Philosophy: The Need For It
Philosophy: The Need For It: Who Needs Philosophy? Once a person understands that philosophy is a set of ideas and insights that meaningfully relate life and existence on the earth, he realizes that philosophy is an essential subject related to life and survival. Yet many shrug their shoulders and say they do not need philosophy. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Human life is a complex phenomenon. A person makes hundreds of thousands of conscious and unconscious decisions during his life, and a good number of those decisions are related to the ultimate realities of life. Nobody can make a right decision without the right philosophy. Consider a schoolteacher in a difficult subject like physics. It is in his power to make the subject easy and interesting, or tough and traumatic. The question is, what motivates him to work hard and do his best, especially if mediocrity is sufficient to keep his job? Further, since he determines the final grades of students in physics, he could easily give the highest possible grades to every student, keeping the students as well as the school management happy. What would motivate him to opt for the tougher path of hard work, good teaching, and honest grading? One might say that the rules imposed upon this person should get the job done, but there are several problems with that approach. First, rules only apply pressure. They do not provide motivation. Second, why should people make rules in the first place if there is no philosophy about essential duties in the first place?
Philosophy And Human Actions: Obviously, a person’s actions should be motivated by his philosophy, ethics, and world view. Even if a person’s philosophy motivates him for anarchy, a clearly held system of anarchical beliefs ensures that he would be able to examine it rationally. There are many cases where such examination has motivated people to abandon their wrong philosophy to embrace a better one. Something can always be examined, and is examined, when its outlines and contours are clear. However, if a person does not hold to a clearly defined philosophy, he does not continue as a person who has not philosophy, for that is not a possibility at all. On the contrary, everyone needs a philosophy to operate, and therefore a person not willing to embrace a philosophy consciously will end up absorbing bits and pies pieces of various (often mutually contradictory) philosophies. He will end up having an undefined potpourri of philosophical ideas, picked up in pieces, each piece looking attractive but with no internal consistency. Bits and pieces of philosophical outlooks picked up randomly and emotionally from here and there might each look meaningful in isolation, but will fail to create a unified and self-consistent system of thought and guidance. Since one’s philosophy acts as the blueprint to guide one’s thoughts and actions, a randomly formulated philosophy and its outcome can be compared to a blueprint created by cutting and pasting a couple of ancient and modern blueprints, all built on different types of foundations and using different and inconsistent building material. One can imagine how the massive structure would look and function. Or, a more realistic picture would be a machine or a factory made up of pieces from many machines that come from many locations and that are meant for different purposes. Things would simply not work. Worse, like and extremely complex electric circuit put together using such patchwork, it would simply burst into flames, cause much damage to property, and electrocute many innocent people when it is switched on. It is amazing that people understand these analogies, but fail to see the destruction that can take place when they ignore a blueprint at a far deeper level.
The above paragraph may prompt some to claim that they never make decisions on the basis of ideas planted in their minds by others. They may claim to be reasonably insulated from stray influences even if they have nothing to do with philosophy, However, as soon as these people speak out in favour of peace, justice fairness and such ‘refined’ values, it becomes clear that their minds are not really closed to philosophies. Nor are they philosophically neutral. What is more, if one tries to engage these anti-philosophy people in discussions on these | topics, one will discover to their horror that while these people demand refined behaviour from the society, they do not have any idea about these things beyond that act of demand — that people behave in a refined manner. Consequently, these people have only a superficial perception of what is what, and end up putting hp proposals and demands that on the surface look very promising, but which end up in results just the opposite of what they demand. Consider the example of the followers moral relativism.
Moral Relativism And Philosophy: Moral Relativism says that not only is there is no need for absolutes, absolutes do not even exist. They opine that claiming one system to be absolute or superior to another, or even better than another, creates rifts and division in society, and that if all philosophical, ethical, and moral values are given the same weight and the same respect, conflict will vanish from society. We’ve all seen much conflict in the name of ideologies, due to intolerance, and therefore this proposal to stop the comparison and hostility looks very attractive and promising until one realizes what the demand involves. The premise is that all laws, police, legal system, and punishment should be eliminated from society. It also demands that the thief, the swindler, the murderer, and the rapist be left unpunished because what they do is right according to their own ethical values and conviction, and that others have no right to impose their own contrary values on the murderer and rapist. If all values are to be tolerated, then nobody can condemn anyone. It does not take the intelligence of a philosopher to realize that this is not an invitation to peace but to anarchy. On the surface “tolerate all viewpoints and condemn none” looks promising, but only a little reflection is sufficient to show that “no choice of philosophy and no choice of ethics is to be preferred” is an invitation in the final reckoning to all kind of damnable behaviour. So ‘I do not need’ philosophy is only an invitation to disaster where the most damnable and base kind of philosophy takes over this person. Everyone needs philosophy, and the closer it is to truth, the more happiness, motivation, and satisfaction it will bring to him.
The case of anarchy mentioned above is only one among thousands of typical cases where a person claims to have nothing to do with philosophy, but turns to have a definite philosophy that he developed through patchwork. In each case the inconsistent set of values does him as much good as a self-exploding bomb to the pilot in mid-air while the bomb is still is strapped to the aeroplane. ‘I do not need philosophy’, is first of all a way to a patchwork quilt philosophy and second an invitation to disaster in a system in which exit and inlet, negatives and positives, safety systems and auto-destruct systems are all randomly interconnected with each other without the logical command and control circuit. Everyone needs a clearly spelt out philosophy. If they negate this reality, their ever-active minds will unconsciously put together a philosophical concoction of its own which is beyond reformation or redemption. Thus it is infinitely better to begin a study of philosophy so one knows exactly where one stands in relation to people, ethics, society, and obligations. A clear and unconfused picture will help one to examine one’s starting assumptions and continually motivate them to go closer to reality.
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