Philosophy is just applied existential crisis
When people take it too seriously it’s more like herded anxiety.
Yeah, pretty much. Philosophy people can be helpful though, their idea processing systems are fairly robust, and unlike a statistician or scientist, they sort of end up with a side-specialization in communication. Which is extremely valuable these days.
The problem with philosophy in terms of understanding the bigger questions in life is that advanced physics has answered many questions that were previously in the realm of philosophy, and you can’t really understand what’s possible in reality / what constraints there are on abstract philosophy without understanding advanced physics.
Of course the problem with advanced physics is that it takes so much time and effort to learn and understand thoroughly that you often end up as a not great communicator to the average person.
Or, to be cheeky: physics aims to take the largest and most complicated concepts in the universe and explain them in the simplest possible language, and philosophy is the opposite.
I don’t think a philosophers job is to answer questions as much as formulate and ask them proficiently.
Philosophers literally invented formal logic to help them answer questions. Yes they are trying to answer questions and constrain the possible answer space where they can’t.
Certainly, but that was before the scientific method rose to prominence. Things change, and that can include the purpose of any given practice.
That’s true if you’re only talking about what was once called ‘natural philosophy’, but there are still many areas where philosophy and physics don’t really overlap - ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, language, existentialism, etc.
One of my philosophy professors described philosophy as a bunch of people trying to convince themselves they’re not nuts.
Philosophy being reduced to only pondering about existential questions is a tragedy of misrepresentation. Philosophy is the study of thinking, and that covers a very wide range of topics.
I was gonna say this.
Existentialism is kinda boring IMO. But the philosophy of language, knowledge, and ethics are all super interesting.
An existential crisis and it’s only a Monday, tell me I’m alive
