Justin Weinberg — Why Is Philosophy Important?

Why is philosophy important? The very question itself indicates that many assume that philosophy is not important.

But this begs the question, what is philosophy. There are many answers and the assumptions involved in answering it will influence the outcome.

A reason for this is that there are many approaches to philosophy, so that "philosophy" has come to mean many things depending on how the terms is interpreted and used.

First, there is a controversial issue now raging in the profession over "world philosophy." Some think that Western academic philosophy has failed to recognize the contributions of Eastern thought, for example. Others would include so-called primitive thought.

This reminds me a story about an African shaman attending a Western conference on theology. Someone confronted him with the "fact" that there is no literature so there is no theology. The shaman replied, "We don't write like you do. We dance."

One of the landmark works in world philosophy is the magisterial sociological study of Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change.

In fact, UNESCO has declared World Philosophy Day to be celebrated every year, and more is being published on World Philosophy as a topic of interest in inquiry.

Secondly, there are many schools of thought in the Western intellectual tradition, as there are in other non-Western traditions. Most of them have different conceptions about the subject matter of philosophy, philosophical method, criteria, and so forth. Compared to the sciences, philosophy appears "lost at sea without a compass."

Thirdly, various philosophies underlies different world views and ideologies that are presumed. Everyone has a world view that serves as a framework for thought and action. Most people do not reflect on their framework and assume that the framework reflected the essential structure of reality, so that those that presume a different framework are misguided.

Moreover, most people are unaware of how broadly and deeply they are influenced by previous ideas.

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas. —John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, ch. 24, p. 383

I would expand that observation to include a much wider range of "influencers" instead of limiting it to economists and political philosophers.

Socrates founded the Western intellectual tradition, which developed into Western liberalism, in making the observation that a life not reflected upon is not worth the living, also translated as, "The unexamined life is not worth living." 

Socrates became a martyr for truth in this quest, ironically having been condemned to death for mocking the gods and corrupting the youth in a society ruled by direct democracy. That warning echoes through time, and until recently every educated person was expected to have read The Apology, where Socrates defends himself at his trial before his peers on a capital offense.

In this view Socrates presented, philosophy is a way of life base on inquiry, which requires freedom of thought, expression, and association for open inquiry and debate to take place. And open inquiry and debate are foundational to the liberal view of democratic government.

There is a reason that philosophy is said to be the queen of the sciences, although Clement of Alexandria changed this to the “handmaid of theology.” That, of course, ended with the Renaissance and the rise of the Modern Age. 

It seems that a big reason that many take philosophy to be no longer important results from the belief that philosophy has been replaced by science and the scientific method. But since the enduring questions fall beyond the scope of the scientific method, which stipulates its criterion as empirical, they remain unresolved and refuse to go away. The result in competing ideologies whose philosophical assumptions are simply presumed. Philosophy seeks to uncover the hidden assumptions  in these presumptions, which are often tacit and held implicitly.

Another big reason is that academic philosophers have chosen to focus either on analytic philosophy, which appears to critics like logic-chopping and word salad, or postmodernism, which seems to avoid the more interesting questions in favor of relativism or skepticism. Neither address the "big" questions, assuming this to be a waste of time owing to scope limitation imposed by methodology.

I have already explored this question of important here at MNE in a previous post on the purpose of education in the post and in the comments, where I have stated my views. 

In summary, my view is that philosophy is important in that it considers the whole in terms of key fundamentals, and it's method is reasoning and experience taken broadly. It is a general systems approach that is oriented not only toward explanation but also probem-solving. 

As such, philosophy is essentially about the study and application of creative and critical thinking from a integrated and holistic perspective. Being dynamic, philosophy is also historical and unfolds toward the horizon in the march of time. Being historical, in its also path-dependent and brings the past into the present and future.

Philosophy is important because ideas are important and in a complex adaptive system new ideas are emergent. Philosophy is about dealing with this creatively and critically instead of being chiefly reactive and unreflective, not learning from experience as ideas are tested in the crucible of action.

Daily Nous
Why Is Philosophy Important?

Justin Weinberg | Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina