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Understanding the value of philosophy in life
Niru Kumar Chakma
In this age of science and technological revolution, philosophy, popularly known as the science of all sciences, seems to be losing, if has not lost yet, its ground, the main reason being that it fails to deliver practical benefit to modern man. What a modern man as well as woman is concerned with or looks for is practical utility and anything that falls short of satisfying his or her material needs is to be set aside. What Bertrand Russell has said in his The Problems of Philosophy about the value of philosophy is noteworthy and pertinent. As Russell writes, “In our endeavour to determine the value of Philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what we wrongly called ‘practical’ man. The ‘practical’ man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind. If all men were well off, if poverty and disease had been reduced to their lowest possible point, there would still remain much to be done to produce a valuable society, and even in the existing world the goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body”.
Rich-poor gap widening
It is true that our life cannot be thought of without material needs or what Russell calls the food of the body. But it is also true that the major cause of unrest in the contemporary world is due to the fact that there is no limit to our material needs. Humanity today is subject to dangerous polarisation dividing all nations into several regions and groupings such as NATO, the European Union, NAM, ASEAN, SAARC, OIC, G7, G8, G20 or G77(130), and so on. These groupings or economic forums are apparently meant for close cooperation among the member states for economic development, but unfortunately, instead of the poverty level being reduced, what we see is the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the developed and the developing or the least developed countries alarmingly on increase. International attention should be directed not only to the development of three regions, namely, North America, the European community and the Pacific, but also to the development of other regions, such as Latin America, Southern Asia and Africa.
Goal of humanity: Peace and unity
It is important that we keep our material needs to a reasonable limit thinking about millions of poor and the unprivileged throughout the globe. A global society with peace and justice is possible only when the existing material imbalances are reduced by raising the standard of living of the poorer people of the world. Our goal of life should be not only to live, but also to let other people live. This would, however, require of us to train our minds for self-control, and love and sympathy towards our neighbours meaning not only the next-door ones, but the entire human race. For a better world or in Russell’s view a valuable society then what we need is not only materialism or spiritualism, but rather a unity of them. This is a synthetic outlook of Philosophy.
Not only that philosophy today is misunderstood, but neglected as well perhaps much more in our country than elsewhere. It is evident from the fact that Philosophy as a discipline is tacked in the syllabus of the National University with other disciplines in such a deliberate manner that students were free to choose other alternative subjects for their degrees totally ignoring Philosophy and Logic.
One common objection to Philosophy is something like this that it does not play the role of an economist, scientist and technologist for the development of a country. It is to be noted that this observation about Philosophy is based on a wrong view that human development depends on economic, scientific and technological advancement only. The question of human development is basically an ethical one in that, as Kant has said, in any development project or plan the basic guiding principle should be that human beings must not be treated as a means, but always as an end, a goal and a criterion. Just as money, capital and work are means, so science, technology, trade and commerce are means. All these are in no way value-free or neutral; but rather in every individual case they should be ensured, used and evaluated in terms of what service they provide to human development. It is often said that human conditions can improve by enacting more laws and regulations. But it is to be kept in mind that law itself must have a moral basis.
Abstract questions
The primary aim of Philosophy, like other studies, is knowledge; but it seeks knowledge of such abstract questions about which no definite answer can be given. This is, however, not to say that Philosophy has never succeeded in achieving positive results about any subject of its enquiry. The fact is that as soon as any definite knowledge concerning any subject is attained, that subject ceases to be Philosophy, and goes to form a separate science. The study of heavenly bodies which is now called astronomy was once included in Philosophy. What is now known as Psychology was once a part of Philosophy studying the human mind. To a great extent, this way each science with a definite body of knowledge has been separated from Philosophy leaving those questions to the domain of Philosophy about which no definite knowledge is possible.
This has led Russell to say that the value of Philosophy “is to be sought largely in its very uncertainty”. Russell seems to have missed here one important point, and that is the fact that nothing can be said to be absolutely certain in this world. Uncertainty is not the only characteristic of philosophical problems, some degree of uncertainty is to be found in some way or other in every study such as science, economics, or politics. No political or economic theory, for instance, is as certain as a mathematical truth; such theories are subject to change and go on varying from time to time depending on the political situations and economic conditions of the world. Despite the fact that mathematical truths are taken to be certain, they are also subject to human error. So in Hume’s view there is in fact no certainty; there is only probability.
If the quantum theory that was set forth by Max Planck in 1900 would have been final, then there would have been nothing for Einstein and others to develop it. Regarding the Theory of Relativity, Einstein has had disagreement with Newton. Newton called gravity a mysterious force, while, according to Einstein, it is a manifestation of curvature in the geometry of space-time. The Big Bang theory is taken to explain definitely the expansion of the universe.
In the process of expansion of the universe the celestial bodies, the galaxies and the clusters of the galaxies are said to be moving away from us; but why they are now moving away at a greater and faster velocity than it has been calculated earlier; the scientists are not quite sure about it. There is also one important point. In mid-990s a new study showed that the globular clusters were 15 billion years old, which clearly conflicted with the earlier view which put the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years. Although this issue has been resolved later, it is still not clear as to how accurately the age of the clusters can be measured.
The striking thing is that theoretical science or research missions into the outer space are not, like speculative Philosophy, directly related to our life. It is applied science, like applied Philosophy or practical ethics, that has any bearing on the life of man. The use of the scientific inventions for the well-being of man, however, is not controlled by scientists or philosophers; its control, use or misuse lies with the politicians or the political leaders in power.
To be specific, the present-day world is being ruled by the politicians and the economists who work for those in power. It is alarming to see that world crisis is mounting and magnifying threatening world peace. As to the development of lasting peace in the world the history of mankind is one of great disappointment and frustration. Not only that there were eight crusades that occurred for about two hundred years from 1096 to 1270, for sixteen years from 1968 to 1994 the Catholics and Protestants fought in Northern Ireland and, the Meronite Catholic Christians and Shi’ite-Sunni and Druze Muslim community were engaged in the suicidal civil war in Lebanon for fifteen years from 1975 to 1991. The Crusades are now a matter of the past; but the continued conflict between Palestine and Israel over the holy city of Jerusalem is still a matter of great concern for the world community. In our sub-continent the Shia-Sunni- Ahammadia conflict, and the enmity between the Hindus and the Muslims is no less a threat to religious amity, friendship and peaceful co-existence.
The tragedy of the World Wars is never to be forgotten. The global crisis turned into a new dimension after the end of the Second World War. The bipolar, political, economic and military antagonism between two super powers, the USA and the USSR continued to frighten the world community for about half a century over the outbreak of a possible Third World War. It is good to think that the Third World War was averted, but it is doubtful if a possible Third World War would have inflicted such large scale deaths and destructions that occurred in such wars as the Vietnam war, Croatian war, India-Pakistan wars, the war between Israel and the Arabs, as well as in many other armed skirmishes throughout the world. No doubt the cold war between the USA and the Soviet Union is now over, but the hostile relation between America and Iran and between America and North Korea as well as the existing political conflict between India and Pakistan, and the ideological differences between China-Taiwan or two Koreas continues to be still a major cause of concern.
Apart from continued political conflict and economic disparity, our world today is beset with many other acute problems such as poverty, hunger, political repression and detention, violations of human rights, ethnic conflict, religious fanaticism; and to these are added some new ones, namely, terrorism, rise of the world temperature and global economic crisis.
Philosophy is basis for a just society
It is significant that the world body turned its attention to philosophy in an attempt to resolve the world crisis. To that effect the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr. Koichiro Matsuura, declared in 2002 that November 20 be observed as the Philosophy Day. Since then this Philosophy Day which is now known as the World Philosophy Day is being observed throughout the world including Bangladesh. In his message on the occasion of the first Philosophy Day at Paris Headquarters the Director-General justifies that UNESCO as the intellectual and ethical arm of the United Nations cannot “function without promoting philosophical reflection as the basis for democracy, human rights and a just society”. The Director-General further writes, “we will be discussing topics such as: poverty, justice and world peace; philosophy and human rights; philosophy as the pathway to emancipation; philosophy of cultural diversity and cultural rights; philosophy and media; ethics and science; philosophy and knowledge. Through philosophical analysis and debate, answers to contemporary world problems will be sought and explored”.
It is significant that the UNESCO has invited philosophers to contribute to remedying the world crisis. But so far the role of philosophers’ remains confined to celebrating the World Philosophy Day on 20 November every year; and that is in fact not going to yield any positive results towards the UNESCO’s programme. As Socrates set an example by taking Philosophy out of the four walls risking and sacrificing his own life, philosophers today must take their thoughts and deliberations out of the Conference room and bring them to the notice of the international community. The UNESCO should give emphasis on philosophical education and that must include moral teachings to students right from the beginning of the schools. It is vital that philosophers, politicians, economists, journalists, businessmen and all other sections of the global society come to agree to find some norms, values, standards, goals, criteria to guide our actions in every field. And the responsibility of doing this should rest upon philosophers.
Dr Niru Kumar Chakma is Professor of Philosophy, Dhaka University. Email :nirukc@gmail.com
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