Three visions of philosophy:
1) The aim of philosophy is to understand the world:
- People are “first led to study philosophy…by wonder. Now, he [or she] who is perplexed and wonders believes himself to be ignorant ... they took to philosophy to escape ignorance” (Aristotle, Metaphysics 982b)
- “Philosophy, like all other studies, aims primarily at knowledge. The knowledge it aims at is the kind of knowledge which gives unity and system to the body of the sciences, and the kind which results from a critical examination of the grounds of our convictions, prejudices, and beliefs” (Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy)
2) The aim of philosophy is to change the world:
- “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it” (Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach #11).
3) The aim of philosophy is to change oneself:
- “The religious life…does not depend on the dogma that the world is eternal…Whether the dogma obtain…that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, there still remain birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair, for the extinction of which in the present life I am prescribing” (Buddha, Questions Which Tend Not to Edification)
- “[One] who, having cast off likes and dislikes, has become tranquil, is…[one] I call...holy” (Buddha, Dhammapada)
- “By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered….How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility….Retire into thyself. The rational principle which rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations)
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