Living Philosophically

To lay some groundwork for this blog, the nature of philosophy itself requires some exposition. The following account of the history and function of philosophy is the product of my own years of intellectual synthesis, which might inadvertently render this discussion circular, as you will soon see.

Philosophy, as originally conceived and practiced in Ancient Greece, was a somewhat disorganized attempt to fashion general rules and descriptions that addressed the nature of reality, as experienced by the Greeks. This activity was more in the nature of practicing an art than a science, given that these philosophers essentially offered metaphors that served to describe some aspect of life, from Euclidean geometry to Pythagoras’ famed theorem to Heraclitus’ notion of eternal chaos, to the abstract notions of justice in Plato’s Republic.

The fact that the metaphors that described the natural world retrospectively seem to exhibit more “truth” is because we have grown to find these descriptions, relationships, or (in reality) the mental processes that these ideas produce in us so reliable that we can call them “truths.” “Truth” is a badge of honor bestowed by the community; it proclaims that the sentence it refers to has been assimilated or affirmed by any and all comers. As such, if philosophy can be described as the love of knowledge, which almost implicitly includes a search for truth known as inquiry, then philosophy is the process of finding and fashioning the metaphors that most resonate with us and evoke an implicit sense of agreement, whether in the form of an a priori rationalization, an emotional response, or merely a strong intuition. Thus an individual’s philosophic activity is necessarily one of synthesis: going out and collecting the metaphors that best equip that individual to successfully live a life of their choosing (this would be the liberal side of the liberal ironist in me coming out).

Because the acts of inquiry and synthesis are the quintessential activities of the philosopher or intellectual on an individual level, finding the truths and metaphors that are most likely to be effectively shared and adopted by all is the core activity of political philosophy.

Of course, given that this whole description is itself just another set of symbols comprising a form of a metaphor for describing the activity of philosophy, one can see how those who want to get off the ride (Nietzsche comes to mind) end up peering into the nihilistic abyss.