Many times people question the value of Philosophy. Philosophy is accused of being worthless and no good, Philosophers are criticized as arguing endlessly about nothing and coming to no real conclusions. There are many other negative stereotypes floating around, but the bottom line seems to be a general accusation that Philosophy has little or no practical value. An on its face, this accusation seems to have some merit. There are little obvious tangible benefits to Philosophy, nor does knowing it seem to have any practical, or “real world” application. The doing of Philosophy itself  is not like practicing Law or Medicine, both of which serve a purpose and are profitable to the individual engaging the action. Nor does Philosophy lead to any great ends, like Science, which has arguable improved the health and well being of the human race more than any other discipline the past few hundred years. Paint your own bleak picture of Philosophy, I don’t care. My purpose here is to simply come up with a “pithy rejoinder” in defense of Philosophy. Obviously I do not belive Philosophy is worthless, not do most people who seriously consider the subject for more than a few moments. The problem, however, is most people do not consider the subject for more than a few moments. Hell, to even reach my purpose here it has taken several hundered words and a great deal of (much appreciated) patience by the reader. Few, if any significant points can be distilled to a sentece or two. Yet I feel compelled to give it a shot.

From its roots, Philosophy, as the term was coined by Plato, meant “love of learning.” Now then, it seems apparent to me that sucess of any sort, be it spiritual, emotional, academic, intellectual, financial, athlectic, etc, is dependent on learning. We are not born knowing what we need to know, we must learn it, or in some way shape or form develop our capacities to think. Without a refined capacity to think, the human race is utterly unimpressive. Now, is studying the field or Philosophy necessary to obtaining a refined capacity to think? FUCK NO. One needs only the desire to learn to obtain that. But here comes the magic: that desire to learn is what drives not just Philosophy, but the search for all human knowledge. I grant that there are many people who do not want to learn for learning’s sake, they seek to use learning for some other end. Philosophy is learning for its own sake, learning because one loves to do so, but this is not to say Philosophy has the market cornered on learning for its own sake. I merely use it to point out the distinction between learning for the sake or learning, and learning for the sake of something else. Regardless of why one wants to learn, one will not be sucessful in doing so unless one has the desire (philosophy) to do so.

Now I am finally capable of countering charges of Philosophy’s supposed worthlessness. Philosophy is necessary for every human endeavor. One must love learning to be sucessful, period. Whatever one’s ends may be, one must have the proper philosophy, or desire, as the means to reach them. It just so happens that for many Philosophers that philosophy is the end itself, and no further tangible end is sought. But for many lawyers, scientists, doctors, politicians, buisnessmen, etc, their love of learning is a means to another end. So the next time someone criticizes Philosophy, we can now retort with a pity rejoinder defending the proper worth of Philosophy:

“I say Philosophy is quite useless. What is it good for?”

“One’s philosophy is the underlying means to their every end, you ignorant asshole! It just so happens that for those who study it as such, their contemplation of Philosophy is the end in question!”