Why do we philosophise?

You make some good points. But note that "word magic" is not confined to philosophy. Good literature can capture our attention, and hypnotic 0ratory (religious or despotic) can hijack "the self".

For myself there are two reasons why I like philosophy.
I feel that expressing myself is a good way to reach a deeper understanding of this experience, and I have always had reservations against accepting the explanations I am served.
I am not inclined to take anyone on faith, be it my grade school religion teacher or Nietzche. For me, the value of philosophy has always been exploring my direct experience, and even though I greatly appreciate the thoughts of Nietzche and many other thinkers, I think true philosophy is not what is left behind in books. It is the inquisitiveness that comes naturally to anyone who listens to their own minds instead of forcing their thoughts to obey their beliefs.

Nietzsche would agree with that.

Well said. Philosophy like you say, is not simply what is left behind in books, and it is also, like you say, not the process of forcing your thoughts to obey your beliefs, and also, philosophy is not the process of forcing your thoughts to simply obey the words of previous philosophers.

However, occasionally, and this is the reason for my post, I find myself reading philosophy, especially Nietzsche, and I seem to be reading it not to necessarily explore my own thoughts on what he said, but to simply be "entertained" sometimes. Not always, but sometimes, I read philosophy with little to no reservations about what it says, and that's due to what I sometimes want from philosophy; I do not always want to be inundated with question marks and skepticism, I want to be invigorated by what I read, not always, but sometimes.

Does that diminish what philosophy is supposed to be, which is the "critical exploration of one's thoughts"?

Or is it maybe that we have lost something about how philosophy was once understood, as "care of the self"?

I'm sure that some here realise that my view of philosophy differs from many others. For me, philosophy has a purpose, and it's 'usefulness' must suit my chosen purpose. This doesn't mean that I bend philosophy to suit me, but rather that when I look at philosophy, I seek the 'usefulness' of it.

Many will also have noticed that I don't quote the great philosophers - in fact, I find very little motivation to read them....and yet, I have read about (in rough numbers) 15 books on negotiations, 5 on dealing with people in crisis, 10 on difficult conversations, 5 on emotions, 5 on NLP, 5 on hypnosis, 15 books on the subconscious, 3 books on dreaming, 4 on asking questions, 4 on listenning, 3 on self-deception, 15 on handwriting analysis, 10 on selfimprovements/habits, and maybe another 50-80 books on subjects somewhat related to the above. Strangely enough, of all of them, I found the books on handwriting analysis tied all the other ones together.

For me, I was looking for a number of things :
- the ability to self-direct my growth
- a systems understanding of who I am, and who others are
- to exercise the mind
- to create a solid foundation

I don't worry about philosophy for philosophy's sake, but rather about how it can make my life, and the life of those around me, better.

Because we don't have anything better to do?

I philosophise , to expand my thinking , of the understanding of the Universe and our selves within it

therefore to get to the truth I and Humanity has a better chance to survive within this Universe

that is my goal , perhaps others think the same , perhaps

You think so?

You think that "to get to the truth" ensures us a better chance of survival?

Perhaps the interest, if reading it for "entertainment" is more like the history of ideas. The way I see it, Descartes, for instance, has historical value, but modern philosophy and science has succeeded in giving accounts for things that are more in tune with our modern mindset. Descartes still matters, in a sense, since his work was a step along the way to where we are today. But again, the relevance is to the ideas themselves and how they have evolved through the decades.

But reading about these ideas is useful as background for dealing with the direct experience. A naive realist who starts reading Kant, for instance, might get a from that a whole new way of categorizing his direct experience, and this even though this may not be "correct", it may lead him deeper into the inquiry of what is indeed the case.
But for me philosophy, the activity, not the reading, has turned out to be a proverbial Pandora's box. Once it is opened there is no going back.



Today many people say that philosophy is dead. It's not dead, it's just hiding in science.

Very good. Philosophy does seem to be hiding in science and it's also hiding in a kind of technical professionalism. My wife and I sometimes go to symposia at our local university only to be bored to death by the smallness of their issues.
We count on Science to provide the means needed for our species' survival, but we count on our own reading of Philosophy, especially Nietzsche, to help make our survival more worthwhile.

Yes, why would we want to survive, if not to live?

Exactly. That's why I paraphrased Socrates'
The unexamined life is not worth living
as
The unlived life is not worth examining.
I guess it works both ways.

I take your use of both survival and living as more than synonyms. Survival (a goal of science) has to do with self-perpetuation and living has to do with self-enhancement (the goal of philosophy and the arts). The life well-lived is worth more than the life long-lived.

Yes, that is consistent with my use of the words.

I'm not sure its right to say that science simply aims for "self-perpetuation", or that self-perpetuation is the only thing it provides us. The knowledge we gain from scientific inquiry can "enhance" us as individuals, just as philosophy can, because it can and does inform us about better and worse kinds of living.

Scientific knowledge can be used in order to "live well", and therefore science doesn't simply inform us about survival or self-perpetuation.

It seems that this is dependent upon where you draw the line between "living" and "survival". Science can inform us about how to survive, by telling us things like "don't smoke", "do not drink too much" "maintain a healthy diet" etc. These things will allow us to survive longer, but inasmuch as they are principles, they are ways of "living", but would you call them "self-enhancing"?

In the same way, certain philosophies advise that we learn to be "content with our lot in life" and that we "live according to our nature". Inasmuch as these are philosophical principles, are they necessarily "self-enhancing"? To be "content with one's lot in life" could mean for a particular person, to no longer be dissatisfied with one's lot in life; they may smoke and be addicted, but because they have adopted this principle, that is no longer an issue.

Is that "self-enhancing"?

Science needs philosophy, or you get idiots like cryonists.
These are people who pay vast amounts of money to have their bodies frozen upon death, with the arrangement that they will be preserved until science has progressed to a point where they can be re-animated and brought back to life when death has been abolished. The not-so-wealthy among them can't afford to have their whole bodies frozen, so they pay a slightly less vast amount of money to have only their heads frozen.
I can't believe the stupidity of this, it is mindblowing. If these people took the time to think about it they would see that the fact that we die on day is what gives meaning to this existence of ours.

In a more related comment I would say that facts are what science is about. Their relation to eachother will always be a matter of philosophy, so the only way the knowledge we gain from science can enhance us as individuals is if we "philosophize" over them.

For myself, I do not want to enhance the self, I want to expose the impostor..

Maybe then, because science has obscured philosophy to a certain extent, and now it seems that so many people are dependent on what science says and what it tells them they should be doing, philosophy has become redundant, as a means through which we can "live-well".

Well, science has "discovered" that eating carrots can give you cancer. They have discovered that 4 cups of coffee a day cuts the risk of breast cancer for women by half. There are a whole bunch of things science finds out and there just isn't any way to account for all of them on a daily basis. Regardless of what the facts may be, we still have to sort through them and pick the ones we can relate to, because we can never relate to them all.
The work on creating viable, free and renewable energy, for instance, isn't given much attention on the whole, because the philosophy that governs what direction we point our scientific endeavors in, deems such energy to be a bad idea, as it kind of puts a lid on the mass hysteria towards hoarding wealth. What need would we have to wage wars for resources if there was an infinite supply of them? How then could those in power remain in power?
Philosophy is not redundant now anymore than it was when the church had it's iron fist closed around Europe in the dark ages.

An aid worker who has done some work for Red Cross in Africa told me once that aids medicine kills alot of children down there. That is simply because aids medicine doesn't come in children's doses, and they had to break full, adult doses into smaller ones, and often that didn't go so well.
The reason the medicine doesn't come in children's doses is that in the societies where people can pay for the medicine, kids don't have aids. That is a predominately african phenomenon, and since they can't pay, no one bothers to make the medicine....

of course

through the truth we begin to understand ourselves , psychology , physiology

life , ecology of our planet

and understanding the Universe