Why You Need to Study Philosophy

People usually ask me when I tell them that I study philosophy: "So what are you going to do with it?" I tell them: "I want to become a lawyer, maybe a priest, or both." What I actually want to tell them is to respond with: "Live life better than you."

     Such a response would be arrogant, so I would of course refrain from it. But I believe there's truth to it. Philosophy, when done right, empowers you, makes you better. In this post, I will list the reasons why you need to study philosophy, the benefits you will have if you study philosophy correctly. 

Do note that the list could go down much longer; it is not exhaustive.

1. Gain Intellectual Humility
     Before I was introduced to philosophy, I was in the dark. However, I did not realize it. I thought that I knew of all the practical things I need to know to live out my life. I was never so wrong in my life. In Plato's Republic, the allegory of the cave is pictured. The allegory imagines a cave where the shackled masses watch the shadows while never seeing the source of the truth. A man escapes, and this man is a philosopher.

     Plato pictures the process of escaping the cave a rough journey. In the same way, coming to see the truth of things require a sort of self-annihilation. And this self-annihilation is possible only through intellectual humility; we must come to know what we do not know. Studying philosophy intellectually humbles you by proving time and time again that you will be wrong, time and time again that you can never know enough.

     We can see how people tend not to be intellectually humble. Just look to the matters of religion and politics. I see people who are not learned in theology and morals act as if they know. Me and my colleagues mire ourselves in books on such matters and we still have yet to know enough. Who are they to claim that they know? It is the same with politics. People flock to support policies they barely understand; they are only wooed by the demagogues. These people think that they know, but they do not know. We need a world where there are more intellectually humble people willing to step backward and exercise practical skepticism. Philosophy can deliver that.

     For example, I am against abortion. I can have a pleasant talk with a philosopher who disagrees with my opinion. But I would most likely have a disturbingly frustrating talk with those who do not have intellectual humility.

2. Gain Critical Thinking Skills
     If I were to call out someone that he does not know how to think, he would not admit it. He is unable to organize his premises and make coherent arguments, and he also brings up irrelevant points to the table during the argument. He does not admit, for he cannot admit. This is so for he does not know that he is not making coherent arguments.

     Philosophy ameliorates this problem. Philosophy is mostly about thinking, putting arguments in logically consistent terms. You are forced to think about ways to defend your argument while attacking your opponents constantly, a skill applicable to law. You are also forced to think about the hypothetical, making good educated guesses from available premises, a skill applicable to psychology. I could name different fields that share same thinking skills required for philosophy. A single fields would teach one aspect of critical thinking. Philosophy, however, teaches all.

3. Gain Self-Knowledge and Knowledge of Others
   As mentioned above, philosophy has to do with practical skepticism and getting to the details. If we combine the two, we get an excellent people-reading skill that is applicable to both to ourselves and to others. One of the problems I have is the fact that the vast majority of people do not have self-knowledge, especially the young. Mark my words: The lies we tell to ourselves pale against the lies we tell others.

     As we apply practical skepticism on ourselves, we learn to humble ourselves and notice our own flaws. With humility also comes objectivity, an ability to see our weaknesses as well as our strengths. With the knowledge of our flaws and our strengths, we gain self-knowledge.

     As we apply detail-seeking skill to other people, we begin to see the internal dispositions of others. Looking at minute details of behaviors and putting them together is what psychologists do to figure people out. Philosophers might not have the medically approved psychological vocabulary at hand (some actually do), but they have the thinking skills necessary. I have found myself knowing some people better than they know themselves. I have also pitied certain people for they have no friends to gain worthwhile insights from. For example, I know a girl who needs to talk about her problems, so she goes to her friends. But little does she know that her friends are just as naive and just as ignorant as she is to give advice!

     We see so many CEOs who have either studied philosophy while in school or have studied it in their own time. Why are they so good at managing things? It is because they see through the strengths, weaknesses, and personalities of people they are managing. It is because they know who to keep close and who to avoid.

My advice: when a philosopher seeks to become friends with you out of respect, be honored and accept the friendship. I promise that it will be fruitful.

4. Gain an Unceasing Desire to Learn
     It is said that philosophy is the first science. Being committed to studying philosophy comes at a price: You have to learn everything you can. In studying ethics, I would have to know the biological feasibility of the ethical system. So I study biology. I would also have to learn if our minds can handle the ethical system. So I study psychology. I would also have to see how ethics can be applied at a societal level. So I study politics, economics, and sociology. I would also have to see how ethical development took place in history. So I study history and literary works of both past and present. The same goes for religious ethics. So I learn theology.

     I can go on and on. But the point, I believe is spelled out sufficiently.

5. Live Life Better.
     I would not be a Catholic, let alone be a Christian had I not studied philosophy throughout. Philosophy MacIntyre observes that we are mired in emotivism; we pass emotional judgments of preference of what we want. This behavior penetrates both within and without the Church. We see clearly how the irreligious pick out some things they like and attempt to follow through. In the Church, we see how people follow through their own desires instead of submitting to the tradition of the Church. In their relativistic mindset, they live disordered lives.

     Studying philosophy makes you settle on core principles and propels you to live by them thoroughly. In so doing, you live a consistent life. In the Confucian tradition a saying goes: "You have no philosophy." What it means is: "You have no way of life." A person without philosophy wanders through his life never realizing that the way he lives is filled with contradictions.

     If you are a religious person like me, you must learn philosophy. I and other like-minded people say over and over again: "I would not be a Christian had I not learned philosophy."

      

Self-Psychoanalyzing with Television Shows, Movies, and Novels: A Step Toward Self-Knowledge

Self-knowledge is an elusive thing. It is said that the lies we tell ourselves pale against the lies we tell others. A vast number of people never truly attain it before they die. Even when our prefrontal cortex reach the full maturity at the age of 25 or so, we would most likely lack the rationality to gain self-knowledge, mostly due to the fact that we are not taught how to gain it. Some prideful or insecure parts of us may pass self-judgment of excessive depreciation or appreciation. In which case, one does not have self-knowledge of at least an aspect of oneself. An example would be an arrogant man who think that he has a charming personality when he does not; his pride makes self-knowledge elusive. Another example would be an insecure girl having self-image issues when in fact she is beautiful enough to make a blind man fall in love and cure a madness. 

     In this post, I would like to propose a habit that may be of use in gaining self-knowledge. It is one I have employed for quite some time, and I believe that it has helped me quite a lot. I can say with confidence that I know myself vastly better than most people know themselves in my age group. The method involves a habit of watching [good] television shows and movies, and reading novels while projecting myself to the various characters, learning from the flaws they make and comparing the mistakes I have made in the past. I don't focus so much on their successes for the fear of my pride having the best of me. After all, successes in fictions are too heroic to be realistic. 

     The reason why this can be a legitimate method is that script writers and novelists perform psychoanalysis on their created characters. When they create their characters, they extract pieces of human behaviors from people they observed. After the character is created, a good creator would the character inside and out: For every action the character makes, the creator can name the internal motives and conflicts, reaching far beyond the conscious to the subconscious. These are exactly the things psychotherapists seek to find from their patients through psychoanalytic methods. The only difference is that the patients are real and the characters fictional. It is true that fictional characters cannot have the depth of an actual person, but do note that their psyche is extracted from the real world.

It should be noted clearly that any form of self-awareness exercises can backfire and can actually hurt one's self-esteem. For this reason, this exercise is grossly insufficient. The best way to gain self-knowledge is through the communal life. 

     Some psychologists may want to claim that psychoanalysis was birthed from Freud. Yet this is false. We see examples of psychoanalysis in ancient poets like Homer. When Homer pairs Aphrodite with Ares in a love affair, he is depicting how a female's erotic vanity and a male's war-like spirit oftentimes attract one another unlawfully. Do note that Aphrodite is married to Hephaestus. We can see the psychological profiles comparable to Aphrodite and Ares in our day quite easily in disordered relationships between overly passionate women and aggressive men, both parties lacking the rational capacity to control their emotions. Such psychoanalysis is likewise performed in playwrights such as Shakespeare.

     Modern day media is no different. One prime example I can think of is How I Met Your Mother. [SPOILER ALERT]. The writers knew from the beginning how the show was going to end: Ted and Robin get together... after 9 seasons. This ending changed the purpose of the show's narrative. 

     The writers from the beginning set up the characters' psychological profile meticulously. Ted is the kind of person that is capable of great passion; if he finds a woman, he would love her until the end. Robin, on the other hand, had father issues, lacking the love she required as a child. It becomes abundantly clear that the two's psychological profiles are matching. Ted's capacity to give passion has the potential to cure Robin's old wounds. The two go on dates in a romantic stride in first couple episodes, but Robin rejects Ted, becoming "friends." The show then begins a spiral of heartbreaks, both of them getting into one toxic relationship to another, mistakes optimistically disguised as "learning processes" for 9 whole seasons. What the narrative then becomes is a psychoanalytical commentary of a relationship between lack of self-knowledge and romantic derangement. Again, it is not hard to find people floating about without self-knowledge in the real world, matching at least in part the psychological profiles of Ted and Robin. (If, by any chance, you watched this show and thought that the friendship between the characters is a good one, it's not.)  

     I could name numerous examples of writers' psychoanalysis on their characters and how their analysis can, to a degree, reflect how the human mind works in real life. But I think I have made my point to give any more support. Now, how can I psychoanalyze myself by projecting myself onto the characters? 

     For example, let's say that a man is having a trouble with suppressing his anger against injustice. He see Batman in the Dark Knight going so far as to torturing the Joker to ask: [modify voice] "Where's Rachel? Where is she?" This is of course against the conventional ethics of Batman as portrayed in the comics. He realizes that this Batman created by Nolan is a hero with a deep-seated anger. Watching this, the man realizes that the motive behind Batman's anger and willingness to cross ethical lines springs from the fact that a woman he is in love with is probably going to die if he fails. In projecting himself onto Batman, he may find similar issues. Perhaps, in the past, a person he loves was hurt and he has yet to cope with it. But perhaps this may not be the case. But if his original guess is right, he would have figured out his deep-seated problem. In so doing, he would have a knowledge of himself, enough to a point where he can fix my flaws. 

     For another example, suppose a woman struggling with dating problems. She goes on dates she knows fully she will not commit to, wasting the time of herself and the guy, risking gossip within the community, and possible evils deed from the guy; no possible good can come out of it. She then lies to herself, justifying her wrongful actions by saying: "I was just giving the guy the benefit of the doubt. I was charitable." In this case, she could perhaps project herself onto Robin. In so doing, she may or may not realize that she had an inattentive father. Or perhaps she lacked a father altogether. If father issues is not the case, she might be able to project herself onto Aphrodite, finding out that she is more like pure passion as opposed to reasoned control, using her prefrontal cortex to practically reason out possible outcomes of her actions. Whichever one she realizes, she might be able to cope with her problems by actively seeking better solutions. If the former, she would seek out good male role models, not the ones who would simply give her attention she so lacked in her childhood. If the latter, she would work on using her rational capacities more, controlling her passions.

     These are examples of amateur, or"lay," self-psychoanalysis. But such exercises might be able to delay, or even remove, the need of a psychotherapist.  After all, mental problems come from within. If an individual is capable of self-searching and meditations and gain self-knowledge, wouldn't that individual be able to fix the parts that are broken? I do fully acknowledge that projecting oneself onto fictional characters is an insufficient way to gain self-knowledge, but perhaps it could be a step toward it.

     

The Devil in Us and How to Defeat Him

MATTHEW: Then why did he put the Devil in me? Why do I feel it in my heart...and my soul... clawing to be let out... if that's not all part of God's plan?

FR. LANTOM: Maybe you're being called to summon the better angels of your nature. Maybe that's the struggle you're feeling... deep within you.

MATTHEW: And how do you know the angels and the Devil inside me aren't the same thing?

FR. LANTOM: I don't, but nothing drives people to the Church faster than the thought of the Devil snapping at their heels. Maybe that was God's plan all along. Why he created him, allowed him to fall from grace... to become a symbol to be feared... warning to us all, to tread the path of the righteous.

Being exposed to the worst of evils is like tapping into an alternate reality. We hear stories on newspapers and TVs, stories of grave evils: We are constantly described of the horrors of war, murder, sexual abuse, etc. Yet an average person living in developed worlds do not know evil. They can hear the stories of evil all they want, but they will lack the emotional cognition to fully recognize the true state of this world. A person hearing stories of war view the world differently than those who have survived a war. Even if one does see the world in the same way, the lack of emotional cognition would turn empathy into indifference quite fast.

     I hope none of you reading this have never had an occasion to have the emotional cognition, an occasion to fully realize just how fallen this world is. But when you do, perhaps this post could serve as a reminder to stay sane, a reminder that it is possible to stay sane even after the exposure to evil.

     I have had such an exposure. In fact, I've had multiple. I cannot share certain stories for I lack the courage. I also find that, to share such stories, it would be impractical. I consider also the liberty I do not have to explaining the stories of other people who are involved in such exposures. So they will not be told in detail... only through vagueness.

     Being exposed to such evils repeatedly is a funny thing. Once you see one, you start to develop an intuition about the evils of others. At some point, the intuition can get so refined to a point where one can detect evil intents in others. The lies told by a douchebag to a girl to seduce her to untold sadness in victims' eyes, one would notice them. One would find that such douchebags are great in number, and so too the victims. In short, one would see evil everywhere, within the Church and without. Religious or no, it does not matter.

     In a religious setting, there are those who feign religiousness to mask their evil intents. For example, a guy who never lectors lectoring at mass to put on the appearance of virtue to seduce a religious girl. What sort of lustful infidelity drives a boy to use the holy liturgy as a means to his deformed fulfillment? In a secular setting, there are those who lie about his name and occupation to approach the girl he lusts after at a bar. And this one guy would pressure a girl who had previously been abused to having sex with him, claiming that such a consensual sex would help her "reclaim" herself from the abuse. Every time one would witness or hear such events, one gags in disgust.

     I see such pathetic behaviors everywhere. Seeing evil everywhere makes one mad. This madness would cause one to have a warped view of reality, seeing dark corners everywhere... seeing the Devil everywhere. Once one has seen a person commit an evil, one sees the same look in people's eyes: The Devil in the potential wrongdoers. If this madness becomes serious enough, at one point, one would start to see the Devil in one's own eyes.

     I suppose it is not a surprise. When one is exposed to great evils multiple times, one would be liable to having a sort of unquenchable rage, one that multiplies at the slightest of injustice. This rage claws at your conscience, calling you to violence and hatred toward mankind. One would become sick of it, feel exhausted by it to a point where one feels that something has to be done. And when this rage is put to action, no good can come out of it. For it would be from the Devil.

     This sort of rage is apparent in cliched cop shows. The crime investigators would lead some sort of semi-depressed lives, drenched in the hatred toward mankind due to what a fellow human being can inflict upon the other. The shows cannot possibly make its average viewers empathize with the characters for they are mere fictions. At any rate, there are people like those characters in real life. This Devil in them, constantly clawing, would appear to them invulnerable. The Devil would eat them up, changing the personality and the demeanor toward vice, corrupting their souls. And all the while, the victim would develop self-hatred for such vices.

     How, then, are we to defeat this Devil? It is a task one cannot accomplish alone, I have learned. What those who have been exposed to great evils need is love. This warped perception of reality they have needs to be re-warped into seeking the reality. I do not mean that we ought to warp their perception of reality to a point where they can only see rainbows and butterflies. What I propose is that they need to realize that their fellow human beings are capable of love and saintly moral strength.

     So be virtuous, for their sake. Do not disappoint them. Put on an appearance of virtue, if you have to. With a pure intent, of course. Uplift them with kind words. It may be awkward, but hug them and say that everything will be okay. Although it may bring you discomfort, be with them and spend time with them. Listen to them and counsel them. Empathize with them, but do not complain out of anger lest you succumb to the Devil yourself. Instead, show them compassion and quiet temperance. Do not be morally indifferent for they are already sick of how the world is indifferent. Instead, show them that you are willing to go the extra mile for what is good and the beautiful.

     I have seen hurt people seeking after love, seeking to find some good in this world. It is sad to say that I have seen too many sorely disappointed. To compensate for the pain that could not be resolved through love, they would resort to drugs and alcohol to mask it. Some would jump romantic relationships to another, hoping to find the sort of love that can heal them. I must say that I have failed miserably in showing love to others, and in turn been disappointed by others in consoling me. I wish that I could have said something better, something more compassionate and uplifting to those who are hurting. I also wish that the loved ones I sought love from held me in better compassion. Lacking as it may feel, however, I have received love from the few who would give. Because of this few I maintain my sanity. For that I thank God for them.

     The point is this: The whole world does not have to be virtuous for those who are hurting, but only a handful. I have learned that most of the world would feel a momentary pity for those who are hurting but would turn indifferent within days. Or perhaps they would forget all about it after watching a cat video two minutes later. Even those who give support would become tired and give up. Very few remain persistent in giving love and support. But this few, this "happy few," matter in changing damaged people for the better.

     To those who are hurt reading this, I hope to tell you that there is such a happy few in this world. To those who do not know what to do in the face of those who hurt, buy them a cup of coffee or something (but never alcohol), or lend them an umbrella on a rainy day. Little things count. To those who are indifferent, I hope to tell you to be more compassionate. To those attempting to empathize with the victims, do not show anger for they see enough anger to last a thousand lifetimes in themselves. Instead, show quietness of the mind.