should not stop. Philosopher John Locke once wrote: “There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than then discourses of men, who talk in a road, according to the notions they have borrowed and the prejudices of their education.” In these pages you get a chance to explore some of those questions once more.
This book touches on many of the main fields of philosophy — epistemology, ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion. And it consults many of the great thinkers in history. Throughout, the discussion will be as practical as it is theoretical, because I believe that the best use of theory is in better practice. With each issue, you should ask what difference it makes in your own life, and how it can help you to chart your way forward in the world.
How can we really know anything?
What is the importance of rationality to a good life?
What does the word “good” really mean?
Is ethics just a matter of opinion, or do objective moral rules exist that bind everyone?
Why should we be moral?
Why do people disagree so much on ethics?
Are people really free, or are our actions all determined by genetics and environment?
Can anyone predict the future, in principle, in every detail?
What’s the difference between a human being and a robot?
Do people have souls, or are we just physically complex organisms?
What is death?
Why is death so feared by so many people?
Do we somehow still exist after death?
Where does the concept of God come from?
Does a God really exist?
Why does the world contain so much evil?
Can anyone prove what the truth is on such ultimate issues, or must we accept them just as matters of faith?
What, for that matter, is faith?
What is the meaning of life?
How can people have true success and actually be happy?
These questions cover only a few of the basic concepts that I consider with you throughout this book. Ultimately, I hope to help you ask your own questions a little better, or a bit more deeply, and perhaps even come to some revelatory and satisfying answers. As the famous novelist James Thurber once pointed out, “It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all of the answers.” Asking the right questions well, and living with them, can enhance our lives.
Chapter 2
Philosophy as an Activity
IN THIS CHAPTER
Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
Philosophy at its best is an activity more than a body of knowledge. In an ancient sense, done right, it’s a healing art. It’s intellectual self-defense. It’s a form of therapy. But it’s also much more. Philosophy is map-making for the soul, cartography for the human journey. It’s an important navigational tool for life that too many modern people try to do without.
In this chapter, we see exactly what that activity is, as well as how to do it well. I show you the power that belief can have in our lives, and I bring you a distinction Plato drew so vividly that it has echoed down the centuries, helping to free people from illusion and lead them into truth.
Adventuring for the Mind
Philosophy can be a little like a version of the wilderness adventure trekking of Outward Bound for the mind: intellectual spelunking, mental rock climbing, cognitive rappelling, rafting, and reconnoitering. Sometimes, it can even seem like a conceptual version of Extreme Sports.
On those occasions when we push philosophical inquiry to the very limits of our world-views, we find ourselves temporarily letting go of our customary assumptions, intellectually free-falling and hoping the chute will open when we need it. Anytime we do this, the point is to experience the outer boundaries and foundations of our ordinary beliefs, to come to understand the status of our most important presuppositions, those background convictions that support the perspectives and decisions governing our day-to-day actions, and that we normally just take for granted.
We question things as deeply as we can in order to understand as deeply as we can. The ultimate goal is a firmer grip on who we are and what our place in the world really is.
But in another light, philosophy can be thought of as a package of existential survival skills, along with the determined application of those skills in a sort of search-and-rescue mission for the soul. Philosophy is not just a game. It’s not simply a mental sport. It is the most vital use of our minds for getting our bearings in life. It may even act as a path for living well.
Mapping Our Way Forward
Consulting the great thinkers of the past, as we draw our own philosophical maps for the present and future, is like stopping to ask a local for directions, rather than just wandering around lost. It’s getting the advice of those who know, people who have been in the neighborhood before and can find their way around. We inevitably do a little exploring of your own, but any good advice and direction we get can help.
In any expedition into unfamiliar terrain, it pays to have a native guide to lead us, but ultimately we all have to pull ourselves up the side of the hill. We partner with the great thinkers who have gone before us and, with their help try to see our own vistas and make our own way.
The American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote these important words that fall short only in referring to just one gender:
Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duties to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given; forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.
“Who am I to think about these things?” each of us is tempted to ask. Well, who did Socrates think he was to be tackling such ideas? Who was Plato? In the first century, Seneca wrote,
Philosophy did not find Plato already a nobleman; it made him one.
It’s every bit as much our business to ask questions about the big issues as it was theirs. But because they already started the process, we can benefit from their thinking and enter a conversation that began long ago, perhaps to make our own useful contributions. As the ancient dramatist Menander claimed, “Whoever consorts with the wise will become wise.”