Why philosophy? To stop me from going crazy
Consider all of reality, especially social reality.
It's really complicated.
Yet we have limited capacity to understand the world around us, because we are finite. Finite in what we can be aware of, what we can remember, how we can process the things we are aware of and can remember.
Even the question "Who are you?" has as many possible answers as there are people you interact with, media you engage with, modes by which you express yourself and act.
With all these ways of being constantly in flux, it is easy to get overwhelmed by questions and the complexity of their answers.
But there are also simpler answers available. "Who are you?" "I am a conscious subject. I am a (somewhat) rational agent. I am an impermanence. I am a being and an existence." And so on.
These are philosophical answers. And though they can have difficult concepts within them, they are, once grasped, simple. They are simple partly because they are robust despite displacement into different contexts, different interactions, media, etc.
Philosophy enables peace of mind despite a complex, troubling world.
It's really complicated.
Yet we have limited capacity to understand the world around us, because we are finite. Finite in what we can be aware of, what we can remember, how we can process the things we are aware of and can remember.
Even the question "Who are you?" has as many possible answers as there are people you interact with, media you engage with, modes by which you express yourself and act.
With all these ways of being constantly in flux, it is easy to get overwhelmed by questions and the complexity of their answers.
But there are also simpler answers available. "Who are you?" "I am a conscious subject. I am a (somewhat) rational agent. I am an impermanence. I am a being and an existence." And so on.
These are philosophical answers. And though they can have difficult concepts within them, they are, once grasped, simple. They are simple partly because they are robust despite displacement into different contexts, different interactions, media, etc.
Philosophy enables peace of mind despite a complex, troubling world.