In thinking about philosophy itself, I have heard it said that,
Philosophy is dead…and to quote Nietzsche, we have killed it…
but can philosophy itself be revived, returned to the land of the
living? Philosophy is an idea, and ideas can always come back
from the dead… but the question becomes, why Philosophy?
Why would we choose philosophy over science or religion or
even the mass consumerism that is America today…
At its heart, philosophy is about the questions, not the answers…
it is seeking, but once philosophy becomes rigid or convictions,
it loses itself… Philosophy at its best, is not, and this is very important,
philosophy is not certainty… once one becomes certain, it is no
longer philosophy… it becomes religion…
Once I assume, as many around here assume, that there is a god,
we have moved past philosophy and we are now religious…
which means that we no longer practice philosophy…
Once we have traveled away from questions and wondering
and doubt, we are no longer practicing philosophy…
and that is where we are at today… far too many people
are engaged in certainty… which is to say, they have ‘‘lost’’
philosophy…
I would say that because we no longer engage in doubt or
uncertainty, we have killed philosophy… philosophy is
about the questions, not the answers…as long as I am seeking,
I doubt, I am still engaged in philosophy… once I engage
in certainty, I am no longer a philosopher… and that is where
we have lost/discarded philosophy…as long as we can say,
I wonder… instead of ‘‘I know’’, we are still within philosophy…
Philosophy is in its present dormant stage because too many
people say, ‘‘I know’’ instead of ‘‘I wonder’’ religious certainty that
many here exhibit, that is in part, what has killed philosophy…
Philosophy hasn’t failed us, we have failed philosophy because
we are no longer comfortable with uncertainty and doubt…but Kropotkin,
science, what about science? that is about certainty, and that is why it
isn’t philosophy…science tells us about the how, but not the why…
but philosophy proper is about the why question… why do I…
But Kropotkin, we can’t live our lives in doubt and uncertainty?
Why not?.. for the only progress we can make as human beings,
comes about because we doubt, we are uncertain, and that forces us
to wonder about the why of existence, not the how of existence…
the true role model of people shouldn’t be Gates or Musk,
but Socrates… asking ourselves the why of existence…
I cannot tell if there is such a thing as the soul, but I won’t
act as if I have a soul, I am in doubt and thus I am better able
to find the truth… if I am certain, I cannot find the truth…
one of the reasons I reject god and the spiritual, is that
I no longer seek the truth… and that is death for philosophy…
Philosophy is about the search, not the finding…we have
failed philosophy in that we are engaged in certainty, not
in doubt…I cannot become more human, on that Nietzschean
road, the path from animal to becoming fully human… if I
practice certainty, from science or religion or faith…
I practice stagnation, statis, sluggishness… there is no truth
to be found, thus there is no motivation to improve, become better,
to practice ‘‘ad meliora’’… for the basic fact of existence lies
in its movement, in changes, we cannot grow or develop
or become, if we practice stagnation from certainty…
the enemy of improvement comes from certainty…
for how can I become a better human being if I am
certain that I already hold the truth?
Holding onto the truth, whatever that truth is, prevents me from
seeking out other truths…for as we change, grow old, our
truths, they too change… the truths that I held to in my
30’s and 40’s, no longer work for me now that I am 67…
and that is the nature of change, it happens simply by
a change in our environment or in simply growing older…
and holding onto a truth from our youth, for example,
let us say, I hold to the ‘‘truth’’ that there is a Santa Claus…
and that truth works when I was 6, but today, 60 years later,
it no longer holds true… and that is true of virtually every truth
we hold, it changes as we change, as our environment changes,
as we grow older… truth change because we no longer exists
within a place where that truth no longer works…
I once believed that old cliche, that one can move ahead
by working hard, keeping one’s nose to the grindstone…
but that is a lie… designed to keep you hostage to the
capitalism system… the reality is that those trinkets of
existence, the seeking of money/fame/power/titles/material
possessions, are what drive us… they are nothing more than
chains around our bodies… freedom comes from the release
of those trinkets of existence…for those trinkets of existence
are another path to certainty… and by following those trinkets,
we chain ourselves to a future that isn’t ours, but someone
else’s future… the quest to become is found within doubt
and uncertainty… not within the certainty that lies within
those trinkets of existence… we find ourselves, our true
selves within doubt and uncertainty, not within isms or ideologies
or the certainties of the trinkets of existence…
Kropotkin
