Why should anyone bother to read philosophy? Isn’t it a nit-picking discipline with no real benefits? I used to have a stock riposte to such views, which I thought presented a pretty good defence.
First, philosophy provides an excellent training in clear thinking. The abilities to reason, to distinguish sense from nonsense and to construct strong arguments can serve one well in many areas of life. There also seems to be something valuable about critically scrutinising the important questions that confront us-as in the famous phrase, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
This engagement with deep issues could even contribute to increased happiness. Thinking philosophically requires one to stand back from things and this puts matters which otherwise might seem urgent and substantial into perspective. As Bertrand Russell put it in the last, rousing chapter of his The Problems of Philosophy, a life without this perspective is “feverish and confined,” by comparison with which the philosophic life is “calm and free.”
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