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[转贴]哲学有什么用？
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来源：http://www.phil.ufl.edu/ugrad/whatis/useof.html
Department of Philosophy of the University of Florida
What is the Use of Philosophy?
To ask what the use of philosophy is is like asking what the use of understanding is. One answer is that understanding is something that we very often seek for its own sake. As Aristotle said long ago: “All human beings by nature desire to understand.” We are curious if nothing else, and it is one of the more admirable traits of human beings. We like to know what is going on and why. After we have fed ourselves and put a roof over our heads, and attended to other basic needs, the question arises what we are to do with our time. One suggestion is that we should raise our heads a bit and look around us and try to understand ourselves and things around us. This turns out to be interesting. It is the genesis of both science and philosophy, with science taking the more empirical road to understanding and philosophy the more conceptual. These are complementary enterprises and there have always been important connections between them which continue despite the growth of institutional science and its increasing splintering into more and more highly specialized sub-disciplines.
There are universities only because human beings are by their nature curious. Universities are centers of curiosity. They are repositories and preservers of the accumulated knowledge and understanding of humankind as well as the primary centers in the modern of world of the pursuit of pure inquiry, that is, inquiry for sake of slaking our thirst for understanding. Why is this valuable? Well, why is anything valuable? It is a good question, isn’t it? It’s a philosophical question. Curious? You ought to be. To think that one thing is more valuable than another is already to have presupposed answers to a range of questions, questions which most people scarcely raise for themselves. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to know whether you had any good grounds for thinking the things you do, and to know what they were and how they supported what you thought? It would be. But then what you are seeking is understanding. The question why understanding is valuable answers itself. Once you ask the question, any sound answer requires that you seek an understanding of what makes something valuable and what understanding is. Understanding pays its own way.
It seems scarcely necessary to defend the value of understanding—except a context in which the university is conceived of as primarily a vocational school. It is an embarrassing fact that even many within the university community—administrators often enough—justify the university in a way that encourages this view. But it is understandable, since we live in a culture in which affluence is often treated as if it were an end-in-itself. It is often tacitly and somewhat cynically assumed that an inattentive public’s support for the central role of the university in civilization can be bought only with the promise of high paying jobs for their sons and daughters—as if that were the final end of life. But you can only eat so much. The poverty of a life is not measured by the amount of money one has in the bank. Most people know this. Aristotle said that education is the best viaticum for old age. But it is not just the best provision for the last part of the journey of life, but for the whole of the journey. It is because with a good education comes an enlarged capacity for understanding. A good education gives you the knowledge of what it is like to really understand something. It brings a wider and more acute perception of things generally. It provides a context for understanding the pattern of your own life which frees it from the parochialism of time and place. It cultivates a larger and more sophisticated range of interests. It provides a perspective that eases, if does not remove, the inevitable burdens and pains of a private life.
Of course, a university education is not irrelevant to success in life, in all its aspects. But that doesn’t mean that the university is a vocational school. The university is constituted by a variety of colleges and schools. Two things set a university off from a college. The first is that it offers graduate degrees as well as undergraduate degrees. This marks a university as a center of active research in the disciplines it represents, for graduate training in a discipline involves active participation in research in the discipline. The second is that the university is a consortium of colleges which includes professional colleges, such as engineering, law, medicine, and business. Professional colleges do aim to train graduates in professions. But the university should be conceived of as like a solar system in which there is an anchor that holds everything together. At a university, that is the college of liberal arts and sciences (or sometimes a collection of colleges representing the liberal arts and sciences). This is the college which aims at providing the core of the educational experience at a university, and without which you would not have anything recognizably like a university. Its disciplines are, by and large, not professionally oriented. They are organized by subject matter. They express that curiosity which we human beings have which drives us to try to understand ourselves and our world as soon as we catch our breath and look up around us. What is the relation between this and work?
It is indirect, of course, but powerful. Two observations to begin with. First, it is worth noting that even training in a profession does not prepare one for any particular job. It rather equips one with some specialized knowledge presupposed by most jobs in the field and with general skills applicable to the general category of job. Any job a graduate of a professional school gets requires further job specific training. Second, it is striking how limited is the number of professional schools. There are vastly more things people do than are dreamt of in the professional view of a university education. Now turn to training in one of the non-professional degree programs. What is the relation of this to work? First of all, to put it simply, training in any serious degree program makes you smart. Being smart is the key to success in anything you do. If you have a choice between training that makes you smarter, and training that prepares you to do some particular thing for the rest of your life, take the training that makes you smarter, for then what training you need you can get whether you have it now or not. Second, and more specifically, training may be in either a mathematics intensive discipline or in a writing intensive discipline (ideally both). Learning the language of mathematics opens up work in technical fields which rely on it. Training in a writing intensive discipline prepares the mind for analytical work more generally, for learning to write well and to think well are inseparable. It is not an accident that people with university educations have greater life opportunities. But it is not because they have been trained for some specific job. It is because they have been trained to think well. That is a by-product of being trained to think well about particular subjects. Why not just get training in thinking well? There is no such thing as thinking well about nothing. And if you want to engage yourself, you should think about something interesting.
What about philosophy in particular? Philosophy is a very abstract subject, and it is one of the more difficult ones. It has many values, but one is that it requires exercise of very advanced analytical skills, and very highly developed language skills, the sort mentioned above that are inseparable from being able to think well. Is there evidence for this? Yes. Philosophy majors score higher than any other group on the verbal and analytical sections of the Graduate Record Examination. They score highest among the humanities majors on the quantitative portion of the GRE, and ahead of many mathematics intensive disciplines. Philosophy majors consistently score in the top 4 or 5 in the Graduate Management Admissions Test and above all other humanities and social science majors. Philosophy majors as a group consistently score second highest on the Law School Admission Test. In the job market, ranked by midcareer salaries, rather than starting salaries, philosophy majors do better than all other humanities and social science majors, being outranked only by engineering fields, economics, physics, computer science, math, physician assistant, construction, finance, and management information systems, but ahead of, for example, chemistry, marketing, political science, accounting, architecture, business management, psychology, and so on. This is not a surprising result. If you can think well about philosophical questions, you can think well about things in general.*
Now, what is philosophy? That’s an interesting question. Here is the beginning of an answer.
Prepared by the Philosophy Department at the University of Florida. © 2007
来源: http://economicmath.swufe.edu.cn/xsyd/xspd/reading/10.htm
哲学的用途
当今人类知识的领域变得如此的广袤以至难以把握，需要各门学科的“概况”。
地质学以数百万年为研究单位，而人类文明的概念则仅数千年。物理学在原子中发现一个宇宙，而生物学则在细胞中看到一个微观世界。生理学在每个器官里，心理学在每个睡梦中，都发现了无穷无尽的奥秘。人类学重现了人类的远古风貌。考古学使早已淹灭了的城市和国家重见天日，历史学则证明了一切历史的虚无缥缈，并描绘了一幅只有施宾格勒那样的人才能综观全景的画卷。神学和政治理论正在土崩瓦解，创造发明使生活和战争越来越复杂，经济政策则使得政府走马灯似地频频更换，使民怨更加沸腾。而曾经将一切科学召集到自己麾下，为世界树起一个井然有序的形象，并描绘了一幅至善至美的诱人的哲学，现在已失去了承担协调如此艰巨任务的勇气，而退出了为真理而战的沙场，躲进了幽深、狭窄的角落里，胆战心惊地回避世间的问题和责任。知识成了人类不堪重负的负担，人类的心灵已不能承受了。
学科的分类，出现了对越来越少的问题知道的越来越多的科学专门家和对越来越多的问题知道得越来越少的哲学思辨家。专门家对整个世界不予理睬，眼光只是盯在鼻子下的那块方寸之地。整体消失了，“事实”代替了理解；而与理解的延续毫无关系的知识再也不能产生智慧了。各门科学、各个哲学流派都衍生出一整套只有专业人员才能理解的词语。人类的学识越丰富，要向别人表达自己的学识却是越来越困难。生活与知识之间的差距越来越大。统治者无法了解思想家，求知者对教人者所教的不能理解了。知识空前地增长了，但人们却变得普遍无知。
在此种情况下，职业教师应像专门家掌握自然界的语言那样，去学会专门家的语言，以便破除知识和需要之间的阻障，为新知识找到为一切有文化的人理解的旧词熟字。知识若变得繁杂晦涩而不易表达，社会堕落为经院哲学的对权威的俯首贴耳，人类社会陷入一个新信仰时代。专业术语的大量出现把这少数人孤零零地与世人隔开了，美国新历史学派代表人物鲁宾逊破除了这些障碍，使现代知识人性化。
最早尝试知识人性化的书，是柏拉图的《对话集》。他认为哲学可以表现为文学，也可表现为戏剧并饰以优美的语文体，这并不是轻视哲学；就连通俗地运用哲学来处理道德和国家的现实问题，也无损于它的尊严。历史对人们开了玩笑，让柏拉图的学术著作散佚了，只让他的通俗作品流传下来。施本格勒将中国古代哲学家视为“政治家、统治者、立法者，就像毕达格拉斯、巴门尼德、霍布斯、莱布尼茨一样，他们是坚韧顽强的哲学家，他们认为洞明世事、通晓人情即是认识论。
斯宾诺莎不是供人阅读，而是供人研究的。在两百页里，一个人写下了他一生的心得，而把多余的一切统统割爱了。
生命富于意义，去发现这种意义就是我们的极大乐趣。人的一生的大部分都是在虚掷时光，无所事事、优柔寡断、悲天悯人。我们漫无目的地与内心的纷乱和周围环境的无序作斗争，我们始终没有丧失信心――只要我们能解剖自己的灵魂就会发现，我们身上存在着不可或缺的，赖以安身立命的精神寄托。
一个真正的人是不求尊贵显达，只求为自己的疑问找到答案。我们需要从整体上把握人生的意义，从而使自己挣脱日常生活的漩涡。我们需要在有生之年认清生活的本来面目，以永恒的观点看待那些好像具有永久价值的事物。我们必须学会微笑着面对不可改变的命运，甚至泰然面对死神的降临。我们必须成为完整的人，协调我们的欲望，使我们的精力配合一致。因为通力合作是伦理学和政治学的最终目标，可能也是逻辑学和形而上学的最终目标。梭罗说，要做一个哲学家，并不仅仅要有深邃的思想，甚至也不是创立一个学派，而是要热爱智慧，并按照它的意旨去过一种艰苦朴素、独立自主、豁达大度和充满信心的生活。只要能找到智慧，其他一切都会唾手可得。培根说：其余的要么不期而至，要么失去了也浑然不觉。真理不会使我们发财，却会使我们自由。
哲学所要解决的都是还没有科学的方法可以证明的问题――诸如善与恶、美与丑、生与死、秩序与自由等，而这是一项艰难困苦的任务。一旦有一个研究领域产生了可以用精确的公式来表示的知识时，它就进入了科学的行列。每一门科学都是以哲学开始，以艺术结束的。它起源于假设，而终结于丰硕的成果。哲学是对未知事物或不确切认识的事物的假设性解释，它是追求真理的开路先锋，科学是被占领的土地，它后面是那些安全地带。
科学是分析说明，哲学是综合解释。科学是把整体化为部份，把有机体分解成器官，把晦涩转化为易懂。它不问事物的价值和理想的可能性，也不问它们的终极意义，只满足于说明它们的现状和作用，只把心思专注于事物本身的性质和运动过程。哲学家却并不满足于对事实的描述，他希望弄清楚他们与经验的普通关系，从而把握住它的意义与价值。他把事物联系起来，进行综合解释。科学教会我们如何救、如何杀；它一点点地减低了死亡率，却又在战争中将我们大批杀死。只有智慧――按照全部经验协调过的愿望――才能告诉我们何时需要救何时需要杀。观察运动过程，构想解决手段是手段；评议和协调目的是哲学：正因为手段和工具在不断增长，远远超过了我们对理想与目的的解释和综合，我们的生活才充满了喧嚣与骚动，却又没有什么意义。仅有科学而无哲学，仅有事实而无前景和价值，是不能使我们免于劫难和绝望的。科学给予我们知识，只有哲学才给予我们智慧。
哲学意味着并包括五个研究领域：逻辑学、美学、伦理学、政治学和形而上学。逻辑学研究思维和思维的理想方法：观察与反思、演绎与归纳、假设与实验、分析与综合；美学是对理想形式和美的研究，它是艺术的哲学。伦理学是对理想行为的研究，即善与恶的知识，人生智慧的知识。政治学是对理想社会体制的研究。形而上学是对一切事物的“终极存在”的研究，是对物质的根本属性的研究（本体论）；是对意识的研究（哲学心理学）；是对“精神”与“物质”在感知和思维过程中相互关系的研究（认识论）。
哲学的以上构成部分一旦将它们肢解，就完全失去了美和乐趣。爱默生说：学习的诀窍在于，每个人都有值得我学习的地方。当我们在倾听天才的讲话时，我们会鬼使神差地回忆起自己在年轻的时候朦胧地也产生过跟天才一样的思想，只是当时我们没有口才或勇气把它们用形式和语言表达出来罢了。我们也有过他们的经历，然而却没有能从那些经历中吸吮出来它们的奥秘和精微意义：我们对周围现实中嗡嗡作响的各种泛音不够敏感。天才听见了这些泛音和来自上天的音乐；天才知道毕达格拉斯称哲学为最高音乐是什么意思。
苏格拉底说：不要管那些哲学教师是好是坏，一心一意去考虑哲学本身吧。认认真真地把它审视一番，如果它天性邪恶，那就让所有的人都远离它；但如果它没有辜负我对它的信任，那就追随它、伺奉它。
――摘自《哲学的故事》前言
来源: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/82319990.html?fr=ala0
哲学有什么用？
哲学有什么用？这是人们对于哲学提问最多的问题。和大部分人文学科一样，哲学并不能使你获得什么实质性的物质利益，比如金钱，权力之类，它更侧重于人的精神层面，知识层面。在我们当今这个“实用主义”至上的社会里，它是一门在人们眼里“一无是处”的东西。但是如果你爱哲学，你就不会理会那些庸人之言，因为这门智慧的学问是给一切爱好知识与求的“自我”的人学的。先要说明，我们教科书里的那东西不叫“哲学”，它只能算是意识形态.
哲学的本意是“爱智慧”，是自由的学问,它的精神核心是：怀疑，批判，创造，自由。通过哲学活动我们所要建立起来的是个体的独立思维能力，在这种能力面前没有任何权威，唯一的权威便是自己的思维！这种个体的独立思维能力一旦建立起来，就获得了牢不可破的坚韧性，它是一种自我决定的力量，不以任何外在的力量---权利，名誉，财富---为依据，它自己决定自己，故而是自由的。
就哲学对于人生的意义而言，哲学在于使人觉醒。当我们获得了独立思维能力，以哲学的眼光来看待世界和人生的时候，这个世界就仿佛发生了翻天覆地的变化，变成了一个崭新的世界，这个“我”已经不是往日之我，而成为新我，他们的意义与以往完全不同了。我犹如刚从一夜之中睡醒，一个新的世界呈现在我的面前，那个混沌的世界一下子获得了秩序，新鲜，清亮，一股发现的喜悦充满心灵！
哲学的意义或用处不是表现在外在方面，如物质或权利，它所改变的是人的心灵世界。物质的力量所改变的只是局部，如金钱的多少和权力的大小；而哲学作为一种精神力量，它对心灵的改变是整体的，在这种改变中一刻觉醒了的心灵诞生在世界上，自我从中再生出来，获得第二次生命---精神生命。它所改变的是认得根本，随着这种改变的发生，人的整个面貌也会改变。由什么样的东西能够比他更有用呢？还有比他更强大的力量吗？还有比这样的改变更伟大的改变吗？
哲学是人的心灵能够达到最高的境界，使人的心灵得到最大限度的拓展，这样的精神世界比宇宙还要宽广，从而为人的精神世界建立起了牢固的基础，提供了坚定的信仰，使人能够在惊涛骇浪中自有航行，而不迷失方向。
这是智慧的力量，也是哲学的魅力
来源: http://www.garlikov.com/philosophy/uses.htm
The Uses of Philosophy in Today's World
Philosophy, in the sense I am discussing it here, is the sustained, systematic, reflective thinking about concepts and beliefs in any subject to see what is clear (i.e., intelligible) and reasonable to believe about it, and why. It differs from science in that it includes the study of more than what is empirical (i.e., physically observable), and in that it tends to examine data and evidence already available, usually trying to put it into a clear and reasonable perspective, rather than to seek new data. Examples of philosophical writing that examine concepts and beliefs about various topics are many of my essays at www.garlikov.com, such as "Guilt and Forgiveness", "Justification of Punishment", "Understanding and Teaching Place-Value", "The Concept of Racial Profiling", "The Concept of Intimacy", "The Definition of Death", "Scientific Confirmation", "Constitutional Safeguards for Majority Rule", "A Philosophy of Photography", "A Philosophy of Science Logic Problem", or "Five Questions [About Economics]".
In normal usage, the terms "philosophy" and "philosophical" have a number of trivial meanings which have nothing to do with the academic subject of philosophy (or the slightly broader sense in which I use it here, that includes thinking more deeply and systematically about topics which may not be found in typical college philosophy department courses), so people tend to misunderstand what philosophy is, and see no point in studying it.
"Philosophy" in ordinary language is perhaps most often meant to refer to a set of guidelines, precepts, or to an attitude, such as in comments like "Jones' philosophy is not to worry about the future" or "It is the philosophy of this company that everyone should be able to take over for anyone else in his/her department at a moment's notice; thus it is imperative that you all learn each others' work as well as your own." Or "Our philosophy is ‘all for one and one for all'." In the movie Wall Street the philosophy of the tycoon Gordon Gekko (played by Michael Douglas) is that "Greed is good." This use of the term philosophy is sometimes referred to as a "philosophy of life" or a "philosophy of business". It is not related to philosophy in the sense of sustained, systematic, reflective analysis of any topic.
A corollary to this usage is to characterize as "philosophical" a specific attitude of acceptance, acquiescence, or submission to whatever happens, perhaps with some interpretive reason, as in "Jones took the news of his dismissal quite philosophically; he said that if the boss didn't want him there, it probably was a place where he wouldn't be happy working long anyway." Or "Smith took the news of the tragedy very philosophically; he said that was just the way life was sometimes and that you had to just accept it and go on or you would go crazy." Or "Johnson was philosophical about the tragedy, saying ‘We just have to trust in God to know what is best for all of us, even if it seems terribly sad at this time; it must all be for the best ultimately.'" This also is not related to philosophy in the sense of sustained, systematic, reflective analysis.
A more recent usage that is perhaps becoming more and more common is to equate philosophy with "mere idle speculation", particularly as in "Rather than sitting around merely philosophizing, we decided to do some actual empirical research into the phenomena." Or "There is no point in thinking about this philosophically; we need to find out what the facts are." Or "You can do all the philosophy about the likely result of this you want, but at some point you are going to have to get out of your chair and actually see what happens when you try to do it." In this sense, philosophy is equated with the kind of pointless thinking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin; it is considered to be a waste of mental energy, for no useful purpose.
Loosely associated with this view of philosophy is the one that thinks philosophers are at best merely "book-smart" people who have no common sense because they come up with crackpot beliefs and ideas. While in some cases this may be true, more often it is believed because it is not the reasoning but only the conclusion that is looked at, and it is true that many conclusions philosophers reach are counter-intuitive or odd, or contrary to conventional belief. It is important, however, not to look just at conclusions that people reach, but the evidence and reasons they give for them. That is where insights lie if there are to be any.
Thus, in a time of great economic, scientific, and technological advancement, one might mistakenly believe that there is no particular use for philosophy, because it deals with intangible ideas, some seemingly crazy, which cannot be proved scientifically or verified objectively, and which have nothing to do with providing greater creature comforts or material progress. Pragmatists may believe at any time that there is not much use for philosophy and that philosophy is merely about having opinions, opinions which are no better than anyone else's opinions, and of no more value than idle speculation. So what is the use of philosophy?
In the first, and narrowest, place, for some people philosophy simply satisfies a personal need or interest. Philosophy is, as it has always been, interesting in its own right for that minority of people who simply like to think, or who are by nature driven to think about, and who appreciate and find great pleasure in discovering insights into, what seem to be intangible or complex issues, great or small.
But the tools of philosophy can be important to everyone because it potentially helps one think better, more clearly, and with greater perspective about almost everything. There are numerous specific topic areas in academic philosophy, many of interest only to a few, even among philosophers, but there are features and techniques common to all of them, and it is those features and techniques which also can apply to almost anything in life. These features have to do with reasoning and with understanding concepts, and, to some small extent, with creativity. Normally, all other things being equal, the better one understands anything and can think clearly and logically about it, the better off one will be, and the better one will be able to act on that understanding and reasoning. (It is my view, for example, that better conceptual understanding by NCAA and NFL administrators would lead to a far more workable and acceptable "instant replay review" policy.)
Furthermore, philosophy in many cases is about deciding which goals and values are worthy to pursue -- what ends are important. One can be scientific or pragmatic about pursuing one's goals in the most efficient manner, but it is important to have the right or most reasonable goals in the first place. Philosophy is a way of scrutinizing ideas about which goals are the most worthy one. A healthy philosophical debate about what is ideal or which ideals ought to be sought and pursued, is important. Efficiency in the pursuit of the wrong values or ends is not a virtue.
It is also important that beliefs and goals be examined, even if they are idealistic; that is, even if society is nowhere near ready to proceed from where they are to some idealistic state. For it is important to know what is most reasonably ideal, and to understand the reasons for thinking it is the ideal, in order to try to make stepwise progress (as society is ready to discover and accept any step in the right direction) and in order to reassess what one thinks is ideal when unexpected social responses show flaws or undesirable side-effect in the concept. For example, welfare and housing for the poor have often run into unexpected difficulties and in some cases have been counterproductive to the desire to help people improve their lives. While the basic goals of helping people escape poverty and substandard housing in order to become productive, secure, and hopeful about their lives may remain ideal, supplying homes or money in certain ways may not be the effective means to that, or may not be the equivalent to it as an end.
While science tests hypotheses by empirical means, philosophical pursuit of values and ideals tests concepts of the ideal in two ways: (1) by the debate of differing ideas and values to see what seems most reasonable, and (2) by the constant monitoring of the satisfactoriness and desirability of the stated goal as socially acceptable steps toward it come into place. Social progress toward an ideal often takes place in small stages, and sometimes flaws in the ideal become visible as the stages are implemented. It takes understanding of the stated values, ends, and means in order to recognize missteps.
However, it must be pointed out that there are people trained in philosophy who do not think very well, at least not on all, if any, topics. And there are people who have never had any sort of philosophy or logic course who are quite astute in their thinking in general. The study of philosophy is something like the intellectual equivalent of training in sports. Those with natural talent and no training will often be better than those with training but little natural talent, but proper training should develop and enhance whatever talent most people have to begin with.
And it also must be pointed out that not all philosophical writing or thinking is very good, and, perhaps more importantly, not all philosophy courses are very well taught or very good. In fact, there are a great many terribly taught philosophy courses, where students come out having learned very little and/or where they have mostly learned to hate what they think is philosophy and consider it to be stupid. In some cases, however, where teachers are entertaining and articulate, students come out favorably impressed, but still with little or no understanding. Neither of these kinds of courses serve students or philosophy very well, though the latter are at least more enjoyable than the former. So when I talk about the uses of philosophy or about "philosophy" itself, I really mean to be referring to the best of what philosophy has to offer, not necessarily what one might learn in some particular philosophy 101, or even upperclass or graduate level, course, and not necessarily what one might find in a book chosen randomly from the philosophy section of a university library or bookstore.
The tools of philosophy are important to individuals and to society because as long as we are not omniscient, factual knowledge by itself is no substitute for philosophy, just as philosophy is no substitute for factual knowledge. Philosophy is about the intelligent and rational uses of knowledge, and it is about the scrutiny of beliefs to see how clear and how reasonable they are in the light of knowledge we have. Knowledge is the substance of philosophy, not its opposite. As I explain in "Words, Pictures, Logic, Ethics, and Not Being God" because there is much we cannot know directly or even by observation, much of our knowledge comes from our use of reason. And philosophy, when done properly, perhaps more than any other field, gives training and practice in the most general and basic elements of reasoning. The essay "Reasoning" explains what reasoning is, how it works, and why it is important. It also explains that it does not always yield the truth or knowledge, but that in certain circumstances, it is the best we can do to try to attain knowledge. In many cases, reasoning will show us what we need to find out in order to have knowledge about a particular phenomena, by showing us what the gaps are in the knowledge we have.
What underlies most philosophy -- particularly perhaps British and American philosophy -- is training and practice in (1) analyzing and understanding concepts, (2) recognizing and showing the significance of hidden, unconscious, or unrealized assumptions, (3) recognizing and remedying various forms of unclear conceptualization and communication, such as vagueness and ambiguity, which are often unintended and at first unrealized (4) drawing reasonable conclusions from whatever evidence is at hand, and (5) recognizing evidence in the first place -- seeing, that is, that some knowledge can serve as evidence for more knowledge and is not just some sort of inert fact or end in itself. These things are, or can be, very important for science, social science, economics, business, and other practical and empirical pursuits, but they are crucial for knowledge about matters of value, interpretation, perspective, and that which is intangible. It turns out that much of science, social science, economics, and business contains elements of the intangible, and questions about values, which can only be dealt with philosophically. Moreover, even the most empirical matters have conceptual components that require careful analysis and understanding. The essays "Scientific Confirmation," "Explanations and Pseudo-Explanations in Science," "Shedding Light on Time: Learning and Teaching Difficult Concepts," and "More About Fractions Than Anyone Needs To Know" exemplify that.
It also seems to me that those who are most successful at analyzing and understanding concepts would also be better at teaching those concepts if (and perhaps only if) they also understand what made those concepts difficult to analyze and understand for them, and/or for others, in the first place. Nobel physicist Richard Feynman had the view that if he could not explain a concept or principle in physics in a way that a college freshman who was interested in physics could understand it, he probably did not understand it himself as well as he thought he did. I think such understanding is often important or even necessary for teaching well, but I am not sure it is sufficient, because one might be able to understand a concept without seeing why or how it might be difficult for other people to understand it. Philosophers, or anyone who has analyzed concepts, ought to have some advantage in teaching them, but that advantage may not be sufficient to teach those concepts to others very well. I have seen philosophers (and others) who were quite good at doing philosophy, not be able to teach it to beginners, simply because they left out too much in their explanations, did not start at a basic enough beginning place, did not wait to see whether there was comprehension before they continued from point to point, did not appreciate how strange or difficult or complex an idea was to the student, did not know how to get points across not only logically but psychologically, and, in short, did not know what groundwork needed to be done in order to help the student understand and see the significance or meaning of the explanation being given. My long essay "The Concept and Teaching of Place Value" gives an explanation and an example of how understanding a concept, and understanding and appreciating the psychological difficulties of comprehending it, are necessary for teaching it well.
Pervasive Philosophical Subject Matter
While the application of sytematic thought to any avowedly practical enterprise such as science or business can be productive, it is also unnecessary in the sense that much is often accomplished without it, and what cannot be accomplished without it is often not missed. It only seems important in cases where practical matters come to an impass or where an idea bears such great and obvious practical fruit that it cannot be ignored.
But there are pervasive philosophical areas of life that nearly everyone recognizes as important, though perhaps not recognizing them as primarily philosophical in nature, and perhaps not recognizing that they require deeper and more sustained thought than is typically given to them, even by supposed experts. These areas include ethics (moral philosophy -- including value and "meaning of life" issues), logic or reasoning, religion or spirituality, aesthetics and related quality of life issues, and political/governmental/social philosophy, particularly for all those who have a part in government and who are affected by it, including those able to vote in a democratic or representative democracy. While everyone has "opinions" or beliefs about many of these intangible things, there are better and worse opinions, beliefs that are more reasonable or less reasonable than others. Not all opinions or beliefs are equal in quality or in value. One opinion is not necessarily as good or as reasonable as another; is not likely to withstand scrutiny or to be compatible with all the evidence available.
Unfortunately in many cases, politicians, bureaucrats, news commentators. idealogues, and the "man on the street" or a majority of people polled", are considered to be experts in areas of social/governmental philosophy, though they usually are not; and ministers or church leaders are often thought to be theologians (or philosophers of religion), which they are not. So a natural hunger for philosophical wisdom is only partially addressed, and not always in the most satisfying, nutritious, or practically useful and advantageous manner. Shallowness in these area is often sufficient as long as it sounds good or seems deep to those who think less or who do not think much for themselves at all. Still the issues are philosophical ones, and they are often recognized as such, even if most do not realize that there are better answers and better ways of thinking about them than they are aware.
Moreover, most people seem to think they "reason" well enough and that any argument that shows otherwise is merely someone else's opinion, and does not need to be considered any further than it takes to ignore, dismiss, or reject it. So although these are areas where people could benefit from philosophy, they usually do not, and do not care to. In that sense philosophy is just of potential benefit. But it is not unlike other, practical, areas of potential benefit that are ignored. When the inventor of the Xerox (photocopy) machine was looking for financial backing, almost all the large business concerns of the day turned him down. The primary reason given was that there was no need for copy machines; we already had carbon paper to make copies of documents. Not only have prominent inventions and scientific ideas been rejected, but so have business ideas and management plans. Many a successful enterprise has resulted from employees going into competition with their former bosses who would not listen to, or could not understand or appreciate, their ideas for innovation.
Philosophy is about careful, sustained, and systematic thinking. It is about a willingness to pursue the possible truth and value of ideas and the evidence for them, no matter what conclusions might result or how strange they might initially seem. Philosophy does not always lead to truth or to ideas of great value, but it can. It often has. And the potential always exists. There is much yet to be learned by the application of thought to what is already known or believed to be known.
I say "what seem to be" intangible issues, because some topics which start out as apparently intangible turn out to have tangible and practical features and consequences. Physics initially was called "natural philosophy" meaning philosophy of nature or of the phenomena of the natural world, and seemed to be primarily a theoretical enterprise. Social and ethical philosophy can have profound consequences that make a significant difference in the quality of life for an individual or for a community. There are many specific subjects which start out seeming to have no objective or tangible answers, but which, upon reflection, do. In some cases, such as physics and parts of social science, what starts out as philosophy, once it is seen to have tangible, practical, and empirical aspects and consequences, becomes science and is no longer considered part of philosophy.
To some extent reasoning also can sometimes foster creativity, in cases where it points to thinking that is more constricted, narrow, or confined than it might need to be. Just seeing what the constrictions or boundaries are in a line of thinking, can sometimes help you see how they should be eclipsed, extended, or transcended. The fashionable phrase today is for people to learn to "think outside the box", and philosophers have been and continue to be, in many cases, those who tend to think most outside the box and furthest. Sometimes much too far for others to appreciate. And, in general, when anyone tells you they want you to think outside the box, they probably only mean to the extent they can fairly immediately appreciate. If you go further than they can appreciate, your ideas will not be considered creative, inventive, original, and visionary, but wild, unrealistic, impractical, idealistic, or foolish. (Return to text.)
Philosophy is typically taught in one of three ways. There is a fourth way that is better, but is relatively rare. The three typical ways are:
1) to use "classic" readings, such as works by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, etc.
2) to use books that contain numerous articles about particular, often 'contemporary', problems or issues. Generally the articles somewhat disagree with each other. Generally the editor has an introduction to each section.
3) to use textbooks in which the authors explain their views about what philosophy is and about what is true about different issues. Some of these books also contain other articles or passages from classic works, but those are in some sense evidence for the author's views or they are in some way secondary material.
The problem with the first approach is that the readings tend to be meaningless to students at the introductory level, and most teachers are no help in making them interesting or meaningful to the students, or showing their relevance to ordinary issues or to issues that would be interesting if presented correctly or in an accessible way.
The problem with the second method is that class sessions often turn into endless debates or simple bull sessions where everyone presents fairly shallow opinions and no effort is made by the teacher to analyze those opinions in a meaningful and deeper way that actually helps students resolve differences and come to deeper understanding.
I have not yet seen any textbooks of the sort in 3, that were particularly interesting or enlightening or, in some cases, even very good philosophical reasoning.
I think the best way to teach philosophy is to raise issues in a way that makes them gripping to students, often by Socratically asking questions that make problems and issues puzzling, challenging, and stimulating to students, and then asking other questions that help shape their answers and help guide them to a deep and meaningful understanding of the issues. When done well, this helps students develop ideas which are similar to or which parallel many of the great historical philosophical answers given to these issues. Students may then be assigned reading, if there is time, or told which works they may want to look up on their own which argue for many of the views they have come to. At that point, many students will be able to make much more sense of the classic philosophical works and of the debates about contemporary issues. They will more likely find the details interesting, and they may even be able to shed some light of their own on difficult problems and issues. (Return to text.)
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