Friday, February 25, 2011
Philosophy is meaningless
It is of my opinion that philosophy in essence is pointless. Granted that we can learn from the points of view of dead intellectuals but it is our jobs as individuals is to formulate our own opinion based on our own experiences and upbringing. What makes these philosophers different than us students. They are people just like us who went through life and came to conclusions based on what they saw, heard, and experienced. I think it is meaningless to learn about that which someone else experienced. It is up to us to be philosophers ourselves and perceive the world as we see fit. To put a unreasonable importance on the thoughts of another individual is to take away your own independence of thought.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I can definitely see how you could come to this conclusion. However, I think there is value on seeing how other people see the world so that you could either agree or disagree with their views, and in the process learn from them. It is true that we are responsible for being the philosophers of our own lives, and it is also true that I do not agree at all with any of the philosophers that we have to research. However, ignorance does not widen our view and understanding of the world around us and does not help formulate our own philosophy of our lives and why we are here living. Knowledge helps us to have legitimate points of view, and allows us to appreciate really how unique we are in this world. It's not only our fingerprints and genetic make-up that makes us unique and special, but it is also the way we think and our believes that draw us apart.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Hawkins
Although I respect your opinion and even understand what you mean, I have to disagree with you when you say philosophy is meaningless. While we should not rely solely on the thinking of those before us, they do help us formulate our own views on the world and waht it contains. These old philosophers did go through life just as we did, so we should take into consideration what they had to say about it. You are absolutely right when you say that we must form our own theories based on our own experience, but we can (and should) also draw upon previous thinking of others to help guide us.
ReplyDelete-Dayna M.
I'm going to be blunt at say that I completely disagree with you. Society today is so close-minded that we NEED to look at other points of view. Ethics are important - we should know why society is that way it is and why people act the way that they do. Ethics run our justice system and our government and even our religions. Religion is philosophy, too. I think kids today are very, very sheltered and have never had to experience congnitive disequilibrium regarding an extremely ethical conflict.
ReplyDeleteSo, I think you should read some philosophy. Lack of knowledge regarding ethics, politics, and religion and how they function in our world leads to major ignorance. Denying philosophy, the study of knowledge itself, is denial of logic, morality, and understanding. When you understand the philosophy of another person, you understand that person and you learn to accept and discriminate less.
Even if you don't want to learn about someone else's ethical views, I think that people our age and in our time have not been able to make their own views because of how society functions now with parents who can give us everything and technology everywhere we look.
- Melanie N.
As my government teacher said, we often develop our own opinions and views based on which views we see that others hold. We tend to follow those who we believe in and take their views and manipulate and mold them to fit ours. This is the sole importance of studying such philosophies: so we can take the views of others and develop our views after theirs.
ReplyDelete-Nick B.
That is harsh. But like you said this is simply your opinion and I agree with you it is up to us to be philosophers ourselves. And nothing makes these philosophers different from us except their passion for the theme or idea or principle or combination they are pursuing. When researching philosophy, three definitions stuck with me.
ReplyDelete#1 Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
#2 Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.
#3 The critical analysis of fundamental assumptions or beliefs.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/philosophy#ixzz1FJWyHlZX
Today make students are not willing to put in the time nor effort into something that is not apart of our lives, accurate, or still existing in society. But that does not mean it should be classified as 'unreasonable' or should not be taught. Now not to make any assumptions, but I doubt who ever wrote "Philosophy is meaningless" has actually investigated or has done any critical analysis on any philosophy. But since your blog and thoughts are so limited I can not determine if your grammatical and punctuation errors are simple slips of the mind or another 'point' to add to your lack of perception and intellectual means. So next time you find something 'unreasonable' expand on your reasoning why...but then again I ought not say this based on I have no time spent on the investigation of the individual who wrote this blog.
I find Mrs.Elliott's discussion very informative and this opinion is based on my 'own experiences and upbringing'.And this subject has not taken away my independence of thought by any means.
-Vaness C.
I see what you're saying about how philosophy can seem meaningless because the most important thing is that we formulate our own opinions and standards, but I think our team project to study philosophers/philosophies is still important. I find it really interesting to learn about how the majority of people fit somewhat into philosophical categories. I think part of this class is to grow as people, especially now while we're trying to find out who we are, and studying these philosophies will help us see other views of the world, and either add to or change our own opinions. I do agree that the best thing is to formulate our own opinions and develop our own moral compass, especially because I didn't completely agree with my quiz results and I saw another person's comment on a different team blog saying the same. When you said, "To put a unreasonable importance on the thoughts of another individual is to take away your own independence of thought," I think it adds to your own independent thought because you can either accept part of a philosophy or deny them, and still be an individual.
ReplyDelete-Hillary D.
Your argument has some validity to it, but I stand on the other side of this argument. There are so many things in this world unknown to humans, and this is where philosophy takes its roots. The purpose of philosophy is to gain wisdom and try to explain the unknown. Philosophy also tries to find truth, goodness, and knowledge. It is important to know and understand the thoughts and experiences of older philosophers so we, as humans, can expand upon their knowledge and turn the unknown into the known. We do not want to ignore philosophers' advances. If we do, we will find ourselves making the same discoveries they had already made and we will not advance as a society.
ReplyDelete-Dane Johnson
I beg to differ with the last statement. It's not unreasonable to put importance of the thoughts of another, because most of our reasoning has already been stated previously in time (we are only reiterating what someone else once stated). Thoughts of other individuals also allows us to have substance when describing something, whether speaking or writing on paper. Just put yourself in the philosophers shoes for a second and think; they didn't have most of the information we have now. Their thoughts may have been considered insignificant back then, but are now viewed as prominent pieces of literature. Although we always have our independence of thought, it would have almost no substance if someone hadn't thought of the same thing many years ago.
ReplyDeleteShanyce R.
I can see how you have this opinion, because for a long time I thought the same thing. We should all formulate our own ideas and opinions for ourselves rather than just take these philosophers ideas. However, i think that it is beneficial to study their works and different philosophies, because it helps us to do this. Studying other people's thoughts and beliefs causes us to think, which will in turn help us to create our own thought and opinions. So, it definitely does have an importance, just as everything else which provokes our thoughts does if studied and taken seriously.
ReplyDeleteWe should take into consideration the ideologies and thoughts of those that have come before us, not only to learn from them but also to use as a form of guidance as we develop our own ideologies and ethics.
ReplyDelete-George
I understand that we should be able to formulate our own opinions but when you think about it, what we may think has already been stated by other philosophers. By learning about what others experienced only broadens our knowledge; philosophy has a much greater meaning than you think.
ReplyDelete-Melissa Mejico
i'm way too lazy and impatient to create a philosophy based off of my personal experiences alone. in the end, i'm just going to discover what many people before me have already discovered. In my opinion, we were put on this earth not to create our own histories but to add to the world's history as a whole. i'd rather not sit and watch history repeat itself.
ReplyDeletebut i do agree that we need to put a limit on how much we let someone else's thoughts impact our own. it's hard to have your own perspective when you let someone else see everything for you.
-Brenda
While I do agree that we should all think for ourselves and be our own philosophers, it definitely doesn’t hurt to look at some other views from other people. This helps to expand on our knowledge even if we disagree with it. It also helps to learn about other people’s opinions and to understand that that there are other philosophies that you may not fully understand where they’re coming from. Studying philosophies doesn’t just have to be about your philosophy, but learning about other people.
ReplyDeleteZach Y
I do agree with you on some aspects of philosophy being meaningless, but as you said everyone has their own oppinions. Personally I see some philosophies more realistic than others and some just seem very un useful to our modern day society now a days.
ReplyDelete-Tamera
It is true that we have to formulate our own opinions, but haven't you ever viewed these philosophies as guidelines? After all, if you believe what you are truly saying, then wouldn't you think history is pointless? Why don't we just start WWIII so we can experience it as individuals instead of studying history and trying to learn from WWI and WWII? This belief seems almost foolish. The reason why I believe you think philosophy is pointless is because you don't understand it. But to criticize philosophy for misunderstanding seems foolish, don't you think?
ReplyDelete~ Simon L.