[b]Plato informs me that philosophy means a Jazz solo. I am no musician but I think I comprehend a little about jazz because I understand Plato’s message.
To do philosophy is to create meaning. To learn philosophy is to study the great minds of history as they create meaning while in an attitude of critical self-consciousness of a radical nature.
To do philosophy is to liberate the individual just as I imagine that jazz liberates the musician; s/he liberates the self by arousing the emotions and extending by analysis the knowledge and the understanding of our self and the world.
Knowledge is an achievement instigated by a search for truth; truth is our comprehension of reality and it has a universal quality. Understanding is the creation of meaning; it is a leap beyond knowledge. Understanding is a rare confluence of intellect and emotion; meaning is subjective, it is meaning for me. Understanding is the resulting synthesis of fragmentary knowledge into a form that has meaning for me.[/b]
I look at philosophy as being of two levels. On one level it is a subject to be taught in our schools and colleges to provide to young people a fundamental comprehension of what the great thinkers thought about the human condition.
Secondly and more importantly philosophy is a personal avocation directed toward making the most out of life as an individual and as a responsible member of the community. Through a critical self-consciousness and a critical consciousness of the world the individual can best create a value system based upon an attempt to go to the root of the matter. Adhering to a critical attitude about the self and the world is the proper response to Socrates’ admonition “the unexamined life is not worth livingâ€.
I construct my meaning of philosophy from what I find to be Socrates’ attitude toward philosophy. The philosophical attitude is a critical stance toward the self and the world. The critical attitude is a constant questioning and analysis that seeks to understand on a very personal level, not upon a superficial, passive, and uninvolved level.
What we know about Socrates we must glean from the writings of Plato. Socrates was a great thinker but evidently did not care much about writing.
It is well known, even to the least curious of modern men and women, that Socrates was convicted and executed by his fellow Athenians. He was brought to trial for past political associations with an earlier Athenian regime. The account of this matter is contained in Plato’s “Apologyâ€.
The “Apology†is a popular Dialogue by Plato and is probably the document through which most modern men and women come to best know Socrates. It documents Socrates’ thoughts regarding the matter of philosophy and truth.
Philosophy is the study of reality. About the year 500 BC philosophy was born when Thales conjectured that humans could know and understand reality. Before this time humans learned to deal with reality but they had no idea that they could know reality.
Before philosophy, humans perceived reality and reacted to that perception. The animistic attribution of conscious life to objects in and the phenomena of nature or to inanimate objects represented the extent of the human conception of reality.
I think that it is appropriate to call philosophy the Mother of Science; Science meaning all domains of knowledge. From philosophy all sciences are born. Philosophy is the study of reality and from this beginning we slowly segmented the study of various domains of knowledge. These became the natural sciences, the social sciences, the human sciences, etc.
I think that it might be appropriate to call the early philosophers “The Midwives of Scienceâ€: Science meaning all domains of knowledge.
As new sciences were born and became independent domains of knowledge the science of philosophy became smaller and the task of philosophy became a specialization in the eyes of the public and in the eyes of academia. I think that this specialization has served to distort the true meaning of philosophy as Socrates comprehended it to be.
The admonition by Socrates that “the unexamined life is not worth living†contains the true meaning of philosophy as comprehended by Socrates and as I grasp it. Socrates considers that human life detached from the search for the broadest comprehension of truth is of little value. When philosophy became just another specialization then philosophy lost its true meaning as Socrates considered the matter.
In the dungeon shortly before drinking from the hemlock cup Socrates spoke to his followers. He spoke about the accusations against him at the trial. He said that the sworn indictment against him was “Socrates is guilty of needless curiosity and meddling interference, inquiring into things beneath Earth and in the Sky…†Socrates further adds that he is accused of teaching the people of Athens, to which Socrates vehemently denies that he is a teacher. He points out that in matters of wisdom he has only a small piece of that territory; the wisdom that he does have is the wisdom not to think he knows what he does not know. Socrates conjectures that he has the wisdom to recognize the boundary of his present knowledge and to search for that knowledge that he does not have. “So it seems at any rate I am wiser in this one small respect: I do not think I know what I do not.â€