Why Philosophy?
What I studied: Philosophy Break’s 3-Part Email Course (available at Philosophy Break) by Jack Maden.
I don’t recall exactly how I stumbled on the Philosophy Break website. Lately I often poke around the web for articles and information about philosophy, an interest of mine in recent years. Regardless of how I arrived at the site, I’m happy I did. I like it. On the site is a signup option for a free three-part email course about the basics of philosophy.
I’ve already read and studied quite a bit about philosophy, mostly by reading books. One of the recent books I enjoyed immensely is Aristotle's Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life by renowned classicist Edith Hall.
Hall also produced a short low-budget educational film on the life of Aristotle in which she visits each of the eight different places Aristotle lived in Greece and what is now Turkey to examine what each environment might have added to his experience and therefore to the development of his philosophical thought. It’s a charming video that brings to life the day-to-day of Aristotle in a vibrant way only someone as enthusiastic about Aristotle’s life as Hall could convey.
Anyway, back to the course. On a lark, I signed up for the free course to check it out and see if I might learn something new. I was also fascinated by the Philosophy Break site itself and wanted to better gauge its quality. I figured taking the course might give me a better assessment of the site’s quality.
In short, the course was great. Even if you were to only consume this one course and nothing else about philosophy, it will give you a solid foundational understanding of what philosophy is and how it can contribute to a better life.
The course is actually two concise parts delivered by email, not three. The third is a pointer to a low-cost course called Life’s Big Questions and based on my experience with the first two parts of the free course, I plan to sign up for this paid 5-day introduction to philosophy course. It’s inexpensive and even if I only learn a few new tidbits or perspectives, it will be worth it.
Also on the site is a Latest Breaks section with bite-sized philosophy articles, a few of which I’ve already read. And there’s a Reading Lists section that offers well-curated reading lists of good books.
I’m not going to quote much directly from the course text because I don’t want to steal the site’s thunder, but early in the material this encapsulated what philosophy is and why it’s valuable. I’d never heard it said quite so succinctly and beautifully.
Philosophy is essentially about recapturing and channeling the existential curiosity that comes so naturally in childhood, and formalizing it into a full-blown subject of inquiry.
Search any dictionary for the origin of the word philosophy and you’ll discover its etymology means “love of wisdom.” Philosophy is a robust posing of questions that center on the big issues of life to hopefully arrive at a place of more wisdom. What is the nature of existence? What is knowledge? What does it mean to be an ethical person? And so on.
To engage in philosophy is to critically assess various arguments and use reason to draw conclusions that abide by valid logic. As but one example that pertains to the current United States election cycle, one might do some deep inquiry and introspection regarding which candidates and what ballot measures should get your vote. I know that doesn’t seem like philosophy, but at its core it is. When we rationally weigh arguments on any topic, we are engaging in some form of philosophy.
Philosophy is ultimately about thinking deeply and thoroughly about something. That’s really it in a nutshell. The course mentions philosopher Simon Blackburn describing philosophy as “conceptual engineering” and those two words sing for me. What a great phrase. Philosophy is the intimate study of the structure of thought.
Through the use of arguments as its thinking vehicle, philosophy attempts to connect those arguments to each other as solid reasoning that supports certain conclusions.
In ancient times, philosophy was the primary pursuit of deep thinkers. Over time the thoughts and ideas generated by some of the world’s greatest philosophers blossomed into more specific disciplines of study such as physics, economics, sociology, and logic.
While words and categories are usually only an approximation of what it is they are trying to describe, there are four core branches of philosophy that are generally considered the big tents under which many sub-branches have taken root and grown. By understanding these big categorical buckets, it’s easier to understand the more granular areas of study each contains.
Epistemology “is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues.”
It's the study of knowledge.
Metaphysics “is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.”
It's the study of reality.
Value Theory “involves various approaches that examine how, why, and to what degree humans value things and whether the object or subject of valuing is a person, idea, object, or anything else. Within philosophy, it is also known as ethics or axiology.”
It’s the study of ethics and values.
Logic “is the study of correct reasoning or good arguments. It is often defined in a more narrow sense as the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths.”
It’s the study of sound reasoning.
The course was excellent and won’t take you much time to complete. Consider it a concise philosophy primer. You’ll get a lot out of it, and even if you already understand a great deal about the subject, the presentation articulates the basics so beautifully I think you’ll find it beneficial.
When I read the following in the course, it immediately broke through to the most important part of philosophy for me. Philosophy is not just about consuming what other great philosophers have written or said. Its main function is to enable us to better wrestle with the big questions of life.
Critically engaging with the enduring wisdom of philosophy is a fantastic way to both inform ourselves about the problems inherent within the human condition, and also face up to those problems and calm our existential fears and anxieties.
By engaging with the ideas of great thinkers throughout history, we’re empowered to think for ourselves — be it on matters of meaning and existence, how to make a better world, or simply working out what’s worth pursuing in life.
Ah, thinking for ourselves. It seems so self-evident that this is a good thing, but thinking for ourselves isn’t as easy as it might at first appear. We are pulled, drawn, cajoled, convinced, coerced, indoctrinated, and otherwise nudged by all factions of society to think and act certain ways.
The course again references Blackburn to point out the rarely mentioned obviousness that people are always telling us what we should want and what we should believe. From all sectors of society including religion, advertising, and politics people want to align our thinking with theirs to lean us toward whatever agenda they might have, even if that agenda is an entirely unconsciousness cult-like adherence to an idea or action for which they’ve never engaged in a smidgen of debate in their own mind.
Convictions are infectious, and people can make others convinced of almost anything. We are typically ready to believe that our ways, our beliefs, our religions, our politics are better than theirs, or that our God-given rights trump theirs or that our interests require defensive or pre-emptive strikes against them. In the end, it is ideas for which people kill each other. It is because of ideas about what the others are like, or who we are, or what our interests or rights require, that we go to war, or oppress others with a good conscience, or even sometimes acquiesce in our own oppression by others.
If philosophy does nothing more for you than challenge the constant barrage of lockstep messaging with which we’re exposed to every day, it will have done a great deal.
Check out Philosophy Break and maybe sign up for the free course. I make no money from you doing so. I suggest it only because I found it useful and perhaps you will too.
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