Why Aren't More People Interested In Philosophy?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

To most of us on this forum, the passion for philosophy is innate and obvious to us. It is important - of course! If you loosely claimed to be a Christian, for instance, and the was the potential for burning in hell for eternity, wouldn’t you want to make absolute sure about what your beliefs are? And even if you aren’t religious at all, doesn’t it strike you as odd that such a large proportion of people, say your friends, don’t seem to be too concerned with such matters as how to conduct their morality and existentialist values?

I have always found it odd, as it seems to be of the utmost importance.

Here are some of my own attempted answers on the question:

-Ego/selfishness. We are too inherently preoccupied with ourselves, on survival, on hedonism; too encapsulated by our own little bubble. If thoughts about the nature of existence arise, we are easily distracted.

Religion offers an easy way out - To the religious person, the answers are pretty much all there already, they are just a little ambiguous. One need not look any further than their text. This eliminates the desire to question.

  • Agnosticism - Some have pondered many, many times but only arrived at the sort of respectable conclusion that they don’t know. That, to me, is kind of like giving up on Philosophy, but nevertheless it allows them to just enjoy their lives in the most simple way they can without complicating matters.

  • People think they already know Humans are pretty confident in their beliefs up until the point where they are properly challenged which may allow a transition. Everyone, for instance is an expert on consciousness, because they think they know themselves very well. Everyone has something they would describe as ‘morality’, even if it is abhorrent to others, or even themselves. And of course, people are convinced of their own autonomy, because they are living that ‘autonomy’.

To me, all of those things are why people for the most part don’t care about philosophy that much. Particularly the fourth point, though. Would you have any others to add?

2

Most people don’t care about philosophy because it doesn’t bring them money for their bills nor sufficient entertaining distraction compared to TV, movies, video games, gambling, sports, political meetings, church meetings, or even the local bingo game.

In 99.9% of the cases, actual thinking doesn’t pay off in today’s society in any regard.
…and for most people mysteriously it feels uncomfortable… the struggle is perceived to actually hurt and confuse their decision making comfort. It’s bothersome.

You have presented many of the reasons why many people are actually anti-philosophical.

3

Philosophy is not just books, it is very much involved in day to day living. I don’t know a person alive who does not use life philosophies.
Some call part of it street smart for example. We cannot all be mechanics or doctors or even store clerks, and so we cannot all find philosophy that interesting.

4

I think people aren’t interested in philosophy because they are generally foolish or insane, as apposed to wise and sound of mind.

5

I don’t Think it has to be negative reasons. Philosophy requires at least some liking for a particular way of thinking. I know that it seems like mental wanking to a lot of people and frankly even some of the Classic philosophers seem to spend a lot of pages trying to argue their way to something obvious - but still, after all that, up for grabs given later arguments presented by later philosophers. I Think it is a bit more like why doesn’t everyone want to play chess than the OP allows for.

Being interested in philosophy is not the remotest guarantee that one has better beliefs or is a better person - or philosophers would agree more often.
I also do not Think it is the only way to get to answers.

Bringing up religion is a bit of a false dilemma - it hints at one, though you did not actually state one. Most scientists I have encountered are not very interested in philosophy. In fact a good many seem to view philosophy as 1) raising unnecessary doubts 2) obfuscating 3) trying to get to knowledge in some other (read:incorrect) manner than scientific empiricism. I am not saying they are right - though there is some good justification for those positions - but mainly that it is not a religion vs. philosophy dichotemy. In fact religious thinkers carried philosophy for a long time. I mean, of course they did, given that religion was pretty much everywhere, but more than that, there were strong ties between theology and philosophy and the institutions that taught these.

I would bet, even today, that more religious people, especially experts - by that I mean those educated in religion from priests to whatever - would be much more interested in philosophical discussions and issues than most experts in science - unless we are talking about cosmologists, for example. They might end up disagreeing with most philosophers about epistemology, but would actually often understand the issues around epistemology better than most, and also find the issues important.

Try getting a scientist to really evaluate various epistemologies at an abstract level. Man, has that issue been decided for them long ago.

6

It may not seem like it now, but wisdom has direct ramifications with morality, values and beliefs. The wisest people are similar to each other.

7

I think most people are not interested in the study of the method and ramifications of thinking, rather, they prefer to form their thoughts then using words by rote.

This rote way of thinking is unfilosophycal in that it’s expreseive of se-t in ideas, rather then with the dynamics of speech. If thought can be encoded to correspond to understood ideas, philosophy and common sense language will run parallel, and rarely would crossi paths, to get to a deeper level of meaning.

8

I think, as someone suggested above, that most people are interested in philosophy, but their interest may not be recognizable to you as philosophical:

  1. They don’t call the type of thought that they’re interested in ‘philosophy’.
  2. They don’t look for philosophical insights from people who call themselves philosophers.

I understand the former, and I wholeheartedly agree with the latter. Imo, probably one of the least efficient ways of gaining clarity in just about any philosophical issue is by reading stuff written by people who call themselves philosophers.

So people are engaged in philosophy more than you think, just in a way that’s perhaps unrecognizable to you.

9

They simply aren’t smart enough to be able to process ideas of such complexity. O:)

And even if they were, who knows what would happen or how they would respond? They simply rely on those cheesy one-liners to get them through life. To be honest, I tend to rely on the one-liners too, but only as part of a greater daily slapstick-comedy routine.

:banana-linedance:

10

I’ve noticed that religious thinkers tend to fall into two categories - the ones who spam the cut and dried formulaic arguments, and the ones are fucking insane. I find I have a ton shit to learn from the insane ones, because they argue already possessing the knowledge that a lot of shit happens that just has no apparent purpose other than some higher deity or deities putting you through shit for some unknown purpose (A lot of these guys, a lot of the time many thinkers would even gloss over as not being religious, and can only be spotted by a more experienced and discerning mind in this kind of field). Once you get this, you can pretty much start REALLY thinking outside the box, and start formulating and saying a bunch of crap that just trolls the hell out of everybody. I mean, it literally just opens up a whole new world of creative opportunities.

Scientific thinkers are usually never smart enough to adopt the insane standpoint, and so you get guys like Steven Hawking, or Richard Dawkins who just spam the same old tired bullshit that really provides no answers or self-satisfaction to anything at the end of the day. I mean, don’t get me wrong - it’s good for light trolling and for when you have no other option than to settle for Second best, but really, - why wipe your ass with Sandpaper when you can instead wipe it with the finest allegorical Silks? O:)

*Also keep in mind I am using the term “insane” here as a substitute for anything that fits extremely outside the mentality of the average person.

11

That is a good point. But also, wouldn’t that make you more curious about such things? If you think your wife is cheating, you become determined to know, but you know it will be an uncomfortable truth.

Indeed. I wasn’t restricting the question just to actually reading Philosophy. It’s just that too many people’s eyes glaze over when speaking about it. It is the peculiar disinterestedness which initially prompted the OP.

Well I would have to agree - in fact, those who are zealous about their religion I would commend in actually devoting themselves to their philosophy. I would argue that that philosophy is mostly prescribed, but that’s neither here nor there.

But they still aren’t interested in an active analysis/revision of that life philosophy. It is just natural to them to have loosely thought out ideas about the way the world works. There is no investigation with many people.

I’d say these people fit in with the fourth category I stated.

12

The few who can afford the time to be curious about such things become those who attempt to think and voice their opinion, which they call “philosophy”, not necessarily a good thing.

Think of the world as a restaurant. Ever heard of too many cooks in the kitchen? How many cooks are in a restaurant? What would happen if everyone considered themselves to be the cook? What would happen to the quality of the meals? What would happen to the restaurant?

So what you end up with is a restaurant owner with the money. He pays one person to be the cook. He gets paid because the quality of his meals and service is higher than most of the customers would have gotten on their own. He tries to ensure that no one really knows what is in his food or how it is prepared, “trade secrets” and all. But sometimes the quality and service are not good enough so he looks for other means to inspire customers. He becomes a “trouble-shooter” analyst, a type of philosopher.

He then thinks about what it is that makes people come to his restaurant. Usually it turns out to be that they are tired, too busy, or bad cooks. So to inspire more people to come, he starts looking for ways to make more people tired, too busy, and/or bad cooks.

Then he learns of cooperative investments as a means to have influence in other areas outside the normal range of a restaurant. He hires Edward Bernays and begins investing into programs that will inspire people to become more tired, too busy, and bad cooks. Shortly medical issues arise, a single job isn’t enough to pay the bills, cooking becomes more confusing, children think cooking for yourself is some kind of vulgar sin and only the famous, well known cooks should have the right to serve food to others, and women want to get out and work for money rather than stay home, take care of children, and… cook.

The reward for his restauranting philosophy is a much larger customer base of regular consumers, not cooks, who know that they depend upon him to do all of their really good cooking for them. After a generation or two, they can’t even imagine anything else and are completely focused upon the effort to feel good as quickly and easily as possible. He can retire in a much larger house with pool, boat, SUV, complete insurance for everything, well to do friends… the works.

Thus a competition of thinkers, philosophers, yields a vast majority of non-thinkers; tired, frustrated, misinformed, over worked, and not very good at thinking anyway. And better yet are totally dependent upon the few reasonably good thinkers who got ahead of the game. And thus self-perpetuating socialism is born.

Look around.
Welcome to the restaurant.
What can we think for you today?
What flavor of delicious thought would satiate your pallet and placate your consciousness?

13

+1 Flannel Jesus and Kriswest.

:laughing: James

Books are one way communication and rely on the reader giving the author the benefit of the doubt and investing the time to read the book. I’m impatient and if I disagree with something, I’ll be annoyed at the author and likely put the book down. Why? Because to write a book is to preach, and I wont listen to preachers who don’t or are unable to justify their positions.

On a forum, information is relayed far more concisely than in a book and requires little investment. If you have an issue, you can ask the author directly. The author doesn’t need to be long winded and give multiple sources of misinterpretation.

With a video / lecture, you’re given visual and audio information simultaneously, this is far more efficient than reading a book. Books were popularized when people couldn’t capture video / audio. Do you think people would have embraced books as they did if they could stand in front of a camera and narrate? Of course not.

The only academic books I’d bother reading are ones from scarce and valuable sources, such as those deceased. Anyone today, I likely wouldn’t bother.

Also, Philosophy is as selfish as any other pursuit.

14

Cheegster, Eyes glaze over because the word has specific connections. Dry, dusty books that carry on and on in an almost foreign language, schoolwork equivalent, tests, etc. If I told you I had to go in and have surgery done, your brain would most likely jump to me on a bloody table being worked on. I would have actually been talking about getting two stitches on a leg.
Saying surgery brings the brain to drama, pity. Stitches not so much. Word connection can throw things off in a conversation. Your thoughts about a word will not necessarily be the same as another’s. The word philosophy is such a word. Try using different words that will not cause the brain to have flashbacks to school.

15

Cos philosophers aren’t rich.