What's the ultimate purpose of Philosophy ?

Rene Descartes walks into a bar and sits down. The bartender asks, "do you want a beer?" Descartes replies, "no, I don't think so," and he disappears.

In my opinion, the ultimate purpose of philosophy is to explore the unexplored. The depths of philosophy are sometimes comedicized by our current society. We think of beatniks and hippies and drugs, or surfers on acid trips.

I think the ultimate goal of philosophy is to reconnect the mind with the soul. Without philosophy, government becomes math without the insight. Design beomes function without form. Love becomes compatibility without passion.

Philosophy is one of the greatest hopes for our society right now.

Intellectual masturbation I agree with.
Ultimate truth I don't.
I philosophize that truth is an abstract concept we will probably never reach...

I think philosophizing is a sort of unraveling of the self, the constant working and reworking of ideas. Of course there are people who see the value in this and people who do not. Definitely some people are more 'prone' to it than others, and for these people it is more of an uncontrollable mental habit which if taken with a pinch of salt is quite enjoyable, if taken too seriously perhaps results in madness or dysfunction.

As an amateur philosopher, I take a more simple view of it. I just enjoy pondering the unanswerable. Simple thoughts like how big the universe is, and what is beyond this universe, just makes me a wiser more intuitive person. As I try to figure out which tupperware to use to store the volume of my leftover pasta, a simple thought about how much volume there might be in the universe, or the lake across the road, or the atmosphere, makes me just kinda do an internal "whoa, dude." We humans constantly deal with such finite constructs that even things like a slightly larger finite construct becomes interesting. I build hotrods, so a friend sent me an interesting link to the worlds largest engine that was being built for a cruise liner. It was impressive, but still just a larger version of a finite construct. For some people, that concept would "blow their mind." If they just took a minute to realize how finite and describable that engine is and imagined a larger world, maybe they would be a better human. I think the world would be such a better place if some people dealt with less finite constructs and stepped out of their own shoes for a while.

Its trivial, I know. But philosophy and the simple process of thinking I find to be far more important than the minutia of daily life. I think of another "what-if." What if more people spent 10 minutes a day in philosophical thought instead of being anchored in earthly things like religious dogma, paychecks, car repairs, and day care.

And one of my favorite ponderances... Have you ever imagined a world without hypothetical scenarios?

Philosophy, it seems to me, is our attempt to determine our thoughts about what is. This determination can never be "proven", only surmised. The volume of the universe, for instance, can only be determined--IF it can be determined--by some future empirical scientific methodology, never by philosophical deduction, BUT we can decide what we MEAN by "universe".

ponkom: "philosophy want to know what the world and man really is ,since science and religion can't give us the answer."

Hmm... who can give this answer? And are you so sure it is really a question worth asking?

People very often ask the wrong questions for the information they are after. Even a correct answer can be wrong if you're not asking the right question.

So how to decide what questions to ask?
As I see it we decide that ourselves. But it seems a bit strange that we are so eager to discover ultimate truths, and then we just dreamed up the premise, or the question. The answer relates to the question, so any answers capacity to be true is limited by the initial question.
That's why questions are ultimately useless in philosophy.

And also, philosophy has never found an answer to anything. It has made many answers though, as it has made many questions. Another interesting thing to find out is; what is left of philosophy when the answers and questions have all cancelled eachother out?

"Philosophy, it seems to me, is our attempt to determine our thoughts about what is."

I like that answer. ..to determine our thoughts... Not to uncover truth or say anything about the world we experience. Just to sort out what we think about it. That is philosophy's purpose.

After all, truth is a matter of choice.

To know the truths of the world and life

I Like Marx's answer to this: he originally studied philosophy: he said others have interpreted the world, I am going to change it.

The question that most philosophy majors seek to answer is thus:

"DO You Wish Fries With That?"

one might keep ones philosophy silent prior to receiving ones fries, should one desire them spittle free...

Do you want fries? therefore I am.

fries

hm

If philosophy is intellectual masturbation, its requires the hands of a surgeon and violinist. Oh! and the use of both hands.

Intellectual Masturbation, hands down.

In philosophy, you never really find answers. You find more questions. In some ways, the more questions I'm asking myself, the better I feel about my life. I can sit all day and ponder what is good and bad, but once I'm out in the world I have a split second to make 90% of my decisions- and I have to take a side. I think it's just interesting to examine life.

The earliest philosophers dealt with injustice and politics such as Socrates, Plato, Confucius and so on. It is still a problem as the politics still plays a big part in our lives. How resources are allocated and to whom? How should power be used and so on? Peace, war, poverty, injustice still plague us.

What is the ultimate purpose of anything?

The ultimate purpose of anything is to create meaning.
Or rather, purpose is a manifestation of our desire for meaning and continuity.
So the answer is for each to decide for themselves.

FROM Hamlet.

The ultimate purpose of philosophy is to investigate this view.

For me I think it’s to submerge myself in the mystery that’s like the elephant in the room, everyone knows it’s there but not enough talk about it. Mixing ideas for a board meeting and mixing them, almost uncontrollably for the flow itself are such different things. I get a real thrill out of making connections between ideas and the feeling of seeing something, perceived as new, that you sense was there all along. In this way it’s not a matter of thinking without restriction in an objective sense but about, just thinking.

Like dancing, even an informal one, my thoughts in every day life are like a dancer who is consciously taking a step by step approach. When just musing/contemplating, the dancing has a more non linear like quality. The moves that take place could still all be categorised and contrasted in retrospect etc (that’s just what we do) but the experience of the dance becomes more than the sum of it’s parts. Then it’s like you’re not separate from and following “the rules” but the rules are positively flowing through you. The above seems paradoxical to me if we’re looking to get an ultimate answer that quells further discussion.

Rather for me, because of who I am I guess, philosophy is like taking part, rather than sitting on the bench. But I think that’s because of my close attachment to the abstract and conceptual which I elevate to greater importance than a lot of other aspects of life. Pure creation and destruction. It's good stuff.