Dalek Prime wrote:Nick_A wrote:Philosophy is the love of wisdom. It has devolved in modern times into the love of self justification through argument. We know it takes two to enjoy the love of argument but can two people share a love of wisdom in pursuit of wisdom as opposed to arguing partial truths? Probably so but most have been driven underground by "experts" so you're stuck with arguing. But as long as good scotch is available there is at least something to be gained through these arguments.
Yes, that's the meaning of the term
Philosophy. But the practice of philosophy is about reasoning. If philosophy was just about passion and love, only the most passionate and emotional would make the cut as philosophers, with reasoners coming a distant second. Which is certainly not the case. Emotion introduces falsehoods, and bad thinking.
Like nick pointed out 'philosophy' once meant love of wisdom. How is wisdom gained? Through learning. Who has the most or strongest love of learning? We all did in our first very few years. Therefore, the best philosophers in Life are very young children.
Sadly though, as pointed out, we grow up and then think we are the "experts". 'Arguing', itself can then become and does become a disputed point, itself, which is then fought over. If two people, however, are still searching for wisdom in order to become wiser, and want to discuss in a truly logical reasoned manner with both providing sound, valid arguments, then I can guarantee they both will become much wiser. They are, as delek prime pointed out, practicing philosophy. But most often is the case with older people they want to 'argue' in the debating, fighting for, disputing against, disagreement making definition than they do want to 'argue' in the logically reasoning definition.
But what I have discovered is I learnt far more about Life and how to
live Life by looking at and listening truly to the greatest philosophers of all, i.e., young children. The younger a person is the more they taught Me about what is right and what is wrong in Life. Something I have never been able to obtain from an adult person.
'Philosophy' like everything else is relative to the observer. I think philosophy can NOT be taught. A 'love-of-learning' is something that we ALL are born with, but this love is also something that we can and do most sadly loose. I found it is the case that this love is lost through a relatively newly developed "education" system. A system which teaches people to learn, and
must know, what is already known, instead of teaching and supporting our natural love-of-learning new things that are not yet, consciously, known.
Generally and unfortunately most children are taught that there are some things that we can never know of, therefore, reinforcing a distorted belief system that stops learning instead of supporting 'phil-o-sophy', the love-of-wisdom, itself.