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Single Idea 2845
[filed under theme 1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
]
Full Idea
To be constantly asking 'what is the use of it?' is unbecoming to those of great soul, and unworthy of free men.
Gist of Idea
Free and great-souled men do not keep asking "what is the use of it?"
Source
Aristotle (Politics [c.332 BCE], 1338b01)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Politics', ed/tr. Sinclair,T.A. /Saunders,T. [Penguin 1992], p.457
A Reaction
Love this one! It is not just philosophers who keep hearing this question. Pure mathematics, history, literature, even carpentry if you are not going to be a carpenter.
The
33 ideas
with the same theme
[philosophy aims to understand the (human) world]:
24224
|
An unexamined life is not worth living.
[Plato]
|
21360
|
Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts
[Aristotle]
|
2845
|
Free and great-souled men do not keep asking "what is the use of it?"
[Aristotle]
|
1767
|
Everyone should study philosophy until they see all people in the same light
[Crates of Thebes, by Diog. Laertius]
|
22758
|
Philosophy aims at a happy life, through argument and discussion
[Epicurus]
|
20867
|
True philosophising is not memorising ideas, but living by them
[Stoic school, by Stobaeus]
|
13293
|
What philosophy offers humanity is guidance
[Seneca]
|
13317
|
Philosophy aims at happiness
[Seneca]
|
20876
|
Philosophy investigates the causes of disagreements, and seeks a standard for settling them
[Epictetus]
|
23269
|
Philosophy must start from clearly observed facts
[Galen]
|
22101
|
Philosophy aims to know the truth about the way things are
[Aquinas]
|
22026
|
Philosophy is homesickness - the urge to be at home everywhere
[Novalis]
|
21970
|
Philosophy attains its goal if one person feels perfect accord between their system and experience
[Fichte]
|
19442
|
I don't study Plato for his own sake; the primary aim is always understanding
[Feuerbach]
|
5300
|
Philosophers have interpreted the world, but the point is to change it
[Marx]
|
23027
|
Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative
[Green,TH, by Muirhead]
|
19228
|
Sciences concern existence, but philosophy also concerns potential existence
[Peirce]
|
24142
|
What matters is how humans can be developed
[Nietzsche]
|
2930
|
The main aim of philosophy must be to determine the order of rank among values
[Nietzsche]
|
14885
|
The first aim of a philosopher is a life, not some works
[Nietzsche]
|
14887
|
You should only develop a philosophy if you are willing to live by it
[Nietzsche]
|
23025
|
Philosophers should be more inductive, and test results by their conclusions, not their self-evidence
[Russell]
|
18005
|
Philosophy aims to become more disciplined about categories
[Ryle]
|
21845
|
Philosophy aims to become the official language, supporting orthodoxy and the state
[Deleuze]
|
2352
|
The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions
[Putnam]
|
20962
|
Habermas seems to make philosophy more democratic
[Habermas, by Bowie]
|
19066
|
Philosophy aims to understand the world, through ordinary experience and science
[Dummett]
|
16281
|
Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense
[Lewis]
|
3798
|
An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one
[Dennett]
|
8242
|
Philosophy aims at what is interesting, remarkable or important - not at knowledge or truth
[Deleuze/Guattari]
|
9327
|
Organisms understand their worlds better if they understand themselves
[Gulick]
|
18559
|
Philosophy is empty if it does not in some way depend on matters of fact
[Machery]
|
23531
|
Philosophers should interpret the world, by expressing its possibilities
[Berardi]
|