Compos Mentis

Warnings to Philosophy majors

Yes, I know this is the second time I've posted twice in one day. Occasionally, I get more than one thought a day. Go figure. It helps when I read good material; this thought was triggered by Leibniz. I was reading some of his philosophical essays in the honors house (If for no other reason, I would love college for the book collections.) and was struck by this thought. Actually, I've considered it before, but this was the first time I've had the opportunity to put it up where the world can see it.
Philosophy is a daunting subject. There are dozens of books introducing it, hundreds explaining it, and lots of parodies of it. I am sure there is more stuff written about philosophy than philosophy written, and (let's be clear here) they are not the same thing. It is the same difference between literature and literary criticism. One actually says something, the other restates it in a useless manner. I may be overstating here, but not much. How can you understand the explication if you don't understand the original? What makes you think another person can explain ideas better than the original author?
So this is the first warning: be aware of the difference between philosophy and works about philosophy, and always give higher significance to the former.
Another problem people have with philosophy is the often confusing and complicated worldviews the philosophers propose. I empathize with people who dislike philosophy because philosophy seems to have little to do with the real world, but I have to disagree with them. Philosophers probably see the world better for the exercise. Still, sometimes the worldviews philosophers propose are confusing because they contain popular ideas that have since fallen out of favor. But it is too much to ask to leave these parts out: we all use them, and assume that they are essential to existence.
If we look at philosophy as a combination of essential truths and modern thinking, we can separate the two quite easily. Philosophers essentially just combine these truths with modern thought, so we should (and do!) see streams of thought that perpetuate throughout the history of philosophy, and will not be submerged no matter what evidence appears for the contrary, and vice versa. These are the things that philosophy is about. Unfortunately, as I just implied, philosophy will not tell us which side is true. The evidence (i.e. the modern ideas) is never enough to completely rule out the other option. Or people are just hardwired to slip into these beliefs that continue through history. Either way.
On the other hand, these essential truths are by no means limited to philosophy. They can be found in every part of human thought. All scientific theories have rung true with ancient ideas from Greece, China, and other parts of the world. Heraclitus would have been familiar with the general idea of our quantum world; Democritus would have had no trouble understanding the old atomic models.
It seems then that we already have all the ideas here that we're going to get, all the evidence available to decide what kind of world we live in. And any option we choose has been done before with a different linguistic dressing.
So that's my other warning to philosophy majors: if you're looking for answers, tough luck.

posted by Emmett @ 21:16