Why should I read about philosophy?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I'm not sure this question belongs here. It's clearly an open-ended question that probably does not have a canonical answer. I would like to ask you to help me restate this question in a better way if possible. I will understand if the question is closed or deleted, but I want to ask it because it has been bothering me for a very long time.

My knowledge of philosophy is probably only a bit greater than an average person's. I am a trained mathematician so I have the basic knowledge of mathematical logic. I know more or less what modal logic is, but I definitely don't know much about it. I find these interesting. I think I also understand what ethics, esthetics, epistemology and ontology are. I've read about most of the most important philosophers, but I've read little of them.

Now what I've read has put me off. A lot of it looked to me like statements made just because they'd appeared in the author's mind, and the author had found it necessary to spit them out without critical examination. It looked to me as if the philosophers I was reading had liked to state things without any attempt at proof and use words without any attempt at defintion. And often when there were attempts, they seemed to me to fail. I've seen the word "perfection" used in proofs of God's existence, and any child knows this word doesn't really mean much. It has meaning, but it is vague and clearly -- to me -- unfit for rigorous demonstration. And they would say things like "Existence is perfection." Why on Earth would they say that? What does it mean? How do you prove such a statement? Similar questions start filling my head whenever I read anything about ethics.

I've read a bit of medieval philosophers from France and England. It was some time ago, and I've lost the book since, so I can't recall the specifics, but I remember my impression. And it was disbelief mixed with horror. The arguments I saw there didn't make any sense to me at all.

As a mathematician, I understand and can appreciate axiomatic theories. I have no problem with someone making a statement without proof, as long as they don't assert that the statement is true. I can understand "Let's make a statement and see what follows from it, just for the hell of it."

So why should I be interested in reading more? Am I being too harsh or maybe completely wrong in my opinion about what I've read? If I am, what do I misunderstand? If I'm not, why is such silliness seriously considered and produced to this day?

Please understand that I don't mean to sound conceited. I know I know little about the matter, and I understand my opinions may be ill-informed. This is why I'm asking this question, not in order to give vent to my misguided anger.

Perhaps a better title for my question would be "How does a philosophical reasoning work?", but I know philosophy is too vast a subject for such a question to be answerable.

manpreet 2 years ago