“Philosophers dearly love to call their utterances "truths", since in that guise they become binding upon us all. But each philosopher invents his own truths. Which means that he asks his pupils to deceive themselves in the way he shows, but that he reserves for himself the option of deceiving himself in his own way. Why? Why not allow everyone to deceive himself just as he likes?” {Lev Shestov, from All Things Are Possible}
As the above quote suggests, not everyone values philosophy. Dave Ellis, although himself a graduate student in philosophy, acknowledges the field’s primary shortcoming: “Philosophy,” he explains in an article at Aeon, “cannot resolve the question, ‘How should we live?’” Since most people consider that to be precisely philosophy’s purview, Ellis invites the question—"Philosophy, what is it good for?"
The answer is not "Absolutely nothing!" Instead, according to Ellis, the problem here is not with philosophy but with our expectations and with our use or misuse of language:
Questions about the meaning of life and others of a similar kind are often misconstrued by those too ready to think of them as straightforward requests for an objective true answer.
On this reading, “How should we live?” is not a straightforward request for an objective true answer; it is a rhetorical, existential lament from the depths of our soul. And speaking of “soul”:
Consider, for example, what atheists mean by ‘soul’ when they refute the cognitive proposition that asserts the literal existence of souls, in comparison with what I mean when I describe slavery as soul-destroying. If atheists were to argue that slavery cannot be soul-destroying because souls don’t exist, then I would say that there’s a meaning here that’s lost on them by being overly literal. If the statement ‘Slavery is soul-destroying’ is forced into a purely cognitive form, then not only does it misrepresent what I mean to say, it actively prevents me from ever saying it. I want to express something that represents the depth of the sort of experience I’m having: this isn’t a matter of making an implied statement about whether or not souls exist – it’s not affected by the literal existence or non-existence of souls.
If we put “How should we live?” in a human context—the only context in which it is or can be asked—we realize that the person uttering it is not asking for directions to the “Self-Help” section of the local bookstore. As Ellis puts it:
When considering how to answer the question How should we live?, we should first reflect on how it is being asked – is it a cognitive question looking for a literal matter-of-fact answer, or is it also in part a non-cognitive spiritual remark in answer to a particular human, and particularly human, situation? This question, so often asked by us in times of crisis and despair, or love and joy, expresses and indeed defines our sense of humanity.
To define “our sense of humanity” by a perennially unanswered (and possibly unanswerable) question is, in my estimate, the height of wisdom. Let other fields of study give us literal answers to literal questions; philosophy, at its best, is a kind of poetry, and it urges (or should urge) us to follow Rilke’s advice:
“Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
That is how we should philosophize, and that is how we should live.
https://aeon.co/ideas/philosophy-cannot-resolve-the-question-how-should-we-live
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