Philosophy is a myth today. Self-justification machine. But, and this is an important caveat, only the form that exists within the framework of social practice. Children do not dream of reading Empedocles and Seneca, and parents would rather sell their daughters to a leper colony than allow them to study at the Faculty of Philosophy. And yet, the audiences are not empty. Who sits in them, why and why?
Authors-philosophers working before the modern era do not stand up to scrutiny. Plato and Aristotle are two homogeneous representatives of a long-forgotten dichotomy: idealism-materialism. Medieval philosophers were too carried away with the search for the divine, which does not fit well with the scientific worldview. And Descartes, who is at the helm of the rational revolution, for example, wrote at the same time so incomprehensibly and so obviously that his works were also useless. Kant is a curious type, but his main ideas are either cut off from life as much as possible (metaphysics), or do not fit into the real world (ethics). Other classical philosophers wrote things that were obvious to modern man. Who does not know about subjects, objects, the world of ideas and the world of things? Hegel only in the pickup school is worth studying, with his ascent of quantity into quality through the self-organization of the abstract and absolute spirit.
It is more interesting with conventionally modern philosophers. Schopenhauer is a frustrated whiner and a lover of hitting women. Nietzsche is a favorite of schoolchildren and fans of the Aria group, long discredited by epigones. Husserl greatly helped a number of psychologists with their ideas and horizons of consciousness. Heidegger - would be useful to linguists if at least someone could understand him. The existentialists - so closely stuck with literature that their own works were so far removed from mainstream life that they became intertwined with politics. In general, a muddy story that we will all die.
Why hang these labels? Of course, not to take and hammer a nail into the lid of the coffin over the cold corpse of philosophy. Still, we respect intellectual work. Not least because of the liberal arts education.
But the question remains open. What does the study of philosophy give a person? We have already dropped the institution aspect, moved a safe distance from the decaying bodies of the great authors of the past. Now we are standing in the middle of a wasteland in front of mountains of paper, leafing through the pages of the new "Logos" and wondering - where are modern philosophers? Digging into libraries, once again proving to the attestation commission of the Academy of Sciences that they need to give them another degree for their ability to intelligently exhumed the dead? Transformed into journalists and writers? Working in an office? Sitting in coffee shops with cardboard cups that have their names written on them incorrectly?
Whoever dares to call himself a philosopher today will immediately get a glass container in his face. The Russian person knows that any philosophy begins after a litrushka with a snack. The wisdom of millennia is kept on the fences and walls of the porches. A person born after the collapse of the Soviet Union intuitively understands more about postmodernism than a Marxist academic who wrote two thick books on the topic.
By the way, Karl Marx urged philosophers to leave their offices and get down to business. Thus, which Plato had prophesied to the wise men. From comprehending the social order, the philosopher was supposed to start changing it. What this, however, can lead to, is well and sadly known. In any case, a valuable lesson that philosophers have been sitting in offices all their lives. And thank God.
As a result, it turns out that there is no respect for the philosopher. Yes and no philosophers. And there is philosophy. What is it? A deck of cards given to us to play life. Each frame of reference, each new position is an additional opportunity, skill, look. Just as the intimate life of a person who does not possess a variety of skills in bed is boring, so is the intellectual life of a person divorced from the philosophical tradition who claims to try to think.
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You can read as many technical blogs, journalistic longreads, essays and psychological essays as you like, but the capacity of thought in them will not exceed the granules of knowledge embedded in a couple of pages of any prominent philosopher. Of course, you can't go to a bookstore, pick up your first book off the shelf and start studying it. Philosophical books are lined up in a system, in a sequence, some works complement others - others refute. And, of course, you don't have to read them all. Only people with a certain quirk can consciously do this. Well, that is, those who want to make an effort trying to grasp the voice from other centuries. But the obvious cannot be denied - reading old books trains the brain.
But you should beware. Reading philosophy not only develops intelligence, but also inflates the fur of a sense of self-importance. Having climbed the stairs of dusty volumes and bones of dead philosophers, it is very easy to start looking down on those around you, but this is just not recommended. First, because reading philosophy is nothing special. This is just one way to spend more useful time than reading popular fiction. Secondly, while you are wasting time studying the past, the thought does not stand still. Armed with a battered library book, one can easily pass for the urban madman still dreaming of phenomenology in the era of progressive metamodernism.
Like any opium for the people, philosophy is a tenacious poison. Its dubious benefits are the expansion of the boundaries of consciousness and the development of methodology, coupled with the history of thought. Her eternal companions are neurasthenia, dissatisfaction and the desire to ask damned questions. You don't have to study to be a philosopher to read these books. But going beyond books takes courage that cannot be learned in the yellow pages.
Therefore, it is not so important why you need philosophy. More importantly, what are you going to do with it? Who will be the modern philosopher? Should he be a specialist in ancient knowledge? Doubtful. But what role should he play, by what rules and why? Here's something to think about. But this is already material for homework.