So You Want to be a Philosopher?
Henry H. Lindner
In
a healthy society, every person should be a philosopher in his own right. What
is necessary? Below is an outline of the process that I experienced. It was for
me, and must be for anyone, a self-motivated, self-directed process. It has nothing
to do with any courses offered in any schools.
Requirements
1. A
basically healthy personality--required in
order to honestly face reality and courageously question accepted
beliefs. All of us are more or less disturbed; we are the products of more-or-less sick parents in a sick society. Some of us were treated
better than others. The more distorted your personality, the more your
intellect is held hostage to your own problems, and the more rigid your
patterns of thought. Almost all of us need therapy, but not the kind offered by
most licensed practitioners. Read up on psychology. John Bradshaw’s Bradshaw:
On the Family is a good place to start. Read Alice Miller, Albert Ellis and Irv Yalom. Pursue self-directed therapies and
or the kinds of professional therapies recommended by Miller and
Bradshaw. If, contrary to how you've been raised, you can just be honest
with yourself about what you think and feel, you may be able to do much of the
therapeutic work by yourself.
2. Personal
Deprogramming--We are all raised as members of a cult. Our
nation, religion or ethnic group is a jealous cult that hates all other cults.
You must rescue yourself from your cult--from the false and inadequate ideas
forced upon you by parents, school, church, state, and society. Educate
yourself, read psychology, history, and philosophy, including works mentioned
in my list of readings.
You must go through a long and difficult process of questioning all that you've
learned and putting it to the test. Does the idea correspond to the facts? Does
the idea contain contradictions? For instance, we are taught many things about
the person or persons who supposedly created the Cosmos and humans. Are all
these characteristics consistent with reality?
3. Travel--This
is necessary part of the deprogramming and educational process. You must get
out of your society and become acquainted with others. Preferably, go and live
in a different culture for some years. You will become aware of the elements of
that culture which are superior to your own, and those which are inferior. You
will begin to formulate a better idea of human nature and its possibilities.
You will gain the extra-cultural perspective needed to look on human beliefs
and practices dispassionately, objectively. You will become a citizen of Earth,
no longer merely an Englishman, American, Egyptian, Japanese, etc.
4. Intellectual
Development--you must acquaint yourself with the tools of
philosophical/scientific thought. A good
starting point is Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Who Needs It?. She was not right about
everything, but in this book you will see that she had
discovered the power of philosophical cognition. Read also
any good book about logic and the formal and informal fallacies of thought.
Read Francis Bacon s Novum Organum
and Henry David Thoreau s Walden.
Read Aristotle, Epicurus and Lucretius. Learn to
analyze all ideas as theories. Are they adequate to explain the phenomenon? Do
they contain contradictions? Look for the underlying, usually unstated
assumptions of every idea that you encounter. Comb through libraries and book stores, new and used, to find works that have something
meaningful to say about the significant issues that interest you. Read, Read,
Read, and when you can no longer find authors who know more than you do about a
subject, Write, Write, Write!
5. History--traveling
will acquaint you with the places and artifacts of history. This will spur your
curiosity to learn about these places and times. You'll need to read about the
whole story of human mental and cultural evolution;
seeking the big picture. Read Will Durant s History
of Civilization, and Jared Diamond s Guns,
Germs, and Steel. Only by knowing where humankind has been can you understand how it got where it is now. You will gain
the extra-historical perspective needed to see the human needs and capabilities
underlying the story of cultural evolution.
6. Tackle
real problems--in the process of personal and intellectual
growth, you will come upon some of the glaring problems that bedevil mankind's
thought and culture. You will eventually be ready and willing to analyze one of
these problems in depth. You will search for its origins and discover a
solution. You will have become a philosopher and will be able to contribute a
new and important idea to the stream of human thought. You will help to improve
human civilization, and therefore the Cosmos.