Why? What Philosophy?
Is our quest the search for happiness?
How can we move with clarity in an ever fragmenting state of contradictions?
May we make possible an effective, reasoned, adjustment to the unascertainable?
As joy is overthrown by grief, and pleasure twists to pain, so our struggle to persist endures upkeeping a living philosophy; a mode by which we work and flourish our ideas to action.
Is philosophy then, such a habitual act of searching for knowledge over ignorant opinion? But even to consider such, what are the practical and theoretical means to achieve this
A God of Practice and of Theory?
Adopted everyday philosophy has handed down much circulated proverbial “wisdoms”, quirky rhymes, riddles, teachings, skills or maxims: each coloured by contextual feelings and experiences, described as practical, otherwise, ordinary knowledge.
The theorist, on the other hand, establishes knowledge by principles and laws derived from observable phenomena.
Theories established by observing the unbroken regularity of patters, as the cycles of the sun and moon, the ebb and flow of the tides, the seasonal processions and the cycle of life and death; with growth and decay inbetween.
The unbroken pattern of regularities may form a basis for the claims of “cause and effect”.
(Note an ever increasing adaptation results in the refinement of exactitudes, by measurement, record-keeping and analysis.)
Traditionally, the maxim of philosophy as the pursuit or love of wisdom searches for fundamental knowledge deeper than superficial opinion; the actual condition and sensible appearance of things.
Is there objective purpose to life? Is this question but a pseudo-philosophical inquiry, “the vanity of all vanities”?
Are we free to shape our destiny? Or is all that exists shaped by necessity? Are all our actions and aspirations merely results of physical, chemical and electrical changes and fluctuations in our brain? Or are we determined by an immortal soul?
Are there limits to human knowledge? Is sense perception only an impression of appearances? Is there certainty of what we beleieve to be certain of? Can we “prove” or disprove the existence of God? Is truth “relative”- subjective- to our own faculties and needs?
Before we attempt to resolve such questions, first consider the whole circumstance, by context and by audience: the skene, or background, to which we call reality, and meditate beyond the superficial.
I am no scientist, but may nonetheless apply such a process of observation, experimentation, weighing and measuring, verification and falsifying 'truths' to the perceived material phenomena.
But to even comprehend the quantum property of matter, are we any nearer to understanding how and why there is such stuff as matter: and a more matter, why are we here right now, and where are going?
As simple things evolve adapting complex forms, so endures our developing search to trace the pattern of things, to form an order and a basis for essential laws or principles.
Through facts we may form our starting point: what is objective and verifiably proven evidence, that we may solidify the foundations of our claims. Through faith, we may explore the values and significance of beliefs in the world.
However scientific or metaphysical we come at this, our intentions are alike: however expansive or limited, we are seeking truth over falsity, by what is near as certain and most probable, taking nothing for granted, continuously investigating 'til something ultimate or absolute establishes a claim to be proven or disproved.
The arts, humanities and sciences are ever incomplete.
These are continuously developing branches of knowledge, from theories and practices, that therefore follow on from each generation to the next, and our part of fundamental contribututions are required, more than ever, to bridge our incompleteness by creation, reflection and criticism between endeavours and disciplines.
Hereby, we have our starting point. Commencing our search through various forms of theories and practices of knowledge, in hope of striving wiser; for we are creatures seeking correspondent patterns to each thing.
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