How
to Become a Philosopher
Philosophy
gets a bad reputation for completely ridiculous reasons. Some claim it takes
the joy out of life, that it is unimportant and that it is too difficult. I
really refuse to believe that it is not important because, what can be more
important than: the meaning of life, the purpose of life, what is right/wrong,
what is Beauty, how to we know what we know, do we have free-will, etc..
However,
I some-what understand why some may feel it takes the joy out of life and that
it is too difficult. For the first one, I feel it is not the fault of
philosophy for causing depression in an individual. If somebody gets depressed
from asking serious questions about their life, that is proof that they
actually Need to think about those questions: it’s touching a spot that needs
healing and or investigation.
But
the latter problem I can admit more fully to. It seems sometimes philosophy
builds its own complicated terminology to communicate things that make
absolutely no sense- as so many scientists say in public discourse- and that
things would just be better if we ‘dumbed-things down’ or became heirs to
logical- positivism. Both options are horrible for the following reasons: you
can- and it’s down frequently- to bring big ideas to a clearer context by
making analogies. But like all analogies, they are limiting. And if you are to
get really into detail and zoom-in to all the subtle structures of an argument
or the subtle ways of saying something, you need that complicated terminology.
Like all foreign languages, the mystery of their words begin to make sense and
when one returns back to their mother-tongue, one realizes that certain words
in that foreign language just can’t be adequately translated or made into an
analogy.
The
other solution was theorized -falsely ,that is- from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s, “Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus” and then latter theorized by A.J Ayer. Basically,
Logical-Positivism says that any statement that cannot be empirically verified-
according to sense experience- it is not true. But this is not only problematic
for the arts(poetry, music, etc), religions and more-‘idealistic’ philosophies,
but for the most central phenomena of human experience: humor, or more specifically,
sarcasm. If you were to reduce humor, the arts and the religions to the level
of empirical analysis, you have stupefied the human experience and destroyed the human
spirit. But there is a much more problematic issue with logical-positivism: can
we look at the world and See/Experience that the only truth that there is, only
lies in the material world? In other words, logical-positivist contradicts
itself by making an empirical-argument based on a non-empirical (non-sensual
or abstract) assumption.
Because
it is the second problem that I fear will remain with philosophy- that it is, its difficult- this blog will focus on how to become a
philosopher. But as you go through this blog, you should realize that you all
do philosophy on a daily basis, whether you
are aware of it or not.
The
most important philosopher that you can ever be acquainted with is the ancient
Greek Philosopher, Socrates. It
is because of his student Plato that we not only have knowledge of him, but we
have an idea of how philosophy is and Should be done. Socrates would travel
through Athens going up to random people who claimed to know about their own
trade and through very rigorous argumentation, would show they had no knowledge
about their so-called expertise. But what is essential about Socrates- and this
is a quality that all philosophers should have- is that Socrates had no
personal stake in arguing with people. He himself claimed to know nothing about
anything and that he was merely one who wanted to search for wisdom. Because
the word philosophy in Greek literally means, “the love of wisdom” you would
think that this is what a philosopher has always
been. But that has not always been the case in the history of philosophy.
In fact, the very idea that one had to restlessly search
for wisdom was to change right when Plato begin putting his own opinion through
Socrates’ mouth in his middle- dialogues. In fact, it was his later dialogues
and his most famous work, “The Republic” that Philosophy became about systematizing.
But he is still an exception in the history of philosophy. Now only did he
continue using the Socratic or Dialectical method- building up a single idea through
counter-arguments indefinitely- but he later came to see problems in the system
he built, and wrote new dialogues giving very impressive counter-arguments to
his old ideas. He was one of the must responsible philosophers.
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| "The Death of Socrates" |
However, from the Christian era, The ‘Enlightenment’, 19th
century, Modern philosophy and today’s ‘Post-modern’ world, philosophy
diverged from Plato and Socrates and was led down a road of systemizing on a
grand scale. From the British Empiricists, French Rationalists, German Idealists,
American ‘Pragmatists’ and many others, philosophy became synonymous with making
a system of thought.
Philosophy
as a System
A.
Fields
The most essential thing to learn about
philosophy prior to actually doing philosophy, is to recognize the different
fields of philosophy. There are basically 4 main fields: Metaphysics (the study
of existence: being and non-being), Epistemology (the study of knowledge: how
do we know what we know), Ethics (what is right and wrong) and Aesthetics ( the
study of art: what is beauty?). All four fields have so many questions to ask,
that it is merely impossible to study one field if you don’t know anything
about the others.
B.
Positions in each field
In most cases, philosophers will label
themselves or others as belonging to a certain school of thought concerning different fields. But this is really just a superficial way of
labeling philosophers because they tend to be based on generalizations. Plus,
not all philosophers in a position or school have agreed with each other.
However, it will be helpful to briefly go through the most popular/controversial
positions that philosophers have held in the fields of philosophy.
-
1. Epistemology: a. Empiricism: the belief that we know what we know, because of
our sense organs giving us information about the outside world (using a process
called induction: collecting a
portion of data from the world and then making an assumption based on the data
about how the world functions- one part of the scientific method). This type of knowing is called A Posteriori
or, dependent on sense experience. It may sound like common sense, but
there has always been and continue to be disagreements concerning this idea and
so, philosophers have developed their own systems around this position.
Philosophers include Francis Bacon, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, Bertrand
Russell and others.
b. Rationalism: we know what we know
because of the contents of the mind. Plato’s early- on believed that knowledge
(really wisdom) is innate and that learning is merely an act of remembering forgotten
information. The method of discovering knowledge of the world is called deduction which is making a reasonable
assumption about the world and then building subsequent truths based on that
assumption- this is how mathematics works. Philosophers call this type of
knowing A Priori or, independent of sense experience. Rene Descartes,
Leibniz, Spinoza and to a certain extent, the German Idealists were associated
with this theory.
-
2. Metaphysics: b. Monism: the idea that the world is made of one substance or
essence. It has been either accepted by, or dealt with by the pre-Socratic
philosophers, Rene Descartes, Spinoza and others.
c.
Dualism: seen to have begun
with Descartes, it is the belief either that reality is made up of two or more substance
(more commonly called, pluralism) or
that there is a definite and essential difference between the human mind, and
the external world. This tends to be taken as true by the British empiricists- who
I mentioned above- but it’s not always seen strictly from an empiricist’s point
of view.
 |
| Rene Descartes |
3.
Ethis: a. Relativism: this ethical
theory states that there is no objective or universal way of judging a ethical decision. This is sometimes associated with the school, Existentialism: which is the belief that there is no one purpose to life for everyone and
that instead, we must create our own purpose of life to deal with the Absurdity
of existence. But it’s also associated with Nihilism which says that there is no Truth what so ever whether
ethical, metaphysical or epistemological. These views under relativism under
recent years in America have become almost creed.
b.
Absolutism: known by many other names, it basically asserts that there are
ethically truths and ethical falsehoods no matter what the time, place or
situation. It is not a very popular position- due to the fanatical worship of relativism-
but Absolutism in ethics and in epistemology and metaphysics is what keeps
philosophy alive.
 |
| Immanuel Kant: Probably the most revolutionary philosopher that there ever was. |
I
have not even begun to talk about the other schools of thought such as utilitarianism,
phenomenology, theories on logic, free-will, causation, political philosophy,
religion, theodicy and aesthetics- which deal with many complex issues- but
this list of schools and positions is a good place to start.
But of course, in case
one is curious, there is a distinct and rather eclectic school of thought which
I mostly adhere to which I feel fits my practice of Zen Buddhism: German Idealism. Ranging from Schelling,
Fichte, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Hegel, Martin Heidegger and others,
these philosophers don’t follow neither empiricism or rationalism, nor
pluralism or monism. Arguably returning back to Plato and the Italian Renaissance,
these philosophers believe in not making a separation between the contents of
the mind, the world nor the multiplicity or uniformity of reality. Instead,
they play with the intimate relationship between these above opposites and find
a way of making things whole in essence
while acknowledging their difference in substance.
This can be seen as a more assertive version of William James’ Pragmatism, and
it returns back to the dialectical method of Socrates, albeit making their own systems
none the less.
 |
| Hegel: If there has ever been a Genius, Hegel is it. |
Philosophy as Being
Well- Read
For better or for worse, philosophy
today is mostly an intellectual endeavor and rather than arguing against it, it
has to be accepted. You can read as widely or segmented as you want, but if you
really want to be able to get involved in a philosophical discussion, reading widely
and ruthlessly is a must.
One does not read philosophy books to
just be ‘cultured’, but to train one’s mental-muscles to dealing with large
ideas which require intense concentration. If I could mention three philosophers who make
their ideas very clear and would serve as a good start, it would be Plato, Rene
Descartes and Bertrand Russell. Plato’s dialogues will really train your mind
and what’s excellent about his dialogues is that he covers so many topics with
so many view points, and he shows how philosophy is done as a dialogue
with other people. Rene Descartes and Bertrand Russell both write very well and
Descartes is definitely a philosopher you’ll come across in many philosophy books.
One of these days, I’ll be making a
series of YouTube videos that will go over the entire history of Eastern and Western
philosophy, but below are a couple philosophy books(in no particular order) which
I feel have opened up my mind tremendously and which are known as being the
most influential books in philosophy.
1. “The Republic”
by Plato (and his dialogues!)
2. “Letters
From a Stoic” by Seneca
3. “Discourse on Method” by
Rene Descartes
4. “Confessions”
by Saint Augustine (Even though this is a re-telling of his life up to his
conversion to Christianity, he rigorously explorers many ideas that would
become important to both other Christian philosophers and Rene Descartes’, “I
think, therefore, I am”).
5. “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
by Friedrich Nietzsche (a mythical/biblical summarization of his ideas. A book
that got me out of dark times)
6. “A Treatise Concerning the Principles
of Human Knowledge” by George Berkeley (One of the most persuading arguments against materialism I know of).
7. “The Philosophy of Right”
by Hegel (may want to wait on this one: reading Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean
Jacque Rosseau will help a lot).
8. “The World as Will and Idea”
by Arthur Schopenhauer( An important criticism of the most difficult
philosopher- Immanuel Kant- and through that, combines his revision of Kant
with Plato to create a system that is similar to Hinduism and Buddhism).
9. “Pragmatism”
by William James (next to Francis Bacon, he is my favorite writer when it comes
to his style of writing and how lucid he is. His essays were very influential
to me as well.)
10.”The Story of Philosophy” by Bryan Magee( More objective than Bertrand Russell’s, “The
History of Western Philosophy”, he also writes very well and covers many
important philosophers while briefly touching on eastern philosophy/religion. A
book I’d recommend reading before attacking an actual philosophical work).
 |
| Plato |
Philosophy as a Creative and Spiritual Activity
Once
you have read enough books to train your mind and to give you access to many
ideas and questions, make a bonfire and ritually throw your philosophy book in
the flames. Watch them burn as the pages fly in the air, the arguments being
scattered by the elements of the earth. And after that last book is burned,
pick your choice: a pen, pencil, keyboard, your mouth or even just you mind if you’re
more pure.
The
picture of the philosopher that has popularized probably during Hegel’s time is
that one must have a P.H.D as a professor to be a philosopher. Nothing can be
further from the truth: I have the experience of professors who either rant on
their own opinions on philosophies that they hate, those who give a dull recounting of
the history of philosophy or who have opened up the class for having debates
and discussions on numerous topics. Even though I picked up handy counter-arguments
from the first, interesting paraphernalia from the second, it was the third
professor I had who really allowed Mother Philosophy to breathe freely and to
teach us Her ways: philosophy is a free and open activity, available to everyone.
Her
questions can cause depression, or rise you out of your, “dogmatic- slumber”-
to use the words of Immanuel Kant. She can tickle you with fanciful ideas or stab
you with unavoidable counter-arguments. Her footsteps in the Sands of your surroundings
have led Her followers to the Oceans of Eternal Ignorance: they’ve swam with
their imagination through Dialectical Contemplation and when they have returned to the Isle of Sophia, their possessions have been stripped
from them by the waves of forgetfulness. The Light of their Third Eye
illuminates out from the Platonic Cave of the mind and shines out, burning the
flesh and bones of your shell until the Breath of God is released, reabsorbed
by The Tree of the World.
On Her
Branches grow the fruit of Remembrance, and your curiosity is Her commands.
Return.
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