How it’ll help you make sense of life with its twists and turns, and tackle problems head-on

Philosophers starting from Socrates, who lived in the 5th century B.C., to Bertrand Russell of “Why I am not a Christian” fame, have fascinated me for a long time. The only reason for my fascination is that all of them used to think differently, mostly on abstract subjects such as “What is the purpose of life?” or “What is justice?” or “Why are we here?” Not only do they think differently, but also expose sophisms, spot fallacies and guide our reasoning.

Philosophers spend many years, nay decades, honing their skills on thinking vertically or laterally. They use their own tools to regiment their thinking. Their main tools are inductive and deductive logic. Students who study logic as a subject know the intricacies of learning it.

Although not all those who study logic or philosophy may become philosophers, they become better thinkers and leaders. We encounter many difficult problems in our daily lives. We use our life experiences to find answers to such questions or to improve our performance. In philosophy this is known as “heuristics”.

Other applications

Heuristics is not confined to philosophy. It is useful in other subjects such as photography, calligraphy and psychology. What is more, we use common heuristics in mathematics and even in creative writing. Applying heuristics is not a complicated process. When you have a problem, try to modify it before solving. William S. Burroughs and David Bowie say heuristics can be successfully applied to creative writing. For instance, when you write a short story or poem it can be rearranged, rewritten and edited until you are satisfied with the final version.

Philosophers are known to be wise men. This is mainly because they are lovers of wisdom. We have wisdom in varying degrees.

We may not all be as wise as Albert Einstein, but we can enrich our wisdom by studying various subjects and reading books that challenge our intellect. Bertrand Russell’s Why I am not a Christian is an essay that challenges our beliefs. Dr. Abraham T. Kovoor’s Begone Godmen is a book that challenges superstitions. Philosophical thinking can have a broad application like an LED light or a narrower application like a corkscrew.

Analytic philosophy teaches us how to argue and arrive at a valid conclusion. For instance, we can have a number of premises to arrive at a conclusion. If your main premise is true, your conclusion will be valid.

The herd at work

One major human frailty is that most people do not want to think and act. They want to follow somebody’s instructions and act accordingly. This is why India has not developed as a nation. We believe what politicians say and elect them as our representatives. When they become rogues, we are unable to remove them from their positions. There should be a legal provision that empowers voters to remove self-serving politicians from Parliament.

We should not leave thinking to philosophers. We also can think like philosophers if we try. You will be surprised to learn that some leading philosophers have supported immoral views. The Greek philosopher Aristotle justified slavery, and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) supported the Nazis. Heidegger, the most influential of German existentialist philosophers, said, “The whole of being seems to drift away into nothing.” What is more, today’s educationists adopt an authoritarian model that cannot be questioned by students and parents. There is a move to prune 13 years of schooling to 12 years.

Will logic help me think like a philosopher? A.B.P. Santiago, who taught us Logic in the 1960s, in his inimitable way used to say logic will help us think clearly. However, a few decades later I found a contrary opinion expressed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason (1871). He said no progress in logic had been made since Aristotle. However, 200 years later Bertrand Russell proved Kant to be wrong.

A portrait of Rene Descartes, the Father of Modern Philosophy and France’s greatest philosopher, hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris. He looks out at you from heavy-lidded eyes, aloof and somewhat arrogant. After building a whole philosophical system while sitting by the fireplace, Descartes boldly said, “What is taught in schools in the name of Logic is nothing but holding forth without judgment about things one does not know.” In other words, he believed that scholastic logic is not really the logic of discovery.

A difference

According to some philosophers, thinking philosophically is not the same as thinking logically. Philosophers have a passionate curiosity for analytical thinking. On the other hand, most ordinary people do not have a passionate curiosity when it comes to thinking. What they want is to think logically and arrive at a solution.

In this sense, you do not have to be a philosopher to think philosophically. However, if you are grappling with a problem of great magnitude, you have to think philosophically.

In the final analysis, we should spend some time reflecting on life, love, death and human existence. The purpose is not to pass judgment. Sociology, logic, literature and psychology can provide fodder for philosophical thinking. Whenever possible we should participate in debates. Our goal should not be to win an argument but to develop our thinking skills. If all of us had been philosophical thinkers, we would not have been deceived by scheming politicians all these years.

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