| It'd be useful to see some support for your claims about the history of philosophy. Specifically: 1. Aristotle's Metaphysics, and the like, had no effect on its readers. I'd also like a clearer definition of "did something." I.e. does changing the way one thinks about practically theoretical fields "do something?" 2. No one challenged the two until the 1600s. Kant, by himself, isn't a good source since his philosophical agenda was to overthrow the relevance of religion (which was tightly coupled with classical thought). See Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind for details. For my undergrad I studied the classics, and I'd say your generalizations are too general. People, such as Aristophanes, said the same things about Plato in his day that you say in your essay. Yet, generations of great thinkers have chosen Plato over the Cynics and Epicureans, today's relativists and materialists. Your critique of the uselessness of philosophy is more indicative of the fact that many of the humanities in academia today are purposely biased towards relativism or materialism. While I agree that philosophy should be tested with practice, I don't think practicality should restrict inquiry. Otherwise, we become very short sighted. Math is a great example of this, which you've pointed out in one of your essays. Finally, you misunderstand Aristotle's support for 'useless' theory. You're confusing 'useless' with 'pointless.' All useful activities are done for a specific goal, they aren't important in themselves. Therefore, the ultimate point of useful activities is by definition 'useless.' Aristotle thinks the final goal we all aim for is happiness, and the highest form of happiness is a kind of knowledge. |
1. Creative, logical thinking is an inherent part of what we do and love.
2. We created and own the best communication and research network in history.
3. Programming brings our ideas into existence in very short order, and allows us to model pretty much every aspect of reality.
Unfortunately, we also tend to get stuck in our own little world of ideas, a important strength which is our major flaw.