Thinking and Questioning

What is philosophy according to me? I define philosophy as 'questioning presuppositions'. In this sense for me philosophy is the complete corpus of science as it was in Ancient Greece too. Did you know that 95% (I didn't count so it's a lucky guess of me) of what "philosopher" Aristotle wrote was about biology? Only a small part is about metaphysics (Greek: ta meta ta phusika. English: after the physics. With Aristotle, these were literally the books that came after the books dealing with nature). To observe. To examine. Cause and effect. Of digging up roots from the ground with a stick. Of cooking food. Of beating or killing an animal or human being. Of the sun that dies in the evening and is born again in the morning. Of stars that re-appear at night. According to me all ingredients of a scientific mindset.

That what we call today philosophy was born in Greece 2,500 ago as science - 2,500 years young! Today only the metaphysics part is considered as "real" philosophy. The rest found a harbour in new scientific areas. With my definition we find a scientific mindset too in Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient China, Stone Age and ... - there must be more. All of them gave answers to these four questions of Kant: What can I know? What should I do? What can I hope for? What is man?

To my knowledge there was never in history a restriction on studying science or metaphysics. No-one kept the door locked. Requirements: spare time (next to working for your physical survival), ability to read and write, curiosity and wonderment, teachers and access to books.

Ancient Greece wasn't a paradise for scientists or philosophers. Back then only a small part of its population was able to study and actually studied. Mostly only free Greeks but sometimes slaves too. And the rest? They just were not interested and preferred to drink and watch games/ music. Preferred to consume. Above all a lack of curiosity and wonderment. Ancient Rome has the same track record. After Rome was beaten in 4th century AD Christianity took over. Roughly between 600 to 1100 AD the books of Plato and Aristotle were unknown in Western Europe. Thanks to the Arabs (Aristotle) and Byzantine Empire (Plato) their books survived and their philosophy came back to Western Europe.

What's my point? Read for philosophy: science in general. This mindset is of all ages and all times. We all have it and mostly don't give it that name. We learn by doing and learn from teachers and pass through our knowledge from one generation to another. Mostly not condensed in books. The world is bigger than knowledge in books. The amount of people who want to invest to learn to read philosopy-as-metaphysics-books was and always will be small. It requires spare time and transpiration to read, think, re-think and read more. Most people are perfectly happy to limit their life with having a "merry time", to consume and stay away from "difficult" stuff. The constraint is not a lack of access to philosopy-as-metaphysics. The constraint is lack of curiosity for philosopy-as-metaphysics. All people think and ask questions. All people have a scientific mindset. Philosophy-as-metaphysics as a compulsory subject at our schools and universities will not heal the constraints of our time and age. What will? People who travel and study history and use those Others as their mirror.

P.S. I wrote about mirrors before in 'Mirror' (February 2016) and about Others in 'A Little Deeper. Please!' (June 2012).