What is the value of philosophy - Essay Example

Philosophy has had varied meanings that stemmed centuries ago from great thinkers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to their successors such asRene Descartes, Bertrand Russell and A.J. Ayer to name a few. What it has imparted us as a race is its value and capability of transforming man. Russell proposes that what philosophy does “is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions…critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas” (Russell, 1912).

This involves analytical thinking that encompasses even the most mundane thing and how questioning gives philosophy its innate importance. It awakens a sense of being and ultimately to understanding. This is equivalent to enlightenment as a reduction of the predisposition to self-preservation. Man’s liberation from his desire it what constitutes freedom according to Aristotle. The awakening of wonder of a personal and unrestrained relationship with the “unconscious-instinctual life” equates to living virtuously (Rush, 2004).

This does not necessitate that questions are answered. More importantly, it is in the act of raising questions that we nurture our core. Rene Descartes focuses in on the need for certainty or what is known as rationality. This delineation of rational thinking as can be aptly attributed to Descartes manifests itself in his proposition on the existence of God. His way of thought is nothing less than sensible in the strictest possible sense. Descartes, in his Meditation, addresses skepticism with raising a systematic approach through a criterion of certainty.

He proposes that the images that we see and all of our other perceptions are ideas and the question is now demarcated to who or what causes these ideas to appear. Knowing the things that we know and being certain about them could only be caused through considering the omnipotence of God. The nature that man has been given correlates to the existence of a higher being with man’s own and vice versa. This is the Cartesian identity as conveyed by Descartes, that man is a thing moved by God. Descartes’ mastery in Mathematics and its logical schematization finds its bearing in the maxim he had made famous, ‘cogito ergo sum’ or I think therefore I am (Oregon State University).

Analytic and synthetic propositions can be differentiated in that the meaning derived through the former is knowable through the element of the word or words while in the latter, the truth can be derived amalgamating the definition of the word with that know in the world. This is a distinction made by philosophers to make a distinction between one and the other. The manner of definition through implication upon an approach that gives it logical constants is favorable in application to philosophical analysis (Rey, 2008).

This is what Ayer supposes in the role of philosophy in the entrapping of language which could find its applicability in other facets of life. Pragmatism as introduced in the 1800’s by philosophers such as William James can be synonymous with the word practical. This is in correspondence with truth as a concept. This bears a defiant stance on the Cartesian way of thought in the process of inquiry. The predicament of James in his discourse is how to reconcile the findings of scientific inquiry with the concepts of morals and religion.

The tug and pull between the factual and the ideal. The answer to this, as James argues can be found in pragmatism and in coming to terms that these concepts are not repugnant of each other. “Pragmatic clarification disambiguates the question, and once that is done, all disputes come to an end. The ‘pragmatic method’ promises to eliminate all apparently irresoluble metaphysical disputes” (Hookway, 2008) Kant and his philosophy bear as its central magnitude the need for freedom. But Kant concedes that there is the inclination to give more weight to the practical over theoretical and deductively “he describes this capacity as our “spontaneity” and suggests it discloses our membership in a noumenal world” (Rush, 2004).

Freedom is a concept he appropriates as belonging to this. Man is compelled by desire and this fuels his actions as its reason. This practical reasoning is pragmatism in its simplistic form. Philosphy and the course it has travelled throughout the years has pointed man to the direction that had been in front of him all this time. The answer to the burning questions of our life and of our time can be found in front of the mirror. Looking back at us to investigate and to never settle in the hopes of transcending man as we know him.

The constant pursuit for the truth finds its solace in the compelling idea of the accumulation of virtue as an individualistic pursuit in its most transformative form. Because sometimes the search for the answer is the journey on its own. Answers may not be found and it may reveal itself in kaleidoscopic terms. But the mere raising of questions defines man’s existence and his freedom. Bibliography Hookway, C. (2008, August 16). Pragmatism. Retrieved March 5, 2011, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/ Oregon State University. (n.d.). Descartes' Proof for the Existence of God.

Retrieved March 5, 2011, from oregonstate.edu: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/descartes-god.html Rey, G. (2008, August 15). The Analytic/Synthetic Distinction. Retrieved March 5, 2011, from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/ Rush, F. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to Critical Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Russell, B. A. (1912). The Problems of Philosophy. Feedbooks.