DO YOU THINK PHOLOSOPHY CAN MAKE US WISER?

pholosophy won't but philosophy might !

Dorothy Parker is quoted as saying: "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."

Now, of course, that was just nasty humor. But there is a good point in there. Reading philosophy might serve to make you wiser, if you profit from the exercise to think critically about the world in which you live. It is often suggested that wisdom only comes with age. But someone can be very old indeed, and if they have not used their life experience to reveiw their basic assumptions about the world and the people in it, then they will not have profited from that experience, and will likely not be possessed of any wisdom.

I encourage you to read philosophy. One aspect of philosophy is learning to think critically, learning to apply logic to a proposition. It might not make you wise, but it could lead you to wisdom.

Philosophy can make you wiser. So can mowing the lawn. It's not important what you do, so long as you devote yourself to it.

But, reading philosophy in the hopes that it will grant you answers to your questions is a trap. Most philosophy students I know study their texts, and where they think it opens their minds and broadens their horizins I see the exactly oposite. They stop thinking for themselves and become jukeboxes playing their favorite philosophers. They turn to prefabricated answers for any problem encounter, and are unable to think of new ways to approach a problem. They do not grow wise. The only thing that grows is their ego and their pride, all in time with their swelling amount of information. But philosophy is not about information. It's about what you do with it.

Amen to that.
Im trying to eductae myself by reading classic books, admittedly a good read but I cant help thinking instaed of reading could be writing my own book.

Oh and no i dont hink it can make you wiser.I just think it means there are only a handful of people in the world that you can really talk to if you study philosophy.

OOh of course. THe text is really complex and for someone to be able to understand and interpret the text.. i think its awesoem it requires alot of intellect

Philosophy doesn't make us wiser, it merely highlights ignorance!

What a clown ! ! !

(Sorry, i couldn't resist.)

Yes material girl. I've thought of the same thing, to write my own philosophy.

But then I thought of the nature of thoughts, and discovered that to write them in coherency would be a violation of their true nature.

Thoughts are chaotic. They come when they will, not when you want them, and any attempts of any philosopher to negate this fact are lies.
So to write philosophy may be as harmful as reading it. You deal with premisses, false or true, when you really are better off with none. So don't read, don't write, don't think. Just sit back and let your mind do what it does best. It's the same as digestion. It takes no effort on your part.

I was going to try to explain my thoughts in theis post, then realised I couldnt possibly put it into words.

You are so right Cyracuz.

Yes, words are feeble things really. They can express much, but they can't convey great truths. You can know them in your heart, but when you say it it turns to a lie, because words simply cannot contain them.

Thus we all wander with great secrets. I believe that everyone knows them, it's just that they cannot be expressed without losing substance in the transfering so that they are mere shadows of what they came of.

There is no philosophy as a whole,becuace no one can explain what is philosophy with no controversy.
the quistion should be whose philosophy can make one wiser.

Well, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that all philosophy is good, but the very instant you put it on paper in an attempt to give a coherent explanation of something absurdely abstract it is reduced to self-righteous drivel. It has to do with the secret that is a secret because it cannot be put into words. Not because no one wants to share, but because no one knows how. In my life I am the measure of all things, as you are in yours.

Philosophy would teach one the patterns of truth or the truthfulness of statements by their structure. Also, it will help in recognizing false arguments and false dogmas of the past.

The simple answer is no. All one needs to do is look at human development, and we find the human animal kingdom no wiser today than we were when man began to record our history in drawings and writings.

Think of it this way; we have developed communication technologies, but look at all the wars, killings, and violence that continues.

Philosophy may excercise some people's brain, but it has not helped man find humanity or peace.

Does a hammer build a house or a wagon move a load? Philosophy is only a tool. No matter how much of it you amass, it is useless unless properly employed.

talk72 wrote:


What if the philosophy in question is in itself a false dogma?

My point with the question is to emphasise that it is not the product but the process that is important. Philosophy as a product of a trail of thought is not worth much. It's like a photograph of a cherished moment. It is empty unless you were there, unless you knew the involved elements, be they things or people.

Similarly, a philosophic theory gets it's value from the assosiations we make in learning it. From how we relate to it. We all select the bits we cherish, the bits that we form our understanding of. They are always the bits that ressonate the clearest with our hearts, so to speak, and so we know their truth because we've lived it, not because we've read it.
More often than not it is the eloquence and clarity of the author we are admiring, rather than the genious of the theory when we're dealing with philosophy. It wasn't that he could think it, because we all can, in some guise or other. It was that he could express it so beautifully, so universally.

Timberlandko said that philosophy is a tool, and I couldn't agree more. Only, there is one thing that separates it from most other tools. With this tool it is the work that is important, not the product of it.

One thing can be concluded that the brain exercised by philosophy would be somewhat wiser than the one never came across of it.

Yes. But even better off would be the mind exercised by puzzles and games and riddles. It is a great way to learn to solve problems, and to be critical without being affected by any influence as to what to be critical about.
As I see it philosophy is about knowing the self, about it's existence and place in the world. The question is wether we are better off experiencing it or studying it. After all, a hammer is rarely made just so we can study it's beauty.