how does these beliefs of philosopher influence your point of view about Life?
Answers
Our ability to do philosophy is one of the things that distinguishes us from other animals- in some ways, it is that which makes us sapiens, ‘wise monkeys’.
Other animals definitely question why they do things a certain way, and try to find strategies that are more intelligent to meet goals (such as developing tools) and whilst you could say this is ‘philosophising,’ only humans seem to have developed this capacity for higher order questioning…. asking ‘to what end are we doing this?’ – ‘why are we doing this at all?’
Philosophy is embedded in everything. We all have philosophies which form the basis for our motivations and what we do with our days. Everyone has their own philosophy of life; every institution has a philosophy. Donald Trump has a philosophy, Walmart will have a philosophy, Playboy magazine will have a philosophy, your next-door neighbour will have a philosophy… but for most of us, those philosophies are unexamined and more or less automatic and instinctual.
Philosophy as a named activity, is quite recent in human history- and is the attempt to examine these instinctive and automatic motivations and say, ‘is this definitely wise?’, ‘is this coherent?’.
We can date the origins of this type of philosophy to Socrates 2500 years ago which is very recent in the history of homo sapiens. This was the period when humans changed from ‘we do this because this is the way it’s always been done, this is the way the gods told us to do things, this is the way your elders did it so therefore that’s just how it is and you’ll be punished by the gods if you don’t do it that way’, to an active, conscious rational way of thinking: ‘Why?’, ‘Why like this?’, ‘Is this definitely the best way?’ and that’s a radical moment in human history… Socrates didn’t last very long when he started doing this kind of questioning and was sentenced to death.