How does philosophy affect our lives

For example, a philosopher could decide that their money would be better spent to help feed starving people than on a fancy computer, sports car, or mansion.

Improved beliefs are often insufficient to bring out improved behavior because bad habits, addiction, and a lack of motivation can make it difficult for us to do the right thing. I have found that making plans and setting deadlines to be a highly motivating force to help focus my life.

This requires me to work on my time management and make long-term plans for the future. I write many of my plans and deadlines down and look them over from time to time. I think about how I am living my life and reassess the priorities that it seems to imply. I keep in mind that I often spend too much time watching television and talking on Facebook, and I do what I can to change my habits when they become unproductive.

I set goals each week to accomplish various tasks such as writing philosophy posts. I find ways to do what I enjoy in life without requiring anyone to give me permission to do so such as study philosophy. I make plans to improve myself in ways that will make it more likely to get into a career I enjoy sometime in the future. For example, some of my philosophy ebooks can be used as notes for teaching various philosophy classes.

Some students love learning about philosophy, get a BA in philosophy, then forget all about it and live the rest of their life like everyone else—shopping too much, watching too much television, and so on.

Deliberate effort seems required to be a philosopher and live a life more appropriately than the people around us. The temptations and addictions that we all face can make it even more difficult. We want to make lots of money, spend it on luxuries, and be entertained. Being around other people who live their lives in such unproductive hedonistic ways can make it even more difficult to live as a philosopher and try to live our lives to the fullest.

The Epicureans advise philosophers to stay away from non-philosophers and alienate themselves from society because it is already so difficult to stay motivated and have appropriate priorities in life. Instead, the Stoics agree with the Epicureans that philosophers need to have higher priorities in life than other people have, but they think a person can and should be virtuous enough to act appropriately, even while having non-philosophers as friends, having a family life, and getting involved in politics.

However, the Stoics seem to make a good point that alienating ourselves from society can be unnecessary and unproductive. Non-philosophers can use a philosopher friend, our educational system can use philosophers as teachers, our political system could use philosophers as politicians, and children could use philosophical parents.

I am not a perfectly ethical person and philosophers make mistakes like everyone else. Nonetheless, the difference between being a philosopher and someone else is the extent a philosopher sincerely tries to be reasonable and ethical using the best information we have available through personal experience, science, and philosophical research.

Philosophy for me is the Audit and scenes in everything any that our lives need to be deeper in the substance is not apparent through I Read of the book dialogue with atheist friend of Dr. Mustafa Mahmoud, here comes the dialogue between an atheist and writer says, Am I the best T in the selection of AD Is Geert in the transfer of the sun from its place Comes Reply of Writer of creation belongs to God only creates Maizhae but the individual is free to restrain the desires conceal , I see that man is free in certain matters is free to believe and free to lie, but in the end will be held accountable for your choices,.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. To answer these questions requires a kind of knowledge that neither formal nor empirical inquiry can attain. In this case, we need an understanding of the value of human life.

Values cannot be observed: nor are they with apologies to Immanuel Kant mere matters of deduction from self-evident truths. Rather, they imply entirely new kinds of questions about value, right and wrong, and the relevant context.

Today, determining whether, and under what conditions, life is valuable is as pertinent a question as ever — despite all our advances in scientific analysis and a deepening understanding of what life — as a concept — actually is. Answering a question like this requires more than clinical facts regarding levels of pain, likelihood of recovery, or quality of life.

They require serious thinking about questions such as whether existence is always preferable to non-existence, the relationship between death and non-existence, the moral significance of suffering, and the importance of individual autonomy. Philosophy matters, simply, because the answers to philosophical questions matter.

Not only is it a matter of life and death, but a matter of, to name a few examples, the nature of law, the role of language, where morality comes from, whether there is a God, whether there is a self and what constitutes our identity, and what beauty is.

What makes these questions important is not only that they help societies to function although they certainly do , but that they reflect something deeply fundamental about human beings: that we are physical creatures, but our consciousness is not restricted to physical matters. Indeed, philosophy is both reflective and perfective of human nature. As author and philosopher C. Lewis explained, although we are physically embodied, most of the things that give our lives value are less tangible than material reality, and philosophy is among them:.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. Aristotle thought that philosophical reflection was the perfection of human living. He might have been overreaching a little bit, but there can be no question of the value that reflection adds to our lives. Today, on World Philosophy Day, I encourage you to give it a try yourself. All you need is curiosity, and the right question.

Published in collaboration with The Conversation. Actually, philosophy is all about real issues! Philosophy aims to provide you with the big picture. It allows you to connect and evaluate the many details that you get from the news and from other sciences. Philosophers discuss topics from gene drives to gender. Philosophers think systematically and critically about fundamental topics like propaganda , democracy , social hierarchies , global justice or religious conflict.

They ask what these things are, how they hang together, and how we should react to them. Philosophy thus makes an important contribution to our understanding of society. Philosophers also work on timely issues, such as Syrian refugees , the financial crisis , the ethics of NGOs , digital piracy , big data , or Brexit.

And they make concrete policy proposals—e. Philosophy does not only help us understand things. Philosophers are also active in politics.

Philosophy teaches you how to distinguish contributions to debates that ought to be taken seriously from illusory rhetoric or bullshit. In a world of fake news , in which the guiding role of truth in public discourse is under threat , philosophical skills allow you to make good political choices and good life choices. Philosophy helps to counteract a technocratic approach to policy making.

It makes rational suggestions for how the world can become better. Many of you will seek a career immediately after graduating. Spoiler alert: studying philosophy gives you tremendous practical advantages in career searches. Maybe, but as the articles you can link to here indicate, this is the finding across a great many job markets, including those in Canada , in the US , the UK , and elsewhere.