Philosophy: What's The Point?

Philosophy: What’s The Point?

The meaning of philosophy to all of us is subjective, but from an objective standpoint, what is the actual point in it? If we look at what philosophy is, regardless of the fun we have throwing our opinions about, it’s still essentially empty speculation about things that exist. Not only is the definition of this area of speculation pretty vague, but these speculations always seem to reach no conclusive answers. To any rational approach, there can be a typical ‘what if’ response, being that philosophy is littered with clashing improvable theories throughout history. And that’s the fuel to the fire; philosophy studies our existence, and our existence is so ancient, that so are many of these theories. There’s an omnipresent clash in philosophical study, and a mysterious nature to our existence, that disallows conclusive answers. So considering this, what is the point?

Objectively it’s hard to challenge this, but seeing as I love philosophy I’m going to give it a go. My first challenge is this: is the point of an argument to reach a conclusive answer? The academic/objective standpoint seeks a simple question to answer approach, supported with evidence, but this is not the nature of philosophy. Philosophical theories are built on argument, built on opposing ideas and bouncing opinions, and philosophy is not the only area of study to operate with this nature. History, politics, English literature, music, arts all require our personal interpretations to formulate an argument. You could then argue that these fields lack their ultimate purpose, but I disagree. This process of analysing sources and our own knowledge to formulate opinions and structure arguments is enjoyable to us. Even not on an intellectual level, us as humans by nature enjoy discussion because we value our own opinions. But this academic study without conclusive answer acts as an intellectual challenge that we not only enjoy due to this, but we can never actually dry it

out. The theoretical mobility is endless, so our intellectual feeding is endless. And our intellect, our curiosity, is a fundamental human need that needs to be satisfied, much like our sexual needs or our need to eat. We need to know, and what’s more important to reach a sense of knowing about (for our nature) than the entire existence we find ourselves in?

An objective perception isn’t necessarily how we should value things. Intrinsic point is in itself a specific label for a reason; we don’t understand ‘objective point’ immediately as a ‘point’ entirely. So we can find the value of philosophy in our own enjoyment, self development or understanding. If we didn’t discuss our political issues, decision making would be impossible. Politics is largely philosophical – it considers morality amongst other things. But we have to have a sense of direction, a sense of what we believe if we can’t know, otherwise what would be the point in anything?

As a side note, I guess we can conclude that we ultimately can’t satisfy philosophical questions, which in itself is a philosophical conclusion. Welcome to the paradox of philosophy. Carrying on…

I think when we think of philosophy as pointless, it’s because as we’ve said, there’s no answers. Academically this seems very true, at least historical interpretations are based or pre-existing facts, much like the interpretation of English literature is based on certainly existing texts. Philosophical argument is a lot emptier; it finds itself speculating about what we actually know etc. Understanding philosophy alongside these other more solid subject matters doesn’t satisfy proper understanding of philosophy, however. Fields like music and art have established theories that make our understanding, whereas the established theories of philosophy guide our understanding. Philosophical understanding is personal; many philosophers have argued that these theories stem from our characteristics, mentality and personality, much like a depressed person will sway to nihilist views, whilst other contrasting individuals would disagree for their own personal reasons. After all, our understanding of our existence links directly to our own lives, or is much the same thing, so surely our personalities cause our philosophical understanding? This is why I love philosophy, it’s a journey of self discovery and understanding – how I understand my own life and everything that is happening around me. It makes us more aware of how our person conducts itself with issues such as morals, ethics, behaviour, human nature and the self, all of which amongst many other things are very important to how we live our lives. And this could definitely be argued as an objective value of philosophy, if we even need one.

And going deeper, this leads me to think: is philosophical truth even a positive thing? The idea of us having these conclusive answers to what is right and wrong, or how human beings operate, or what consciousness is.  If philosophical understanding is founded on perceptions that are personal, wouldn’t one ultimate answer to any philosophical questions disregard – or slander millions upon millions of (not just personal thoughts, but) personalities? Our own sense of knowing is too important to us, to the point where (philosophically) actually knowing is something we’d be uncomfortable with anyway. So is philosophy even about finding true answers at all? Evidently it’s more about finding answers that are true to us. So… the only thing philosophy needs for objective value is human beings? How about that?