Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ How Are Today’s Philosophers Philosophical?

Stephen Downes

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This article offers us three distinct ways of 'being philosophical' (quoted):

  • Philosophy is an applied science. It's the machine-tool industry of the mind. We make the intellectual tools that make the intellectual tools.
  • A response of a certain kind to the imperative of the Delphic oracle: "Know thyself." And,
  • Central questions that somehow don't go away... How should you live? What can you know, what should you do, and what can you hope for, what is it to be a human being? What's the meaning of life?

I don't think any of these captures what I think of as philosophy. For me, philosophy means looking at things more deeply than we might otherwise, asking the questions people don't ask and chipping away at the foundations of common wisdom.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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