Practical Philosophy - Avoiding Pseudointellectuality

Philosophy. Philosophy is a grand subject, though a certain group of people give it a very bad name. But first, what IS intellectuality? Let's define our terms.

philosophy

1. the rational investigation of the truths and principles of being, knowledge, or conduct.
2. any of the three branches, namely natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and metaphysical philosophy, that are accepted as composing this study.
3. a system of philosophical doctrine: the philosophy of Spinoza.
4. the critical study of the basic principles and concepts of a particular branch of knowledge, esp. with a view to improving or reconstituting them: the philosophy of science.
5. a system of principles for guidance in practical affairs.
6. a philosophical attitude, as one of composure and calm in the presence of troubles or annoyances.

There are many kinds of philosophy, just as listed under entry #2 from dictionary.com. This topic will be covering moral philosophy and metaphysical philosophy as a mix.

So, who are these people who give philosophy (and even intellectuality) a bad name? You can probably guess from the title: pseudointellectuals. If you've had the misfortune to ever be in a debate with one, you've most likely shared the feeling of wanting to beat your head against a wall repeatedly. You can't even argue against them--because they only seem to make sense, but in reality, their arguments are circular and so loosely founded upon real logic, you would have to completely reinstruct them--but they wouldn't listen to you anyway.

It's this kind of person, the pseudointellectual, who incessantly goes in circles, circles, and more circles, thinking that their thoughts and ideas are "profound" or "deep". Many of them love to play with metaphysics and consciousness, holing themself into the idea of "there is no way to prove this is real". This is, in fact, true--you can't prove it real. However, pseudointellectuals will play on this fleeting realm, bringing you down to their level and impressing any uneducated person with their amazing "insight".

I should mention that there are two types of pseudointellectuals: one is the kind with very empty, fluffy knowledge that matters little. They talk about obscure references and books nobody has heard of (perhaps with good reason) and use big words to confound the reader. The second kind actually knows something--and I've never heard of this kind of pseudointellectuality in anything other than metaphysics. They understand the concepts behind it, and they might have done a good deal of reading. Unfortunately, they pitter around at this level, insisting that nothing can ever be truly known, and that life is either meaningless or completely uninterpretable by humans. They tend to be very useless people, for obvious reasons. Postmodernism would be somewhere in between type one and type two.

So, unless your family was killed by ninja-philosophers, don't hate philosophy. Hate the pseudointellectuals who bastardize philosophy and turn it into something ugly for their own egotistic mental arousal. Do you know who John Locke is? (I hope you do.) John Locke was the one whose ideas influenced the Declaration of Independence, which give us what we have now--our natural, inalienable rights: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (John Locke's original rights were life, liberty, and property, but the Declaration changed it a bit.) Many, many other philosophers have contributed to shape the way people think and act today. In fact, every person who thinks about the way things work, wonders, says those what-if's, and questions their own beliefs, and the way the world works is a philosopher.

The issue with most people when they dive deep (possibly too deep for some folks' own good), is they hit that little barrier:

How do I know anything is real?

Of course, there is no way to know anything you experience is really real. You could be in the Matrix right now. Then, the next question arises when you get far enough to realize that morals, in a cosmic sense, have no meaning (from a purely objective, agnostic sense) or difference, aside from the consequences that they may produce. So people grapple with morality constantly, wondering, "what should I do if it doesn't mean anything?"

This doesn't seem very practical or helpful, does it? It's not really practical nor helpful, at all. It tends to leave people spinning in circles, wondering, wondering, completely confused. So, I'm going to just tell you how to get out of this hole:

Problem 1: Is it real?
It doesn't matter whether it's real or not. If it IS real--great! We're in reality now! If it's not real--then you don't really have a choice. You could keep waking up, and waking up, and waking up, and waking up--and you'd never know it's real. It doesn't matter--the best you can do is keep going on with life. Figure out what you can in THIS form of reality. If it seems to be your calling, and you want to actually find out what "real" is--meditation, deep observation and soul-searching would be your best bet. Otherwise, leave it be!

Problem 2: What should I do about my morals?
Keep your morals productive and constructive. While morals may, possibly, not mean anything--they're still very important. Regardless of YOUR morals, other people still have morals--if yours don't match theirs, conflict arises. If other people don't have morals, vengeance and violence breeds, eventually leading to injury and death (or perhaps rapidly instead of eventually). You want to keep your existence alive for as long as possible--so promote the best morals you possibly can. Or, you can just follow the Golden Rule. You wouldn't want others to harm you without reasons, right? So don't do it to others.

These are the two basic rules you can use to avoid falling into a circular pit of useless quandary. Philosophy is important--philosophy governs how we live, how we think, and our goals. Useless philosophy is useless life. If you really don't know what to do about your morals--do what seems right. Make sure it seems absolutely unpenetrable--and there's your pure moral. If you don't know what to do about reality--find out. Do everything you can to find "the Truth". It's out there, waiting for you--or maybe it's in here, waiting for you.

So please, please, please! Apply your philosophy! Use it to make something interesting, something new, something valuable to this generation! We could really use some help--and your spinning around in circles in a muddle doesn't help much (though it can, at times, make interesting study cases).