Why philosophy? I heard it said. Is it a waste of time?
I read a rant yesterday of someone talking about how philosophy was a waste of time. I thought it needed to be responded to but, one of our dogs died near that time and I wasn't much feeling the desire to write anything yesterday.
The simplest answer to "Why philosophy?" is that without it there is not much left. Even when you take action you are taking action based on knowledge. Without knowledge you might as well take off your clothes, leave your house, and wander around outside seeing what you can scavenge up simply with your naked bodies.
All of those other things owe their existence partially to philosophy.
If you don't quite understand philosophy or your definition is limited then you may not realize this. I am therefore, writing this post as hopefully a simple explanation.
It's original meaning as described above means "Love of wisdom". I have also heard it described as "Love of learning", "love of knowledge", etc.
The argument and frustration usually present when someone indicates philosophy is a waste of time usually involves someone stating that ACTION should be done, not philosophy.
Without philosophy the action is generally blind and has no target. Yes, you can spend too much time thinking about things as opposed to acting. This is actually not a problem with philosophy. This is a personal problem.
I wrote a philosophical post called Decision Paralysis where I was talking about this. Philosophy is not the source of this problem. It can be one of the solutions to help people break past the decision paralysis, for it is us analyzing what we are thinking and doing in our own minds that a big part of what philosophy encompasses.
So the person calling for action and worried about stagnation they are actually attempting to employ a form of philosophy. They are attempting to share wisdom in the form of "shall we sit and only think, or shall we actually take action".
This is actually a very philosophical statement. Even asking "Why philosophy" could be considered a philosophical question.
Speaking of inaction is often a worthy thing to do. Yet inaction is not due to philosophy.
In addition, sharing wisdom IS a form of action. Action without wisdom is foolishness, and hopefully some dumb luck.
Steem On!
Wisdom has two parts, internal wisdom, and then actually externalizing into the wisdom of right-action.
There is also action through non-action (by not doing wrong-actions): https://steemit.com/philosophy/@krnel/the-power-of-unbecoming-apophasis-and-wei-wu-wei-empower-yourself-to-change-and-change-the-world
Also, it takes time to learn, understand, before wisdom to act can be enabled. Foolish action should be avoided, which requires knowledge input to understand why and how to do things.
What do you really know, and how do you know it?
"Good question. Here is some of my reasoning and evidence." - philosopher (even if you disagree with the conclusions)
"Because this is what I believe." - not a philosopher (even if you agree with the conclusions)
Without philosophy, there can be no "wise action." I might be wrong on this, but it seems we'd all be reduced to a bunch of savages with clubs, purely reacting to everything from rote instinct rather than responding from an informed place.
As often is the case, I'm sure a lack of understanding is largely responsible for those who rant against philosophy... their perception of philosophers are that they are "those people" who sit around and endlessly discuss abstracts while the world around them collapses from neglect, while they eat cat food in a house where the power has long since been shut off because they are incapable of functioning in the "real world."
But, as you said, that's not a "philosophy problem."
Again 100% right, @dwinblood.