Lastly , such a class should improve and sharpen the mind so that students can evaluate the myriad claims that assail them everyday. Philosophy can also be one of the most exciting, engaging, and liberating courses you will ever take. This is due, in part, to the nature and scope of the issues covered, the appropriate questioning of traditions and customs, and the examination of new and compelling ideas and solutions to problems and questions that have troubled human beings for millennia. The unexamined life is not worth living for a human being. I do not think that I know what I do not know.
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder.
A philosopher is one who desires to discern the truth. If the study of philosophy has any value at all for others than students of philosophy, it must be only indirectly, through its effects upon the lives of those who study it. Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason.