soon people will marry their dogs” (slippery slope fallacy). Instead of spending precious time pulling apart a dumb argument, we can simply call out the idiocy, refute the point, and move on with our day.
So what does practicing philosophy look like? Mostly it looks like somebody staring off into the middle distance, with periods of scribbling into a notebook, followed by more staring, or possibly a quick drink. The act of practicing philosophy is much more interesting, at least when viewed from the inside. First, let’s start by stating an assumption. This could be an opinion, or a belief, or even a statement. The assumption needs to be stated clearly, but with as few words as possible. For example, let’s use the assumption “all republicans hate the poor”.
Second, we examine the assumption for signs of dis/provability. Proving a assumption to be true is difficult, but disproving one is relatively simple. In the case of the assumption above, all we need to do is find an example of a person who identifies as a republican and also cares for the poor. This is relatively easy to do; I’m sure that we could find several examples of charitable members of the GOP. What we’ve done is shown that the modifier “all” in the assumption “all republicans hate the poor” is provably false.
Third, we examine the assumptions for layered meaning. What do the words “republican”, “hate” and “poor” mean in this context? What is the assumption trying to get at here? Does poor mean “less wealthy than the republican” or “makes below $10k a year” or something entirely different? Does hate mean “actively seeks to exterminate” or “doesn’t like the company of”, etc.? Does republican mean “active member of the American political party of the same name” or “guy who is conservative and usually votes republican in federal elections”? Often, this means we have to restate our assumptions in clearer language, and send it through the meat-grinder for a second, third, or fourth time.
Eventually, we get to a point where we are satisfied that the assumption is either correct or not. Assumptions that are true we can keep; the rest we can dismiss as idiotic bullshit.
To sum up: Why philosophy? To get rid of idiotic bullshit.
-Michael Rebers
Other Mike's Take
Often Philosophy and its study are held in the same esteem as art history: it's a discipline reserved for the unemployment line. I don't want to argue about the economics of any field, but instead, I take issue with the idea that Philosophy is an idle pursuit for Academics.
Philosophy is the art of thinking and is tied to civilization itself. In the East and West, Philosophy charted the growth of the human intellect and how it approaches the world we live in.
Political Science, Physics, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and other disciplines all started as branches of Philosophy. (Okay, so there is a lot of shorthand there to compress three hundred years of Academics, but we're working in metaphor here so E-mail someone else.)
The modern University has provided Philosophy a formal structure, but at the same time left it bloodless. We've turned a diversity of voices arguing about knowledge, ethics, government, and logic and turned it into a dry timeline of dead guys.
Politics is full of people making specious claims with fallacious arguments. We have constant debates about the ethics of modern technology and the economy, but never about what ethical system we're even talking about. How can you debate something when you're not even sure you're talking about the same thing?
Even if you don't crack the books of a single capital "P" Philosopher, studying formal logic can at least help you understand when someone is trying to bullshit you. Studying ethics can help you understand the root of what you think is right and wrong. Philosophy's value is in helping you understand your thinking, and armor yourself against the torrent of idiocy we face every day.
-Michael McConnell