The Value of Philosophy

Philosophy is valuable for being a source of knowledge and understanding. It proves that a deeper reality exists. We run through the time, our life is shut up within the circle of the privacy. But in fact life streams around reason and thought.


The value of philosophy is its uncertainty, unascertainable knowledge. 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 his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the cooperation or consent of his deliberate reason. To such a man the world seems to be definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected.


Philosophy enlarges our conception of what is possible, understanding of the world, expands our intellectual horizons; it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect and develops our perspectives. Philosophy can not give us any definite answers, because such answers can not be known to be true, but it is valuable because of the questions. Life is focused on self-reflection and ethical issues. For a philosophic man the world is open, infinite, strange, and the life inclusive, free and calm.


"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."  Bertrand Russel

Pojman L. 2004: Introduction to Philosophy, Oxford University Press