What is Philosophy?

"No philosophy is true that is not based on science." - Albert Einstein

The term philosophy often gets tossed about without understanding what it actually means. Obtruse and dead weight ideologies confuse the original purpose of philosophy. We have made philosophy a dry and uninteresting discussion filled with a new language that uproots our curiosity and plummets us to a state of banal apathy. 

But, in the beginning philosophy was simply science. The very basics of Philosophy is about understanding reality and explaining how to be as happy as possible. It should not be a deadpan and stale discussion. It is the conversation everybody wants to be part of. It's the conversation of our lives and how to improve them. But happiness is elusive for most because life is at it's core hard. We are born, we suffer and then we die. What's the point of it all anyway?

WHAT IS REAL AND HOW CAN WE KNOW IT? 

They very first question proposed by the ancient thinkers was: "What is real?"  This question is posed in the first branch of Philosophy and the very first step for anyone interested in philosophy must ask. There are those who believe in an unseen world that can be believed by faith. But, a new way of thinking called Empiricism was being used by ancient Greek philosophers. Empiricism owns up to the fact that we are easily misled by imaginings and proposes to put to the test our ideas before they assume credibility. Empiricism is at the very foundation of our modern world today.

It was in ancient Greece that was the cradle for both modern day ideas of the universe and philosophy.  The ancient Greeks probed mysteries by discovering the tools of rational inquiry. The universe was not just a Maya or dream. It was real and it could be studied! The ancient Greek philosophers were the first scientists. Democritus in 400 BC proposed that nature was comprised of atoms and even Aristotle was a biologist.

Empiricism and Logic answered the first question asked by Philosophy.  It seemed such a basic question and is still so important today with so many religions that are basing their way of thinking on another system.

According to modern psychologists, a person who believes in a thing with no evidence is suffering from a delusion. The first step in philosophy is to correct the mind in it's propensity to heed authority and follow the leader. We must ask questions. But, the aspiring philosopher inevitably must ask the next major question proposed by Philosophy: How to achieve happiness?

WHAT IS HAPPINESS? 

To Epicurus, happiness was the most essential goal in life. Since we were children, our goal was to be happy. The very purpose and testing grounds of any natural philosophy is to determine it's effectiveness. That is, does it reduce suffering and increase pleasure? Happiness can come from actively being involved in an activity or simply in contemplation. Finding ones bliss requires a fearless mind and a pain free body. That is why, like a doctor offering you medicine, a philosophy is useful if it achieves giving you happiness.

Science seems to leave us in a cold and meaningless world. A scientist cannot admit to evidence for Karma. No ethereal other world is waiting beyond the grave that we can be certain of. We were born into a world of suffering and then die. What is it all for?

Happiness is systemically a result of the suppression of it's evil twin - suffering. To Buddhism, life was like a dream and produced illusions that meditation could detach you from. Death is also portrayed as some kind of illusion. On the contrary, the Greek thinkers like Epicurus dismissed ideas that have not passed the tests of sound argument as well as empirical evidence. The real way to get rid of suffering is to eliminate false beliefs as a source of mental conflict.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE (384 to 322 BC)


Aristotle
Aristotle was by far the most prolific writer of philosophy with over 500 known books and lecture notes. He introduced rational and skeptical thinking at a time people believed in the Greek Gods. Instead of blind faith, he insisted on the virtue of reason.

Aristotle produced a system of thinking called  Logic. It codified a way to ask the proper questions and how to avoid logical fallacies in reasoning.

The way we know anything about the universe is to ask the right questions and by eliminating bad judgments and dismiss those that do not pass the test of scrutiny. Logic was in part based upon what was called the art of Socratic questioning.

Things that rang untrue included appeals to ignorance, ancient texts, emotional appeals and confusing correlation with confirmation.

In essence, Aristotle’s framework of questions and study was the beginnings of the Scientific Method.

It was important to the ancient Greeks to deeply inquire as to the nature of all things. They were able to admit error and allow others to question their intuitions. With these tools of reasoning, schools of philosophy called the Lyceum sprang up all over Greece. Aristotle went on to research the birth of chicks and the biology and evolution of plants. People started to ask the right questions, admit to error and for the first time get a grasp at knowing the universe without the influence of the Gods of Mount Olympus. Poseidon and Zeus were not behind the lightning bolts. Only random natural elements were at play; elements that could be studied. The Universe became knowable.


Aristotle went on to codify the 5 branches of Philosophy that we use to this today.

Each branch asks a different important question:
Epistemology or Physics: What can we know?
Ethics: How do I promote the greater good? And, what is that good?
Metaphysics: What are the unseen forces?
Politics: How to order society?
Aesthetics: What is beautiful and how to live the good life?

THE PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS

PHILOSOPHY OF PYTHAGORAS - (570 to 475 BC)

The term philosophy is simply a Greek word meaning the "love of knowledge." One of the oldest philosophers that coined this term was Pythagoras. Philosophy was broken out into what was called the Quadrivium.  The Quadrivium was a four part series of instruction in math and science. The universe was described by Pythagoras in terms of numbers and ratios.

The first section of the Quadrivium was arithmetic. It dealt with the relationships of numbers. Adding and subtracting sums allowed the early thinkers to understand how to develop methodologies for dealing with the world in the abstraction of a number. Commerce could be conducted and measurements allowed for comparisons. Arithmetic was the first step to make universe more comprehensible and permitted a person to make comparisons by way of size and amounts.

Pythagoras saw the Universe had natural relationships that followed the ratios of whole numbers. The first 10 numbers created a shape called the Tetractys and was considered the symbol of the Pythogoreans.

                                               

Geometry was the 2nd discipline of the ancient philosophers which taught the principles of spacial relationships among the numbers. Pythagoras is best known for his work in geometry. He is famous for the Pythagorean theorem which states that the areas of squares made using the edges of the sides of a right triangle equals the area formed by a square resting on the hypotenuse.

Geometry allowed the philosopher to go from a 2 dimensional view of the world and look at the 3rd dimension of shapes.


                                         


Once a Pythagorean student understood the principles of geometry, the next school of thought that was studied was music. Pythagoras is credited with first understanding the principles of music and devised the Diatonic scale.

Music teaches us how pleasing harmonies are created by notes that hold geometric relationships to each other. The perfect 5th, for instance, was the harmony created when two notes varied to one another as a 3 to 2 ratio. Everything in the universe appeared to tend towards harmonies and harmonies that could be understood with math.
Math provided an ability to proportion the unseen world of vibrations.




The final study of the ancient school of philosophy was astronomy. By examining the movement and position of the planets, it was proposed that the entire universe was based on harmonies. Pythagoras developed a concept known as the Universalis Musicalis. Similar to modern scientific finding such as those of Maxx Planck it was believed the cosmos is produced from vibrations. These vibrations took on a quality that is similar to those derived in music.

We now know that the orbits of many of the solar system's planets have what is called an orbital resonance. Earth and Venus revolve around the sun in 8:13 ratio. The Galilean moons of Jupiter incredibly revolve in a 1:2:4 ratio.



These relationships are inspiring and lead one to find the cosmos filled with inexplicable harmonies and order. Astronomical discoveries constantly give us a new unbounded territory to find awe and wonder in our existence. One of the most ancient inscriptions can be found on the temple of Delphi and was repeated by Pythagoras: "Know thyself and you will know the universe."



In knowing the Universe, we get to also come to know ourselves. Modern science has now proven that the atoms of our very bodies were forged in the hearts of ancient suns. We know the Higgs Field exists from empirical studies made by the largest machine ever made. The Higgs Field is the stuff that makes matter. It is, as Aristotle would have put in, the unmovable mover. We can know ourselves better than ever before!

Natural Philosophy and Ethics

We have come as a species down a long evolutionary road that has led us from ancient red seas of earth's primacy to animals with a capacity to choose from memory. We are not the only animals that clearly have intelligence, that is the ability to make choices from prior experience. But for the larger part of the Earth's history, only simpler forms of life such as Cyanobacteria dominated the planets life forms.  These simple forms of life are imprisoned by instinct alone with only the need to flourish.

It is the advanced brain that has permitted us to explore and learn by example and mistake by virtue of memories. We now can marshal our memories to tell us if a stream is too deep to wade or if the new version of Windows is worth the long download. We can now peruse our pasts and consider the effect our actions will make on the future. In essence, we have come from the deterministic drudgery of the germ to the free will of the philosopher.

Born of the muck and mire, all life forms gravitate to what allows evolution to take them higher. Pain and pleasure are in the riff to teach us how to walk and avoid the cliff.

The Mind Evolves.

The mind assembles our past in concepts that allow us to understand the principle of causality.  Correlation has often been all too easily confused with causation. But, as Bertrand Russell once said, "Intuitions unsupported and untested are an uncertain guarantee for the truth." Just because a new person came into the village does not mean this person  caused the lighting storm that burned down the town. We must skeptically probe the merits of our beliefs by a diligent examination of the facts. A disciplined mind will renounce beliefs that have no evidence.

From ancient days to the present, philosophers and scientists have asked the essential questions about causality. Our ability to examine the universe is always limited by the tools available to us at the time. Aristotle was one of the first scientists and one of the greatest philosophers of the ancient world. He ascertained that Four Causes exist. Today Quantum Physics offers explanations of other causes for the Four Fundamental Forces. Our evolving knowledge and technologies have dramatically multiplied our abilities to unravel the natural laws of the Universe.

Despite the explosion of science-driven knowledge, our intelligence is still based on simple principles all mammals share. Since the days of the African Savannah, our minds simply learn by the natural rules of pain and pleasure. Our perceptions are simply our interpretations of what is most beneficial from prior experience. As experience grows, our ability to choose becomes enhanced.

Ethics Evolve

Ethics are a natural consequence of the need to preserve the species. We are born as pleasers and want to make our immediate family happy. We also want to see our society happy. However, nature has also given us the impetus to defend ourselves and our properties. Once families became part of tribes, commonly agreed to rules were adopted to protect the natural resources such as water rights and hunting grounds. Population growth places burdens on these resources and these stresses provoke altercations. An instinct to protect a habitat leads one group of animals to defend it.  This inherent territorialism is what provokes our confrontations.

Our long evolutionary history of kill or be killed provides a good context to see where our propensities to harm comes from. Once we dispute over natural resources, our hunter instincts become evident. Civilized societies could only evolve with mutually agreed upon covenants and laws.

As nature is the source of our life and has governed our ascent up the ladder of biological development, we have also developed behaviors that were required for our survival. Self-preservation and the preservation of the species is an instinctual force nature has hard-wired into our DNA.  Our capacity for kindness is inborn like that of the sparrow that tends to its chicks. Without inborn principles of what are  called Ethics, a species would be doomed.

There is no requirement for an ancient text or religion to prescribe the need to love your neighbor as yourself or, as what Immanuel Kant called the Categorical Imperative, which is to act according to a common principle that promotes the highest good. A baby is born with a smile that needs no cajoling from a superstition. We are born in a state of love for our fellows. We were meant to be happy.

Social Contracts Evolve.

The more complicated our society becomes, the further it removes itself from the natural state and the more it wanders from nature's fern strewn trails to be enclosed by concrete and the heady pursuit of unnatural pleasures. Our rules protect the artificial boundaries of how fast to drive or when to stop. These new moral codes are essential to living in the modern world, but it has alienated ourselves from nature and we have forgotten the smiling baby that is inside each and every one of us.

Moral law is a consequence of mankind agreeing to place boundaries on freedoms for the benefit of the tribe or nation. As the world has experienced a population explosion, it has become stripped of its resources; it has become filled with competition for its limited food and land.  Monastic life and "living off the land" has all but faded into the distant memory of our human origins.  Laws and culture evolve alongside our growing technologies and shrinking habitats.


Control the passions say the philosophers.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes characterized humanity as a Leviathan and that civilization requires rules that can be enforced to protect us from ourselves and the "all against all" of nature. Law and order it seems always needed a government. You can take the ape and put him in the city, but deep inside, he is still an ape.

“Covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all.” 
- Thomas Hobbes

It is essential to follow such rules that society has deemed necessary and avoid the penalties of disobedience. The natural philosopher will always defer his priorities to the dictates of nature. Nature demands preservation of the self, of family and of its tribe. The Survival Instinct is the most powerful force of nature that carries the species. The German philosopher Schopenhauer called this force "The Will to Live." It is the need to preserve the species and find a suitable mate that drives us more than anything. Marketers use this knowledge to entice consumers. Consumer buying decisions are hijacked when confronted by powerful imagery that entices our natural propensities.

According to Schopenhauer, we cannot truly set our minds free until we have calmed the monkey brain. This theme of temperance is not a new one. It is common to most religions. We strive to be in control over the animal bodies we reside in. It is the nature of prudence to live in charge of the emotions. Once we have satisfied the needs of the natural calling, we can be set free to explore our world free of our emotional slave masters of appetite and sexual gratification.

Forsake wanting an afterlife. Be grateful you have this one.

For many centuries, people have been led to believe that this life is only a preparation for another one. People have been cowed to accept unfounded beliefs that have enslaved and humiliated the human condition. Dogma has kept people subservient to unjust rulers and has kept us living the one and only real life we will ever have.

Led by such luminaries of science such as Isaac Newton and Galileo, people became aware of the fallacy of many popular beliefs. Newton dispelled the popular concept of gravity by deriving it's mathematical principles in his book The Principia. Galileo challenged the biblical belief of the geocentric model of the solar system with his observations through one of the first telescopes. The skeptical inquiry of the Renaissance pushed back the walls of dogma and permitted the discoveries of science to advance the knowledge of the cosmos. It is within the framework of the cosmos that we see order as well as ethics emerging (see Wiki reference on Emergence).

The instruments of science have given us the ability to open the windows into our dark dogmatic slumber. Humans can now achieve a state of self-awareness when we consider our ultimate connection to the cosmos. We can construct just laws to allow our species to flourish that are founded on reason and not on comforting fables.

The state of nature is one of happiness.

I see happiness in the birds along the beach basking in the sun. Children are born laughing and wanting to play with each other. People don't need the 10 Commandments to know that killing is wrong. Nor do we need to fear bad karma in another life for our actions in this one. It is this very life that rewards and punishes our behavior. We were born with an ethical sentiment.

However, in an ever more complicated world, new laws fill up dusty law libraries each passing day. Only an attorney with an adequate grasp of jurisprudence and the intricate rules of his specialty could have any sense of modern ethics.  Anyone who has had a tax audit might be aware of how complicated the rules of right and wrong have become. 

But, remember the basics and be careful not to be overwhelmed to the point of forgetting how to just be calm again. Contentment and calm are, after-all, achievable. They are found at the balance between the heady pursuit of joy and the requirements of the day. 

Embedded into the instinctive human sentiments is the joy of kindness. We share in the happiness that we can give to others. We yearn to make another human smile. Our lowly animal sensibilities drive us to need acceptance. This is the underlying psychological force that creates the conditions for a civilized society. The sociologist Desmond Morris tells us in his book The Human Zoo that it is when we take animals out of their natural environments that aberrant social behaviors emerge.

Nature also delivers us the blow of guilt and regret if our actions are not honorable. We have a built-in error detection system that has evolved in the monkey brain. We don't want to disappoint. It leads to alienation. The French philosopher Jean Rousseau called humans social animals. We feel remorse for actions that take away the happiness of others. In the final analysis, it is pain and pleasure that teaches us the natural way to behave. The best actions are those that promote the highest happiness and it is nature that has already given us the ability to achieve it. The good state represents the rational element in us all. It rules under what Immanuel Kant called "a universally valid will under which everyone can be free."

The reward for ethical living is happiness.

Joy is the reward an ethical life will naturally bring. We are ebullient with our friends and share laughter with them. We were never born sinners. We were born innocent with a desire to please and to be happy. It is ingratitude and vanity that starts the engines of discontentment. 

As Epicurus said:  

"The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure, but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity." (Principle Doctrine #15)