the original basis of philosophy was not as we know it…
the original basis of philosophy was that philosophy was
a way of life… it wasn’t as we know it, a impartial, impersonal,
series of facts about what certain philosophers believed in…
we believed that Descartes was interested in creating certainty
especially for the new science… and each philosopher after
continued on this path of creating certainty for the new science…
the ancient philosophers wouldn’t have considered that philosophy…
their idea was that philosophy was not just a series of facts but
a way of life…that philosophy was a spiritual exercise and a way of
living out one’s life…….Stoicism for example, wasn’t just to be studied
but to be lived………you went into one of the 4 schools of philosophy
as a way of life… not just studied, but lived… the 4 schools were
stoicism, platonic, epicureans, aristotlism……………. these schools
are different from what we think of philosophy…………
we do philosophy,
they lived philosophy
and that is the difference between the ancients and us……
they weren’t about the facts of philosophy but about how to live philosophy…
this idea of living philosophy as a way of life was taken over by
Christianity……. and here we also just do Christianity instead of
what they did which is living in Christianity… that is the difference
between ancient Christianity and today’s Christians… we do Christianity
and they lived Christianity…………
one of the things that every school believed in was to
examine thyself………. the process for every ancient
“philosopher” be it pagan or be it Christian, was to look inward…
the process was involving looking at oneself and not worrying about the
outside world…the problem with this is the fact that so many became
engaged in looking at themselves and ignoring the outside world that the
outside world, collapsed… the middle ages are a result of so many
people engaging in looking at themselves that there weren’t enough people
engaging in the world to keep it going………… society became so engage with
examining itself that it didn’t have enough people to maintain society……
so we should engage with looking inward, becoming who you are by
finding the values that you really are, not the values that you were
indoctrinated with… but your true values that can only be found
by knowing thyself…… but we can’t allow to happen what happen
to ancient civilization which is so many become involved in
their engagement with becoming who they are, that we don’t
have enough people to engage with society and keep society running…
as with everything else, it becomes a question of moderation…
but if we engage with moderation, how are we to begin the process
of living our philosophy… not just doing, but actually living our philosophy……
we are stuck here… we must be moderates in our engagement with life,
but to actually live our life philosophically, isn’t moderate… it is fairly
extreme to actually live our lives philosophically, be it philosophy or be
it Christian………… do you know of anyone who actually lives Christianity
instead of doing Christianity… you know, lives it instead of preaching it……
I don’t know of such a person and I doubt you know of such a person
and to honest, I doubt there are a thousand people in all of the United States
that is living Christianity instead of just speaking the words with no
emotional investment…
so how, if at all, should we begin to live our philosophy instead
of doing philosophy? should we begin to engage with philosophy
as a real, livable plan of action or should we just study the words
and say, Descartes began modern philosophy by intellectually
practicing doubt…… for that is exactly what he did…
he intellectually practice doubt… he didn’t live doubt,
but he intellectually practiced it… as all we modern philosophers
do, we intellectually practiced it… we don’t live it……
so, should we engage with philosophy as a way of life or should
we continue to intellectually practiced it?
Kropotkin