Chapter 16 Chapter 15 The Value of Philosophy

We have now at last made a brief and far from complete commentary on some problems of philosophy.In closing this book, it would be well to consider again: What is the value of philosophy?Why should you study philosophy?Under the influence of science and practical affairs, many people are inclined to doubt: philosophy is more important to them than disinterested and futile analyses, than polemics on matters beyond the reach of knowledge. How much stronger can it be?Therefore, it is even more necessary to consider this issue now. This view of philosophy arises partly from a false conception of the end of life, and partly from a lack of a correct conception of what philosophy strives to achieve.At present, the inventions and creations in physical science have made countless people who do not know this science already think that physical science is useful; in its effect on humanity as a whole.This practicality is absent from philosophy.If the study of philosophy is of value to other people than to philosophers, it must be done only indirectly through its effect on the lives of those who study it.Therefore, the value of philosophy must be found in these influences.

But, to go a step further, we must first rid our minds of the prejudices of "real" people if we are not to fail in our attempt to assess the value of philosophy. A "realistic" man, in the usual usage of the word, is one who recognizes only material needs, knows only that the body needs food, but ignores the need to provide food for the soul.Even if everyone were economically well-off, even if poverty and disease were reduced to the minimum, there would still be much to be done to create a society of worth; Needs are at least as important as physical needs.Only in the food of the soul can the value of philosophy be found; and only those who do not ignore the food of the soul believe that studying philosophy is not a waste of time.

Philosophy, like other sciences, aims above all to acquire knowledge.What philosophy seeks is knowledge that can provide a unified system of science and knowledge that results from a critique of the basis of our prejudices, prejudices and beliefs.But we cannot think of it as highly accomplished in providing definite answers to its problems.If you were to ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any polymath what is the set of truths affirmed in his science, his answer would be as long as Till you get tired of hearing it.But if you put this question to a philosopher, he must admit, if he is candid, that his investigations have not yet yielded results as certain as those of other sciences.This is, of course, partly explained by the fact that any science, as soon as knowledge about it can be ascertained, ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes an independent science.The whole study of the heavenly bodies now belongs to astronomy, but was formerly included in philosophy; Newton's great work is called the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy.Likewise, the study of the human mind, which until very recently was part of philosophy, has now broken away from philosophy and has become psychology.Philosophical indeterminacy is thus to a great extent not only real, but manifest: questions with definite answers have been placed in the sciences; , still constitute a remnant of the science called philosophy.

This, however, is only partly true about philosophical uncertainty.There are many problems--those of which have the deepest connection with our spiritual life--which, so far as we know, will remain beyond the reach of human ingenuity, unless human intellect becomes quite different from what it is now.Does the universe have a unified plan or purpose?Or is the universe just an accidental collection of atoms?Is consciousness an immutable part of the universe that gives wisdom the hope of infinite expansion?Or was it just a fleeting accident on an asteroid where life would eventually be wiped out?Do good and evil matter to the universe?Or are they important only to humans?These questions are asked by philosophy, and different philosophers have different answers.But, whether or not the answers can be found in other ways, it does not appear that the answers offered by philosophy can be proved to be true by experiment.Yet, however remote the hope of finding an answer, it is part of philosophy's duty to continue to study such questions, to make us aware of their importance, to investigate ways of solving them, and to maintain a speculative interest in the universe so that which flourishes, an interest which is easily stifled if we confine ourselves to unequivocally ascertainable knowledge.

It is true that many philosophers have held the view that philosophy can determine the truth or falsity of some of the answers to these fundamental questions.They believe that the most important parts of religious beliefs can be proved to be true by rigorous verification.To judge these ideas, human knowledge must be considered in its entirety, and an opinion must be formed as to its method and extent.It is unwise to be dogmatic on such a question; but if the investigations of the preceding chapters do not lead us astray, we shall have to give up hope of finding philosophical evidence for religious belief.Therefore, we cannot accommodate any set of definite answers to these questions as part of the value of philosophy.Therefore, we want to explain again that the value of philosophy must not lie in the hypothetical system that the philosophical researcher can obtain any set of clearly affirmable knowledge.

In fact, most of the value of philosophy has to be pursued in its great uncertainty.The unphilosophical man is bound all his life to prejudices, formed by common sense, by the conventions of his time or people, by self-confidence bred without reflection.For such a person the world is fixed, finite, and self-evident; ordinary objects do not arouse his doubts, and possible unknowns are haughtily denied.But on the contrary, as we have seen in the opening chapters, as soon as we first adopt a philosophical attitude, we find that even the most ordinary things are problematic, and the answers we can provide can only be very imperfect. of.Although philosophy cannot tell us which answer is right for the questions it raises, it can expand our thinking realm and free us from the control of customs.Philosophy, therefore, while alleviating our sense of certainty about, say, what things are, greatly increases our knowledge of what things might be.It excludes the presumptuousness of those who have never entered the realm of free doubt, and it points out the unfamiliar in the familiar, and keeps our sense of curiosity perpetually keen.

The usefulness of philosophy lies in its ability to point out possibilities that no one doubts.Moreover, the value (perhaps its main value) of philosophy consists in the fact that its considerations are great, and that such considerations free one from narrow personal considerations.A man who is at the mercy of his instincts lives always within the circle of his own interests: this circle may also include his family and friends, but the external world is never valued unless it benefits or hinders him. Things that happen within the circle of his instinctive desires.Compared with the peaceful and carefree life of philosophy, this kind of life is a life similar to fanaticism and imprisonment.The personal world of instinctive interests is small, cramped within a vast and powerful world, and sooner or later our personal world is overturned.Unless we can extend our interests to include the whole external world; otherwise, we shall be like a garrison trapped in a fortress, knowing that the enemy will not allow us to escape, and will inevitably surrender.In such a life there is no peace, only the constant struggle of the desire to resist and the will to do nothing.If our lives are to be great and free, we must find ways to escape this prison and struggle.

Philosophical meditation is a way out.Philosophical meditation, in its broadest view, does not divide the universe into two opposing camps—friends and foes, supporters and hostiles, good and bad—it .Philosophical meditation, so long as it is pure, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe is like man.All gain in knowledge is an expansion of the self, but this expansion is best not pursued directly.Self-expansion is attained only through such investigations, when the desire to know alone operates, not by anticipating the object of study to be of this or that quality, but by adapting the ego to the qualities found in the object.If we take the self as it is, and try to point out that the world is so similar to this self that knowledge of the world can be obtained without acknowledging all that seems different from it, this is not at all possible. kind of self-expanding.The desire to prove this is a self-assertion; like all self-assertions, it is a hindrance to the self-development which it so desperately desires, and which the ego knows it will be.Self-dogmatism, in philosophical meditations as elsewhere, sees the world as a means to its own end; it therefore values ​​the self more than the world.And the ego sets limits to the greatness of the things of value in the world.In meditation it is quite different if we start from the not-self, through the greatness of the not-self the boundaries of the self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind that meditates on the universe shares infinity.

Greatness of mind, therefore, is not cultivated by philosophies which seek to assimilate the universe to man.Knowledge is a union of self and not-self; like all unions, it will be destroyed by the desire to dominate, and therefore by any attempt to oblige the universe to obey what we find in ourselves. destroy.There is now a broad philosophical tendency to tell us that man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space, time, and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that if there is anything the mind does not create, it is The unknowable is irrelevant to us.If our previous discussion is correct, this view is not correct.But not only is it wrong, but what is more, because it binds meditation to itself, it finally deprives philosophical meditation of all that is valuable.What it calls knowledge is not a union with the not-self, but a set of prejudices, habits, and desires, which draws an impenetrable veil between the outside world and us.The man who can find pleasure in such a theory of knowledge, like the man who fears that his words cannot become law, can never leave the family circle.

True philosophical meditation, on the contrary, finds satisfaction in expansions of the self, in things that can enlarge the object of meditation, and thus also in the subject being meditated.In meditation, everything that is personal or one's own, everything that depends on habit, personal interest, or desire, distorts the object and thus destroys that union the mind seeks.Something as personal and private as this creates a barrier between subject and object, and as a result becomes a prison for the mind.A free mind is one that sees like God, not from a here and now, expecting, not fearing, not bound by customary beliefs and traditional prejudices, but calmly, coolly, Look at it with an attitude of pure pursuit of knowledge, and regard knowledge as impersonal, purely meditative, and achievable by human beings.For this reason, the free mind places more importance on abstract and universal knowledge than on knowledge derived from the senses; abstract and universal knowledge cannot penetrate the events of personal experience, while sensory knowledge must rely on depends on the individual body, and the senses of the body distort things in representing them.

So long as the mind has been accustomed to the freedom and justice of philosophical meditation, it retains some of the same freedom and justice in the world of action and affection.It will see its ends and desires as parts of a whole, without the obstinacy of seeing them as minute fragments belonging to the rest of the world, free from any artificial influence.Justice in meditation is a pure desire for truth, which is of the same nature as the soul. In terms of behavior, it is justice, and in terms of emotions, it is universal love; Only to those who are judged useful or honorable.Meditation thus enlarges not only the objects of our thinking, but also those of our actions and our emotions; it makes us not merely citizens of a besieged city against all the rest, but citizens of the universe. .Included in the citizenship of the universe is the true freedom of man and his emancipation from the slavery of narrow hopes and terrors. Thus, the discussion of the value of philosophy can be concluded by saying that philosophy should not be learned so that it can provide any definite answers to the questions it asks, since it is usually impossible to know which definite answers are true, but rather It is the questions themselves; the reason is that they can expand our conception of all possible things, enrich our mental imagination, and reduce the dogmatic self-confidence, which may imprison the thinking function of the mind.Moreover, especially through the greatness of the universe in philosophical meditation, the mind becomes great and thus can unite with the universe which is the highest good.