What is philosophy?
What is philosophy?
People often misunderstand it with psychology. Or even with rhyming poems or quotes you may stumble on Instagram. But that is understandable - there are places of overlap and blurred boundaries. And we can even take a look on why this may have happened historically.
Let’s take a shot.
Human often go to the fundamental first principle questions - why do we exist? What is the meaning of life? What are we supposed to do with this life?
Philosophy originally meant love of truth. And it will not be a wonder when you realise that most sciences and maths which we learn today as different subjects was earlier part of one subject which could cover in its definition everything - Philosophy. Because all subjects are fundamentally a niched down version of search of truth in their specific domains. But then why would philosophy be still be relevant. Let’s put it this way - there are some subjects like mathematics or physics, which are yet to spin out from it. We can’t even imagine about them today yet and that is fine.
Truth about what? Truth about himself. Truth about human itself.
Philosophy is fundamentally a human’s search for truth. And the moment you tell this - the foundational layer becomes epistemology. Because as human beings we can only process truth as knowledge.
Which means - even if a chair or a table or a tree exists outside, and if that is the truth, we as human beings will still have to perceive and understand and process it with our intellect which transforms that truth to a knowledge. Which means the truth is something, which may exist outside your existence, but you can only understand within your existence.
In another case, you can tell the vice versa too - the truth is something which exist inside you. It has nothing to do with external world. But this also means you will have to look inward and process this intellectually. Which will mean that you should be able to perceive that truth which is existing inside you. Which again means you should have ability to process the truth, whatever that means, with your intellect - which means knowledge. And the moment you say knowledge, the question becomes, what is the source of knowledge? And therefore epistemology as a whole starts originating form here.
But before we dive into that question, let’s try to answer this - knowledge to what end? Learning that cooked vegetables are easier to eat and digest gives you the ability to survive and indulge in pleasure more. Or the knowledge about gravity helps us experiment with all the innumerable gimmicks like sending a spaceship to mars. But what does the knowledge about the meaning of life lead to. It is so foundational that this truth can fundamentally turn around everything about your life - what you do, how you eat and even your belief on should you survive or live further. It is so foundational that this why is a foundational unlock to all other whys.
For example, why are we sending a spaceship to Mars?
- So that we can expand humanity’s existence. More resources. But what if the foundational truth is that life is meaningless and every human was a mistake to exist. Then all the effort to send the space ship is wasted.
- To find aliens - so that we can explore other forms of life. But what if your life is meaningful only when you live in isolation and in limiting yourself to the smallest corners of some forest in the world. Waster.
- To live longer. What if we realizes a kid who took birth and died the next second had the most meaningful life. Again wasted. We don’t know. All the above pointers can be bull shit. But the foundational truth sets the direction. The WHY of the whys. Why do we exist - and if we go down that path we reach existentialism.
Now the next bomb is dropped when we think that you cannot as an individual human being ever unravel truth. It is human race as one entity which should unravel the truth. Here then it becomes the collective consciousness and the interactions of it. You as an individual is forced to co-exist not just by the forces of survival but also by the lever of search of truth. Everybody split apart in different directions to deep dive on their own journeys and bring back a little bit of the puzzle and which you will have to put together to figure out the truth. Which also means how do you co-exist in the first place? Because the journey of everyone starts in different places - what is right and wrong. How do you exist with a society? And there comes the morality out of no where. Here you are one among the many, but the rules have to set at the level of many. Struggle starts. Therefore comes in the law and the crime and punishment. Ethics dances on the centre stage like a naked lady.
And one day you realize, at the end of the day, humans are nothing but a splurge of chemicals and their interplay. And there is a brain which controls the dozes, which is also a function of external stimuli you are exposed. And therefore this determines what you feel. And we put a name to the function of feelings as mind. Then it becomes understanding why you feel what you feel. What are the constructs of emotions in your brain. Good, now we are in the realm of psychology.
And we can keep going on.
Going back to where we started - philosophy. It is the search for truth, I thought. No. It is not. It is as its name tells - the love of truth. It is a relationship with the truth, which you haven’t unravelled yet.
I really wish I go more nuts and you too. So that we can love that truth more.