Durant on Pavan Yarahttps://pavanyara.com/tags/durant/Recent content in Durant on Pavan YaraHugo -- gohugo.ioen-USpavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)Pavan YaraSat, 23 Apr 2016 20:58:00 +0530Why Read Philosophy?https://pavanyara.com/blog/why-read-philosophy/Sat, 23 Apr 2016 20:58:00 +0530pavan.yara@gmail.com (Pavan Yara)https://pavanyara.com/blog/why-read-philosophy/<p>There is a pleasure in philosophy, and even a lure in the mirages of metaphysics which every student feels until the coarse necessities of physical existence drag him from the heights of thought into the mart of economic strife and gain. Most of us have known the golden days when philosophy was in fact what Plato called “That dear delight” when the love of modestly elusive truth seemed more glorious than the lust for the ways of the flesh and the dross of the world. “Life has meaning “we feel with Browning –“to find its meaning is my meat and drink”. So much of our lives is meaningless, a self cancelling vacillation and futility we strive with the chaos about us and within but we would believe all the while that there is something vital and significant in us could we but decipher our own souls.</p>There is a pleasure in philosophy, and even a lure in the mirages of metaphysics which every student feels until the coarse necessities of physical existence drag him from the heights of thought into the mart of economic strife and gain. Most of us have known the golden days when philosophy was in fact what Plato called “That dear delight” when the love of modestly elusive truth seemed more glorious than the lust for the ways of the flesh and the dross of the world. “Life has meaning “we feel with Browning –“to find its meaning is my meat and drink”. So much of our lives is meaningless, a self cancelling vacillation and futility we strive with the chaos about us and within but we would believe all the while that there is something vital and significant in us could we but decipher our own souls.

We want to understand “life means for us constantly to transform into light and flame all that we are or meet with” we are “one of those who don’t want millions, but an answer to their questions”. We want to know that little things are little and big things big and realize that fast. We want to see things now as they seem forever –“in the light of eternity”. “To be a philosopher “ said Thoreau “is not merely to have subtle thoughts , nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity independence magnanimity and trust”. Bacon admonishes “Seek ye first the god things of the mind”. Truth will not make us rich but will make us free.

“There is nothing so absurd but that it may be found in the books of the philosophers” said Cicero. Doubtless some philosophers have had all sorts of wisdom except common sense. Science seems to always advance but philosophy seems to lose ground. Every science begins as a philosophy and ends as an art. It arises in hypothesis and ends in achievement. Philosophy is the hypothetical interpretation of the unknown it’s the front trench in the siege of truth. It seems to stand still perplexed but only because it leaves the fruits of victory to science and passes on divinely content to the uncertain and unexplored.

Philosophy means and includes five fields of study and discourse: logic, esthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphysics. Logic is the study of ideal method in thought and research, observation and introspection, deduction and induction, hypothesis and experiment, analysis and synthesis. Esthetics is the study of ideal form or beauty. It’s the philosophy of art. Ethics is study of ideal conduct the highest knowledge said Socrates is the knowledge of good and evil the knowledge of the wisdom of life. Politics is the study f ideal social organization; monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, socialism, anarchism, and feminism-these are the dramatis personae of political philosophy. And lastly metaphysics is study of the ultimate reality of all things of the real and the unreal and final nature of “matter” of “mind” and the interrelation of mind and matter in the process of perception and knowledge.

So let us just listen to these men, ready to forgive them their passing errors and eager to learn the lessons which they are so eager to teach. “Do you then be reasonable and do not mind whether teachers of philosophy are good or bad but think only of philosophy. Try to examine it well and truly and if its evil seek to turn away all men from it but if it is what I believe it is then follow it and be of good cheer” said Socrates to Crito.

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