Why Study Philosophy
Every discipline has its own domain of application, and the usefulness of each is relative.
If you have a smooth life and a favorable environment, where you have no need to reflect on things, studying philosophy may not seem very useful.
But if you maintain curiosity and constantly seek knowledge, whether you are in politics, research, or business, you will inevitably encounter philosophical questions.
This is because philosophy is about the fundamental nature of the world.
In the concluding paragraph of the first lecture of the book “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?” by Michael J. Sandel, a political science professor at Harvard University, he offers a very excellent summary:
Reading philosophy books can be an exercise to know oneself.
Philosophy makes the familiar unfamiliar. It does not give us more new information, but offers us another way of looking at things. It has two levels of adventure: the personal level and the political level. The personal level of adventure means that once the familiar becomes strange, it will never be the same as before. Self-awareness is like a lost traveler, no matter how confused or restless, you cannot ignore it anymore. This process is difficult but one must fully engage with it. Moral and political philosophy is like a story; you don’t know where it will take you, but you clearly know that it is your story. The adventure at the political level is that, after reading these books and participating in such discussions, you will become a better and more responsible citizen. You will examine the assumptions in the public political realm, your political judgment will be exercised, and you will be more actively involved in public affairs. However, there may be biases and misconceptions in this process. You must acknowledge that it may make you a worse citizen rather than a good citizen, or at least it may make you a bad citizen before you become a good one. That’s because philosophy is a long-standing thing, and it can be somewhat destructive. Let’s take a look at a dialogue from the time of Socrates. Socrates’ friend Callicles wanted to persuade him to leave philosophy. He said to Socrates, “Philosophy is indeed wonderful, but it is only wonderful when you are moderately involved in it. If you become too obsessed with it, it will destroy you. Listen to me, put down those philosophical arguments, think about what real achievements are in life, don’t waste time with those who waste their time in ambiguous philosophical statements, you should look at those who truly live a good life and have wealth, fame, and other things.” What he meant was, “Dude, be a bit more practical.” But Callicles was correct about one thing: philosophy makes us distant from conventional practices, predefined assumptions, and established concepts.
When faced with these questions, we have a special way of evading them, it’s called skepticism. It means that, like this, we have just started learning and cannot solve those cases or principles we argue about immediately. And if Aristotle, Kant, Locke, and Mill spent so many years without solving these problems, who do we think we are? Can we solve them after just one semester in Sanders Hall? Moreover, it may be just a matter of each person having their own different principles, and there may be nothing worth discussing, and it is unclear why these questions exist at all. This is the way skepticism escapes. Regarding this, I think I can answer in this way: Indeed, these questions have been discussed for a very long time, but precisely because they continue to be discussed, it means that although they are not explainable in a certain sense, on the other hand, they are indispensable. They are indispensable because the answers to these questions lie in our everyday lives. Therefore, skepticism only lets you let go, abandon thinking, and it does not solve any moral or philosophical problems. Kant has a very brilliant description of skepticism. He wrote, “Skepticism is just a resting place in the process of exploration, letting us wander in some dogmas, but it is by no means a place where we can stay forever.” Here, I want to summarize the purpose of this course simply, which is to awaken endless thirst for knowledge and reasoning, and see where it will take us.
Translated by gpt-3.5-turbo