Has everyone lost the concept of what Philosophy is?

Question

It is a base to question and to ponder live. It is to better understand ourselves, our world, and our place in it.
The word "philosophy" means a lot of things to a lot of people and when I tell people I studied or will study Philosophy, it sometimes invites them to tell me about "their philosophies" (anyone that has one worth listening to, will not just offer it up. It's not a matter of secrecy, just a matter of the fact that it will take a fairly long and demanding discussion to define and explain it in a way that would do it justice.)or to ask me about mine. In this sense, one's philosophy is one's fundamental intellectual viewpoint on life - what hopefully puts it in the familiar context of intellectual knowledge. http://www.unnu.com/newhome/attractions/philosophy/whatisphilosophy.html
I think that a lot of people on here have lost the meaning what it is and the freedom of thought that it provides.
I have seen too have subjective opinions on questions asked here. Your View ??

What is your opinion based on my opinion and question?

http://www.unnu.com/newhome/attractions/philosophy/whatisphilosophy.html

Answer 1

Your first line of your question answers it all. "It is (basic)(sic) to question and to ponder (life) (sic). It is to better understand ourselves, our world, and our place in it."

The web has opened up lines of communication that pre toohense was impossible. And with this vast access, we are now getting people who have no formal training in the art of philosophy. However, since they are human, as you said it is basic to question and ponder. It is subjective within this group because in order to understand themselves and their world, they frame it in terms they understand...their world as it appears to them. They don't know any better anymore than a medical professional talking to a grade-school kid in terms they don't understand. It is a matter of interpretation as well. All viewpoints may be equally valid, as none of them can be 'proven' and a person's individual philosophy inherently so. It is their 'worldview' and because it is based on their experiences may be more valid for them personally.

Answer 2

Philosophy is the subject related to the truth and principles behind the creation and existence of this universe. In fact it is mostly related to God and Creation.

In recent times, philosophy has become a common word to describe an individual's views on a particular subject, or his thought process which may not be in line with it's meaning.
However, using the word philosophy in wider spectrum does not in any way affect the real meaning of philosophy of truth.

Answer 3

I may not be doing justice to your question, but if your point includes."..to better understand ourselves" (and I would include others), then I would hesitate to accept that one's philiosophy, is one's fundemental intellectual viewpoint on life, although it may well be what one says it is their intellectual viewpoint on life.

There is that knowledge of the world that can be communicated through higher orders of abstract reasoning, inference and deduction, logic and the like....what we often associate with philosophy and then their is what we really KNOW. It is experiential, phenomenlogical, "near". It needs to be felt, to be understood. It is our philosophy, applied. Do we know more by how we act or how we say that we are going to act? If our goal is something beyond intellectualization, it would seem to me we would need to see the color as well as the shapes.

I'm revealing a bit of a bias, but I believe I can learn a great deal about a person's philiosophy from watching them play golf. Of cousre, it wouldn't hurt if we were also discussing Kant & Sartre at the same time. :-)

Answer 4

I think you're assuming that philosophy has an actual hard-and-fast meaning that everyone can agree on. Philosophy (love of wisdom) meant something entirely different to Plato than to Zeno of Cittium. Those who were known as sophists in that time considered themselves philosophers too, despite the fact that Plato ridiculed their posings so that even today sophistry is a hiss and a byword.

Most people today tend to think of philosophy as smaller than Plato or any of the ancient Greeks did. As I'm sure you've noticed, people have a philosophy of work, or birthday parties, or driving. In this sense it means a system of beliefs regarding a particular area of human existence, rather than the overarching whole that early philosophers tried to figure out. Descartes starting from square one, etc, 'Cogito ergo sum' and all that. That sort of philosophy really doesn't exist today, because the universe is a lot larger than was once thought and its complexities are pretty obviously beyond human comprehension.

However you're right in the sense that a more fulsome philsophy isn't something that you'll just use as a conversation piece at parties. I'll trot out my philosophy of driving to anybody who wants to hear it, but even though I'm unembarrassed about religious, philosophical and political matters I tend to stick to the surface on those matters unless I get into a serious debate, which happens only rarely, alas.

In this sense philosophy becomes closer to what the ancient Greeks would recognize, but it's still smaller in scope and claims. This is not least because a large part of my own philosophy derives from Adam Smith and this leaves me with a real sense of how little I understand. That makes me more comfortable with the Apology of Socrates than with Republic; the first is Socrates' declaration that he was the wisest man alive because at least he knew how little he knew, while in Republic Plato glibly and blythely designs a fascistic paradise as if it were as easy as arranging a few flowers on the dinner table. Makes you wonder whether Plato ever paid attention to his lessons.

But because of Adam Smith, I'm far more aware of the wisdom of those who would seem my intellectual inferiors. Perhaps Socrates really went from fishermen to carpenters to potters and they were all convinced that they knew the secrets of the universe. But he was asking the wrong questions. Simple experience gives even truly stupid people a leg up on bright youngsters, and ignoring the 'folk' wisdom can be as foolish as accepting it too easily. How man 'old wives tales' have turned out to be true? In many cases even the false ones were practically right, only the reasoning was faulty.

I agree with you that the true purpose of studying philosophy should be to be ever willing to learn. That exists nicely in the context of my religion, which teaches that "the glory of God is intelligence; that is Light and Truth." So I am encouraged to continually learn by everyone from my parents and childhood Sunday school teachers to every young lady of my faith.

I think you're certainly right that many of even the existential questions asked on this website have only passing acquaintance to philosophy, but this isn't really the forum for anything much more in depth. Still, anything that gets anybody to open the mind even a crack is worthwhile, which is why I wander through here every so often. It's part of my philosophy to do every good that comes within the reach of my arm, without worrying too much about the larger whole. The whole is not my job, thank heavens!

Answer 5

"Oneness" as you've come to view it should not be a disturbing concept, rather a comforting one. You are you, not your boyfriend or anyone else and they are each themselves... the oneness of us with all that is, is to say that we are all parts of a "wholeness"... an 'us' or a 'we' or 'all that is'. Being "god in different expressions" is one of the nicely put ways to describe our "oneness". It really shouldn't disturb you any more than being referred to as a member of mankind or humanity... however, as members of humanity or mankind, the individual is lost in death while the others go on living without that individual. The sadness you speak of when referring to eventually losing everyone you know and care about is not the proper perspective that you need to realize... you don't 'lose' any of those people, nor they you! You each become an integral part of each other... a union more complete, more satisfying and spiritual in nature than you'd ever experienced or could imagine. "God" as you refer to the concept is 'perfection', 'completion', 'wholeness', Buddhahood, Nirvanna, Heaven... a hundred names for the same state, only some describe that state as a place to be arrived at, when it's viewed by many of us as achieving "oneness". As a Buddhist, I find this very comforting... I've no more lost a deceased friend or relative to nothingness than it can be said that I've forever lost a part of myself in getting a haircut or clipping my nails. Am I any less whole as 'myself'? So many see death as an end that they fear-- I see christians at funerals of loved ones crying and sobbing, when their loved one, according to their belief, has gone to a wonderful place that they each hope to reach when it is their turn to "leave their body in spirit". Such a contradictory reaction to such a steadfast belief system... it is of course sad to 'lose' a loved one, but it is from the human emotion of selfishness that the deceased is mourned. Christians should be joyful and feel elated that a beloved one has gone to their "just reward"; instead, they wail. Because they will miss that person and don't wish for them to be 'gone'... even if to a heaven for eternal peace and happiness. Please try to reform your concept as you have been given to understand it... I wish I knew its source. But, although I have gone on so in my effort to comfort you, I truly hope that something, anything, in what I've typed might be in some way of some help to you. **Om mani padme hung**

Answer 6

My opinion is that everyone has lost the concept of what philosophy is--- though I can't say that either because I certainly do not know everyone!

So I can really only speak for myself, and say that I'm not sure what philosophy is, except that this 'page' makes me think, and I like to think. In fact I like to think very much, and I'm glad you asked a question that still has me thinking! thx

Answer 7

It seems to me that there has always been two dominate avenues (among the many choices) that philosophy seems to take: two concepts of what the concept of philosophy is.

The first scenario encompasses philosophy as a school of thought, primarily reserved for those with, or seeking, higher levels of supposed enlightenment or education. This group includes everyone from actual paid philosophers, like G. W. F. Hegel (a favorite of mine) to Immanuel Kant and William James, to teachers, scholars or other practiced and profound thinkers. While this group has contributed over the years to a generalized better understanding of the human thought process, from action and reaction, from passion to indifference, it has always been perceived (and often enough with good reason) as an elitist private men’s club.

The other avenue, more readily recognized and taken by the general populist, is so-called common or practical philosophy. Into the group falls the masses and this group encompasses a full spectrum of philosophy, from individual musings to ‘dine-store’ or ‘home-spun’ philosophy (like Mark Twain or Will Rodgers) to pop culture champions like Richard Bach or Buckminster Fuller or even Willie Nelson. To these people higher avenues of learning is a luxury most can’t afford, for whatever reason, to pursue.

Most people, by the process of non-credential scholastic elimination, fall into this second group. Which is not to say that their inputs into the meanings of life, rational thought and the concepts of morality aren’t as valid or as viable as those sheltered from the mundane experiences of focusing on simply getting by. And most likely, as with art, music and most cultured examples, many supposed profound concepts of philosophy are far from original, that the philosopher culled his findings and theories from already in practice common belief systems.

It’s not, at least to me, that the average person has lost the concept of what philosophy is or is supposed to be: it’s that they understand it and practice it under a separate set of definitions.

Ben Franklin once said, “I know a man who is so learned that he can call a horse a horse in twelve different languages but so ignorant that he bought a cow to ride on.” (Forgive me if the quote isn’t verbatim, but you get the idea.)

Although I wish that our schools offered grander views into the world of philosophy to our younger minds and although I lament the demise of such general teachings, I can certainly understand why it isn’t happening. To the average person such aspirations as contemplating Hegel’s ‘Science Of Logic’ or ‘Elements Of The Philosophy Of Right’ doesn’t translate well when it comes to putting food on their table or paying their bills.

The short, the act of approaching and acting upon higher degrees of thought are available to us all and thinking is just as affordable as anything. The problem is some understand this, but most don’t.

It's not so much that most people have lost the concept of what philosophy should imply as it is that they never knew it to begin with. It's hard to lose what you've never had.

I didn’t really answer your question very well, did I?

Answer 8

I think you are absolutely correct, most of the people on here are mental midgets with no more depth than my toilet bowl. I too get very tired of all of the completely stupid and irrelevant questions rivaled in their absurdity only by the answers they receive. I think that some standard should be put in place to remove some of these questions. There should be a way to nominate a question for deletion.

Answer 9

After I've read tons of philosophical works... A friend of mine from China said, "It is better for a man to walk 10,000 miles than to have read 10,000 books."

The taste of the entire ocean is contained within one drop of water... But a person's philosophy can't.

Answer 10

Because of some of the questions asked under the heading of Philosophy, .................... all the answer that is required is to use a Little common sense.