On my journey through India, I see my daughter preparing for an exam in philosophy. In order to test my competence, she asks me questions out of her textbook. Here are a few examples:
”What use is Philosophy?“
I cannot spontaneously think of a proper answer. Rather than saying something wrong, I tell her I do not know. Consequently, she tells me the correct reply her textbook offers:
”Philosophy teaches us where we come from, where we are headed and who we are“.
But that is not true, I think. If you read this definition precisely and literally, it is actually totally wrong. After all, philosophy will not give any meaningful answers to these questions. To me, this definition looks at least “pre-Darwin”. Let me take a closer look at the three factors mentioned.
”Where do we come from?“
Don’t we have sciences, such as anthropology, biology or the evolutionary sciences, that describe the development of humans from “humanoids”? Would it not be better to lean on archaeology or the research into human history, rather than philosophy, when trying to answer that question? Even “religious history” might be helpful. And, if you look at it in absolute terms, even physics – when dealing with the Big Bang. Along with her natural partner: mathematics.
”Who are we?“
This is another area where I see little room for philosophy. I would rather try to find my answer in psychology, neurology and perhaps sociology when we are talking society.
“Where are we headed?“
When I was an adolescent, there was a time when I wanted to research the future. Those were the days when I was an enthusiastic reader of science fiction. I believed it might be very exciting to at least come up with potential future scenarios in the form of possible variants from the “cybernetic” understanding of complex processes in the present and past. Later, however, I ended up studying mathematics.
Allegedly, today we have such a thing as futurologist science and management. Mind you, a short time ago, a “futurologist manager” (who, incidentally, earns good money on the job) told me that futurologist science is basically a misunderstanding, because the future is something you cannot research. But you can certainly “manage” it. I cannot comment on that, except that I know “futurologist scientists” who also earn (quite) good money with it.
As you can see, we have lots of scientific disciplines dealing with us humans and our lives. I like calling them the “life sciences”. And as always, I believe they should cooperate with and supplement each other.
But then, what is the mandate of philosophy? In my opinion, it should sharpen the human mind. And it should teach us how to question everything in a wise way.
Philosophy should be an applied science. The professors should wish it to be so. They must manage to equip as many people as possible with the tools they need for developing their own, high competence in judgement.
With this in mind, I see philosophy, above all, as a science that needs to educate humans. We need it in order to be able to find a reasonable balance between our individual and the collective needs. In order to give us the competence for more often judging correctly than wrong and thus make our behaviour and decisions more often good than bad.
In recent years, at least in Europe, philosophy was the carrier of enlightenment. For me, this is one of its most important tasks. In the future, philosophy must continue to strive for enlightenment. It should teach us to ask questions. Because enlightenment can and will never be finished.
🙂 On the internet, they would say that we in Europe are currently living through “enlightenment 4.0″.
Philosophy is about striving for insights through thinking. Consequently, philosophy will also always be about morals and ethics. Perhaps it can push the negative sides we currently find in the religions a little to the background. It is possible that philosophy can help humans to find their own and human God, or else the divine element in themselves.
If philosophy managed to achieve this, it would be a wonderfully useful science. A science which can leave the ivory tower it locked itself into. Consequently, I get angry when I see how thoughtlessly philosophy is defined in Bavarian school simply as the science of the “where do we come from, where are we headed and who are we?”. That is oversimplified.
Even if this almost religious definition of philosophy in the textbook is only meant metaphorically, it does not make any sense. Stupid sentences are far too often excused with the statement that, after all, they were meant “only metaphorically”.
Because you cannot develop absolute truths and morals from stories created through the collective thinking of humans and their hair-splitting and one-sided interpretation. That is what happens in religion and it is exactly what philosophy should avoid.
RMD
(Translated of EG)
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