We Are All Philosophers

I describe myself as a ‘cynical optimist’. I liken it to a katana (Japanese long sword)… my core being optimism, softer, more malleable, more open and hopeful, which is encased in hardened and finely honed cynicism… for cutting through all the philosophical (sophistry), political, and social junk (BS).

The thing about ‘reality’ is that it is polar, that is, there is a ‘positive pole’, what we term ‘good’ (full of hope, light, compassion and love), plus its opposite, ‘negative pole’, what we term ‘evil’ (full of darkness, hatred, intolerance, disease, and hopelessness), and the complete spectrum between those poles, the totality of reality, not to dwell on the dark pole inordinately, but to forthrightly examine for a complete perspective.

You can certainly say that philosophy isn’t for you, but we are all philosophers. We all express our philosophies in our daily actions. While some give lip service to a particular philosophy, ideology, or creed, it’s our actions that express what we actually (unconsciously) believe, or what we are forced by conditioning (social, educational, cultural) to practice daily.

You know, in the ‘old days’, even the ‘hard sciences’ like Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics were grouped under the heading of ‘Philosophy’.

The difference between the ‘philosophies’ of the masses and that of so called philosophers is that the philosophers perform thought experiments, lab experiments, and study history to analyze current and past philosophies in an attempt to determine the most beneficial ideas and policies for human kind going forward.

No, we don’t all need to be professional philosophers, but it is in our best interests to at least consider our own motivations, which (depending on our interpretations) broadly speaking, ARE our philosophies.

–LE