Everyone has a choice. We can be poor thinkers or good philosophers. But quality comes only with care. Careful thinking makes for the best philosophy. Does your philosophy of life imprison you or liberate you? Are you a careful or careless thinker? In this book, I try to dispel some of the myths and platitudes of our own age and get out of the cave of our false assumptions. We seek philosophical enlightenment, philosophical liberation.
The first day of the rest of your life need not begin and end in Plato’s Cave.
Plato helped to launch the activity of Western philosophy, as we know it today, by writing lively dialogues featuring his teacher and mentor Socrates. Someone would have a party, and Socrates would show up. As the wine was being passed around, he’d start up a conversation, asking others present what they thought about some important topic. They’d answer, and he’d gently question what they said, investigating the ideas they brought up, and they would then reply. Then the philosopher would dig even deeper. Or Socrates would be walking down the street and see a friend, who would greet him warmly. A conversation would begin. And philosophical thoughts would soon emerge. The old man was always in action, thinking, probing, testing, and rethinking.
Philosophy is meant to be an activity in several ways. It’s a form of intellectual self-defense as well as discovery. The philosopher works to get beyond mere appearances to the important realities beneath them. The determined thinker actively works to discover new ideas, analyze, and refine those concepts, and then find new ways to put them to use, creatively and well. And this is a part of the activity of philosophy that’s often overlooked. Philosophy isn’t just about thinking hard about big ideas; it’s also about living in the constant light of those ideas that matter. It’s meant to be an adventure in living, a way of proceeding well and wisely in the world. And when you do it right, I like to think you make Plato and his mentor Socrates proud.
Chapter 3
The Love of Wisdom
IN THIS CHAPTER
Things have their seasons, and even certain kinds of eminence go in and out of style. But wisdom has an advantage: She is eternal.
— Balthasar Gracian
As you delve deeply into philosophy, you find there to be many reasons to read, study, and practice it in your life. Philosophy, as a way of thinking, for example, cultivates three particular intellectual skills that are very important for any of us to possess in the modern world. In addition, and most vitally, it can cultivate genuine wisdom.
In this chapter, you get the scoop on the three skills of thought that philosophy cultivates. Then I say a bit more about wisdom — in particular, what it is and why it matters. You’ll see that philosophy is, simply put, primarily a way of thinking about things that matter. It’s also a way of living connected with that path of thought. More precisely, it is a bundle of ways of thinking that involve a set of distinctive mental tools. And that fact is directly relevant to the question of why we study philosophy. After reading this chapter, you’ll view philosophy as more than just something you can use to amaze your friends with profundity, perplex colleagues with a newfound depth, or irritate family members with crazy-sounding questions (although first-year college students seem to value that last possibility the most). You’ll want to study this ancient art of thought because of the mental skills it cultivates in your life, as well as for the deeper and broader new perspectives it can give you.
Identifying Some Skills of Philosophy
Some colleges and universities still require students to take a philosophy course. But confronted with such a seemingly odd demand, the students are often perplexed. They wonder: Why should a pre-med or business major waste any time at all in a philosophy class? Isn’t such a rule much like requiring every student to take a course in Ancient Babylonian Entomology? The concern is that this is just some esoteric relic of the humanities curriculum of the past, no longer at all relevant to modern life.
If you were to hear that many CEOs and other business leaders around the world right now avidly read philosophy, or that even lots of other people at many stages and walks of life do so as well, you might find it puzzling. You may be led to wonder why any busy executive would take valuable time out to devote to philosophy. Or you might pause over what could lead a parent at home engaged in the demanding tasks of raising children to sneak away now and then with a book like this. You could find yourself asking: What’s the relevance of philosophy for life? And what could possibly be the payoff of spending time with philosophy? But don’t worry. The answers to these questions are easy to find.
Mastering analysis
Philosophy as a way of thinking cultivates the ability to analyze complicated problems. It can help you untie mental knots and get to the core of an issue. With an understanding of how philosophy approaches the world, as a big new item in your toolbox, you can get better at breaking problems down into their essential elements, and more manageable components.
Analysis is a skill you need everywhere in life. Lawyers analyze complex claims and sort out the issues; physicians analyze symptoms; detectives look for patterns in the evidence; business people sort through the various parts of an intricate deal; parents try to untangle and get a grip on the issues troubling a family. The skill of analysis is useful in every walk of life. In fact, analysis is so prominent in philosophical ways of thinking that a major trend of 20th-century thought is known as analytic philosophy because of its emphasis on the centrality of this skill. But all good philosophy involves close analysis. Philosophers analyze major problems so that they can sketch out possible solutions, and then analyze those potential solutions for their fitness and truth.
Ultimately, philosophy teaches us how to analyze our lives, with questions like: Who am I? What do I really want and need? What is this life all about? What can make me happy? How can I make my greatest contribution to the world? And: Why didn’t I discover the joy of philosophy much earlier in my life?
In following a philosophical analysis of a major human question and learning from some of the greatest thinkers in history how to tackle a complicated issue, you can become a better analyst of problems and much more analytical in other aspects of your life. Now, this endorsement of analysis is not meant as a suggestion that it’s the most important mental skill, or as a claim that a practice of philosophical analysis is somehow paramount in human life. It’s not. It is, however, important. You can be psychologically paralyzed in many ways if you are unable to analyze your circumstances and opportunities properly. The skill of analysis clarifies your world and liberates you from the vagueness that holds too many people back. As the scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal reminded us long ago, “Man is but a reed, the weakest thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed.” And thinking well is strength.
