Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Everyone is a philosopher

In order to be a philosopher one does not need to belong to a scholastic school or a school of thoughts nor need to establish one’s own concrete philosophy that is accepted by a scholastic school and taken to the laboratory of philosophy
to be analyzed and later to be taught.

Philosophy should be rooted in our day to day life. Philosophy should not be something abstract. The philosophy of Plato was that everything that we have is the shadow of the reality and reality is up there. These kinds of philosophies had nothing to do with reality, the real world, were solely used for intellectual thoughts. They spoke about the transcendental world and all its mysteries; they did no good to common man.

The very word philosophy is derived from the Greek words philo + sophia that mean love of wisdom. Philosophy is a field of inquiry that aims to advance our understanding of ourselves and of the nature of reality, mind, knowledge and morality.

Philosophy is the essence of our life. In simple word philosophy means set of principles. Everyone is a philosopher in his or her own ways because everyone has his or her set of principles to live in this world, though the principles are not right always.
Often the so called philosophers make the whole branch of philosophy so hard that the laymen should not understand and they should not have access to their philosophy and philosophical system. Philosophy should not be too mysteries or theological or too luxury for our intellectual exercise. It should be simple, practical and should be related to the realities of the world.

As a revolt against the then existing philosophies and school of philosophies, we have a new branch of philosophy came up, named existential philosophy which deals with the existential aspects of human being. It sees man as an existential being, dealing with what is happening in and around him and he is given the absolute consideration.

The view that philosophy is unrelated to common life is erroneous. One’s choices are motivated by his philosophy and his beliefs about what is good or best or bad or worst. Any genuine philosophy results ultimately in something which is practically visible in our life and inspiring others. Since life drives each man to act one needs to think and form his own principles (philosophies) that how best to act and move in a particular direction.

Any wise man, while acting in a way knows that if he is to be successful and walk towards progress and prosperity, he must first discover the basic principles of philosophy of life in order to be motivated and guided through.

The inspiring philosophies (principles) of others might find a home in the hearts of the lovers of wisdom, the philosophers; so that no one may wail over his or her misfortune when he or she finds that they have missed a precious pearl (principles) in his or her search after the treasure of wisdom.

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