You should take part in philosophy.
January 21, 2008
Before you attempt to disagree with the above statement, think about it for a moment. In attempting to make a case that you should not take part in philosophy, you are already thinking about the value of making certain choices, deciding what you should and should not do, etcetera. Unfortunately for you, this kind of reasoning could certainly be classified as philosophical thought, thus pushing your argument into hypocrisy, the situation into hilarity and my facial expression into an enormous grin. You have fallen into a philosophy trap and your only escape is to look away right now in the knowledge that you are entirely wrong in doing so and live your life in a state of eternal ‘meh’. Otherwise, you already have or are now accepting that philosophy is on some level valuable, enjoyable, imperative or useful.
With this out of the way, welcome to philosophy. I certainly do not claim to be any kind of expert at this subject and have absolutely no formal education in it, this isn’t a formal introduction and I’m not planning to attempt one . This said, I find it to be one of the most enjoyable forms of stuff that exists on planet earth and in the surrounding area. You may debate this. This is also debatable. And so on. The difficulty of writing anything that could possibly be informative about philosophy is the slow creeping feeling that there is someone out there who would be strongly willing to debate every statement you make, and this seems to be the nature of the subject. There is an enormous range of definitions that are provided for philosophy but in my honest opinion, the most simple and most useful is to say that philosophy is to question everything at its most fundamental level and to attempt to determine what you deem as correct. Most people are introduced to this by some miserable sod telling them that something that they have always believed to be true is in fact wrong. The most common first argument is often about whether or not something exists. Sometimes it’s about whether god or gods exist but in a outstanding number of cases, it’s about everything that there is. This is how things started with me.
When I was 12, a friend of mine told me that nothing in the universe existed and that I couldn’t prove otherwise. Like most 12 year old boys, my initial response was to deliver a swift and moderately clumsy punch to the shoulder and declare it proof that I was around but as the argument escalated, I found that this proof didn’t work any longer and was forced to attempt to reason using words. This, for some reason, seems to be the favourite way for people to be inducted to philosophy. It’s fairly common to see beginner ‘philosophers’ (I am unsure what qualifies as a philosopher) challenging everyone they know and probably some people they don’t to prove that they or anything else exists. As I found out, a fellow by the name of René Descartes came up with a rather convincing answer to this problem which you can decide whether or not to look up in your own time. This stands as the first and last philosophical question that I’ve ever specifically looked up an answer for.
After the initial jump of thinking about whether everything you have ever thought about before exists, a number of interesting new subjects to debate and contemplate such as ethics and morality, knowledge, truth, aesthetics, politics, and the colour of various household objects. A benefit of continuing on this path of thinking about things and then challenging other people with your ideas is that it gives a significantly stronger sense of clarity on the general sea and/or pile of stuff present (or not) in the universe around you. I, for example, have the rather absurd opinion that I have developed a functioning system of morals. Some people, on the other hand, prefer to use philosophy to justify drawing their morals from books supposedly written by people such as God and Richard Dawkins. In any case, you are entirely capable of considering and debating any number of issues and thus developing the strength of your personal philosophy or lack thereof. Only experience can have you coming out on top of the other kids in the great big box of philosophical sand wars.
If in some furious attempt to prove yourself literate, you wish to do some reading on the subject of philosophy, there are a number of places that you can do this for free. The most obvious is your local library. I am a hypocrite for saying this because I actually do not own a library card which has been declared by some people to be the most important philosophy item a person can own. Libraries are full of books, just in case you’ve never set foot in one before, and the majority of books contain knowledge that can serve to expand your world view and thus inspire philosophy whether they are actually about it or not. Books about philosophy are doubly useful because they are full of interesting new opinions to consider and challenge with the added bonus of almost always being written by people who are utterly insane. If you are like me and are fond of computers, you can also find out basic information about most branches of philosophy by having a look at Wikipedia. Wikibooks also has a modest philosophy section where you can learn about a few different topics in philosophy at various levels. Textbook Revolution also offers links to lots of sources of philosophy books, including 151 well known philosophy works at The Online Library of Liberty. I also recommend looking into Diogenes of Sinope who happens to be awesome on about the same level as Frank Zappa.
If you would like to have a philosophical debate about the quality of this post or submit to my will, the comments section is below. Sapare aude.
January 22, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Wow, I read the first two paragraphs (ill read more after im done writing this) of “You should take part in philosophy”, and I must say that you now have my utmost respect. I hope you continue to blog for a long while.
January 24, 2008 at 3:40 am
I am unable to withhold myself from pointing out a logical flaw in your argument in the first paragraph. You see, hypocrisy would apply if you were getting people to answer affirmatively to the statement “you should not take part in philosophy”. However, an answer in the negative to the statement “you should take part in philosophy” is not the same thing – indeed, the negative statement is “it is not true that you should take part in philosophy”, which, rather than being an absolute statement, becomes a general philosophy in and of itself – that philosophy should only be taken part in if the desire is there.
And because of this, your so-called philosophy trap appears to be broken. Indeed, I state that I disagree with your title, as I am of the opinion that participation in philosophy must be a choice, not an imperative, as your statement implies.
On a semi-related note, I am disappointed that you did not have an apple displayed in your post. The lack of the presence of an apple is only partially compensated by the presence of the picture of an apple.
Meanwhile, while it is inherently impossible to prove that any particular thing exists, I would contend that it is, indeed, possible to prove that there exists something, and this is a far more valuable proof than the proof of existence of any particular thing. Somewhat ironically, this proof would prove that existence exists, although thankfully, this fact (that existence exists) is not something that needs to be proven directly.
One thing I was direly disappointed to see was that you did not make mention of logic in your blog post – logic is one of the cornerstones of philosophy, and without it, philosophy becomes inconsistent.
January 24, 2008 at 10:51 am
I’d argue that that still sits as hypocritical. My statement addresses you, the reader, specifically and by developing an argument and indeed a philosophy against it, you still place yourself in a position of hypocrisy because you are using philosophy to say that you shouldn’t do something that you are doing. The statement reads specifically that “you” should take part in philosophy, not that “people” should not take part in philosophy. I think that you are taking part in philosophy right now which places you in an interesting position.
Regarding the second statement you make on the subject of whether people in general should take part in philosophy, I argue that it is significantly more beneficial to people to take part in philosophy than not. Questioning things creates variation in thought in the general population which much like genetic variation, will help prevent the entire population from being wiped out by a single threat. Indeed, any moral system that looks after the society in which it functions must include philosophy because without intellectual adaptability, we will become extinct, if not in body then in spirit.
Regarding what you can prove exists, I think that this largely depends on your definition of existence which kind of leads back into that argument about reality and how it is defined that we have had previously. I think that in a sense of existence that most people will agree on, it is possible to say that at least one thing exists. If nothing exists then there is one thing – an eternal nothingness which we can conceptualise as a ‘thing’ just as we can everything else.
Regarding logic, I didn’t mention it specifically because I didn’t mention any specific fields of philosophy in much depth. I didn’t think that it would be appropriate to start talking about formal branches of philosophy within an introductory article. People could quickly start reading about logic if they actually followed my magical links. There is a number of entire books available on it right there!
January 27, 2008 at 5:55 am
I read, without thinking of what I read. I did not agree or disagree with any statement, and I don’t really remember much of the post. All I remember is something about a philosophy trap somewhere in there… In other words, I was tired and it was not sufficiently gripping a writing style for my tastes.
Have I avoided this trap? Please advise.
January 27, 2008 at 11:01 am
No, you’re swimming in it.
September 18, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Well, the original statement doesn’t appear to be a request – it might be a demand. Disagreeing with a demand isn’t poor reasoning, it’s simply missplaced.
And if it is a request
“Unfortunately for you, this kind of reasoning…”
Someone can just decline the request without giving any reason as to why, either to themselves or to you. So you can’t assume people have actually given a reason not to perform the request.
In such case its like if you had presented the request to a dog – they aren’t swimming in a philisophy trap. They are simply animal.
September 18, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Hypocrite.
September 23, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Curious how your certain it’s either hypocrisy or because of your words, the subjects only now realising they engage in philosophy?
Your certain there’s no third option? It’d be ironic if in forming the statement, you had abandoned philosophy in favour of what appeared an absolute certainty.
September 23, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Yes.