What is the point of asking these impossible questions about the nature of the universe, ourselves, God, the soul, and so on? Questions which hundreds of generations of philosophers, theologians, and other dedicated souls have been unable to answer?
Well.... Notice: this is itself a philosophical question! For any answer would be based on fundamental assumptions about what we can hope to know, and what it would be worth spending one's time on in life. Which is to say:
You can't avoid it!
You can avoid thinking about philosophical issues, but you'll still be living your life in a way that is built on philosophical assumptions, like that it isn't worth asking impossible questions, or that there is (or isn't) an afterlife, or that pleasure is (or isn't) the main goal in life. And most of us reflect on these issues at some point or other in our lives.Which is to say: Everyone is a philosopher! To be human is to wonder about the purpose of life, whether you are free and responsible for your fate, whether there is any hope for discovering important truths. Philosophy is thus a bit like running: everyone does it, but some people work to improve their natural abilities, through courses and by reading those who have come before. You may not ever win the race, but you may learn something about how to run it better.
Perhaps it would be best, as in so many things, to go back to Socrates' words. Socrates spoke of the temptation to turn one's head away from philosophical reasoning, and why we should resist it, in a discussion in the Phaedo:
| "There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse. Misology and misanthropy arise in the same way. Misanthropy comes when a man without knowledge or skill has placed great trust in someone and believes him to be altogether truthful, sound and trustworthy. Then, a short time afterwards, the man finds the other to be wicked and unreliable; and then this happens in another case. When one has frequently had that experience, especially with those whom one believed to be one's closest friends, then, in the end, after many such blows, one comes to hate all men and to believe that no one is sound in any way at all. Have you not seen that happen?" Phaedo replies: "I surely have." "This is a shameful state of affairs, and obviously due to an attempt to have human relations without any skill in human affairs, for such skill would lead one to believe, what is in fact true, that the very good and the very wicked are both quite rare, and that most men are between those extremes...." "The similarity lies in this: [misology arises] when one who lacks skill in arguments puts his trust in an argument as being true, then shortly afterwards believes it to be false -- as sometimes it is and sometimes it is not -- and so with another argument and then another. You know how those who spend their time studying contradiction in the end believe themselves to have become very wise and that they alone have understood that there is no soundness or reliability in any object or in any argument...." "It would be pitiable, Phaedo, where there is a true and reliable argument and one that can be understood, if a man who has dealt with such arguments as appear at one time true, at another time untrue, should not blame himself or his own lack of skill but, because of his distress, in the end gladly shift the blame away from himself to the arguments, and spend the rest of his life hating and reviling reasonable discussion and so be deprived of truth and knowledge of reality." "This then is the first thing we should guard against: we should not allow into our minds the conviction that argumentation has nothing sound about it. Much rather we should believe that it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take courage and be eager to attain soundness, you and the others for the sake of your whole life still to come, and I for the sake of death itself." From Plato, "Phaedo," in G.M.A. Grube (ed.), Five Dialogues (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1981), pp. 128-129. |