Philosophy seems to be man’s greatest paradox: the more you search for answers, the more questions you find. I entered the first lesson of Philosophy to figure out what it means to be human but left the room more confused than when entered. I was compelled by contrasting arguments and couldn’t come to a definitive conclusion – the more I learnt, the less I seemed to know! How can we solve philosophical questions when there is no definitive answer?
That’s when it hit me. We study philosophy not to answer questions, but rather question ourselves. The activity of philosophy is incredibly perplexing and ever-expanding, so I hope to establish some sort of general framework in order to examine what philosophy actually is in this statement. To do so, I will explore the attitude, process and activity of philosophy.
Not everyone can be philosophical – one requires a specific mindset of rationality and reasoning, but more specifically one needs the capacity to be reflective, critical and open-minded as philosophy, at nature, is a reflective activity requiring an attitude of critical thinking and systematic thoughtfulness. Philosophy, as a ‘method, requires the use of reason as we need to ensure that our systems of beliefs (which we derive from a critical attitude) are logically coherent and compatible with the real world. To be philosophical is to be critically reflective about what we know – we should question the assumptions behind the claims that we hold in order to come to our most basic beliefs about ourselves and about the world in which we live. Doing philosophy is about exploring these sets of beliefs and critically examining them – this enables us to delve into the ideas and words which we profess to accept and believe so that we can come to understand the basic fundamental workings of the universe and our lives. Furthermore, what I will say about these fundamental assumptions in life will reflect my own view, my own critical thinking and my own experiences; therefore, it will not necessarily represent the views of other philosophical thinkers. Philosophers will always disagree – there are more than two sides to every debate – but this is what makes philosophy ever-so unique: perhaps conclusive answers will never be found. Thus, the purpose of philosophy is revealed to be, in my personal opinion, not for the sake of answering, but for the sake of the questions themselves. Becoming ‘puzzled’ over philosophical conundrums is natural and should be embraced: we should only support or establish a philosophy that we wholeheartedly support.
But philosophy does not require a special education: we derive our philosophical questions and our inquisitive minds from participating in the world. Philosophy is a somewhat natural phenomenon where the activity of being alive enables us to identify what we know which, in turn, enables us to deduce our most fundamental understandings of life. Philosophy essentially is the systematic and critical study of fundamental questions which arise from everyday life and through the practice of other disciplines. By studying neurology in IB Biology, I was exposed to the bereitschaftspotential – a neurological phenomenon which discovered manifestation of cortical contribution to the pre-motor planning of volitional movement – which compelled me to examine free will and determinism, trying to understand the assumptions that that scientific discovery and I hold about the world in order to critically examine it and deduce the fundamental workings of ‘freedom’.
But, questioning our assumptions is not an activity which we do on our own – philosophical thinking requires collaboration; we need to coherently articulate our ideas in a clear and convincing manner by providing explanations and justifications for our views and basic beliefs about society (the beliefs which we derive from our critical reflection). Furthermore, the articulation of our ideas – along with open-mindedness – allows us to further develop our thinking by building upon the critical criticism and thinking of philosophers in the past and friends in the current; this necessitates us to partake in discussion and argumentation: the virtue of humanity is to think reflectively, explore our human experience and converse with one another in order to further understand the very common ideas that all of us use every day without a second thought.
Essentially, the philosophy which we develop explores in a concise and convincing manner the beliefs we hold about ourselves after much critical deliberation, contemplation and collaboration.