#value of philosophy

[scientificphilosopher]

I really like how you said that philosophy is hard. Many people underestimate how philosophy is capable of negatively affecting humans. I took a philosophy class in high school and a few people dropped it because it severely shook their foundations. As in, it excessively altered their perceptions they had beforehand and undermined their values they lived their life by; they just couldn’t handle it! Philosophy truly is powerful and difficult, and I admire the way you brought that to light.

Thank you. Philosophy–especially if it is to be done well–should be extremely difficult. It should elicit a good deal of defensiveness and dissonance as our fundamental beliefs and assumptions are challenged and transformed. This type of process is not easy for our monkey brains. But, with practice, it can be fun, enlightening, and, under the right circumstances, provide us with meaning and purpose and the tools for further flourishing. Of course that isn’t easy!  But it’s so, so important if we want to live well and understand our world.

I’ll leave it to Bertie Russell from here. He has one of my favorite characterizations of the value of philosophy:

“Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.”–Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

[scientificphilosopher]

John R. Lenz tells us why Russell thought philosophy worthwhile.

Bertrand Russell did a disservice to philosophy by defining the word. Early in his career he defined philosophy as the logical-analytic method. This definition was so restricting that although he spent the next fifty years writing one book after another on topics such as war, peace, happiness, science and society, and the future of mankind, it forced him to describe most of them as ‘popular’ or ‘non-philosophical’. In fact, he gradually developed an alternative view of philosophy and its value for humanity.

His many popular books are unfairly ignored by historians of ideas and those interested in Russell as a philosopher. Of course, his many-sided activities, popular writings and work for peace are well-known and beloved. But these are usually left for his biography as opposed to his supposed ‘real’ academically-valid, philosophical work. Pick up a book such as The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell or a recent hundredth-anniversary commemoration of The Problems of Philosophy. You would never know from these that Russell held theories of human nature; that he repeatedly (from at least 1916 into the late 1960s) advanced utopian proposals for the future; and that he passionately advocated the value of philosophy and the philosophic life in more traditional terms, that is, as a road to happiness and wisdom. Academic study favors the analytic Russell, especially his work in the first decade of the twentieth century. The academy should be broader than that. He was.

[…]

Even before raising the logical-analytic flag, Russell had voiced an equally, or more, important credo concerning ‘the value of philosophy’. The concluding chapter of The Problems of Philosophy, especially its last six paragraphs, still embarrasses Russell’s more strictly academic admirers by its gushy praise of philosophy’s spiritual value. “Apart from its utility… philosophy has a value – perhaps it chief value – through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation,” he writes, adding that through “philosophic contemplation” of the vast impersonal universe, a “philosophic life” is “calm and free.” The sentiment is thoroughly Socratic, and close to Stoicism. Peace of mind comes after an escape from the prison of desire, ego, passion. Sure, Russell adopted much Platonic language even after he rejected Platonic philosophy. We know that in this period he talked of spiritual matters in a futile effort to find common ground with his lover, Ottoline Morrell. But it would be wrong to dismiss this by saying that this is Russell the person speaking rather than Russell the philosopher. Indeed, he held this view of philosophy until the end of his long life. Just two years after announcing his ‘scientific method’, in the midst of war, Russell wrote, “The world has need of a philosophy… which will promote life” (Principles of Social Reconstruction, 1916). This was his life’s work. As he later said: “What the truth on logic is does not matter two pins if there is no one alive to know it” […]

[worldphilosophyday]

Proclamation of the World Philosophy Day by the UNESCO.

Resolutions and decisions adopted by the UNESCO Executive Board at its 86th session, Paris, 16-18 November 1970

[worldphilosophyday]

By enabling to discover the diversity of the intellectual currents in the world, philosophy stimulates intercultural dialogue.

Philosophy is an inspiring discipline as well as an everyday practice that can transform societies. By enabling to discover the diversity of the intellectual currents in the world, philosophy stimulates intercultural dialogue. By awakening minds to the exercise of thinking and the reasoned confrontation of opinions, philosophy helps to build a more tolerant, more respectful society. It thus helps to understand and respond to major contemporary challenges by creating the intellectual conditions for change.

World Philosophy Day

[worldphilosophyday]

Underline the enduring value of philosophy for the development of human thought, for each culture and for each individual.

By celebrating World Philosophy Day each year, on the third Thursday of November, UNESCO underlines the enduring value of philosophy for the development of human thought, for each culture and for each individual.

[philosomajig]

[philosomajig]