The Art of Philosophy

The Art of Philosophy I entered college naive and uninformed. Other than the Bible, which no one read, there were very few books in my family’s house. I knew little about history, was the world worst speller, had read almost nothing of significance, and had no idea what I was choosing when I selected an introductory course in Philosophy as a last resort to meet credit requirements. I expected the course to be a boring account of ancient Greek and Roman blogs and, in part, I was right. But there was more to the course than I expected. The recorded dialogues of Plato and Socrates, and the writings of Aquinas, Spinoza, Locke, Hegel and others contained interesting concepts that began popping up in other courses unrelated to philosophy. Philosophy seemed orphaned when science became more inductive than deductive and followed science’s lead and split into many disciplines but I continued to take philosophy courses and continued to have my perspectives adjusted and broadened. I searched for an all encompassing definition for the collage of thoughts collected under the academic discipline called Philosophy but never found one that satisfied me. My career choices after college were more adventurous than academic, but philosophical concepts stuck with me and resurfaced often. I now see philosophy as more of an art than a discipline and have my own definition. Philosophy to me is; “The Art of creating useful insights and perspectives by explaining the obvious” How we look at something is just as important as what we look at. This is true even in something as static as mathematics. New branches of mathematics, from number theory to tensors, are the result of a new or adjusted perspective. The same holds true in most areas of human knowledge. Which window we use to view our surroundings frames and limits our impressions and we have many windows to choose from. I see the philosopher as a guide, taking people from window to window, pointing out obvious differences in various views. The philosopher is an artist that uses words to paint perspectives and create questions that linger in those exposed to each new view, questions the philosopher prompts but rarely answers. Hemlock anyone?