Doing Philosophy is Like Wiping Glasses

There was this one occasion where I was trying to explain the purpose of philosophy to a friend, and I came up with a nice little analogy on the spot. The question of 'what is the purpose of philosophy' has never exactly been the easiest question to answer (despite the number of times the question has been asked), so I thought it'd be quite useful to remember this analogy to help me deliver the same point in the future. So here it is:

Imagine that having an unreflective mind is like wearing a pair of really dirty spectacles. On these spectacles, you've got dust, dirt, bits of hair and stains all over the lens. It's filthy. Nevertheless, your spectacles function okay in most circumstances. You're still able to read, play tennis, or watch the television. You have no substantial problem with your vision. 

(Photo from flickr.com)

Doing philosophy, or reflecting, is like wiping those dirty spectacles clean. By that action, you remove certain stains, stray bits of hair, and stubborn particles adhering to the lens; in philosophy, the equivalent action is the removal of inconsistencies, fallacies or obscure thinking from your mind. 

Like dirt and stains, inconsistencies and obscure thinking are not always important. While you can function normally in life wearing a pair of dirty spectacles, you can also function normally in life with your mind clouded by obscurity.

Occasionally, but only so occasionally, these stains are significant. You may mistake those stains as actual stains on an object you're looking at. You may wrongly believe that there is a crack on the wall where in fact there's only a strand of hair sticking on your spectacles. Similarly, fallacies can occasionally mislead you into engaging in silly behaviour. You may draw unwarranted conclusions by not thinking carefully enough. You may make a fool of yourself by saying illogical things in public. 

Is it important to do philosophy? It's a bit like asking, "is it important to wipe your spectacles?" While not wiping your spectacles doesn't really pose a serious health hazard, it seems like a good idea to do so. After all, why not? You're here to live, not just to survive - right? There's something good in being able to see things clearly, even if it doesn't always make a tremendous difference to what you do.

What is the purpose of philosophy? In my previous post, I suggested that it has something to do with conceptual analysis. This answer - understood in the context of this analogy - is apt in the sense that it does not suggest that philosophy contributes to producing a priori knowledge, but rather has more of a role in organising the empirical knowledge that science produces. Wiping the lens does not change how far or small you can see, but merely lets you see what you already see with greater clarity.

This is after all just one way of thinking about philosophy, and probably just a very restricted sense of philosophy. But I think it's pretty close to what philosophers do. 

A Picture of a Modern Man

In this post, I'm going to illustrate the belief system of a 'modern man'. This 'modern man' is not representative or typical of any existing individual or any individual in an existing culture, so I'm not promising that you will be able to find someone like this in real life. For our purposes, think of this 'modern man' as a hypothetical being. Let's call him 'Bob', and these are the things that Bob believes in:

Hypothetical 'modern man' Bob.
(Sorry for the illustration)

Charity

For me (Bob), there is no reason to spare any charity to anyone, unless I am compelled to do so by a strong emotional feeling or any non-moral motivations. Non-moral motivations may include the need to maintain a 'healthy' public image or the need to conform to norms (familial, social, etc.). For example, if volunteering makes me sound like a kind person or makes me look good on my CV, I'd do it primarily for those reasons. 

While I may not donate money to a suffering child in a distant country, I am still willing to pay a significant sum to help a friend out because I am emotionally attached to that friend. 

Politics
Political issues are uninteresting, unless these issues directly affect me or those whom I care about. By 'directly', I mean that the cause-and-effect is immediate and visible. For instance, changes in primary education funding policy are uninteresting, because I (Bob) do not expect to have any children in the foreseeable future and the welfare of any particular child does not affect me at the moment. 

Religion and the Meaning of Life

I do not deny that questions about religion and the meaning of life are important, but you can describe me as a 'procrastinator' in terms of how I actually behave in my inquiry. Other problems (e.g. earning a living, dressing to look smart, resolving conflicts and calculating tax payments) are actually more pressing, and importantly, more tractable than the question about God or the meaning of life. However, as a matter of intuition, I'm more inclined towards atheism than any other religious slash philosophical systems. I'm also more inclined to the view that there is no afterlife.

While I'm not exactly the 'carpe diem' or 'YOLO' sort of person, I believe in prioritising my time in solving the problems which have a real immediate impact. As for the "zen", mystical kind of questions, I'll figure them out at some point in the future when I've got a lot of time on my hands and nothing to do. 

Morality (general) 

My general judgments about what's right and what's wrong typically depends on (1) the beliefs of those around me and (2) the limited range of information I'm exposed to, but this is something that I'm reluctant to admit. In a nutshell, I 'go with the flow' with respect to morality, but I don't like to be thought of as someone who does so. Alternatively, you can describe me as 'practical' in relation to morality. 

The magnitude of my feelings about these judgments are generally weak to moderate, unless they are those which make an immediate and visible impact on how I live. 

So this is Bob. A law-abiding, practical, 'normal' man who is loyal to his family and friends but does not 'stick out' to irritate the norms of society. Call him materialistic, but Bob would say that there isn't a very good reason to behave otherwise. Why, after all, should anyone commit themselves to idealistic beliefs (about morality or politics) when they cannot know their truth or benefit from them within a single life time?  

But is anything wrong with Bob? 

Year in Review 2013

2013 has been a relatively productive year for this blog. While the output is nowhere near other blogs on my reading list (like Philosophers Anonymous or Think Tonk), I thought this blog nonetheless deserves a short review of the past year. This review includes a short summary of every post published in 2013, apart from those short ones which were essentially re-posts and contain very limited original material. Most of these posts are thematically centred around a question, which for the sake of convenience I've formatted them in maroon. 

Hopefully, 2014 will be an equally good year, if not better.
Happy new year to you all.

(Note: for all links, replace domain maobites.blogspot.com with iarguethis.blogspot.com if they cannot be accessed)

YEAR IN REVIEW 2013

(Photo courtesy: library.wright.edu)

1. Thinking about meaning (February)
In this post, essentially I asked the question of 'what is meaning?', and explored the features that an intuitive theory of linguistic meaning would require. I ended the post with another question, suggesting that objectivity is something that probably does not apply to meaning. Looking back I now think the analysis wasn't very thorough, but a couple of interesting questions were raised in this post.

2. 'Fetch' analogy, meta-thinking and the is-ought gap (June)

This is one of my favourite posts of the year. I came up with this pessimistic analogy which compares a dog playing 'fetch' with a human being pursuing his or her goals. This is an existential worry that we all would encounter at some point of our lives: what is the whole point of living? In this post I explore this analogy further and present several philosophical solutions in which we can think about this analogy/question without necessarily being pessimistic.

3. Some Thoughts About Morality (July)

It's a question as old as homo sapiens: why are some actions good (or bad), and where does morality come from? Again, I try to articulate answers to the question which are both consistent with our intuitions and philosophically unproblematic. At the end, I suggest that the most plausible way to think about morality is perhaps to see it merely a useful evolutionary adaptation that has helped our species survive in natural selection. I explored this idea in further detail in (12). 

4. Be a chicken - it's okay (July)
This is one of the shorter 'original' posts that I've written in 2013. Is fear a bad thing? From a perspective, this post was an attempt to justify the shame or embarrassment of being called a 'chicken'. This is also one of the few posts where I've alluded to some concepts in Chinese philosophy.

5. On Receptivity (August)

Why is it good to be receptive? Here, I explore the benefits of being a receptive person, and argue that receptivity is highly underrated as a virtue.

6. Paradigm Shift (August)

When is it alright to change your political views? I did not so much offer an answer, but I was contemplating whether it is a disgraceful thing to throw all of your old political views out of the window.

7. Follow you heart... not! (August)

Is it meaningful to give others the advice 'follow your heart'? I said not really, and gave a few reasons why. 

8. Beyond Logic (November)

Why must logic apply to things? Why necessarily? This post answers a bizarre question of why philosophers think so highly of logic in its ability to reveal truth about things. (With hindsight, the arguments in this post may have been less rigorous than the typical standard here. This probably means that I should revisit this topic in 2014)

9. Six Reasons Why Philosophy Can Be Frustrating (November)

I don't agree with this post currently as much as I did when I wrote this. I may have been unfairly harsh on the discipline and the methodology. But it offers six reasons how doing philosophy can drive you nuts.  

10. Some Reflections on Philosophical Work: Fruits and Purposes (December)

Why do philosophy? I've always wanted to do a post like this, but I only got down to publishing it in late 2013. 

11. Potentially good idea: eliminating the a priori/a posteriori distinction (December)

This is the one where I try to demolish the a priori/a posteriori distinction: is it really a meaningful distinction? Illustrated.

12. Some Thoughts About Morality II (December)

Is morality just an evolutionary adaptation? If yes, then the implications seem grim...

13. Do ghosts exist? (December)

As titled. Perhaps you are sceptical whether this question can be answered without empirical inquiry, but I say you should try reading this first.