how we understand philosophy...

[Peter Kropotkin]

I am rereading Hadot book, "What is ancient Philosophy"
and he writes about how philosophy changed in the imperial
age, Rome, and how it was different than it was during the
Socratic or Hellenistic age... during the earlier age,
philosophy was dialectics... it wasn't about reading
a text and then commenting on the text, it was about
living philosophy as a ''way of life''

today, we have accepted the idea that philosophy
is about textual discussion, and not about using
philosophy as a ''way of life"
or said another way, philosophy has become theoretical,
not practical...
you are not suppose to take the philosophy you learned in class today,
about Plato and his eternal forms and discuss them without any
sort of application to real life... it is just a theoretical understanding
of philosophy... and you walk out of the classroom with no more
understanding of anything that engages in real life ethics or
morality or aesthetics or anything that might impact us
in real life... there is no connection between the philosophy
we learn and the life we lead.... and that is why philosophy
has failed... it has no connection to our actual, real lives...
it has no connection to the current abortion issues or the false claims
of the "Pro-life" movement... or even how we are supposed to live
our lives.... philosophy today has nothing to say about that...
but Plato said this... and so the fuck what....

what does that have to do with my life and the choices I have
to make as a human being? Philosophy no longer addresses that...
it is cold, theoretical, sterile and frankly, useless...
and it will continue to be theoretical and sterile until
we learn to connect philosophy with our day to day lives...

make philosophy a ''way of life".. as a guide to who we are
and what actions we take and why those actions and not other
actions? why those beliefs and not other beliefs, and as always,
why?

until we connect philosophy with our own daily, messy lives,
philosophy will remain a dead language...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

or as Hadot himself says:

''Henceforth, philosophers and their students did not talk about
the problems themselves, or about things themselves; instead
they talked about what Plato, or Aristotle or Chrysippus said
about such problems or things.. The question "is the world eternal"
was replaced by the question, "can we admit that Plato considered
the world to be eternal"

Ones starting point was always the text, not the idea..

so when I ask, what is moral/ethical? the answer today is,
"what do the laws say about moral actions?"
or "what does the constitution say about being moral/ethical?''
or ''what does Jesus say about morals/ethics?''

where is the engagement with my own personal
engagement with ethics/morals?

No where to be found....

the question of philosophy is a personal
engagement with how one should live or how
to transform one into being a moral/ethical person...
but to make that transformation, we have to understand
what is ethics and morality right now? Then and only then
can we begin to make any transformation possible.....

''It is not enough to understand the world,
we have to transform it"

I wonder who said that?

Kropotkin