Do you think philosophy is bullshit?
 
Maybe it’s not total bullshit. Philosophy is well and good for kids in school, for instance, but not practical in the real world?
 
We love to joke about philosophy majors flipping burgers for a living, don’t we?
 
Philosophy sounds like a lot of talk and no action. And not just a lot of talk – it sounds like a lot of big words and unproductive debate.
 
It may not be philosophy, as such, but the other guy’s philosophy that is bullshit. I mean, once you know what ‘The Truth’ is, why waste any more time?
 
PRO TIP: Philosophy is not about ‘The Truth’. – And we needn’t care, especially, about this or that ‘school of thought’.
 
Philosophy is an action verb. Philosophy is thinking about thinking. Please, bear with me…
 
It is the process by which we examine our own thinking. We examine other people’s thinking as well. In its simplest form, philosophy aims to clarify our ideas. How do we define our terms? How do our ideas relate to each other? How do our ideas translate to action and what consequences follow?
 
We all have a view of how the world works and our place in it. Every individual possesses a philosophy, a ‘World View’, if you like. Of course, not everyone practices philosophy. We don’t all examine our world view with equal rigor.
 
When we fail to examine our thinking, we persist in our biases. Further, we assume too much if we neglect to examine the thinking of other people. It is then far too easy to exaggerate the gap between our own views and the views of anyone that disagrees with us…

In reality (it’s a small world, after all) the difference is rarely so dramatic…

Now you could predict that I would say there is likely common ground in any set of opposing world views. What I would like you to consider is that any world view contains a large amount of misconceptions!
 
Left unexamined, it isn’t just that we develop misconceptions about how the other guy views the world. We actually harbor misconceptions in our own views of the world!
 
Practicing philosophy means scrutinizing our ideas. It involves talking to other people about their ideas. And it includes taking time to reflect on what we’ve learned. We thereby clarify our views, while eliminating false or unproductive areas of contention…

Let us not merely agree to disagree – let us be clear where we agree and where we do not. Let’s do the hard work of examining our ideas. Let’s consider other perspectives. In so doing, we will discard those ideas that don’t hold up to scrutiny. And we will bolster those that do. Yes, even if we must re-examine positions we are passionate about.
 
Notice that we aren’t trying to convert the other guy to our way of seeing things. We are simply engaging others in finding an area of workable consensus.
 
Failing to do this – being unwilling to try – now that is bullshit!

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