Philosophy        Penser

I thought long and hard (well, a couple of days...) about whether to include my own home spun armchair philosophical thoughts on these pages. I know a lot of people do on their personal sites. However, after reviewing my reams of notebooks and bookshelves, I decided that most (probably all) of my philosophizing has been in order to understand things better myself. Hmmm... maybe for us amateurs much philosophical thinking, whether metaphysical, scientific, religious, ethical, ontological, epistemological etc. etc. is best pursued by individuals who are unafraid to ask tough questions, look for evidence and test ideas. We should be able to think things through for ourselves. That way it is more real, valuable and actually sinks in. Who knows, we might even discover things. It's not for me to tell you what I think. I'm no expert.

Part of my philosophical thinking has lead me to the rather obvious conclusion that we are not just individuals, but a part of a large group. Interaction and discussion is an important part of our humanity. Hoorah for the Internet then! There are discussion groups and sites galore on anything that you could think of (and many things you haven't thought of - what's the point otherwise?!)

I am undecided on how much philosophy can actually teach in terms of new data about the world, but it can at least open the mind up to many interesting questions and can be a tool for ridding the mind of sloppy thinking.

There are of course other techniques for understanding ourselves and the universe. For example, knowing what's going on around you in the big world, psychology, and my favourite, the scientific method. Let's hope we can keep clear heads and not argue ferociously. Too often we are more afraid of chinks in our world views than we are interested in understanding.

My favourite TV moment was during a late night discussion where two learned philosophers had been invited to discuss a contentious topic (the program was called "Voices - The trouble with truth"). They had both written weighty books on the subject being discussed and the host (John Searle) was expecting a good intellectual battle, which is indeed how it started. However after about 20 minutes of cogent questioned explanation of their respective positions the two philosophers decided that they did agree with each other after all. Poor John Searle was a bit bemused, and one of his Philosopher guests remarked "Well, it appears we agree with each other now. It doesn't make for good television though does it!"

I'm neither responsible for anyone else's thinking, nor their guide. I can, however give some links. Here are some of my favourites. Don't put philosophical questions into my mail box, I'll probably think they are too hard for me - go to one of the discussion boards (you may see me there...maybe on "the philosophers magazine online." Here is an example of one of my discussions there - I'm "slocks" of course.). I'm just putting up these links because I found them to be interesting resources.

Hard at work philosophising...

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