I have written columns on philosophy in the past, but it has recently come to my attention that I should probably write about it more. More than that, I should encourage others to think about philosophy and its role in their life. 

Unfortunately, many people think that philosophy is either useless or only useful on a personal level and unnecessary to be pursued as a subject of academic inquiry. The first camp suggests that because philosophy still focuses on the general and the intangible, it surrenders its value as a genuine method of inquiry. Everyone can have their own answer, all can retain their inconsistencies, nothing really has to be produced other than ideas themselves.

The second camp is more sympathetic to philosophy in the sense that it recognizes the value of philosophy as providing wisdom and a structure through which to view the world with more clarity, but still doesn’t recognize the utility in the ivory-tower studies of academic philosophy.

An outlier third camp also exists, but these people (the academics, the general adorers of philosophy) need not be discussed because by virtue of their placement into this third camp, we can assume they recognize and, more importantly, cherish what philosophy brings to themselves and the world. 

This second camp has grown in numbers over the past few years, and embedded in this growth are college-aged people and youth more generally. There are two reasons I believe this is the case:

First, the world is drastically changing and is far different from the life of our parents and grandparents. The advancement of technology and the progression of life away from “general” reality to virtual reality has not only resulted, so far, in a world population utterly disconnected from the world and themselves but has also raised a generation of young people almost entirely devoid of fulfillment, meaning and purpose. 

This isn’t due to the technology itself but has to do with the content of consumption. Constantly, people that we perceive as better or worse than us push and pull our ego and massive amounts of information make knowledge highly accessible, but careful selection and critique near impossible.

Furthermore, all of us are constantly studied for the development of algorithms that keep us boxed in our echo chambers. So we face not just too much time spent on technology or the constant onslaught of information but the fact this onslaught is being routinely manipulated to hold our attention. 

What we find as a result of such a sinister synthesis is what I described above. People looking for answers in a world where wrong answers get the most screen time is not a good method to find happiness, whatever that elusive term actually means. 

Well, what does this have to do with the question of the use of philosophy? I have heard of many recent stories of religious conversion, of people who once identified with atheism or secularism but now seek refuge in religion. Though I take issue with the legitimacy of lukewarm religiosity (in the sense one identifies as religious but cares little about its truth claims), I understand why people are doing so. Religion, at the most basic level, offers a system of belief that quenches the fear of what Freud called “the gravest of all misfortunes.”

In addition to the comfort and relief religion offers from the fear of death, it provides a general (albeit controversial) system of ethics and structure of life perception. For the non-religious, it is the same reason why Stoicism has ballooned in popularity over the last decade or so. These systems of thought offer practical wisdom on matters of life and death to a generation and society who are starving for it.

And this is why I believe philosophy is immensely useful and why everyone should make a concerted effort to study it, not only for the lives of themselves and those around them but for society as a whole, especially one like ours in America which is rapidly unraveling. The simple act of thinking with a critical perception, one that you stumble upon on your own accord, is truly a continued experience that offers quality and purpose to life on its own.

It is worth pointing out that the latter fact is why I believe philosophy in all of its forms (in literature especially) has the edge over religion. Philosophy is the very basis for challenging our own assumptions, including the ones that keep us tied to our ignorance.

But how does philosophy actually allow us to do this? Doesn’t science tell us everything that is real and what we need to know? If science is supreme, how is philosophy any different than religion? In his “Story of Philosophy,” Will Durant offers a beautiful reply:

“But is philosophy stagnant? Science seems always to advance, while philosophy always seems to lose ground. Yet this is only because philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science – problems like good and evil, beauty and ugliness, order and freedom, life and death; so soon as a field of inquiry yields knowledge susceptible of exact formulation it is called science. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art… it is the front trench of the siege of truth. Science is the captured territory; and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvelous world. Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed; but only because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored.”

The quote above might be the best explanation of the importance of philosophy I have read. Durant, a master, rightly describes philosophy as the trailblazer of truth. Without philosophy, you do not get science. Without thinking deeply about yourself, your life, the life of those around you, one does not arrive at any useful conclusions about how to live in each of these spheres. To study philosophy means to study the great minds that have come before you, it means to challenge their views and your own, it means to change the way you fundamentally view everything around you.

To discount philosophy means to discount the power of reflection and reason. It means to undermine the power of argument and disputation. It also means one will remain profoundly ignorant about the world. Our society and culture, at any point in time, has been and will continue to be ideological and thereby philosophical. 

At this point in the article, some readers might wonder where to begin. I would recommend starting with the history of philosophy to understand the timeline of thinkers and how they all relate to each other.  However, I am not an authority on the matter, so I offer recommendations with little weight attached to them. If you have a particular thinker or school of thought that interests you, it is likely a wealth of information exists about them online.

The most important thing about studying philosophy, however, is to understand that it can be an extremely pretentious affair. In my experience, this is the primary reason people refrain from engaging in philosophy. It doesn’t interest them to be in an intellectual shooting match with people, and understandably so. The pretentious kind are like Friedrich Nietzsche’s description of the worst readers: “The worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: they pick up a few things they can use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole.”

Most people are not pretentious, though, and even the greatest philosopher, Socrates, was an honorable and humble man. If he can do it, so all of us can, too. We can ask grand questions without grandiose displays of self-righteousness, for it drives away potential learners and compels them to question the uses of philosophy and to question the use of philosophy is to question the use of life itself.