Sorry, but philosophy is a waste of time…

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Sorry, but philosophy is a waste of time…

“It’s not a waste of time!” you say… Well, I don’t think so either. But 90% of the people around me feel this way. How many of the people around you feel this way? I wish there was an easier way that we could rid the masses of their fear of philosophy, without philosophizing to them. I think there are so many smart egotistical asshole philosophers out there that do us “nice” philosophers so much harm.

Why is it that to many the stereotype of a philosopher is of some dude who sits around all day unproductively thinking to himself about things that aren’t going to affect anyone anyway. I think for me, the primary thing that concerns me most is the “unproductive” stigma about philosophers. It drives me crazy! People deal with “the big questions” all the time so lightly and yet shy away from philosophy because they feel that to sit and think about the big questions is “a waste of time”. I guess the idea that philosophy is unproductive spawns from an idea that there is something we can do that is “productive’. I suppose I should elaborate a bit more on what it is “to be productive”.

When someone shoots down philosophy as being a waste of time because it is unproductive to society as a whole, I really wonder… what is productive to society? I’m sure that most people on IlovePhilosphy.com can demonstrate the many ways that philosophers have made HUGE “productive” advancements for mankind. But I don’t think that that is where people are coming from when they refer to YOU, a regular Joe Shmoe, as being unproductively philosophical. They know that you’re not Aristotle and they know that you’re not going to make any sort of impact on the world and neither are they if they waste time philosophizing.

The vibe I get from people is this; “I’m not going to bother with philosophy (and you shouldn’t either) because everything has been thought before and I’m not going to make any advancements on the front of philosophy, so you and I shouldn’t bother.” What really frustrates me is that in their little minds, they think that something else they could do could be productive. WHAT!?

I’m sorry but making money, making children, having a career, doing something great or terrible enough to go down in the history books… I don’t feel that any of these things are any more “productive” or meaningful. Why do people feel that working hard as a mindless bee and being a productive member of the hive is ANY REASON to shy away from philosophy!? What difference does it make if an individual or a country “produces” more of whatever than another person or country?

I’ve kind of run a little bit off course. Anyway, the whole point of this posting was because I want a response from you, fellow lovers of philosophy, on why the word Philosophy makes the masses feel so uncomfortable and how we as philosophers can show the world that there is great fulfillment and good reason to study and engage in philosophy, even for the average Joe Shmoe!

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cause it requires them to think

tell them it’ll make you lose weight.

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Most people don’t know what philosophy is.

Philosophy is everywhere. Even money is a philosophical concept and the technique by which you raise your children is a concept.

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I agree that philosophy really has no practical value, but you know what? I couldn’t care less. It’s something I like to do. Who the hell are you to judge?

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I was thinking about this when I wrote the post. I guess I’m just sad about the whole thing. I am passionate about the one life I have to live. I want to soak up as much of it as I can. I want to ask the hardest and biggest questions. And I don’t understand why anyone would want to stop short or be content with the limited answers they have adopted. I guess I just can’t grasp why the masses don’t feel how we philosophers feel about it.

Like most people, the things I had been raised to believe answered the big questions for a while, but as I looked deeper into many things, more questions and problems arose. I think this is what people fear most. Or perhaps not “fear”, but they somehow know that if they begin to think, it will only lead to more questions and thinking. It’s like we all subconsciously know this.

So will philosophy always be a tiny section of society that the masses don’t respect? Why is it not taught in school? American high schools are a joke!

(It’s funny, I almost feel like a Jehovah’s Witness getting the door slammed in my face when someone says, “Ben, enough about the philosophy crap. Can’t we talk about something else?”)

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Perhaps you read me wrong. I believe that history has shown philosophy to have tremendous practical value for society and for individuals like us. That’s exactly why I’m sad about this particular issue: There are some people that think philosophy is futile, impractical, or a waste. I don’t do it because it’s fun (though it maybe), I do it because I am truly seeking higher knowledge and comprehension.

Where did that come from?

Better take a look at http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=139918

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I recently read an entertaining response from a philosophy student (I think), after some person denigrated philosophy as useless speculation.

“Even an argument that philosophy is useless relies implicitly on philosophical categories like value, utility and purpose, as well as an assumption that we can get at an answer using an argument (as opposed to just asserting it).”

#-o

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to my mind anyway, philosophy is mistaken to be about OPINION, it is not.

philosophy is about TRUTH about this or that. and that is not only what many on the outside( meaning those who do not explore philosophy, whether through readings of the past thinkers or present thinkers) don’t understand but also those that are within it.

for myself the biggest influence on my philosophical thinking came from “Plato’s Republic”.

why? because Socrates tried to get to essence of his and others thinking in order to get to the truth. he explored the thinking/thoughts of others, in depth.

and i think this is a skill which, for the most part, is lost.

philosophy is about the exercising of ones REASONING abilities.

and what in the end could be more important!! to us all, in the end!!!

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Good stuff north and sidis! =D>

It would be interesting to do a study on how philosophy has always been brushed off by society as “useless speculation”.

I want to ask the question again; Why are there so very few people that are passionate about philosophy? It just seems so out of balance to me. In my dream world, all of mankind has turned its “will to power” soley towards creating a better world for all of us. Where we all work fulltime jobs to pursue philosophy, knowledge, truth, and reason. “what in the end could be more important!!?”

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lol, the whole world we live in now is based on political philosophy, even our “precious” democracy.

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bdhanes,

If you think of it like that then yes, it is. Tell me how you are looking and I’ll tell you what you will find.

For someone who believes that it’s a waste of time it is a waste of time. For me it isn’t. My life has been enhanced tremendously by reading and writing philosophy. Not so much by speaking it, speech is a really inadequate medium for philosophy - cinema is superior in almost every way.

Approximately the same ratio as have never read, spoke or written philosophy, funnily enough…

Yep, they are called ‘academics’…

More seriously - Derrida discusses this very point in ‘is there a philosophical language?’ (in Points, which I seem to be referencing a lot over the last few days), making the point that philosophers who refuse to modify their language in order to make philosophy more ‘accessible’ are like the man who stands in a foreign country talking loudly in his mother tongue, being ignored. Language is what it is, people use it in certain (various) ways. To ignore such factual conditions is the greatest folly of the philosopher (who is ultimately a writer, a rhetorician). The only perpetual virtue of philosophy is that it fuels the imagination like nothing else. If one’s philosophy is not interesting and inspiring then it is a waste of time in the most literal sense.

Because that’s what a lot of philosophers do and people are, widely, stupid and cynical.

Only concern yourself with creative solutions to the problem. Getting angry at ignorant people is just as much a waste of time as reading uninspiring philosophy.

One of the main reasons for this is time - in a world where computer games, mainstream TV, shopping, pornography, firing a gun and so forth offer such instantaneous gratification why bother with something that takes years of reading and practise before it yields results? Now I know the answer to that because I’ve been reading philosophy and the history of philosophy for several years and it has inspired my literary writings (what I really want to do, what I can produce that is of value, what I can contribute to the world on roughly its own terms) no end. I’d still be writing novels about football if I’d never started reading philosophy. On reflection I’d also be closer to being published. Bah!

In a technoscientific society the productive is technoscientific. Philosophy isn’t. Ergo it is unproductive. That’s just the way of things, there is little room for metaphysical art when there are even more televisions to be made (this summers World Cup will be recorded using HD technology even though few people will actually be able to view it in that way for years) and deadlines to which we must keep! keep! keep!

Nothing except food and shelter. Possibly medicine. I’ve been thinking of starting an online campaign to turn the British Houses of Parliament into a giant refuge for London’s homeless. That would be productive…

Logic - the computer. Simple.

That’s because they don’t realise that logic and mathematics (both essentially philosophical) are central to almost every aspect of their puny technoscientific lives. That’s just ignorance, see above for my response to ignorance.

Not if they are thick, have short attention spans and don’t want to do it. No matter how much teaching an idiotic, idle and apathetic pupil receives they won’t get interested in it. They may well get interested in, say, accounting because it will lead them into a position where they can maintain their idiocy, idleness and apathy but they themselves won’t really change. I’m not being entirely serious.

That’s just post millenial apathy, the next generation (those born in this decade) of young people will, becaus of the nature of where the world will be by then, have to be more creative and desire for innovations other than technoscientific ones. Hence we’ll see philosophy, of a sort, come back in as in the 19th century. What you have to do (and me and a bunch of others) is get philosophy to a strong point for when that happens. Forget about the ignorant for the time being, let them burn up their calories buying sweatsuits…

And to answer that question requires some sort of qualitative thinking, i.e. philosophy…

Now you are getting a bit Marxist. You should talk to detrop, he’s planning on blowing up banks after he’s robbed them…

I hope that I’ve given answers to both of those questions. If you want to piss people off tell that (paraphrasing Orwell) ‘even the statement that philosophy is a waste of time is a philosophical statement’, if you want to feel better then work on creative solutions. Or assassinate a foreign dictator. Or set up a food cooperative in Chad.

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How very true. Jefferson plagarized Locke’s Treatise and wrote The Declaration of Independence with one change “pursuit of land” to "pursuit of happiness.

I see you are from Rumania, Darden University just took a group of MBA students there for a week long vacation. My son loved it and visited Bran (sp) Castle.

Smiles,

aspacia :sunglasses:

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I don’t think that answer would just piss people off, although it could use a bit more explaining. It seems obvious to me that we wouldn’t be doing anything productive without philosophical inquiry; we couldn’t even question the productivity of others without philosophical inquiry.

I don’t think that was an attack, but a general condemnation in which the ‘you’ refers to people who criticize people’s choices to pursue philosophy. It’s hard to tell though, since he only wrote two lines.

As to why people don’t like philosophy, I think it’s partly the same reason people don’t like pure math (and pretty much every other intellectual discipline, but math is closest); it deals with abstracting things and dealing with those abstractions, instead of only dealing with tangible, real world situations. It’s also only interesting to a minority, which usually means society will default to fear, misrepresentation, or dislike.

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Hi, bd. It is painfully obvious that philosophy has a singular effect on human life. The evidence is too plentiful to allow listing and too blatant to require it. Good philosophers do not so much care what others think, or even if philosophy does affect others. It’s how it affects the philosopher that counts. Buck up.

faust

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Dear AA,

Precisely why the question is a bit of a non starter for those who’ve been bitten by the philosophy bug. Trying to explain philosophy to the non-philosophical is like trying to explain the joys of cricket to Americans…

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These are all terrific responses. People are coming from directions I didn’t expect. someoneisatthedoor, you must have spent forever commenting on each line of my post. Some of them were quite humorous. :smiley:

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Perhaps, although being an American, I don’t think I have a full understanding of your example. Actually, I think the only thing one really needs to do to justify an abstract intellectual discipline (like philosophy or math) is give a simple example of where to apply it. Of course, since philosophy technically applies to almost everything relevent to ideas, it might be difficult to coax a non-philosopher’s head around how ‘productive’ it actually can be, and then further explain that the productivity doesn’t actually matter anyway.

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i really don’t mean to be an arsehole, and don’t get me wrong, i love philosophy, i’m about to study it at university, BUT how can you say that

“I’m sorry but making money, making children, having a career, doing something great or terrible enough to go down in the history books… I don’t feel that any of these things are any more “productive” or meaningful.”

i mean, in a way i see your point, i do, philosophy is important in all sorts of ways, yes… but like, it might be more meaningful than those things(though i don’t suggest you argue that with a mother with regards to her child…?) but productive??? You ask why it matters whether or not one country makes more than another but it does. economics… stability, you clearly have a computer, you clearly have the internet, comfortable lifestyle, but to the people who have to work triple shifts to feed their kids and clothe them and just live, you sitting on your ass philosophising is unproductive, it certainly ain’t helping them, and to that single mom working every second of the day she can, the idea of her philosophising is just ridiculous, she doesn’t have time. so for these people OF COURSE its less productive, of course they shy away, can’t you see that. and lets face it, when you are sitting at your screen on ilp, chatting away you arent putting back anything into the economy you aren’t helping these people, buying stuff from their shops, etc etc. so yes i think it could just about be argued that some people are justified in seeing philosophy as unproductive or just less productive… and maybe its not just cos they’re lazy
this does not apply to everyone, in some cases you are right, people just don’t want to think
sara

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i agree

thought takes time. and in a sense is a luxury.

for those, who everyday look for scraps just to survive( and there are millions that do so), philosophy is meaningless.

perhaps any question of the reality of reality should end here? and legitimately so.

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Having the potential to be productive is not the same as being productive and a necessary activity for everyone. Philosophy is productive in our society (that being of the predominantly western one contributing to this internet forum), namely because it gives it direction, discipline of thought, and integrity of motivation. It also can be applied to the underlying contradiction of being totally content with the luxuries of our lives while people born into more degrading circumstances suffer. Therefore, I’d say that philosophy is on the forefront of the hopes for the members of the kinds of communities currently subjected to exploitation and cycles of degradation for which the pursuit of philosophy is unproductive.

Just like raising a child or doing anything else, the productivity of pursuing philosophy inherently depends upon circumstances: Someone stranded with only primitive resources on an equatorial island would not be productively spending his/her time if he/she was learning how to operate electronic equipment.