What is the Role of Philosophy?

What is the Role of Philosophy?

Does philosophy have any real, substantial role that bears the ink that has been spilled on its behalf through so many years? Is philosophy something substantial, or is it merely a way for us to find a way to sleep at night? Or does philosophy hold something more important and lasting that bears discovering and repeating? Answers to the questions have been articulated on both sides – those like Richard Rorty arguing the former position, other like Alasdair MacIntyre arguing the latter. I believe that philosophy does have something lasting an important inherent in it, and that something is the ability to begin in us a process of transformation.
Those who would say that philosophy really has no value in really answering any questions (either because those questions are in themselves not the right questions, or because they do not believe there is anything substantive enough “out there” to use to formulate answers) seem to have completely underestimated the power of thought, and have completely decided to ignore the experiences of those who have been transformed by philosophical thought.
The common misconception is to think of philosophy as the profession of oddly dressed men who sit in ivory towers of thought and spew propositions too complex and esoteric for the untrained masses to understand. However, that sort of pretense could not be further from the truth. Philosophy should be a thing that is present in the vast majority of human lives. Philosophy does not reside in locked and guarded vaults that can only be accessed by the intellectually superior. Philosophy should live on the streets and in the “public square” where life and discourse actually happens. If we can see how philosophy exists in these places, and people become aware that something philosophical is happening, then a real power exists for those people to engage in a transformed, reflective life.
Each time we hear George W. Bush and his rhetoric to justify America’s foreign policies, we are subject to philosophy. Every news broadcast and talk radio argument puts us in full view of philosophical discourse. We are, in fact, surrounded by philosophy. The attentive ear will be able to hear that philosophy, and with some aid, will be able to think critically enough about it to begin to make decisions about those things and formulate our own thoughts and opinions based on our reflection, not the uncritical acceptance of another’s thoughts.
This is the real, important kind of philosophy. Vague logical problems and complex language games, though they have an important place, are not necessarily the philosophy that has the greatest ability to transform lives. The most important philosophy and the philosophy that has the real power to change human lives is the philosophy that happens in the public square of everyday discourse. This kind of philosophy has the special power to transform great numbers of people, since its arena is the public arena. Like Socrates’ and his ever-present questioning, philosophical thought does not happen in some locked and guarded vault, but in the places where life happens. And if philosophy happens where life happens, it will ultimately be that lives are changed and people will be pushed closer to the truthfulness of life because of philosophy’s thoughts and its ability to change and inform thought. If we can write philosophy this way, and think of philosophy in this way, its results will be much greater than sitting in stove-heated rooms building “castles in the sky” (as Locke said about Descartes). People may look as strangely at these “everyday” philosophers as they do the oddly dressed intellectuals, but that seems to be an indications that philosophy is doing something right. If philosophy has the ability to questions people’s assumptions, or to force them to think in a way that they had not previously held to be plausible, then it has done something important valuable, and something that cannot be discounted. After all, this should be the end goal of all philosophers – that people at large, not just the denizens of the intellectual world are changed and prompted to deeper thought and reflection by means of what they produce. Again, this is the real power of philosophy, and the power to which philosophers most definitely need to cling to – the power to change everyday, individual lives. Without influence in the public square, individuals will continue to uncritically accept the dogmas handed down to them by those who control the outlets of thought. And as long as philosophers remain in the brick walls of their intellectual settings, that power seems to be corralled. Until philosophy can talk to people who are not trained in its methods rather than talking far above their heads in nearly incomprehensible language, that power will continue to be corralled and philosophy will actually be as powerless and vacuous as some claim that it already is.