I use the word ‘philosophy’ to mean facts, understanding, view, belief, perhaps even hope, of how some aspect of our lives or our society or our world operates, or needs to operate, or how it should (ought to) operate. I do this almost instinctively because, being alive, I have been and will continue to be faced with having to make a wide range of decisions that are usually based on some rationale or merely something. So, I have my own set of personal philosophies and they provide me with a ‘basis’ for rationalizing (i.e. having reasons for) my decisions.
I have studied some philosophy and it became clear to me that different people recognized as philosophers had differing understandings, views and beliefs about the same topics. At some point over the last few decades of my life, it occurred to me that I have developed my own personal philosophies on a large range of topics. It is clear that such philosophies were, and continue to be, developed from a complicated collection of parts and perspectives – facts, understanding, views, beliefs, hopes, and societal pressures and boundaries. After some more thought, and recognizing my general lack of uniqueness, it became clear to me that every person should be expected to have their own collection of philosophies that will surely differ in many respects from what other people have adopted.
Importantly, my personal philosophies, like philosophy as a subject, are, in most cases, only partly based on facts and logic. My personal philosophies are also partly based on my understanding of facts, logical interpretations, views, beliefs, hopes, and societal pressures and boundaries. As such, some of my personal philosophies may not be based on facts, but on my own experiences, someone else’s anecdotes, inklings, hunches, intuition, or on things that somehow make me feel good or, at least, better. Domains that are mostly based on facts and logic tend to be scientific subjects – like mathematics, physics, chemistry – which enjoy an ability to achieve precision, accuracy, and correctness. Even so, much of science is theoretical and I view the sciences just as more advanced philosophies, rigorously continuing the search for more factual information to support the theoretical.
Philosophy tends to be a blend of facts and feelings or perhaps even vague experiences that help guide me in my decisions, but are imperfect, not precise, sometimes eventually proven inaccurate and incorrect. It is clear to me that studies in the humanities (literature, philosophy, history) open minds to different possibilities that make our lives richer and more interesting. It is the open-ended-ness and ambiguity of philosophical questions that can keep me engaged, interested, and curious – all of which I believe are signs of a healthy and natural state of mind.
It makes sense to me that we’ll each have a unique collection of philosophical views. We are each different. We are each exposed to and experience different things during our lives. We each have our own set of issues to face and deal with. We may not have found it necessary to even think about many things, never mind to research the facts or develop, to any great extent, our own understandings, views, and beliefs. In addition, just to make it more exciting, not only do we each have our own collection of philosophies, but they will change and get refined, (perhaps more sophisticated, or perhaps simplified) over time. We will learn new things, encounter and consider new ideas and new research, and will mature as we live through the various stages of life – as children, teens, young adults, as parents, grandparents, as the elderly. And in each stage we will have different priorities, fears, needs, desires, hopes all of which will affect our views of the world.
As an example, I think back to experiences where others have made decisions about which I may have disagreed. The decision-maker’s set of philosophies guided those decisions, perhaps taking into account information or other things beyond what I knew or had experienced. Perhaps my thinking was muddled and theirs was clear, or vice versa. It’s even possible the decisions were made in a knee-jerk, ill-considered, manner because the decision-maker didn’t have the information or other things that I knew or had experienced, or vice versa. I believe that it is rare, indeed, for two individuals to be precisely in the same ‘head space’ (i.e. more commonly these days, ‘on the same page’) in regard to particular issues and that there will always be some differences. So it becomes important for me to clarify my personal philosophies so that I can express them to others and to consider the different views of others, all in order to make better decisions alone and together.
Thanks, Jim.