You want to be happy, don’t you? Everyone wants to be happy. The moral purpose of your life is to make yourself happy; that is the reason everyone does everything they do, whether it be getting a job for yourself or giving charity to complete strangers — the main goal of your actions is to give yourself a good feeling about living. The purpose of philosophy is to give you a guide to follow in making the choices that should result in your happiness.
Everyone Uses Some Good Philosophy (Including You!)
June 25th, 2005All Relationships are Politics
June 3rd, 2005The branch of philosophy known as ‘politics’ is often misunderstood. It is not just about governments. All relationships between two or more people, including personal ones such as friendships and marriages, are political in nature. The same principles can be applied regardless of the size of the group or the nature of the relationship. Politics defines the principles of a proper social system, including but not limited to the proper functions of government.
Introspection, Part 3
May 21st, 2005Now that we know that man should introspect because his emotions are not automatically correct with respect to reality, and that he should do so everytime he feels an emotion — it is time to examine how man introspects.
The word introspect means literally, “to examine oneself” or, “to examine one’s consciousness.” One should train oneself to associate the feeling of an emotion with a need to pause to ask oneself questions. Since one uses emotion as the call to introspect, and emotion is the product of one’s premises, the first question to ask is obvious: “What premise(s) have I held in the past that make me feel this way (in this specific situation)?”
Introspection, Part 2
May 8th, 2005As discussed in Part 1, introspection is the primary psychological tool by which man improves his character, integrates his knowledge of the world around him, and increases his own happiness.
When should a man use introspection? Ideally, every time he feels an emotion. Introspection is useful to correct or reinforce philosophic premises, and its only indicator for use is the emotional mechanism. Man has no other means of knowing when he should examine himself and his body of knowledge — and every instance of feeling gives him cause to check his premises, and either correct or reinforce his previous conclusions.