Physical science helps mankind in general. Physical science increases the utility.
Now everyone wants to be practical. We appreciate practical man. Practical man means one who recognizes material needs and who works for his food to the body and who works for every possible comfort to the body. But these are people who are oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind.
If poverty and disease is removed from mankind, it would not necessarily result in the society being a valuable society. Goods of the mind is as important as goods of the body.
There are men who never leave the small circle in which they are placed for the fear that his word may not be the last elsewhere. These are people for whom knowledge is a set of prejudices. Habits and desires makes an impenetrable veil between them and the world beyond. For these people Personal and private things become a prison to the intellect.
Free intellect requires to see things without a here and now, without hopes and fears, without fundamental beliefs and prejudices, calmly and dispassionately and it would see things with the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge. Knowledge which is impersonal, contemplative.
Philosophy is to be studied not for the sake of any definite answers. No definite answers can as a rule be known to be true. Philosophy is required to be studied to enlarge our conception of what is possible. It is meant to enrich intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation.
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Next time I am listening to something diametrically opposite to my fundamental views, I am going to try not to block it completely! Let me see how it works out.
ReplyDeletePS- Going off topic, you had written in one of your previous posts about the concept of "to forget is to remember" and I had strongly disagreed with the view and had asked you for a scientific reference.
Well, I found where you got the theory from. It's from Sir Artur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes book, A Study In Scarlet. The passage is as follows:
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."
It's just Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's view and has no scientific basis for it!
A man could be successful in his own business will not generally want to expand his knowledge, because he finds it is not necessary. The success will make him feel he is the boss and know all. Philosophy not only enriches his knowledge but also makes him feel what he owes to the society in general and could be specific to his family also. It is difficult to make one understand that he needs phylosophy in his life, but once he recognises, it makes his life more meaningful and his presence is felt by others in a better angle.
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