Philosophy Lite

 

   Philosophy is the love of wisdom. But what’s wisdom? Finding out what wisdom consists of is the goal of philosophy. The caveman's wisdom was that he was part of nature, which he was. But nature could be difficult. It would be wise if he and his mate could control nature, first through offerings to the powers that be, then by taking over the controls themselves. 

  The Greeks and the Chinese both got going with recording their efforts in the fifth century BC. The Greek Democritus came up with an atomic theory to explain the composition of all things. He didn't worry that he didn't have the means to test his theories; he just thought very hard about what he observed. Aristarchus of Samos figured out the earth revolved around the sun, but his theory was too counter intuitive to catch on for another two thousand years. 

  Meanwhile over in China, people were engaged in constant warfare. Confucius came up with a system of virtue development to help people get along. Plato and Aristotle talked a lot about virtue too. Do the right thing and all will be well. Plato said most people lived in a world of illusions. Only a philosopher could see the reality beyond. Aristotle was a true scientist. He thought this world was what is. He was big on ethics. We must develop virtuous habits which will lead to happiness he said. Aristotle is still relevant today.

  Jesus is a philosopher. Love one another he said. Unfortunately this message got garbled when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Theology and religion were entangled with science for the next millennium and more. We're still recovering from the hangover.

  In India, even before the Greeks and the Chinese, the Hindus had been trying to figure out the relationship between the self and reality just as the cavemen had tried to do. Buddha said the self was an illusion, an illusion subject to suffering. The Buddha developed a virtuous path to help people achieve enlightenment and freedom from the suffering self.

  There have been  dozens of important philosophers through the Middle Ages and into modern times. I just finished Will Durant's book, The Story of Philosophy. Durant selects the philosophers he thinks have been most important for our times. He boils down their writings into layman's terms and provides juicy tidbits about their lives. It's a running joke through the book that philosophers rarely marry, which may account for their often dour outlook on life.

  One of Durant's favorites is Baruch Spinoza, a Jew who endured excommunication in order to continue his supposedly heretical studies. Spinoza lived alone in a rented room outside Amsterdam. Had he lived elsewhere in Europe he would have been locked up or burned at the stake. He ground lenses to pay his bills and subsidize his thinking. Like the caveman, Spinoza says we are part of nature. Happiness comes from figuring out how nature works so we can work with it.

  Voltaire was another favorite. Voltaire was all about freedom of thought and speech and therefore had to live in exile from his native France. Next was Immanuel Kant. Hmmm. Durant says Kant is still important though difficult to understand. Kant was trying to determine how we know anything. This argument had been going on since the Middle Ages. Kant proved that we know the world through sensation, not from preinstalled knowledge. And each of us constructs our own world out of that experience. Some people get things wrong. Kant's ethics of duty for duty's sake (he was a German) have not worn well. We like some happiness too.

  Friedrich Nietzsche gets a lot of space in Durant's book. He is presented as a gentle soul who drove himself crazy with his thunderous pronouncements about the Will and the Superman. Durant admires the artistry of Nietzsche but not his philosophy. Over the past two centuries philosophy has learned to leave theology to the theologians and science to the scientists. Durant deplores the epistemological rabbit warren modern philosophy has gotten stuck in; epistemology being the study of how we know things. He says philosophy should stick to showing us how to live good lives. And how do we do that? Love one another is a good start  

Sergeant Schultz speaks truth to power.