What the Hell is Philosophy?

The Meaning of Philosophy Part 1 - Philosophy, What Is It Good For? (Absolutely Somethin')

As I mentioned in a recent post, I think it's time for me to put together an introductory philosophy series. I hope to make the series engaging and entertaining. This first post will cover what philosophy actually is. I didn't even begin to know the answer to this question until I was in college, and even then found the answer somewhat lacking.

Alright, quit stalling. What the hell is philosophy?

Ok. I'll get straight to the point. To me, philosophy is nothing more or less than the active pursuit of happiness through the study of truth and falsehood, and the subsequent application of that study to your life.

Yeah, but isn't that just psychology?

That's a good question, but philosophy is different from psychology in practice. Psychology is the study, diagnosis, and treatment of mental illnesses. Psychological study and treatment is certainly massively helpful in removing certain barriers to happiness, but doesn't provide a fully formed set of instructions on how to live life morally. Psychology is great at finding and fixing problems, but philosophy is necessary to determine what sort of actions are morally good, and what sort are morally wrong. In each discipline, it is essential that the participants first identify the source of a problem, determine the methodology for explaining and fixing that problem, and then execute that methodology in their real lives.

In that way, philosophy really is quite a lot like a science, and can benefit greatly from the application of the scientific method. But we'll get to that in a later installment.

I thought philosophy was something that existed in books and was done by old dudes with white beards.

That's the view of philosophy I got from college. The bulk of undergraduate philosophy is taught as a course of study in the history of thought. There's lots of reading. Lots. And lots of paper-writing that basically amounts to book reports with logical analysis. You get the sense that throughout history philosophy has been one long line of ideas written on paper, passed to the next generation for examination, and then re-interpreted for clarity and the cultural needs of the time. This effectively amounts to studying cultural anthropology. You find out what the great thinkers of the past and present thought and think, and there is very little (outside the notable exception of Socrates a short 2,400 years ago) about the great doers of the past and present, and what they did and do.

My intention is not to discount all the thinking and writing, but simply to point out how an undergraduate degree in philosophy did fairly little for me in the way of teaching methods for applying the philosophy I was learning to my life. We would learn Kant, read criticisms against and support for his ideas, and then move on to the next philosophical movement. Sometimes it would be connected or directly influenced by the previous movement or philosopher, so we would get this idea of philosophy as an interconnected web of written ideas, cast across the span of recorded human history.

Ethics is by far the most visible part of philosophy. It's the application of a culmination of study in all other areas of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, logic). When your entire philosophical system of understanding ahead of ethics is rational and logically follows, is based on reality as it actually exists, and contains a methodology for determining truth from falsehood, your system of ethics ought to be an accurate instruction manual for right-living. They taught us this in school, but then dodged the conclusion altogether, by simply teaching it in basically the same manner as all other aspects of philosophy. Ethics, then, was also relegated to the web of interconnected ideas; historically interesting, and fuel for debate in the classroom, but by no means something to attempt to any great degree within your own life. The communistic ideas of utilitarianism were given as much time and credit as the invisible world of Plato's forms and as much time as Aristotle's insistence on the study of sound logic and empirical reality, and so on.

Each part of philosophy, then, was treated as an almost purely intellectual pursuit. Even ethics, the supposed vibrant and vital methodology for right living, was largely left out to dry to a crusty brittleness, like a graying lung on a clothesline. This might all sound like the ravings of a disgruntled bachelor of arts, but the point I'm trying to get across is that philosophy can be (is) much more alive than I was initially led to believe. The reason that the misconception of philosophy as "a series of ideas and their critiques, written by old men with big white beards" can persist is because philosophers do little to dissolve the misconception. An extraordinarily small percentage of people who study philosophy actually alter their lives in any major way to fit their ideas. Of those who do, an equally small percentage alter their lives to the degree required by their philosophy. For an example of this, imagine walking up to a socialist (who doesn't believe in individual property ownership) and asking them for the contents of their wallet. Imagine asking a group of socialists this question, then imagine how few wallets you'd get out of the group.

But why don't most philosophers actually practice what they preach and live by the consequences of their ideas?

Because we're scared. In a society full of falsehoods and pandering for social approval, it's incredibly uncomfortable to even study truth and falsehood, let alone talk about the difference, let alone live by the consequences. It's far more comfortable for most people to outwardly demean philosophy by calling it opinion. If everything is one person's opinion versus the opinions of everyone else, then nobody is ever hurt by the idea that they might be living based on utter falsehoods. That it would hurt to know you're living illogically or based on false premises should be very instructive. It's clearly an important part of human nature to conform to truth and reality. But it's an even stronger part of human nature to conform to the group. This is an important holdover of human nature from when food was short and shelter was temporary and there were no practical means of mutually beneficial trade. In western society, this hasn't been the case for hundreds, if not thousands of years.

It's more comfortable for the atheist and the theist to "agree to disagree." It's in social vogue to bad-mouth politicians as weasely, power-grubbing maniacs, but to consider their existence as leaders of nations as "necessary." It's expected that an overbearing mother-in-law is "just that way," and shouldn't be confronted or ostracized on the basis that "it's just how she is."

Philosophy is what should happen in the awkward pauses in conversations. Most people haven't studied philosophy in any great detail, and aren't well-equipped to tackle situations like this. But those who do study philosophy too rarely stick to reason when awkward pauses in conversation occur. Perhaps if more philosophers did philosophy rather than just study it, then others would catch on to the effectiveness of always speaking and acting on the truth. Even when it makes us uncomfortable. Especially when it makes us uncomfortable.

Who are you to tell me what philosophy is anyway? Hasn't it been around for like a bazillion years?

To be sure, we all stand on the shoulders of giants to some extent. I'm most certainly not claiming to have come up with these ideas on my own in my study, with the lights dim, and reams of crumpled paper littered about the floor near the wastebasket. I just think that these specific ideas are among the most important ideas to humanity. With the recent proliferation of communications technology, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least duplicate (if not add to) a message I thought to be capable of minimizing human misery to a fraction of a fraction of what exists today.

The ideas I put forward in this series will be based on rational empiricism--the idea that reality can be derived from the senses, and that we should use logic on the information provided by the senses to determine all we need to know about the world and how to live ethically in it. The ideas follow back in time to Socrates and Aristotle, through John Locke, through Ayn Rand, and right up to my main source of the synthesis of their ideas, contemporary philosopher Stefan Molyneux. I owe my knowledge on these topics to these thinkers, and feel that the foundational philosophical work they've done is sufficient to provide the world with a truly rational and moral human race, minus one variable: People actually living by the philosophy they study. This is a project Molyneux has gone to great lengths to work toward in just a few years with his Freedomain Radio podcast.

Every so-called "complete" system of philosophical thought is just one step away from being completely validated. After "Does it conform to reality?" and "Does it contain a methodology for determining truth from falsehood?" and "Do the premises about reality and truth lead to conclusions about moral living?" comes "Can people actually live it?" And then, "Do they?" With the philosophy I'm going to discuss in subsequent installments of this series, I can answer in the affirmative on all of these questions, the last two of which are rarely approached by most philosophers (likely for the same reasons of social discomfort discussed above).

Living according to rational philosophy based on the evidence of the senses and the logic of the scientific method is extraordinarily liberating. But, as I've said concerning social conformity, extraordinarily difficult and stressful at first. I can't say I'm a picture perfect example of moral virtue and the "philosophy-come-to-life" I've described above, but I've most certainly seen and understood the importance of it, and am working toward the life I'll endeavor to describe in this series.

If this is all just too confusing an ordeal for you, I encourage you to read on! (and leave comments about what's confusing) Subsequent editions in this series will more fully explain my definitions and methodology. For now, thanks for reading!