The 8 Most Essential Questions of Philosophy

I’m in a video mood at the moment – creating videos, that is. So I’ve made another video and posted it on YouTube. This time about the most important questions of philosophy:

The Convoluted *Critique of Pure Reason*

Though I have repeatedly mentioned Immanuel Kant in my posts, I must confess that I’ve never read all the way through his Critique of Pure Reason.

I’m trying to remedy that now – very slowly, every paragraph two or three times, underlining and reflecting, trying to understand this great philosopher and not-so-great writer more fully.

“Not-so-great” in the sense that Kant’s German is notoriously convoluted. In fact, it’s so convoluted that I once drew a comic strip about it:

http://schriftman.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/hux-lee-18_immanuel-kant_jacob-schriftman.jpg

Bertrand Russell: Why Study Philosophy? (Or: How to Escape the Prison of This Life)

A few years ago, I read the first chapter of Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy. This week, I returned to it and finished the work.

Perhaps a more apt title for the book would be The Problems of Epistemology or even An Introduction to Epistemology, since Russell almost exclusively deals with the problems of our perception and knowledge of reality. (Epistemology is the study of the possibilities and limitations of human knowledge.)

My favorite part of the book, however, was the last chapter, in which Russell asks what value there is in philosophy. Here’s an excerpt:

[M]any men, under the influence of science or of practical affairs, are inclined to doubt whether philosophy is anything better than innocent but useless trifling, hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which knowledge is impossible.

This view of philosophy appears to result, partly from a wrong conception of the ends of life, partly from a wrong conception of the kind of goods which philosophy strives to achieve. Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general. Thus utility does not belong to philosophy. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. It is in these effects, therefore, if anywhere, that the value of philosophy must be primarily sought.

But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called ‘practical’ men. The ‘practical’ man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society; and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body. It is exclusively among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can be persuaded that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.

Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs. But it cannot be maintained that philosophy has had any very great measure of success in its attempts to provide definite answers to its questions. If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences. It is true that this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton’s great work was called ‘the mathematical principles of natural philosophy’. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

This is, however, only a part of the truth concerning the uncertainty of philosophy. There are many questions—and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life—which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now. Has the universe any unity of plan or purpose, or is it a fortuitous concourse of atoms? Is consciousness a permanent part of the universe, giving hope of indefinite growth in wisdom, or is it a transitory accident on a small planet on which life must ultimately become impossible? Are good and evil of importance to the universe or only to man? Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various philosophers. But it would seem that, whether answers be otherwise discoverable or not, the answers suggested by philosophy are none of them demonstrably true. Yet, however slight may be the hope of discovering an answer, it is part of the business of philosophy to continue the consideration of such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to examine all the approaches to them, and to keep alive that speculative interest in the universe which is apt to be killed by confining ourselves to definitely ascertainable knowledge.

Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could establish the truth of certain answers to such fundamental questions. They have supposed that what is of most importance in religious beliefs could be proved by strict demonstration to be true. In order to judge of such attempts, it is necessary to take a survey of human knowledge, and to form an opinion as to its methods and its limitations. On such a subject it would be unwise to pronounce dogmatically; but if the investigations of our previous chapters have not led us astray, we shall be compelled to renounce the hope of finding philosophical proofs of religious beliefs. We cannot, therefore, include as part of the value of philosophy any definite set of answers to such questions. Hence, once more, the value of philosophy must not depend upon any supposed body of definitely ascertainable knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.

The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect.

Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value—perhaps its chief value—through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleagured fortress, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, but a constant strife between the insistence of desire and the powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife.

Reading Einstein: Why Philosophy is Easier than (Some) Science

OK, I’ve read Einstein’s Relativity: The Special and General Theory now (or rather listened to it over at the wonderful site librivox.org), but I must say that I found other people’s summaries of Einstein’s thoughts more helpful than Einstein himself.

Could it be that others are more gifted in explaining Einstein than he was in explaining himself? Or is it simply that I am a bit obtuse when it comes to science – at least on the  microcosmical and macrocosmical level?

Maybe something of both. I certainly find philosophy much easier than the details of cosmology. Sure, there are rather difficult philosophers like Hegel and Kant, but for the most part philosophy isn’t hard to grasp at all. The reason, I think, is that philosophy is purely human. Everything in philosophy springs from the human mind – from reason and imagination. There is nothing in philosophy that is foreign to human nature. As a human of average intelligence and basic education, most philosophy should therefore pose no great problem.

With modern science, it’s another matter. Here we actually gather data that is foreign to our experience and intellectual capabilities – data about atoms and the speed of light and the relativity of time and the possible curvature of space. We then use a language that we do not employ in everyday life – namely mathematical, completely abstract language – to express this data and form theories about it.

No wonder it’s so difficult. It’s like a visitation of aliens who look completely unlike any terrestrial being, aliens whose sensory organs are not even all in the same dimensions as ours. We might be able to detect the existence of such beings and learn many things about them, but would we ever truly understand them? Probably not.

It’s the same with Einstein’s theories: I can intellectually assent to them; I can try to understand them. But I don’t think I have the capacity to ever truly grasp them. And I doubt any member of the human species does.

Aristotle’s *Politics* – Still Relevant Today

I just finished Aristotle’s Politics, and, considering that it’s more than 2,300 years old, the book is still amazingly relevant. Sure, the modern reader will wince at Aristotle’s defense of slavery, and I’m not exactly thrilled that Aristotle is a critic of private education and a staunch defender of public schooling. Nor will he seem liberal enough to most people today when it comes to censorship in art and music.

But even so, the Politics anticipates many topics that some falsely consider exclusively modern: freedom and democracy, communism and ownership, justice and equality, family structure and over-population, the dangers of an economy built on credit, the relation between urban and rural life, etc etc.

I’ve also found a neat graphic on Wikipedia about the Politics. It really only captures a few sections of the book, but it’s a useful visual nonetheless. Just realize that there’s more to Aristotle’s Politics than this (click to enlarge):

Life is a Hill

The other day, my six-year-old daughter Sophie summed up life like this:

“Tore [her newborn cousin] is like at the very bottom of the hill, we [i.e. Sophie and her siblings] are on the side of the hill, you [i.e. my wife and I] are at the very top of the hill, but soon you’ll start going DOWN!”

(The picture, by the way, is of me as a six-year old climbing the Harz Mountains in Germany.)

When Truth Becomes One’s Heresy

“A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.”

- John Milton, Areopagitica

Utilitarianism in Theory and Practice

Epicurus on Happiness

Here’s the first of three videos that show how applicable the Greek philosopher Epicurus still is in our time, particularly when it comes to consumerism and advertising:

The Philosophy of Science

Five excellent videos discussing the philosophy of science. I’d love to have had Richard Dawkins sit in on the conversation and discuss his own philosophical presuppositions that lie behind his science. But the videos are great even without Richard there …