Philosophy is/isn't a waste of time because...

[MorkandMindy]

I've heard people reject philosophy as a worth-while subject because:

Philosophy still hasn't reached any conclusions - found ultimate truth, agreed on a design for a utopia, and the only real progress in metaphysics is being made by physicists.

Philosophers don't agree with each other so even they admit they don't know what they are talking about.

 

[ArchaicTruth]

Honestly, I don't care what everyone else thinks on the matter. Not to attack you or anything, but you make it sound as if we're pouring taxes into philosophy with no results. When you get right down to it, philosophy is just a bunch of intelligent people sharing, debating and discussing knowledge and thought. We do it because we feel the innate need to, being intelligent people, or to test our beliefs and ideas, or to spread a message. A few silly reasons like that won't change anything.

 

[Eudaimonist]

I've heard people reject philosophy as a worth-while subject because:

Philosophy still hasn't reached any conclusions - found ultimate truth, agreed on a design for a utopia

The same could be said of science, but who would say that science isn't worthwhile?

Philosophers don't agree with each other

Again, the same could be said of scientists. It's not like disagreement doesn't exist among them.

Ah, but you say, scientists can convince each other through their experiments.

Yes, but philosophers can convince each other through their arguments, for instance, finding a flaw in someone's reasoning.

While philosophy isn't like a "hard" science, that doesn't make it useless. I personally find my investigations into ethics to be very useful and helpful.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[peterrobin]

I've heard people reject philosophy as a worth-while subject because:

Philosophy still hasn't reached any conclusions - found ultimate truth, agreed on a design for a utopia, and the only real progress in metaphysics is being made by physicists.

Philosophers don't agree with each other so even they admit they don't know what they are talking about.

There is a little matter of the modern democracy that was founded on the ideas of a bunch of Enlightenment philosophers. That hasn't turned out so badly has it?

Formal logic, too, has been pretty useful. Don't forget that it was Kant's masterful refutation of the Ontological argument that produced the key insight that led to modern mathematical logic.

And actually philosophers pretty much do agree with each other on a whole range of subjects, for example most these days reject metaphysics and follow some version of Empiricism.

And if the discussion on consciousness that has raged over the past couple of decades has reached no conclusion, then at least it is interesting. I wouldn't dismiss interesting.

 

[WorldIsMine]

Philosophy is necessary to understand reality. Everyone has a philosophy, it's just typically muddled and self-contradictory. Which is why most people's lives are aimless and confused, you have to know where you want to go before you can get anywhere but lost.

 

[gold_wings]

Philosophy is integral to everything even though it isn't obvious. Granted that between practical and theoretical philosophy, the theoretical portion is always laughed at but the wonders of today could not have been arrived at without both aspects of philosophy. According to Aristotle, we are social creatures and as long as people speak to eachother, there will be debates and questions. Where there are questions, there will be philosophers to try and answer them. We always want answers... so we seek them. Don't forget, even the sciences are part of philosophy and people don't think they are worthless.

 

[MorkandMindy]

Indeed, try the argument on other activities and it soon becomes evident it is silly:

Artists have yet to make the perfect picture therefore thousands of years of art have yet to give a result…

Aircraft makers can’t even agree on what the perfect airplane would look like so never fly…

Carmakers have yet to make the perfect car so car making is futile...

 

[Isambard]

Typically, those that argue that philosophy is useless are usually to stupid to understand it. (Exception being anti-intellectualists)

Philosophy is basically how we understand both reality and its relation to non-reality. Even science is based on a philosophy (naturalism), modern economics is based on another (classical liberalism, though nowadays its more like neo-liberalism), modern political analysis is based on marxist frameworks etc.

 

[WorldIsMine]

Typically, those that argue that philosophy is useless are usually to stupid to understand it. (Exception being anti-intellectualists)

Interesting to find someone else who describes themselves as a nihilist on here. Especially someone who understands that abiogenesis is a seperate science from evolution.
I'm what you might call a Neo-Aristotilian existential nihlist of the Stirnerian persuasion. I think one attraction to Christianity and the other religions is that it's a lot easier to pick up the mixed-bag of existing ideologies than to go through the trouble of finding out what's right and what's wrong amongst the hundred thousand that have been offered forth since humans started writing down all their abstract ideas. In this way, one might make the argument that ideology itself is anti-intellectual and the real opposite of true philosophy.

 

[MorkandMindy]

...
I think one attraction to Christianity and the other religions is that it's a lot easier to pick up the mixed-bag of existing ideologies than to go through the trouble of finding out what's right and what's wrong amongst the hundred thousand that have been offered forth since humans started writing down all their abstract ideas...

Good point, and then the mixed bag gets looked at and many attempts made to make sense of it all:

1. so it will fit in my head and
2. I can 'give account of the hope that is in us' to some non Christians, and
3. I find a fellow Christian holding a Scoffield Bible disagrees but his opinion makes as much sense as my very different one (I was a Covenant Theology sort)...

and finally I decide it is just what you said; a mixed bag.

But that is philosophy.


The term 'philosophy' is often used to mean the fundamental and overall meaning of something, as in 'the philosophy of the open source movement' or 'the philosophy of science'.

So a person saying philosophy is a waste of time is saying understanding things is a waste of time.

 

[WorldIsMine]

My point was that ideologies often result in a failure to attempt to understand things, taking dogma over understanding.

 

[billwald]

Philosophy is at least as useful as basketball.

 

[MorkandMindy]

... In this way, one might make the argument that ideology itself is anti-intellectual and the real opposite of true philosophy.

Yes, it's almost a truism that relying on dogma is anti-intellectual.

But I benefited from the particular way you expressed this since I'd never thought about applying it to religion.

 

[sbvera13]

The US Constition (the Bill of Rights in particular) is a direct result of the philosophies that came out of the Enlightenment; Voltaire, Alexander Pope and Thomas Paine for example. I'd consider that a useful application.

Granted, the study of philosophy doesn't always (or even usually) produce results like that but don't underestimate the value of the discipline.