Why should I care about Philosophy?

If you're reading this then there is hope for you. You are at least curious about what all these people are talking about. But why, you wonder, would anyone spend there entire life wondering why there is air, how to contemplate my navel, and whether or not the chicken or the egg came first? This is my description of the Art of Philosophy, and why you should care.

It all comes down to Theory versus Practice. Everyone lives their life - they practice their day to day actions - with certain opinions and attitudes about things like ethics or values or religion. Their Theory defines their Practice.

Even if someone displays a total disregard for these things in their daily life then they are showing their Theory that drives their actions. These opinions and attitudes are a person's philosophy. So, in this sense, everyone is a Philosopher. Even you. You can't escape Philosophy. It defines who you are. Your philosophy is your theory, and your daily actions are your practice.

A great philosopher once said "The unexamined life is not worth living." He meant that everyone lives their life, but how many people really think about it? Have you ever seriously thought through your attitudes and opinions? Have you sat down and examined the theory that drives your actions? Do you care whether or not your actions are consistent with your theory? Or do you prefer to take life as it comes, making decisions along the way and not being enslaved to any one specific doctrine?

Most people live their daily lives as it comes. Most people live in the here-and-now and, while they will plan for the future and hold certain attitudes towards the bigger questions in life, they are usually more concerned with today than about tomorrow or yesterday. They may talk about God and the Universe and Art and History while walking along a beach at night, looking up at the stars, or maybe while sitting in a cafe with some student-friends who have watched one too many foreign films from the 1960's. But most people take their actions as they come, and think about their theory in retrospect.

Philosophy the practice of not doing this. Philosophy is the art of thinking through your theory and looking at how consistent it is with your actions, and whether or not being consistent is even important. If "integrity" is the quality of being true to your values, then consistency is important. You have integrity if your actions mirror your philosophy, and you lack integrity if they don't.

As an analogy, consider how a doctor performs his or her job. Doctors know how to diagnose the flu, for example. But is it important for a doctor to know about the theory of viruses and genetic-mutation and historical details like the flu epidemic of 1918 in order to be a good doctor? They don't need to know these things in order to figure out that someone who comes into their office with a fever and stomach-cramps and a lot of coughing in the Fall months probably has the flu and needs bed-rest. Reacting to life day-to-day in this way allows them to perform their job sufficiently in most cases, and is how doctors performed their skills for thousands of years.

But if a doctor knows what a virus is, and how it's different from bacteria, and how virus DNA can mutate into different forms, and how this caused the deaths of millions of people in 1918 then this doctor will be a doctor of deeper integrity. He or she will understand better the skill that they practice. The theory behind their practice will fine-tune their actions such that they will make better diagnoses and be able to better distinguish between, say, the flu and AIDS.

Doctors who know nothing of viruses and genetics are still able to be doctors. But they become much better doctors if they know these things, and if they think about them as they make a diagnosis. Their integrity grows as they fine-tune their practice to match their developed theory, and patients tend to trust modern doctors more than Medieval doctors.

Philosophy is the art of thinking through theory in all its forms, and how it relates to real life. There have been many philosophers over the past few thousand years, and reading philosophy is sort of like thinking someone else's thoughts through their heads. If you want to think about God, for instance, it helps to think through the thoughts of people who have thought about this in the past, and in the present. If you want to think about Ethics or Morality or Art, it helps to know what other people who are smarter and dumber than you have thought about these things. If you educate yourself in this way you will become better skilled at thinking through these issues as they relate to your life.

Everyone has 640 muscles in their body. Every person was born with these same muscles, and each person is able to develop them, or let them grow stale sitting in a couch watching TV all day. Think of Philosophy as a muscle in your brain. You can be a mental couch potato, or you can be body-builder. Couch potatoes and body-builders are both able to eat and sleep and go to work each day, but the body-builder's 640 muscles have more integrity. They are usually healthier and stronger than the couch potato's muscles.

The same goes for thinking through the theories that define your practice. If you want to get bigger biceps, or a flatter stomach, it helps to learn something about nutrition and aerobics and resistance-training. Likewise, if you want to be a person of integrity and intelligence it helps to learn something about Logic and History and Art and Ethics. Are you a philosophical Olympian? Or a philosophical couch potato?

So throw away that bag of Pringles and read some Plato!