Philosophy being reduced to only pondering about existential questions is a tragedy of misrepresentation. Philosophy is the study of thinking, and that covers a very wide range of topics.
I, too, have no fear of dying. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. I won’t even know I’m dead. The only thing that is a bit scary is the process of dying, especially if it is something that’s really drug out, like a terminal disease. Then, I have to think about it for the rest of my life. Otherwise, if it just happens in a flash, like a nuclear bomb, I won’t even be aware I died.
In addition to questions of end-of-life, Existentialism also deals with questions of purpose-of-life. Which can be mind racking even if you’re not afraid of death.
Still not super interesting questions to me though.
And how is it even “applied”? I can’t come up with an explanation based on my understanding of term, which is to use the knowledge of something to solve real world problems.
Well, existentialism and nihilism kind of apply an existential crisis to reduce your personal suffering. That only works if you believe them though lol
Yeah, pretty much. Philosophy people can be helpful though, their idea processing systems are fairly robust, and unlike a statistician or scientist, they sort of end up with a side-specialization in communication. Which is extremely valuable these days.
The problem with philosophy in terms of understanding the bigger questions in life is that advanced physics (edit: and neuroscience, chemistry, math/stats, etc) has answered many questions that were previously in the realm of philosophy, and you can’t really understand what’s possible in reality / what constraints there are on abstract philosophy without understanding advanced physics and science.
Of course the problem with advanced physics is that it takes so much time and effort to learn and understand thoroughly that you often end up as a not great communicator to the average person.
Or, to be cheeky: physics aims to take the largest and most complicated concepts in the universe and explain them in the simplest possible language, and philosophy is the opposite.
Philosophers literally invented formal logic to help them answer questions. Yes they are trying to answer questions and constrain the possible answer space where they can’t.
Sure, but at a fundamental level philosophers are not just sitting there asking questions with no purpose. They’re still seeking new understanding and information which is a form of answering questions.
Asking a question can have many purposes asides simply answering it. I think if a philosopher thinks they are definitively answering important questions, they’re perhaps engaging in a bit of hubris, and while that may have been more appropriate in earlier centuries, I doubt very many in the modern day fall into that kind of self-important trap.
Coming up with hypothesis and working out the brain with new methods and ideas is important in other ways, you simply don’t need that sort of certainty that belongs more in the arena of faith. Call them “answers” or whatever, that’s fine. The purpose is not to arrive or convince, though, it’s to strengthen through exercise and come up with new things. Much like how martial arts is no longer as useful for self defence in a world with handguns, but instead makes for very good exercise and social connections, and is just fun.
Not that philosophy cannot answer any questions, mind you. But I don’t think that’s very important anymore when more rigorous methods exist. Finding answers is a very small thing philosophy can accomplish, that is minor and unimportant compared to the much more valuable things it can do for a person’s skillset. If it did not contribute to skillsets in a very efficient way, I doubt it would have much relevance anymore.
Much like how martial arts is no longer as useful for self defence in a world with handguns, but instead makes for very good exercise and social connections, and is just fun.
Except that a key difference is that no one gives out PhDs for martial arts. Yes you can get a black belt, signalling that you are as skilled as the top tier martial artists (I assume, I don’t do martial arts), but you cannot write a peer reviewed paper and get a PhD on karate because that would require learning something new about it and publishing it.
Philosophy in how the common person relates to it may just be as a mental kata that helps to improve their cognition and emotional regulation, but philosophy as a profession and academic discipline is still very much concerned with trying to answer questions and find ways of constraining the infinite to relevant possible answers.
Yes, that’s the “new stuff” part that I mentioned. You don’t want to stagnate in a world where things are constantly changing as time flows. And you can always continue to refine methods, ask new questions, ask questions in new ways, and yes, even sometimes constrain or find an answer.
Martial arts continues to change as well. New schools appear, new styles appear, etc. I’m not sure what point you’re ultimately trying to make.
The point I’m making is that philosophers are trying to answer questions and if they weren’t they wouldn’t be getting PhDs, since a PhD is not given for just knowing a lot about Philosophy, but for discovering something new in the field.
That’s true if you’re only talking about what was once called ‘natural philosophy’, but there are still many areas where philosophy and physics don’t really overlap - ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, language, existentialism, etc.
I would argue that it absolutely applies to both existentialism and epistemology. Epistemologists frequently concern themselves with questions about the limits of human knowledge and understanding without actually going there themselves.
Add comment