A: Why do philosophy?
B: The question answers itself.
A: How so?
B: The questions means something like “What benefit is philosophy?”
A: Yes. So what is the benefit?
B: Do you have an interest in knowing?
A: Why else would I ask?
B: That is why I say the questions answers itself.
A: I don’t see what you mean.
B: You ask in order to find the benefit, if there is one.
A: Yes.
B: Why do anything?
A: If I am following, it must be because it brings some benefit.
B: Correct. And what is a benefit?
A: It is something that makes us better off.
B: So when we inquire into something, it is to see if it will make us better off.
A: Indeed. So what is the benefit of philosophy?
B: Ought we to inquire about what will benefit us?
A: Yes.
B: Why?
A: How else should we know to direct our activity and so become better off?
B: That is why you ought to do philosophy.
Interesting… I’ll have to ponder on that dialogue, and I’m not sure I entirely understand.
What would you like help in understanding?
Absolutely.
I’m sorry, what?
Oh I get it now… I want to understand your view philosophy.
Sadly a great many students – be it high school, college, or even just “normal life” have run into philosophical types or teachers/profs who rambled on with logic and propositions that made no sense to them as students/the “common man.” As a result, a great many saw no benefit in philosophy – not because of it in itself, as you rightly point out, is beneficial to love wisdom – but because of how it was presented.
Perhaps as “well, you’re too dumb to understand” or “I’m right you’re wrong” or “only stupid people believe what you do and here’s my intellectually superior logic” or long lectures on Hobbes or Rouseau (sp?) (been there!) that were as dry as toast. Many a philosopher need to begin with “how to teach” and “how to speak to audiences” rather than with premises and logic.
I’ve encountered very few philosophers in my life (sadly) who are both excellent philosophers/thinkers/logicians/etc. AND excellent communicators of those ideas in a language the non-philosopher can still understand, dive into, wrestled with, and dialogue about. I suspect many people reject not philosophy per se, but the way it is presented. And by association so reject philosophy.
You see, I write and contemplate philosophy, but I do not call myself a philosopher, because I see the name as a stiff title given only to those that follow each and every law of philosophy. I like to speak my mind on each topic, and go with a more feeling approach than a heady one.
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