Philosophy as an academic study is something that's been playing on my mind lately. We had to read an amount of it back in the undergrad, and some of it was enjoyable and some was not. Some ideas were beautiful while written impenetrably as far as I was concerned, some were silly and written with the clarity of a teenager who hated his parents scribbling on a binder, and some were beautiful and beautifully written.
So I guess if you consider the multi-disciplines we studied through that degree, philosophy was my least favourite because I liked the others more, but not because I disliked philosophy. And when people from that degree went on to study philosophy some more, I didn't think they were doing anything untoward. As I met more and more people from all sorts of backgrounds who were doing philosophy grad work, I always thought that they were doing a clever, nice thing.
Because it's about love of wisdom, right? A love of knowledge. The search for an adequate framework to consider our existence. A literate search for some sort of truth too universal to be abstract in the normal sense, a systematic search with an idea of proof and argument built into it so that it had more substance than tarot cards, virgin births or romantic daffodils. Something based on human understanding instead of faith. That's nice.
But maybe I'm wrong, especially about the last, because lots of the professional philosophers I've met (and once you get to master's level, it's a profession as far as I'm concerned) are misanthropes with a great deal of general disrespect for human understanding and a great deal of focused disrespect for the understanding of those with a religious or non-academic perception of the world. It's been striking me lately as we've been meeting some miserable, angry professional philosophers with miserable, angry outlooks - not just cold, but miserable - and it follows a pattern of some I knew in Canada. Not all, but some.
It seems so defensive. I guess if you start studies with the story of Socrates drinking the hemlock it makes sense, but it also seems a bit distortingly emotional for people whose love is supposed to be for knowledge. I have a hard time accepting too much emotion or nerves or defensiveness in someone when I think their love is supposed to be for knowledge. I guess it was a bit distorting for me to start what I know about philosophy with Socrates too, who was so good at accepting things. I don't know.
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I think the bitterness and defensiveness stems from always having to justify one's interest in philosophy. As an English major, I had to deal with people always saying, "What are you going to do with that?" and I'm sure that someone studying philosophy would get that so much more. The problem is that we are expected to have a tangible plan for our contribution to society and there are a lot of people who believe that a pursuit of knowledge isn't a valid contribution to society ("get your head out of the clouds and do something"). Always trying to justify one's passion is enough to make someone bitter but that taints the passion and makes one question one's choices.
The arts are valued less and less in our socities. It's enough to make anyone bitter.
Sure, but I don't meet the same proportion of bitter medieval historians or bitter anthropologists, or whatnot. Anyways, it's not bitterness I'm thinking about - more an inhuman perception of the human race.
I talk too much. my undergrad was in Sophy, and I wholeheartedly agree, but must recuse myself from further blather, or it would never end. good topic, tho'...
Nietschze always made me think of a moody teenager scribbling on a binder, but at least he had the decency to make his ideas clear.
moody teenager with IBS and the clap...clearly stated ideas, yes, but no one can agree on their meaning...I think many professional philosphers suffer from 'ressentiment'...
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