from a distance philosophy seems weird
irrelevant boring and yet also just a
little intriguing but what are
philosophers really for the answer is
handily already contained in the word
philosophy itself in ancient Greek fillo
means love and saphir means wisdom
philosophers are people devoted to
wisdom being wise means attempting to
live and die well in a pursuit of wisdom
philosophers have developed a very
specific skillset they have over the
centuries become experts in many of the
things that make people not very wise
five stand out there are lots of big
questions around what's the meaning of
life what's a job for how should society
be arranged most of us entertain them
every now and then but we despair of
trying to answer them they have the
status almost of jokes we call them
pretentious but they matter deeply
because only with sound answers to them
can we direct our energies meaningfully
philosophers are people unafraid of
asking big questions they have over the
centuries asked the very largest they
realize that these questions can always
be broken down into more manageable
chunks and that the only really
pretentious thing is to think ones above
raising big naive sounding inquiries
public opinion or what gets called
common sense is sensible and reasonable
in countless areas it's what you hear
about from friends and neighbors the
stuff you take in without even thinking
about it but common sense is also often
full of daftness and error philosophy
gets us to submit all aspects of common
sense to reason it wants us to think for
ourselves is it really true what people
say about love money children travel
work philosophers are interested in
asking whether an idea is logical rather
than simply assuming it must be right
because it's popular and
long-established we're not very good at
knowing what goes on in our own minds
someone we meet is very annoying but we
can't pin down what the issue is we lose
our temper but we can't readily tell
what we so cross about
we lack insights into our own
satisfactions and dislikes that's why we
need to examine our own minds philosophy
is committed to self-knowledge and its
central precept articulated by the
earliest greatest philosophers Socrates
is just two words long know yourself
we're not very good at making ourselves
happy we over ate the power of some
things to improve our lives and
underrate others we make the wrong
choices because guided by advertising
and false glamour we keep on imagining
that a particular kind of holiday or car
or computer will make a bigger
difference than it can at the same time
we underestimate the contribution of
other things like going for a walk which
may have little prestige but can
contribute deeply to the character of
existence philosophers seek to be wise
by getting more precise about the
activities and attitudes that really can
help our lives to go better philosophers
are good at keeping a sense of what
really matters and what doesn't
on hearing the news that he'd lost all
his possessions in the shipwreck the
stoic philosopher Zeno simply said
fortune commands me to be a less
encumbered philosopher its responses
like these that have made the very term
philosophical a byword for calm
long-term thinking and strength of mind
in short for perspective the wisdom of
philosophy is in modern times mostly
delivered in the form of books but in
the past
philosophers sat in market squares and
discuss their ideas with shopkeepers or
went into government offices and palaces
to give advice it wasn't abnormal to
have a philosopher on your payroll
philosophy was thought of as a normal
basic activity rather than as an unusual
esoteric optional extra nowadays it's
not so much that we overtly deny this
thought but we just don't have the right
institutions set up to promulgate wisdom
coherently in the world in the future
though when the value of philosophy is a
little clearer we can expect to meet
more philosophers in daily life they
won't be locked up living mainly in
university departments because the
points at which are only wisdom bites
and messes up our lives are multiple and
urgently need attention right now
you