Everybody should learn some philosophy.

Just don't get too academia.

Philo--love, soph--wisdom. Love to get wise, about anything and everything.








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Est modus in rebus sunt certi denique fines quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum Goldilocks

Philo--love, soph--wisdom. Love to get wise, about anything and everything.

You are right. Philosophy is the love for wisdom. This is the definition given by Socrates.
But a slightly better version is this: philosophy is the love to learn, and philosophers are
learning lovers.

Can you see the difference? Learning is a verb, an action to take, whereas wisdom can just
be some doctrine.

Ancient Greeks were extraordinary people who had this philosophy concept and culture long before Socrates.I love these people and the philosophy culture, though I am Chinese.

And you, my friends in the west, are all descendant of Socrates. He is your spiritual father, even you may not realize that.

Although I'm from the West, Lao-Tze would be my spiritual father.

I find the West argue just for the sake of arguing.












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Est modus in rebus sunt certi denique fines quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum Goldilocks

Although I'm from the West, Lao-Tze would be my spiritual father.

Compared with the gems of Socrates and Plato, Lao-Tze, along with other Chinese thinkers, are no more than a handful of sand grains.

I find the West argue just for the sake of arguing.

There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse. Misology and misanthropy arise in the same way.

We should not allow into our minds the conviction that argumentation has nothing sound about it; much rather we should believe that it is we who are not yet sound and that we must take courage and be eager to attain soundness.

by Socrates-Plato

Wittgenstein once said something along the lines of "The only reason to study philosophy is so you can convince others not to bother". Sometimes I feel he had a point, it's a subject that's often as frustrating as it is fascinating.

The only reason to study philosophy is so you can convince others not to bother

Not to bother trying philosophy?
Wittgenstein is an esteemed contemporary philosopher, but if that is what he really meant, I will have to disagree. There are some other famous quotes from famous philosophers which I don't go along with. Like "Others are hell" by Schopenhauer or Satre. I have to say there are right philosophy and wrong philosophy. As Plato said, I have to promote the right philosophy, so that we can find the forms of justice both in our private and public life, otherwise the evils in the mankind will never cease to be. I agree with him.

Do you believe me if I say that we, including professional philosophers, are still far from correctly understanding the classical giants like Plato?

Please correct my English, and my idea if you see any fallacy. Thanks.

Wittgenstein was a complex character - he had a lot of emotional issues by all accounts and he seemed to get pretty dispirited with his early work as he grew older.

I suppose Plato is open to interpretation, especially as he never outrightly stated his own views and they have to be gleaned from his dialogues.

I am not familiar with Wittgenstein, for I put my focus on classical philosophy.
In his dialogues Plato did produce an idealist system that we call the philosophy of Forms, but yes, it's open to further interpretation. The way I see it, we can still make great discoveries based on his contribution.I am working on it. For years I have been reading Plato and still enjoying it.