Do I Care If You Think? — Does Philosophy Still Matter.
By: Michael Baez
Tags: Questions, Philosophy, Hip Hop, Journaling, Self Improvement

3/26/19 — Journal #8

So today, I woke up thinking about the bit of writing that I have been doing. Its just a journal that I am using to express some of my thoughts about my life.

Yesterday, I wrote about the effect that other thinkers have had on me. Through spoken word and video, they told me that I should look towards bettering myself. But for some reason, that line of thought led me to the conclusion that people were just selling me on their “Philosophies.”

Matt D’Avella sells minimalism and Earl Nightingale sells consistency and mindset. I am not so much bothered by the fact that they are creating a profit because regardless I am benefiting it.

My most recent run-in with “actual” philosophy was the podcast “Philosophize This!” Its a great primer on some of the most interesting classical thinkers both Eastern and Western.

Running with the idea that Nightingale couldn’t convert me because I am so far removed from me, I thought about the idea that Classical philosophy might not matter anymore. That’s not entirely true, I think we could find modern-day derivatives of classical philosophy in all types of art and content created on the internet.

To be honest one of my favorite artists in the contemporary zeitgeist, is Rory “Milo” Ferrea. He talks in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about rap being “the philosophical arm of black art, black culture.” It was a polite reminder that rap has been one of the most influential philosophical arts that I have consumed as a young man.

https://youtu.be/751FCToiYxI?t=26I

I am not going to pretend that I am some high and mighty hip hop thinker but I am at least an admirer. I am not going to fangirl here too hard but yeah just thinking on the power of other peoples words.

My love for hip hop in most of its forms come from what I think is its power. Chi-clops at Empire Control Room & Garage from the 2014 Weird City Fest. — Michael Baez

Also, thinking about my own vernacular and things that I could be doing to take more power and ownership of my thoughts. Because a lot of this journaling has been focused on me owning my feelings and thoughts.

So I stumbled onto the next video titled “Does Philosophy Still Matter?”| The New School”. The video posted in 2011, included a distinguished panel tackling some important questions about philosophy.

https://youtu.be/RBmlRihA9_s?t=574

But after hearing the questions, I felt like before I enjoyed other peoples musings on the subject I’d rather ask myself these questions now and compare notes after.

This might be a selfish endeavor, but I have an understanding of philosophy as a completely personal experience. So I think it would be at least useful to me. If I am going to continue to think lay some foundational work for what might be to come. I might be jumping the gun, but hey this should at least be a little fun.

Quickly though here is part of the description of the video.

The New School, a university in New York City, offers distinguished degree, certificate, and continuing education programs in art and design, liberal arts, management and policy, and the performing arts.A distinguished panel addresses this question on the occasion of the publication of Professor James Miller’s new book, Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche.

Touching back on me bringing up my affinity for rap, rappers are people who live examined lives.

So there is a list of questions posed, these might not be the perfect word for word accounts of those questions but are in spirit the same nevertheless.

Questions posed… Does philosophy still matter?

What kind of philsophy still matters?

How does any specific form of philsophy come to matter?

What is gained and what is lost when we sell philsophy to other people who aren’t philsophers?

If philsophy is a quest that is unending and it shouldnt yield any positive results then what is it good for?

What is relation of reason to faith? Science?

Is philsophy best persued in private or public?

Should philsophy aim to edify and inspire or distrub and distrupt?

Is the socratic ambition, perfect integrity of rational unity of thought and action, even pheasble in practice , is struggling for this worth it even if it is impossible?

Looking at it now these questions seem a little broad but I feel like I should tackle them nevertheless.

If I am going to be looking to better myself as a person then I should be able to answer these questions in a very personal context without losing myself.

Does Philsophy still matter?

Here, I think the answer is obviously yes. As we narrow are definition of the term we might start to have some disagreement. But it would be hard to find someone who was looking for an answer to this question that didn’t already believe the anwser is yes. This could be myself confirmation bias here. But I think the answer is only no, if you think that through digitalization of our personalities and experiences that we could become many people at once, in terms of both morality and viewpoints. — That is to say that any single person could experience every degree of morality so that it no longer matters in terms of not having to choose any singluar philsophy. -But I think even that is a long strech.-

What kind of philosophy still matters?

I am under the assumption that a lot more people than not consume philsophy through new art than they do through the classical forms of philsophy education. YouTube videos from even the biggest YouTubers come down to selling a philsophical view point about life. I might be alone in consuming internet creations in this way but as we build out our online society. It makes more sense to see the content that is being glorified as an example of what the masses truly believe in. So a sort of democratic philosophy that has been paid for with the currency of attention.

How does any specific form of philsophy come to matter?

I think the unfortunate answer to this question is that a philsophy only matters when as many people as possible see it. The classical philosophies of yesteryear are staples to the study of philosophy only because the will of history and its conquerors have willed it to be such. I along with many people probably wonder about the shape of classical philosophy if the Library of Alexandria was available to us. — I may be totally whiffing on what was housed in the scrolls of that particular Library. — But that doesn’t change the point.

The anwser I wish I could defend from a realistic standpoint is that a Philsophy would come to matter due to its potential utility and the effects would have to change the people that it comes into contact with. This defintion strays from defining good or bad but does glorify change and utility. This might be the definition that I choose to defend from this point out but we will see.

What is gained and what is lost when we sell philsophy to other people who aren’t philsophers?

The gain is a perspective in the minutiae of life. Most philosophers are or become at some point removed from the struggles of the everyday man. This removal comes at the cost of perspective in his teaching and in his art. To ask people to change alongside you, you must also be of the people. — This is close to an idea that is talked about by Cornel West in the aforementioned video. — What is lost is some context to the breathe of the questions that we could be asking about our lives.

When I feel a tinge of pain about my lack of philosophical training the majority of that pain comes from the fact that I don’t know what questions and answer have been asked before. The perspective of the specialists is important but I don’t think it matters as much as they would want it to. They only lay the groundwork for philosophers of the people to be canonized. For someone who has the ability to study philosophy also seek to expunge their own ideas seems silly to me. This might be a class bias from me. But for now it is sorta where I stand.

I could see myself budging, if someone was thoughtful enough to not be a dick about being an academic. (Also this might be a criticism I levy against myself from time to time.)

There is thought here about the perspectives I value. That I think I need to work out. Considering my self-contextualization as an actor in the class struggle.

If philosophy is a quest that is unending and it shouldn't yield any positive results then what is it good for?

The context of a philosophical experience seems to matter a lot. I think at times you could drown yourself in the weight of your insignificance and other marvel in the very quest that could crush you. If something is hard to do, then chasing it means that one would have to strive to be better. This quest on its own creates more challenges. But the degree to which you might be able to apply those hardships to actual pursuits of life other than philosophy means that you should do it.

Life is unending while you have it, choosing not to progress spites this idea. There is a utility even to a philosophy that is inherently harmful? If all forms of art expunge a philosophy who job is it to understand. Would a philosophy that argued that a lack of action is freeing. I think it would only be freeing in the sense that it allows you to act in a way that you perceive to be relaxing or outside the pressures of action. — I would want to fight here about the action of relaxation that running away as a philosophy should still enable a person to see themselves as a better person. Which is a version of the end goal of the quest?

What is relation of reason to faith? Science?

So this journey, of philosophy is marked by a difference in opinion. I’m not inclined to make Faith and Science at odds and end with each other. Are they at opposite ends of a spectrum of the quest knowledge of self? So philosophy’s relationship to faith is that there are concepts of self of knowledge that can’t be understood. (DO I BELIEVE THIS?)

Science would be the quest toward marking up which of these impossible to understand concepts can actually be explained. The line of acceptance and denial by action.

Is this line a possibility to toe in all forms of art, or in all forms of philosophy.

Is philosophy best pursued in private or public?

I think the best philosophy is practiced and understood in private. Only because no one in the current media landscape is doing anything cool with their philosophical work. (DO I BELIEVE THIS.)

No one is notable enough for me to think of in the public sphere. Which is okay because I believe the power of art/content is to explain/regurgitate only small pieces of philosophical ideas. — Lyrics, quotes, music, all have the power to contain philosophical wisdom, but there are only or maybe no one who has mastered a work that was fully philosophical.

Or maybe this is what I believe it means to be an artist. That to be an artist is to chase this sorta Socratic ambition a perfect performance that would be able to explain the whole thought of an outlook on life.

Certain books become close to this but I have a big distrust in the written word as being able to contain the nuance that holding an outlook on life requires. I don't trust written word for some reason.

(Maybe they are the closest to achieving the goal but by that they are the most evil or far away from it as well.) “The do-gooder is closest to evil” type shit

Or I think a book that inspires harms does so at a more convincing rate than a song or movie that does the same thing.

Should philosophy aim to edify and inspire or disturb and disrupt?

It should inspire people to disturb and disrupt the things they don’t like about the world. If i think the one true method of showcasing your intelligence is action than doing anything is better than doing nothing. Even evil is intelligent in its recognition of the power of action. (DO I BELIEVE THIS?)

It should do both because both inspire action. — This question might be dumb in my book but I don’t care to elaborate cause I think I have made my conclusion on this in other answers.

Is the Socratic ambition, perfect integrity of rational unity of thought and action, even feasible in practice, if struggling for this worth it even if it is impossible?

Yes. Yes.

In any degree that you move toward a more perfect union of consciousness and action, there is some time to be celebrated. I feel like a perfect union of rationality and action is possible. To not believe that you have to think that there is an inherent flaw in all existences. I think there exists a one in a million case that can achieve this union. Although I could see it would be better to argue the millions of cases that exist in the degree to tend toward this union and the what is probably a smaller amount of people who seek to move closer toward this union.

There are pieces of these responses that might not make sense in terms of the contemporary debate of philosophy. But I think maybe to my detriment I take pride in being unable to acknowledge those standards of definitions. Maybe they are useful somewhere but not here.

Edit : there is a push and pull within these thoughts about whose philosophies matter more. I think I want to say the people are the most valiant actors of philosophy and that people are also the best distributors of philosophy. I need to work out my thoughts on that point.