Philosophy is One of the Greatest Disciplines to Learn

[Resha Caner]

Laughter is good for you, loosen up.

When you make a good joke, I'll laugh.

[ForgedinHell]

Laughter is good for you, loosen up.

When you make a good joke, I'll laugh.

I doubt it.

[Resha Caner]

I doubt it.

Give it a shot. What's your favorite joke?

After that we can be pretentious and discuss the philosophy of humor.

[Thundril]

A woman goes into a bar and orders a double entendre... So the barman gives her one.

[Resha Caner]

A woman goes into a bar and orders a double entendre... So the barman gives her one.

On moral grounds I'm not supposed to approve of jokes like that, but given the recent Philosophy Now article on aesthetics I'll say that I can appreciate the quality of its construction.

[Satyr]

Well, it's a good thing domestication only applies ot simple animals and not to complex, sophisticated, humans like you all.

[Arising_uk]

A woman goes into a bar and orders a double entendre... So the barman gives her one.

[Advocate]

When you treat it as a discipline it becomes academic, and we all know where that leads.. nowhere.

[Advocate]

[quote="Resha Caner" post_id=113198 time=1343359569 user_id=7664]
[quote="ForgedinHell"]I doubt it.[/quote]
Give it a shot. What's your favorite joke?

After that we can be pretentious and discuss the philosophy of humor.
[/quote]

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the end of the joke.

Sick humor is like an abortion, not everyone gets it.

Did you hear the one about two drums and a cymbal falling off a cliff?

Want to hear the best knock-knock joke? Ok, you start it...

[KLewchuk]

Although I am not a trained philosopher, when people ask me why I study philosophy, I tell them because it matters in life. There are some questions in life, where the solution is found in a scientific experiment or in a mathematical proof. But, we face numerous questions that do not fall into either of those categories. In fact, most questions we face are of those kind. So, we argue throughout our lives. We can't live without arguing. Its part of being human. We argue with our spouses, our children, our co-workers, our bosses. We need to evaluate arguments to decide whom to vote for, or whether we will even vote at all. The alternative to arguing is to fist fight, which doesn't seem very productive.

Philosophy helps us in our daily lives, and to become better human beings, because it assists us in forming arguments. It helps us in seeing the errors in another's argument. It raises the quality of our lives as it improves our ability to argue.

And, there are times when philosophy does provide answers. Some arguments are so compelling, that it is hard to imagine they haven't provided us with answers. Especially those that have stood the test of time.

So, does anyone disagree and believes that philosophy is a waste of time to study?

It depends what you mean by "philosophy".

I think philosophy has lost it's way, at least in some parts. Let's take the ideas of truth (epistemology), goodness (morality), and beauty (aesthetics). Philosophy used to be about thinking and discussion deeply about these great questions.

Now, it seems that many are just interested in asserting (they don't really argue) that these ideas don't exist. If they are right, studying philosophy is a waste of time.

In interest of full disclosure, they are wrong.