About Philosophy

[Rasputin]

If you are having trouble expressing yourself, try the following ideas for helping you to assemble your ideas and feelings more clearly. It takes some practice but is well worth trying for the sake of your own sense of clarity. It will also help you to defend your beliefs and feelings with other people in a clear, well-mannered and sensitive way.

Steps

Make sure that you have an opinion. Without an opinion, you have nothing to express.

Make sure that the opinion is related to philosophy, either in response to something philosophical, or as a personal philosophical thought. Remember, philosophy is anything that has to do with the human impact on the universe: it's a big topic!

Ask yourself a question relating to your opinion and answer the question.
If you still cannot express your feelings, get into a discussion with someone, and ask them to give their feelings on the matter. Perhaps you will be able to respond to something that they say.

Keep trying. If it doesn't come to you straight away, you probably need more time to reflect and make up your mind.



Tips

Try to work from a specific quotation; this will give you a good starting point for expressing your feelings.

Just start talking about philosophy; eventually your own opinions and thoughts will come out.



Warnings

Philosophy is a dense and difficult subject. Make sure that you are intellectually prepared to undertake the process of trying to understand philosophy.

Try not to take on other people's ideas and ideals by "osmosis". This means don't let other people's decisions make up your mind for you. You can come to your own conclusions based on your feelings and beliefs as much as anyone else can.

[Rasputin]

Become a Philosopher

Have you ever thought you could be just like Aristotle or Arthur Schopenhauer - if you just had the right push? Well, here it is. These are instructions on how to become the philosopher you have always wanted to be.

Steps

Start thinking about things outside your normal range of thought, like the future of civilization and what creates meaning in life. If you don't have much luck with this because you soon hit a dead end, another strategy is to consider yourself to be the source of your own investigation. Since you're always available to yourself, any line of investigation about yourself (and there can be many) allows you to always make some progress.

Start writing down what you think about these subjects, including ideas you think you shouldn't write down (possibly because you think others may think they are stupid). While you may not be arriving at any striking conclusions, you will be exposing your own assumptions to yourself. You will probably marvel at how silly some of your assumptions can be, and in the process you will mature.

After you write your ideas down, re-write them more formally and let others read your work, so you can get others to hear your ideas. Alternatively, if you use these writings to investigate yourself, re-read these lines of investigation: you will find that if you have a few of these, then even if you hit a snag (dead end) on one or more, you may make some headway on the other lines of investigation.

If you ever have the chance, engage in any debate possible. This will increase your ability to think freely. Keep in mind however, that you are not engaging in intellectual olympics. There will always be someone who knows something better than you, and pride will stop you dead. You will need a healthy measure of humility.

Consider the basis for what you believe. Why do you believe what you believe? Start from scratch and identify your reasoning.

Abstract and surrealistic thinking is an arterial root to fresh thinking.



Tips

Remember, write down all of your (philosophical) thoughts. You are now making thinking your hobby, and writing helps.

Don't hesitate to write ideas you think are bad, because these may turn out to be your best work.

Don't hesitate to argue positions that are the opposite of what you believe.

Being able to see as many sides of an issue as possible is an excellent intellectual exercise.

Nothing is new, it's all rehash. The "New" has always been out there, it's just that its time of flowering often goes unnoticed.

Remember: we are all philosophers at heart!



Warnings

You need to be able to accept criticism, and work with it. As a philosopher, you will have a lot of criticism. This is because you are one of those radical thinkers who make the ideas rather than just agree with them.

Any thought that contains a duality (an opposing mirror image or thought) is a dead end. A valuable philosophic thought should be open-ended. Beware the cul de sac of looping dualities. HOWEVER, know that the Universe is logically contradictory: everywhere we see balances between contradictory states.

It can be very frustrating, but don't give up! Every failed idea is inspiration for a new one!

Finally, know that particularly with self-investigation, you will mature, so much so that you may outgrow friends. This is normal, though it can be isolating. If you like, you can try to share your conclusions, or even your works-in-progress so that you aren't so isolated (important for marriages, for example), or you will need to accept that many (most?) people live unexamined lives.



Things You'll Need

A consciousness

Lacking a consciousness, you may have to make do with an aperture through

which thoughts that present themselves as a consciousness flow.
Intelligence. Everyone is intelligent but in different ways.

A healthy interest in yourself and the world around you.