The philosopher's curse

The philosopher's curse

Philosophy is renowned for its complex language. Philosophical debate gets wrapped up in semantics - meanings of many words. It is kept complicated via the use of rare and clever sounding words to exclude undesirables. A trick employed by many a society and numerous clubs to keep them out. The jargon we use regularly in our circles is often bewildering to outsiders.

What is philosophy anyway? The skeleton of the truth. Scratching an itch. Looking for answers through discussion and thought. I like to make a proposition and gauge the reaction from others. I need to see if the arguments behind the proposition are strong or weak. Where weak, I adjust the arguments to strengthen it.

Sometimes we need to stick to an opinion despite the opposition. Progress would not have been made were one to give up too early. Time can be wasted by sticking to a line of thought for too long. When does one decide to change direction? There is no answer to that. Belief and faith dictate the length of time you persevere with a line of enquiry. Dogmatism can both be a saving grace and a way to fail. Sometimes people are right, but their reasoning is erroneous.

Saying that nothing is absolute, and everything will always be open to question may be correct to a point, but it can be a curse. Leaving it be, can be unsatisfactory. With some determination to see things through, we usually reach clarity on a subject. The only way section shows an absolute. It provides the foundation to understand the definitive nature of the universe. However, the foundation blocks produce extreme complexity. Coupling that complexity with the existence of random chaos makes it quite difficult to be absolutely certain of anything beyond how things structure at the basic level.