To Think Like A Philosopher.

[pljames]

I love knowledge. I am more interested in why people think what they think? Knowledge is like many colors, no one color justifies the total description of all the colors. Is there truth in knowledge? One truth many knowledge's or vice versa? I like Aristotle's teaching method. If the student ask a question after the lesson Aristotle knew the student didn't understand the lesson and gave the student another way of looking at the lesson by another question. We all or not equal especially in our beliefs or our knowledge. But wouldn't one think that's what philosophy is all about, teaching how to search for true knowledge? pljames

[belovelife]

what is true knowledge for me, may look different to you

 

many exhamples int the world of this, culturally, religiosly, racially

 

for example, i choose not to use capitol letters, just a choice i make, this one of my wisdoms ( wise-dumb?)

[CraigD]

One of my earliest recollections of a profound philosophical point involved having my attention directed to the origin of the word philosophy – “philo”, meaning “love of” + “sophia”, meaning knowledge and/or wisdom – and noting that while an entirely serviceable alternative better descriptive of how many, especially academics, practice the subject, sophology – “Sophia” + “ology”, meaning study or “put into words” – has long existed, millennia of both thoughtful and frivolous people preferred the “love-oriented” term to the “study-oriented” one.

 

This suggests, strongly, that in doing philosophy, it’s more important to love knowledge and wisdom than to study it – that the act is more centrally one of feeling passion than of speaking or writing words.

 

I was surprised, as I continued in school and out, to discover that many career philosophers either dismissed or strongly rejected this suggestion, holding the origin of the most common term for their subject was a happenstance of language, not a profound point, holding that love-centric folk are too erratic and impulsive to make it far in a field of ideas.

 

I eventually decided, and continue to believe, that this rejection stems from poorly or un-reflected assumptions about the practice of love, contributed to by millennia of secular and church politics, and still a source of much human woe.

 

So I feel a surge of approval at pljames opening three word sentence,

I love knowledge.

but wary of his closing rhetorical one

But wouldn't one think that's what philosophy is all about, teaching how to search for true knowledge?

because of the inclusion of the adjective “true”.

 

In my experience, “useful” is a good measure of knowledge and wisdom, “true” nearly always a bad one.