Very often it seems that the word "philosophy" invokes the concept of an abstract and detached if not dry subject of trivial pursuit. For instance, as in the academic study of treatises by a fairly fixed pool of long-dead people considered by scholars and/or intellectuals past and present to represent those worthy of being digested for their abstract/theoretical upshot. As in not particularly concerned with anything necessarily real or important, detached from life-qua-living.
This bothers me.
Oh, I understand how people can come to dismiss the whole subject of philosophy as such, given the above seemingly prevalent stigma it carries. A kind of "Why bother? What does this mean to/for me?" shrugging slump overcomes the mind, perhaps.
So here let me advance a different, return-to-center-revised idea of philosophy. I'll start by asking the question: what IS philosophy?
As I see it, a philosophy is a way of life. As such, each and every living, thinking, acting human being has one, if only implicitly, as to live is to live a certain way (since we are all capable of our own free choices as such), and (between the lines, if nothing else, of) any given way-of-living for any given person necessarily and unavoidably embodies their philosophy.
In the various small events of one's life, it can go rather unnoticed, easily dismissed. But at what I'll call "major life decisions" -- facing events out of the ordinary, and/or which present choices of significantly different life-paths -- the behavior of a person shows their philosophy quite saliently. But between the day-to-day and the life-changing, a person's philosophy is also manifest (again, if only between the lines) in every nontrivial conversation they have. And, of course, introduce politics or religion -- or any "hot topic" in society (usually laden with one or both)-- and again philosophy is invoked and often manifest in their behavior, most saliently in what they have to say about it.
Looking between the lines HERE we see that my idea of philosophy concerns itself, however indirectly, with the VALUES people hold. And very often those values are (however implicitly) held in terms of/supported by some "world-view" (here meaning some notion of "cosmology" if not "cosmogeny", "cosmography" -- beliefs held about the nature of the "world" if not "universe" around the person). In and around these we have "morality"/"ethics", qua "good" and "evil", these being specific primordial species of cognitive value.
Since all human action is in pursuit of, flight from or otherwise in reaction to some value -- perceived, imagined or otherwise -- (for what is a value?: that which we act to obtain/sustain/avoid, etc) we see that philosophy proper, being a topic concerning itself with values at work in a person's deeds (including his words) is intimately involved with the ACTUAL LIFE in and through which a person acts. This as against mistaking the entire subject of philosophy as necessarily detached from the life-qua-living.
Let me clarify something important: among the reasons why philosophy-overall is so easily dismissed as such stems from the nature of the philosophers usually studied in/by academia; how their ideas were themselves detached if not abstruse or entirely imaginary -- that is, unconcerned with life-as-lived, life-as-action-in-existence (and thereby, unconcerned with the values underlying, motivating, informing such activities) to whatever (usually rather full) extent. The rampant semantic backflipping and wanton sophistry involved in it all is of course no use to life-qua-living, so of course philosophy-overall gets a bad rap. Whereas really, its the philosophers in question that deserve it.
Now here we have the problem. Philosophy is often dismissed or mistaken, as above. So people go on presuming its necessary futility, hence often they dismiss any attention from their actual living value-system, world-view, philosophy, and just go on in great default and then wonder why they're unhappy failures to some extent or another. Or worse, they take up whatever religion (or allow themselves to be environmentally programmed by it) --- that whole species of thought being a particularly damning bastard cousin of philosophy (as, again, they all purport little about life-qua-living-in-existence, instead usually involved upon their cosmologies, cosmogenies and cosmographies, and then deriving from them shoulds and should-nots in accord with inhuman, nonextant imaginary forces/beings).
Philosophy is about living life. And so as you live and breathe, you have one, much as you might think otherwise (and/or dismiss the subject entirely). Through it you either succeed or fail, be happy or sad, live or die. Now will you take it more seriously? Will you look at what values and world-views actually shape the actions you take in life, and see if they're really in your best interest? Really accord with life, as against something never encountered in it?
(Yes, this is a restart of a thread I started once elsewhere. Perhaps with the passage of time and shift in audience, who knows...)
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