So many philosophers I’ve been studying seemed to have been depressed, dissatisfied, alone and never married, or even mentally ill at the end of their lives. Some have even concluded life is not worth bringing new humans into existence. Which philosophers were happy and/or seemed to promote a philosophy which might bring one happiness?
"If we placed our happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended upon causes beyond our power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skillfully; in the propriety of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction. Our happiness was perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune."
From "The Practicing Stoic" by Ward Farnsworth (Ward quotes Adam Smith here, author of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments")
If stoicism is making you depressed or sad you are doing it wrong.
You should derive your happiness from yourself, your actions and your thoughts. Big part of our philosophy is changing the source of our happiness, NOT removing it.
Hello everybody,
I was curious about something. Whenever I think about the Lord or pray to him, I feel this overwhelming sense of love and happiness. It’s in my chest, close to my heart and it’s this beaming feeling of joy. Do others experience this as well? I am very curious to find out if this happens to all people who have accepted Christ.
What I mean by "philosophy is dying" is not what you're probably used to associate with it - I'm not saying that science has made it irrelevant or that it's "useless".
On the contrary, I'm saying that BECAUSE people believe it's "useless" the field of philosophy is having a hard time being heard and respected by the popular public. Not only that, but deep philosophical enquiries that occupied some of the greatest minds to ever live keep being dismissed, usually with strawman arguments or an aggressive reductionism. For example, dismissing the field of ethics with just "morality is subjective" or pretty much every other field with positivism. Instead of signaling the lazyness of the holder of this beliefs, appeal to common sense and similar low-hanging fruits have, in recent time, been associated with a kind of "wokeness", of unbridled and unbiased rationalism which, in fact, comes from the dismissal of the whole conversation. Think of personalities like Sam Harris or Jordan Peterson: the first, who wrote a supposedly philosophical book while dismissing most of the philosophical conversation that he touches on as "boring" - the second, engaging in a debate on Marxism with one of the most prominent philosophers of our times (Zizek) barely studying the source material - and both Harris and Peterson being hailed as intellectuals by people who don't realize the points they're making have already been made and discussed centuries ago.
What I'm trying to say is not that philosophers are smarter than STEM - just that it isn't vice versa either. The fact that arguments against philosophy like the ones the likes of Bill Nye make are taken serious is a symptom of a field of study that isn't recognized as valid purely because its benefits aren't tangible and immediate. We have come to a capitalist reduction to what can get you a job - in particular in the states where education costs ten times as much as anywhere else - and people are "content" with just learning a trade and going on about their business. "It's not knolwedge if it isn't profitable - and I get it, I too am probably going to make a similar reasoning regarding my studies but that's only about the "Piece of paper" - I don't value technical knowledge above philosophical knowledge. At all: that's the perfect way to ensure the continuation of the status quo, learning coding can sure land you a job and it can give you some important piece of information, but it doesn't tell you anything about fairnes
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