The Socratic Scribe

A few months ago I was rummaging through Half Price Book Store. After sifting through tomes of history books, literature, psychology, and sociology texts, I found myself in the philosophy section. Throughout all of my undergraduate degree (I earned a BA in English/Creative Writing from Texas A&M in 2007), I shied away from philosophy courses. In my head philosophy was reserved for those with an unwavering frown who were always arguing and debating irrelevant issues just for the sake of feeding their egotistical intellects. So there I was browsing through the philosophy section when I came across The Philosopher’s Way. I picked it up out of curiosity, and as I began to turn through the pages, it immediately piqued my interest. My goal is to be a professor (whether at a college or a university I am unsure as of yet), and I had been trying to figure out what subject I should pursue for graduate study. Not long before, I had enrolled at UHCL to work towards an MA in Literature. A couple of semesters in I realized I didn’t care so much for literature, at least in its traditional sense. I also had an interest in history, in sociology, psychology, theology, and politics. I could never narrow myself down in any of those fields. I was very interested in the history of ideas, of thoughts, how worldviews affect society and individual lives. I also had an interest in what I see as so many problems that confront my generation. None of those fields offered the scope and the depth in which to pursue my interests academically. I picked up this textbook, and as I began to read, I realized how blind I had been to overlook philosophy. Within the opening pages, all of the issues in which I was so passionate about were discussed. It was then that I threw my old view of philosophy out the door and I realized exactly what philosophy is:

Imagine a figure of a human body. The left arm may represent history, the right mathematics, the left leg sociology and the right psychology, or whatever other subject matter you wish to assign to it. Philosophy, on the other hand, is not any limb on the body. It is the blood that flows throughout this whole body of knowledge that mankind has accumulated. Just as the blood in your body allows each of your limbs to function according to their purpose, so does philosophy in every subject that we examine. And just as, in our bodies, the same blood that flows from our heart eventually makes its way into every part of our bodies, philosophy makes its way into every subject. It is for this reason that while I could never choose between history or literature or politics, philosophy is a perfect fit because it has its hands in every field.

As far as what philosophy is exactly, anyone can give definitions quoted from famous philosophers or based on the derivation of the word itself. Because the idea of philosophy is, in my opinion, one of those evanescent thoughts in which our human minds cannot ever fully communicate to another, words will never truly be able to define it. I believe basically that philosophy is the art, the practice of wonder, of pondering, of examination and thinking critically about a variety of deeper issues; but, to really get a clear understanding of its true meaning, one only has to look at what has come from it. Science was birthed of philosophical curiosity. Political systems have risen and fallen based on different philosophical ideals. Moral codes are developed and adhered to. Societies and individuals are swayed by the philosophical worldviews of their times. Philosophy is thinking, reasoning, searching for truth. Philosophy gives us the ideas and the assumptions through which we live our lives. It is the lens through which we see our world. In this way, whether we have complete or incomplete answers to our questions, or right or wrong ones, philosophy is of value because of the power of ideas in shaping our beliefs, our directions and decisions, and because of this, it is vital to learn how to practice philosophy in our daily lives.

And how exactly do we do so? I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few months, and I believe the best way to enable ourselves to think philosophically (that is, to question ourselves, our beliefs, our intentions, our motives, our society, our government, etc.) is to put the brakes on your brain. That probably sounds counterintuitive, but let me explain. Our brain, like a computer, works towards efficiency. Once we do something so many times, we begin to do it automatically. To put it in different terms, we let our brain think for us. Now, our brain works this way for a reason. Because of this design, we don’t have to consciously think about basic things that we need to do. However, it can hamper us from really examining ourselves and the world around us to a deeper extent. How often do we walk outside, get in our cars, run our errands, and live our lives without giving any of it a second thought? If we want to live philosophically, if we want to grow into better people, if we want to understand and to better the world around us, we need to STOP! Put the brakes on your brain and examine what you are doing and why before you ever do it. Here’s an example. Every day my husband comes home from work and changes out of his work clothes for the day. But what does he do with the clothes he’s just taken off? He leaves them lying on the floor. It’s an automated response. He’s done it every day for months now. So, what would happen if he put the brakes on his brain and examined what he was doing and why? He takes his clothes off, but before he throws them on the floor, he thinks to himself, “Why do I leave my clothes on the floor and what are the implications of doing so?” He realizes he does so because he is tired from a long day at work and walking a few feet to the hamper seems like it’s not worth the effort. The implications are that his very loving wife then has to pick up his clothes for him. Because he loves his wife, and because he realizes that walking three feet to the hamper really isn’t that much more work, he doesn’t leave his clothes on the floor. This in turn makes the laundry easier to do and his wife a lot happier, and as I’m sure anyone here who is married knows, a happy wife makes life a lot better. This of course was a rather silly and lighthearted example, but you can take the principles of stopping and thinking before you do something and apply it to so many aspects of your life, big and small.

It is, in my opinion, of utmost importance that we do stop to question and examine ourselves, our motivations, and the world around us, because, if we do not do so, we face the meaningless life that Viktor Frankl wrote of, and we are doomed to live in an “existential vacuum.” To do such a thing would be to suffer the fate of purposeless existence, of having no reason to live, to grow, to progress, to change, to contribute something to our world.