In the words of Blaise Pascal; ‘One must know oneself, if this does not serve to discover truth, it at least serves as a rule of life and there is nothing better.’ These words continue to be applicable to life and philosophical thinking. When we truly know ourselves, we can begin to discover and understand the truths and realities of the world and of life.
Philosophy is careful thought about the nature of the world, human knowledge and human conduct. It is looking at the world and finding the truths and the un-truths in it and evaluating them to see reality. Philosophy deals with man-kind, nature and the “un-known” of the universe. But how does philosophy change our views on the world? What is the importance of it? These are questions that seem to arise when discussing philosophy. How is this relevant to my life? Victor Cousin, a French philosopher, explains that ‘True philosophy invents nothing; it merely establishes and describes what is.’ Philosophy isn’t teaching, or telling; philosophy is realizing the world around you and applying it to your own life.
By understanding ourselves, we can then apply our ideas of philosophy to our lives. Metaphysicians use observation to philosophically explain reality and the true nature of things. But how do we explain reality? We don’t and we can’t fully explain reality. What we can do, however, is apply what we know about ourselves and what we observe about others t our lives and understanding of the world.
Say that a young girl and her friend went to an ice cream shop. She orders chocolate ice cream, while the other orders vanilla. Her friend asks her why she has ordered chocolate ice cream. Her response is that she likes chocolate; she doesn’t know why, she just does. We can see from a basic standpoint that this little girl is different from the other because of her ice cream choice. Yet when we apply our philosophical understandings, we can closer observe these girls and come to some sort of conclusion about them. Why did she order chocolate while the other ordered vanilla? We cannot assume anything so we will continue on our quest for the underlying truth from what we already know. We know that she “just likes chocolate.” We also know that she doesn’t know why. After some thinking, we can come up with the conclusion that she likes different things, and thus is different, basically, than the other girl. From this we can bring the situation to the broader spectrum and hypothesize that since these girls are different, everyone must be different.
By understanding ourselves and philosophy, we can better understand the world around us. This example, however simple, enabled us through philosophical thinking, to reach a better understanding about life and humanity. Philosophy is seeking the truth about nature through thought. By observing ourselves and others around us, we can better understand our own lives and our own realities.
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