Given the current state of things, I was impelled to expand on the topic. I was brought up with a fairly common attitude (I judge) about Philosophy, what it is, what it does, and what it is for. Essentially, the belief is that Philosophy is for stuffy old men who have no real-world skills and it exists within a closed system—a bit like a snake eating its own tail—passing itself as science. This leads to a number of outcomes: it discourages any respect or appreciation for Philosophy, disconnects it from "the real world", discounts anything associated with it, makes the pursuit of, or ever interest in, Philosophy "silly", and undermines the contributions it has made to society and the world. I had minimal exposure, as I think is common, in my education and it mainly left me with the impression that it was something that happened 'long ago and far away'. Words like "ancient" and "lofty" would come to mind if I had been asked to describe Philosophy. Now, this may seem backwards or absurd to those who had any kind of broad education (as I expect most often happens outside the U.S.). I understand if that is the case, but want to be clear that even if this is not universal within my country of residence, it is common enough. In part, I make the point for outsiders looking at the U.S., potentially wondering why so many clearly incorrect beliefs and so much false information continues to make the rounds. In part, at least, I can attribute it to a lack of critical thinking skills because of the above attitudes about Philosophy.
We come now to the reason and title of this post. If Philosophy is not just an erudite, ego-stroking, idealistic pursuit of useless nonsense, what is it? In actuality, it is a means to determine truth despite being flawed humans. This is my own simplistic way of explaining, of course, but I came to understand the value of Philosophy once I began to study Psychology and Neurobiology. We learn that human brains are not actually "thinking machines", but are error-riddled assumption devices. There are numerous popular books nowadays which explain that our perceptions are filtered through expectations, our brains manipulate sensory information to make "sense" of reality, and we can be completely convinced within our own thinking of something that is patently false. In fact, all these things happen within every individual everywhere all the time every day. We are not "observing" reality, we are actually "interpreting" the world around us. Once we understand this, it behooves us to find ways to correct for these automatic, internal processes and potentially construct ways to counteract the errors they create. This is, in effect, the basis of Philosophy: to check the things we think in order to error-correct the innate ways our brains process information.
Let us take a couple practical examples, because there are certainly more esoteric areas. On first exposure to Logic, it can look like a collection of silly "if, then" statements. However, it is a part of Philosophy dealing with how to establish if something holds true and if the steps in arriving at a conclusion actually make sense. Recognizing this, it begins to have more utility to everyone. Next, Epistemology is a big, unwieldy word that seems to bear no resemblance to any other (again, a simplistic excuse to dismiss it). In actuality, it deals with establishing how we know what we know. Quite fundamental, and useful, one might begin to think. Instead of assuming the factual nature of whatever pops into our consciousness, we can interrogate this idea and establish if it does agree with reality. The way that philosophers approach and use this system is part of what makes it rigorous, along with actually making it the basis for much science—in addition to a science unto itself.
Hopefully, this is helpful in some way, and possibly can demonstrate to others who still hold the attitude I did previously how important and practical Philosophy can be. Instead of relegating it to history or uselessness, as it seems happens with most of the education around this topic in the U.S., we might better integrate this into our curriculum. In many ways, it is an oddity that this has not happened already. I do not need to attribute this to any sort of nefarious conspiracy,
but it does seem to aid in making fools and dupes out of the citizenry.
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