World Philosophy Day | "Philosophy: Why?" by Artur Ilharco Galvão
Two questions frequently asked to philosophers are: "what is philosophy?" and "what is the purpose of philosophy?". Unlike other areas of knowledge - physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology, communication sciences, etc. - philosophy seems to find itself in a perpetual need to explain and justify itself. However, this is not a recent trend. Thales of Miletus, usually identified as the first philosopher, was censured on the grounds that his poverty stemmed from the uselessness of philosophy. In response, Thales made use of his knowledge of astronomy to predict a good harvest of olive oil and thus, after renting the oil mills of Miletus and Chios, obtained a large sum of money.
History has been fertile in episodes where philosophers are mocked and continually questioned about the justification of the usefulness and/or pertinence of their field for society and/or humanity. What can be said in this regard? How good can philosophy be?
To answer we should rather think: what criteria should be employed to (in)validate philosophy? Should these be expressed in lay or philosophical language? For example, appealing to criteria of external utility makes no sense. Whoever asks "how good is philosophy?" places himself, not outside, but within the philosophical process, insofar as he is raising an eminently philosophical question.
Our culture and our daily lives are made up of philosophical assumptions, theses, arguments, questioning, beliefs and actions. For example, if today we look at our body as an organic machine that can be healed, manipulated and transformed, we owe much to the works of La Mettrie and Descartes. They taught us to see ourselves as human-machine beings. So when we say 'we've popped our top', 'we're fuming' or 'our body is in the room, but our mind is far away', we are assuming and continuing that very image.
Our everyday lives are deeply marked by philosophy, so the distinction between those within it and those outside it is misleading. The task of academic philosophers is not, and should not be, estranged from the world of common sense. On the contrary, they seek to make explicit, in a more rigorous and technical way, the questions and answers that all of us (professional and non-professional philosophers) continually ask or pose. Thus, the choice is not between doing or not doing philosophy, but between doing it well or badly. Academic philosophy aspires to excellence in research and to making available to non-academic-philosophers the resources to achieve excellence in their multiple endeavours and personal lives by providing them with the concepts and techniques to do so.
One might object: Didn't societies and human beings exist before philosophy? Is it not possible to live without philosophy? Of course it is! The possibility of its disappearance is real. However, life would not be the same. Pre-philosophical societies tended to be societies marked by closed, superstitious and uncritically dogmatic thinking. And if we are currently witnessing the return of fragmentation, polarisation and tribalisation of discourse and public space, much is due to a growing tendency to minimise and discredit philosophical reflection. However, as Socrates wisely states: "a life without thinking is not worth living".