What philosophy is closest to your definition of quality of
life? Throughout this course we have seen several types of philosophies from
many different people. Most of these philosophers are probably borderline
insane, to be lost in some of their ideas I feel like a few of them crossed
that thin line between genius and crazy. Really, do you want to go through your
life questioning everything that you see and experience? When you look at your
dining room table do you think it’s a real table? Or do you think that we are
just taught the shape of the table is only a symbol?
Some theories are quite
ridiculous to me. I choose common sense, I choose to believe what I want and
experience what I experience. Most philosophical theories will leave you
questioning your own physical existence. They can mostly be far-fetched ideas
of what an object is, does it exist, can you prove it, and that your mind and
body are two completely different beings. I agree with William James and other
pragmatist and their common sense approach, if you will. Philosophy’s true
purpose is to help us live by showing us how to discover and adopt beliefs that
fit our individual needs and temperaments - as we learned in Chapter 15; The Pragmatist,
William James (from the beginning of Ch. 15 through 15-3a).
I feel like all of
the philosophers that we read about were in a deep depression for most of their
lives. Of course not all of them were but that’s my perception of them. The
greatest thing about us as humans is that we each get to be different from one
another. We can all read the same passage and each get a different meaning.
With that in mind, how can one philosophy be correct for all? It can’t. We live
in a time where it seems the bigger words you use or the more expensive of
educational institution you attend, then you are clearly superior to others. I
find it difficult to deal with people like that. Therefore, when I read or
learn about someone else who appreciates common sense it is refreshing to me.
I
work in an industry that has created terminology that really feels like it was
done solely to confuse normal people to get something over on them. I break
down all the lingo to explain it to those I come in contact with. I do not
agree with the ideas that are out there and speculations that drive what I do
for a living. I can relate to Mr. James when he disagreed with the silliness of
philosophies out there. I appreciate his ideology that philosophy is different
for each of us. Not everything has to come down to an absolute. Not everything
has to have some sort of distorted meaning. I think that pragmatism is a simple
approach to live our life to the fullest. Experience things for yourself, adopt
beliefs that work for you. After all, we are all unique individuals with the
ability to think for ourselves.
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