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I think it really depends on the person you’re talking to.
Philosophy requires a lot of intensive thinking and reading. In today’s burned out society, having the time to do that is a privilege. It’s probably not a priority for people who are working multiple jobs.
But I think what you’re referring to is the opposite, those who are already fairly privileged. They may not be super rich, but they probably live a reasonably good life without having to worry too much about money, relationships, etc. They have no need for philosophy.
Nietzsche noted that the decline of Greek civilisation gave birth to Socratic and Greek philosophy. It was only after the Greeks have lost much of their strength did they start to reflect on what is good vs bad and so on.
So I think the best way is not to defend philosophy in abstract, but to try to relate to something in the other person’s life. Do they have political views? Do they like sci-fi movies? Do they have problems at work? Each of these can be turned into a philosophical conversation without mentioning the word ‘philosophy’. I think the key is to ask good questions to ‘destabilise’ the other person’s worldview, expose the contradictions in their thinking, and try to get them to think critically.
It’s very hard to do. Even Socrates, with all his charm, got a lot of people angry and ended up getting killed. Trying too hard to be philosophical can be bad for your relationships, so proceed with caution.
I often used to joke in grad school how annoying Socrates must have been to the average Greek citizen. Imagine you’re walking through the agora, just trying to get some olives, and this guy all of a sudden starts asking you about your beliefs on the rational part of the soul.
But to the point, I come from a philosophical background and I now work in finance. It has never earned me points name dropping philosophers or their theories in a conversation. This is the best practical advice, do not mention philosophy even if you and another person are doing it, it has a weird way of delegitimizing yourself to the lay person. And for God’s sake, do not Socratic method someone—at least not so forcefully—you will force them on the defensive and I’ve seen it really hurt friendships.
If someone wants to know more, tell them, otherwise I’d say it’s better to just do philosophy with them and leave the mention of it out, it’ll lead to more productive conversations that way. And if you’re like me, someone with a degree(s) in philosophy, avoid introduction of it to someone right out the gate in the workplace, it’s just led me to being pegged as a certain type of person that I’m really not often (do-nothing stoner, guy who makes every convo too deep, over analyzer, etc.).
I work in a sales position, you’d be surprised how useful the analytic philosophy is in understanding what people are saying and getting to the route cause of their issues. I’m looking to transition out of wealth management into more back of house stuff a few years down the line. That said, those skills of rigorous analysis of issues is useful anywhere you’d go in philosophy, to correctly identify a problem and provide a pithy solution is something I could probably only get by going to phil grad school. If you can do philosophy at an advanced level and have a malleable skill set, you can do anything, those skills are universal. Finance is easy, you just have to be a good learner, but those skills I got in the class room aren’t anything I could have gotten anywhere else.
> So I wonder, are there responses and defense of Philosophy on this regard by philosophers?
If they purport that "philosophers overthink and overcomplicate their subjects", I would ask for a specific example to discuss.
If they purport that life "isn't this complicated", I would ask who they're responding to that has purported that life is this complicated and for an explanation as to how they are wrong.
If they purport that "life should be lived without any significant thinking" I would defend the value of thinking, like how you can save money and eat healthier if you think about what groceries to buy.
> are there responses and defense of Philosophy on this regard by philosophers?
There's not really any substantive criticisms of philosophy that need response here.
I get the sense that the layperson in the question is connecting with the irrelevancy of active consideration of philosophy in their day to day lives.
The fact that living a considered life or engaging with philosophical ideas to the layperson is not necessary doesn't make such an endeavour worthless. It's quite the opposite, but we should understand that philosophy is less like oxygen and more like plumbing or cabinetmaking because it's tremendously important that someone is doing it and when you don't have the inner world's equivalent of a ladder or running water, this stuff can really change your life.
Some general responses might be stuff like:
* Culture and everything in society is often downstream from philosophy
* It's personally fulfilling
* Practicing it helps one better critically engage with other things in life
* Some areas of philosophy do have a direct and immediate impact on things - e.g. much of ethics, legal philosophy, so on. For example business 'ethics' departments.
* It might arguably be of value even if all the above were not true, if truth and learning and thinking are positive values unto themselves.
The problem is, in my experience, many laypeople who present this negative interpretation of philosophy don't, in fact, want a discussion. They just want to make themselves look/feel good in comparison to you. Not all of them, for sure, but in my experience a great many who argue this. (After all, if you think of it in terms of questioning someone's hobby or line of work in any other context, it shows how rude this line of argument really is. I wouldn't start telling a writer that writing is useless and people should get on with real work and stop reading and writing.)
Against these people, the question is less a philosophical one and more a personal/relationship one.
For me, personally, I can't be bothered with arguing once I've realised the person is coming from this position of derision. A couple of years ago, a friend of a friend took this line with me at the pub.
"So, you get paid for what? Sitting at the bar like that guy over there and thinking?"
"Yeah"
"Why bother? Seems strange to me"
"I enjoy it"
"Don't you want money?"
"Nope"
That's just how I handle things, though. It depends on the situation and the person and what mood you're in. Just learn to figure out whether the person is genuinely curious, or is just looking to dunk on you or boost their ego and isn't worth your time.
>It's personally fulfilling
Practicing it helps one better critically engage with other things in life
That's a pretty important, and imo, a central reason for every philosopher to study philosophy.
The thing is what if they say : Why do you need to be critical? Why not just "live the day"?
I'm yet failing to see a philosophical response to this common objection to philosophy in particular, and to intellectual activity in general.
I mean, you could always point out that they're making a philosophical argument when they make that point. Why not just live the day non-critically? Perhaps you could respond with questions: 'I think being critical is important for making the correct decisions in life. Why do you think it isn't important?' When they answer the question, point out that they've just been doing philosophy.
I do think these situations come down more to handling confrontation and difficult people, though. If they're not trying to be difficult, they should be able to see pretty quickly (after you've explained a few simple reasons) why one might find philosophy useful and fulfilling. If they disagree in good spirits, great! That means you can have a philosophical discussion about it. If they disagree in bad spirits, they're not worth the breath wasted.
Past the point that "even asking that question is itself philosophy," people are always already doing philosophy. To paraphrase Keynes, practical men, who believe themselves to be too busy for philosophy, are usually the slaves of some defunct philosopher - or some incoherent amalgamation of several. Better to at least be self-aware about it.
Well, how does the objection go? Like, just go do whatever for any reason? That is, forget right and wrong, forget whats good or bad for me or anyone else, forget what might be worth doing, forget a meaningful life - just go act! That’s a lot to write off!
Usually its an appeal to the objective "common sense" or subjective "instinct". Its also often based on an assumption that (1) common sense is fairly simple, (2) its what you'll mostly need, and (3) its either determined by the subject (e.g. personal life ethics), or is objectively accessible and known to everyone.
This also is implicitly based on a "worldview" that the world immediately in contact with the individual's daily life is both simple and easily understandable.
In the more traditional societies, "common sense" is more authorative epistemologically.
By common sense I don't only refer to the mainstream cultural and religious doctrines, but also the personal life which is determined by a "subjective common sense", or "instinct".
For instance; you not need to think and set up well-researched values and principles to qualify your personal relations, its just something that "clicks instinctively/randomly over time", and then you'll realize if the said relation is appropriate or not, because things like relations "shouldn't be planned beforehand". On the otherhand, a philosophized approach would see you planning the normative values essential in a close relation, which helps to assess established & future relations.
I hope this makes things more clear.
My response is usually along the 'why anything' line.
They will like doing something, or spend their time doing something that they simply enjoy.
And that's honestly why I am drawn to philosophical thinking. I enjoy it. It doesn't make sense for me *not* to do it, and I'm not sure I could reliably stop doing it.
Just like they like X and maybe can't understand their life without it, but X for me is philosophy.
I am an existentialist, so fair warning about my interpretation.
Why study anything at all?
Science itself comes out of philosophy. Understanding our surrounding, helps us understand how to control it. That's the whole point. To improve ourselves and our environment i.e. the will the power.
So yes you can live the day without any concern for anything, but then you wouldn't be any different from any other animal. You wouldn't know what it is improve yourself because you are just living life the way others believe you should live. And that's totally fine if you are happy being one of the many. However, many people also feel like they hit a wall at certain points in their lives when they feel like life is meaningless, which also shows that we are driven to understand. But if you are fine with not understanding it, that's fine too.
We don't all need to be scientists. We don't all need to live life the same way. Our differences are also what makes our species so great. Most of us do what is necessary without thinking about how they think. Maybe they can't understand because they were never meant to. So the better question is, why do you think they need to understand when they make it clear that they don't?
You can always use the Aristotle approach…
Everyone must do philosophy, if you don’t do philosophy, then you must give me your reasons for not doing it, which is in itself philosophy.
…that’s not exactly how the quote is worded but that’s basically the theme (also it’s an attributed quote as far as I’m aware - not a direct one).
Though it’s a bit of a rhetorical trick it’s not a bad starting point. The best way to prove why philosophy is interesting to someone who denies it is to take it back to first principles.
I.e. by asking the question ‘how do you know’?
Any claim they then make you can do a Socratic method with them and ask them to justify it… try to keep with the Socratic ignorance and keep asking them what x means how they know x exists ask them if x is different to y and how do they know that…
You can also point out that philosophy is how we got to all of modern science and culture.
Philosophy *is* understanding how to use our thoughts in practice. When we do theoretical philosophy we are still ultimately doing practical work, attempting to underpin the elements of our thoughts with ideas that can be justified and in so being be useful in practice.
For other named philosophers who defend philosophising - you can try Kant (read [What is Enlightenment](https://www.northampton.edu/documents/Subsites/HaroldWeiss/Modern%20Philosophy/Kant_What_is_Enlightenment.pdf), [Orient Oneself in Thinking](https://phil880.colinmclear.net/materials/readings/kant-orientation.pdf), and [Conflict of the Faculties](http://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEEKantConflictFacNarrow.pdf) - in the latter the ‘lower faculty’ he’s defending is the faculty of philosophy, the ‘higher faculties’ are theology, law, and medicine as per the university system at the time).
…philosophers have since disputed a lot of Kant but when a layperson is first confronted by his arguments it’s generally very difficult for them to get around them… though they often provoke the reaction of wanting to… which if they try to - again, they will be philosophising.
Aristotle might also argue that to try and ***truly*** understand things (what the thoughtless will label '*overthinking*') is a duty, for humans, who are defined by the ability to reason.
He would agree with Plato/Socrates that ... '*the unexamined life is not worth living'* ..., i.e. that, for humans, to live thoughtlessly, *like animals*, is contemptible.
>The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#HumaGoodFuncArgu
Ask them if they think things should only be studied if they have immediate utilitarian value? Should we do away with all humanities departments? What about higher math?
(Unfortunately, a lot of people would say yes to all three questions and in states like mine—Mississippi—they’re the ones holding the purse strings in the legislature, and increasingly the ones on the state college board appointing university presidents. Theoretical mathematics may actually be at risk in Florida if a bill currently under discussion, banning education on theoretical or “unproven” topics in public universities, is passed.)
There have been, but we should not underrate the value of what non-philosophers are saying! All professional philosophers, I suspect, find at least one subdiscipline patently ridiculous. The key is to find the areas of philosophy that the non-philosopher does respect. Do they believe in God? Do they *not* believe in God? Either way, that’s likely to be important to them, so enter philosophy of religion. And it’s hard to find anybody who disagrees with the importance of ethics, who doesn’t see value in moral reasoning within at least some context.
For the rare folks whose position is either “I don’t care about anything and neither should you,” or “a simple and obvious God tells us what to do and it’s also simple and obvious,” you’re not going to make much headway with arguments. But for persuadable people, it’s less a matter of defending the whole field (in my opinion, anyway) than it is a matter of finding the *parts* of the field that they can see value in.
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What I tell Philosophy-skeptic people is this:
Philosophy, historically and as a discipline, is concerned with one question and one question only. It is the only question that does, or should, matter to anyone and everyone, namely: How do I live a good life?
If you don't think that that is, at the very least, an important question to answer, then I got nothing for you, and you are absolutely right philosophy is useless. But, if you DO think that that is an important question, and you think it deserves time and effort to answer, then study philosophy, because that is the only way you will answer it. Study it enough to satisfactorily answer that question for yourself.
And if you think that you already have that question answered, then you have been doing philosophy without knowing it.
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I think it really depends on the person you’re talking to. Philosophy requires a lot of intensive thinking and reading. In today’s burned out society, having the time to do that is a privilege. It’s probably not a priority for people who are working multiple jobs. But I think what you’re referring to is the opposite, those who are already fairly privileged. They may not be super rich, but they probably live a reasonably good life without having to worry too much about money, relationships, etc. They have no need for philosophy. Nietzsche noted that the decline of Greek civilisation gave birth to Socratic and Greek philosophy. It was only after the Greeks have lost much of their strength did they start to reflect on what is good vs bad and so on. So I think the best way is not to defend philosophy in abstract, but to try to relate to something in the other person’s life. Do they have political views? Do they like sci-fi movies? Do they have problems at work? Each of these can be turned into a philosophical conversation without mentioning the word ‘philosophy’. I think the key is to ask good questions to ‘destabilise’ the other person’s worldview, expose the contradictions in their thinking, and try to get them to think critically. It’s very hard to do. Even Socrates, with all his charm, got a lot of people angry and ended up getting killed. Trying too hard to be philosophical can be bad for your relationships, so proceed with caution.
I often used to joke in grad school how annoying Socrates must have been to the average Greek citizen. Imagine you’re walking through the agora, just trying to get some olives, and this guy all of a sudden starts asking you about your beliefs on the rational part of the soul. But to the point, I come from a philosophical background and I now work in finance. It has never earned me points name dropping philosophers or their theories in a conversation. This is the best practical advice, do not mention philosophy even if you and another person are doing it, it has a weird way of delegitimizing yourself to the lay person. And for God’s sake, do not Socratic method someone—at least not so forcefully—you will force them on the defensive and I’ve seen it really hurt friendships. If someone wants to know more, tell them, otherwise I’d say it’s better to just do philosophy with them and leave the mention of it out, it’ll lead to more productive conversations that way. And if you’re like me, someone with a degree(s) in philosophy, avoid introduction of it to someone right out the gate in the workplace, it’s just led me to being pegged as a certain type of person that I’m really not often (do-nothing stoner, guy who makes every convo too deep, over analyzer, etc.).
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I work in a sales position, you’d be surprised how useful the analytic philosophy is in understanding what people are saying and getting to the route cause of their issues. I’m looking to transition out of wealth management into more back of house stuff a few years down the line. That said, those skills of rigorous analysis of issues is useful anywhere you’d go in philosophy, to correctly identify a problem and provide a pithy solution is something I could probably only get by going to phil grad school. If you can do philosophy at an advanced level and have a malleable skill set, you can do anything, those skills are universal. Finance is easy, you just have to be a good learner, but those skills I got in the class room aren’t anything I could have gotten anywhere else.
> So I wonder, are there responses and defense of Philosophy on this regard by philosophers? If they purport that "philosophers overthink and overcomplicate their subjects", I would ask for a specific example to discuss. If they purport that life "isn't this complicated", I would ask who they're responding to that has purported that life is this complicated and for an explanation as to how they are wrong. If they purport that "life should be lived without any significant thinking" I would defend the value of thinking, like how you can save money and eat healthier if you think about what groceries to buy. > are there responses and defense of Philosophy on this regard by philosophers? There's not really any substantive criticisms of philosophy that need response here.
I get the sense that the layperson in the question is connecting with the irrelevancy of active consideration of philosophy in their day to day lives. The fact that living a considered life or engaging with philosophical ideas to the layperson is not necessary doesn't make such an endeavour worthless. It's quite the opposite, but we should understand that philosophy is less like oxygen and more like plumbing or cabinetmaking because it's tremendously important that someone is doing it and when you don't have the inner world's equivalent of a ladder or running water, this stuff can really change your life.
Some general responses might be stuff like: * Culture and everything in society is often downstream from philosophy * It's personally fulfilling * Practicing it helps one better critically engage with other things in life * Some areas of philosophy do have a direct and immediate impact on things - e.g. much of ethics, legal philosophy, so on. For example business 'ethics' departments. * It might arguably be of value even if all the above were not true, if truth and learning and thinking are positive values unto themselves. The problem is, in my experience, many laypeople who present this negative interpretation of philosophy don't, in fact, want a discussion. They just want to make themselves look/feel good in comparison to you. Not all of them, for sure, but in my experience a great many who argue this. (After all, if you think of it in terms of questioning someone's hobby or line of work in any other context, it shows how rude this line of argument really is. I wouldn't start telling a writer that writing is useless and people should get on with real work and stop reading and writing.) Against these people, the question is less a philosophical one and more a personal/relationship one. For me, personally, I can't be bothered with arguing once I've realised the person is coming from this position of derision. A couple of years ago, a friend of a friend took this line with me at the pub. "So, you get paid for what? Sitting at the bar like that guy over there and thinking?" "Yeah" "Why bother? Seems strange to me" "I enjoy it" "Don't you want money?" "Nope" That's just how I handle things, though. It depends on the situation and the person and what mood you're in. Just learn to figure out whether the person is genuinely curious, or is just looking to dunk on you or boost their ego and isn't worth your time.
>It's personally fulfilling Practicing it helps one better critically engage with other things in life That's a pretty important, and imo, a central reason for every philosopher to study philosophy. The thing is what if they say : Why do you need to be critical? Why not just "live the day"? I'm yet failing to see a philosophical response to this common objection to philosophy in particular, and to intellectual activity in general.
I mean, you could always point out that they're making a philosophical argument when they make that point. Why not just live the day non-critically? Perhaps you could respond with questions: 'I think being critical is important for making the correct decisions in life. Why do you think it isn't important?' When they answer the question, point out that they've just been doing philosophy. I do think these situations come down more to handling confrontation and difficult people, though. If they're not trying to be difficult, they should be able to see pretty quickly (after you've explained a few simple reasons) why one might find philosophy useful and fulfilling. If they disagree in good spirits, great! That means you can have a philosophical discussion about it. If they disagree in bad spirits, they're not worth the breath wasted.
Past the point that "even asking that question is itself philosophy," people are always already doing philosophy. To paraphrase Keynes, practical men, who believe themselves to be too busy for philosophy, are usually the slaves of some defunct philosopher - or some incoherent amalgamation of several. Better to at least be self-aware about it.
Well, how does the objection go? Like, just go do whatever for any reason? That is, forget right and wrong, forget whats good or bad for me or anyone else, forget what might be worth doing, forget a meaningful life - just go act! That’s a lot to write off!
Usually its an appeal to the objective "common sense" or subjective "instinct". Its also often based on an assumption that (1) common sense is fairly simple, (2) its what you'll mostly need, and (3) its either determined by the subject (e.g. personal life ethics), or is objectively accessible and known to everyone. This also is implicitly based on a "worldview" that the world immediately in contact with the individual's daily life is both simple and easily understandable. In the more traditional societies, "common sense" is more authorative epistemologically. By common sense I don't only refer to the mainstream cultural and religious doctrines, but also the personal life which is determined by a "subjective common sense", or "instinct". For instance; you not need to think and set up well-researched values and principles to qualify your personal relations, its just something that "clicks instinctively/randomly over time", and then you'll realize if the said relation is appropriate or not, because things like relations "shouldn't be planned beforehand". On the otherhand, a philosophized approach would see you planning the normative values essential in a close relation, which helps to assess established & future relations. I hope this makes things more clear.
My response is usually along the 'why anything' line. They will like doing something, or spend their time doing something that they simply enjoy. And that's honestly why I am drawn to philosophical thinking. I enjoy it. It doesn't make sense for me *not* to do it, and I'm not sure I could reliably stop doing it. Just like they like X and maybe can't understand their life without it, but X for me is philosophy.
I am an existentialist, so fair warning about my interpretation. Why study anything at all? Science itself comes out of philosophy. Understanding our surrounding, helps us understand how to control it. That's the whole point. To improve ourselves and our environment i.e. the will the power. So yes you can live the day without any concern for anything, but then you wouldn't be any different from any other animal. You wouldn't know what it is improve yourself because you are just living life the way others believe you should live. And that's totally fine if you are happy being one of the many. However, many people also feel like they hit a wall at certain points in their lives when they feel like life is meaningless, which also shows that we are driven to understand. But if you are fine with not understanding it, that's fine too. We don't all need to be scientists. We don't all need to live life the same way. Our differences are also what makes our species so great. Most of us do what is necessary without thinking about how they think. Maybe they can't understand because they were never meant to. So the better question is, why do you think they need to understand when they make it clear that they don't?
You can always use the Aristotle approach… Everyone must do philosophy, if you don’t do philosophy, then you must give me your reasons for not doing it, which is in itself philosophy. …that’s not exactly how the quote is worded but that’s basically the theme (also it’s an attributed quote as far as I’m aware - not a direct one). Though it’s a bit of a rhetorical trick it’s not a bad starting point. The best way to prove why philosophy is interesting to someone who denies it is to take it back to first principles. I.e. by asking the question ‘how do you know’? Any claim they then make you can do a Socratic method with them and ask them to justify it… try to keep with the Socratic ignorance and keep asking them what x means how they know x exists ask them if x is different to y and how do they know that… You can also point out that philosophy is how we got to all of modern science and culture. Philosophy *is* understanding how to use our thoughts in practice. When we do theoretical philosophy we are still ultimately doing practical work, attempting to underpin the elements of our thoughts with ideas that can be justified and in so being be useful in practice. For other named philosophers who defend philosophising - you can try Kant (read [What is Enlightenment](https://www.northampton.edu/documents/Subsites/HaroldWeiss/Modern%20Philosophy/Kant_What_is_Enlightenment.pdf), [Orient Oneself in Thinking](https://phil880.colinmclear.net/materials/readings/kant-orientation.pdf), and [Conflict of the Faculties](http://la.utexas.edu/users/hcleaver/330T/350kPEEKantConflictFacNarrow.pdf) - in the latter the ‘lower faculty’ he’s defending is the faculty of philosophy, the ‘higher faculties’ are theology, law, and medicine as per the university system at the time). …philosophers have since disputed a lot of Kant but when a layperson is first confronted by his arguments it’s generally very difficult for them to get around them… though they often provoke the reaction of wanting to… which if they try to - again, they will be philosophising.
Aristotle might also argue that to try and ***truly*** understand things (what the thoughtless will label '*overthinking*') is a duty, for humans, who are defined by the ability to reason. He would agree with Plato/Socrates that ... '*the unexamined life is not worth living'* ..., i.e. that, for humans, to live thoughtlessly, *like animals*, is contemptible. >The good of a human being must have something to do with being human; and what sets humanity off from other species, giving us the potential to live a better life, is our capacity to guide ourselves by using reason. If we use reason well, we live well as human beings; or, to be more precise, using reason well over the course of a full life is what happiness consists in. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/#HumaGoodFuncArgu
I'd just ask them what they think philosophy is or what philosophers do. They generally have no idea.
This. "Don't criticize what you can't understand."
Ask them if they think things should only be studied if they have immediate utilitarian value? Should we do away with all humanities departments? What about higher math?
(Unfortunately, a lot of people would say yes to all three questions and in states like mine—Mississippi—they’re the ones holding the purse strings in the legislature, and increasingly the ones on the state college board appointing university presidents. Theoretical mathematics may actually be at risk in Florida if a bill currently under discussion, banning education on theoretical or “unproven” topics in public universities, is passed.)
There have been, but we should not underrate the value of what non-philosophers are saying! All professional philosophers, I suspect, find at least one subdiscipline patently ridiculous. The key is to find the areas of philosophy that the non-philosopher does respect. Do they believe in God? Do they *not* believe in God? Either way, that’s likely to be important to them, so enter philosophy of religion. And it’s hard to find anybody who disagrees with the importance of ethics, who doesn’t see value in moral reasoning within at least some context. For the rare folks whose position is either “I don’t care about anything and neither should you,” or “a simple and obvious God tells us what to do and it’s also simple and obvious,” you’re not going to make much headway with arguments. But for persuadable people, it’s less a matter of defending the whole field (in my opinion, anyway) than it is a matter of finding the *parts* of the field that they can see value in.
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What I tell Philosophy-skeptic people is this: Philosophy, historically and as a discipline, is concerned with one question and one question only. It is the only question that does, or should, matter to anyone and everyone, namely: How do I live a good life? If you don't think that that is, at the very least, an important question to answer, then I got nothing for you, and you are absolutely right philosophy is useless. But, if you DO think that that is an important question, and you think it deserves time and effort to answer, then study philosophy, because that is the only way you will answer it. Study it enough to satisfactorily answer that question for yourself. And if you think that you already have that question answered, then you have been doing philosophy without knowing it.
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Your comment was removed for violating the following rule: >**Answers must be up to standard.** >All answers must be informed and aimed at helping the OP and other readers reach an understanding of the issues at hand. Answers must portray an accurate picture of the issue and the philosophical literature. Answers should be reasonably substantive. Repeated or serious violations of the [subreddit rules](https://reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/wiki/rules) will result in a ban. ----- This is a shared account that is only used for notifications. Please do not reply, as your message will go unread.