Part I: Wisdom—Why Should We Practice Philosophy?

Iñiguez, Santiago

doi:10.1007/978-3-031-20483-8_1

Santiago Iñiguez²

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Abstract

The purpose of philosophy is to provide insights that help us to better understand the world, answers to the question of who we are, or reasoning to justify how we should act. Its scope is multidisciplinary, and virtually every important question has a philosophical background. The early philosophers attempted to explain the world, nature, institutions and our behavior. Their method was argumentative, often in dialogue with others, providing reasons or evidence in their defense. Over time, philosophy has become specialized and confined mainly to academia. There are any number of fine thinkers and gurus out there, but the spirit of the classical philosophers, who applied their prescience to the burning questions of life, seems gone forever.

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Notes

1.
Plato, Apology, 38 a 5–6, in The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro; Apology; Crito; Phaedo (ed. H. Tarrant) (London: Penguin, 2003).
2.
Skepticism and Cynicism are the two main philosophical streams questioning whether we can actually know. Vid M. Proudfoot and A.R. Lacey, The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy, 4^th ed. (London: Routledge, 2020).
3.
From Xenophon’s Memorabilia, quoted by J. Miller, Examined Lives. Form Socrates to Nietzsche (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011), p. 7.
4.
Plato, op. cit. ibidem.
5.
R.J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche. The Man and His Philosophy (Rev. ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 25.
6.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); and Plutarch, The Makers of Rome: Nine Lives (ed. I. Scott-Kilver) (London: Penguin, 1965).
7.
J. Greco (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Skepticism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011).
8.
Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics (trans. H. Tredennick & J.A.K. Thomson) (London: Penguin, 2004), Ch. 10.
9.
N. Warburton, A Little History of Philosophy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2011), Ch. 26.
10.
J.P. Sartre, No Exit (New York: Samuel French Inc., 1958).
11.
J.P. Sartre, Being and Nothingness (Trans. H: E Barnes) (London: Routledge, 1993), and Essays in Existentialism (New York: Citadel, 1976).
12.
J. Miller, Examined Lives. From Socrates to Nietzsche, op. cit., p. 268.
13.
Ibid., pp. 43–72.
14.
Plato, Apology, op. cit., 21d.
15.
I. Murdoch, The Sovereignty of the Good (London: Routledge, 1979); p. 35.
16.
T. Baldwin, “There Might Be Nothing”. 56 Analysis 4, pp. 231–238; N. Warburton, op. cit., Ch. 3.
17.
A. Rand, “Philosophy: Who Needs It?” (New York, NY: Penguin; Signet, 1984); p. 5.
18.
Ibidem.
19.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (London: Penguin, 2006); Cardenal Mazarino, Breviario de los politicos (Barcelona: Acantilado, 2007); La Rouchefoucauld, Maxims (London: Penguin, 1982).
20.
B. Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom: a Pocket Oracle (New York: Snowball, 2012).
21.
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22.
N. Machiavelli, The Prince (London: Penguin, 2003).
23.
S. Ghoshal, op. cit., p.75.
24.
Ibid., p.79.
25.
B. Gracián, op.cit., 16, p. 38.
26.
Ibid., 26, p. 138.
27.
Ibid., 243, p. 265.
28.
Ibid., 44, p. 66.
29.
Ibid., 81, p. 163.
30.
Ibid., 164, p.186.
31.
Ibid., 9, p. 31.
32.
Ibid., 4, p. 26.
33.
Plato, The Republic (London: Penguin, 2007), IV, 428e.
34.
D. Kahnemann, Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013).
35.
IQ of American presidents https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/05/27/poindexter-in-chief-presidential-iqs-and-success-in-the-oval-office.
36.
A. Wooldridge, The Aristocracy of Talent. How Meritocracy Made the Modern World (Penguin: London, 2021).
37.
Ibid., p.1.
38.
M. Sandel, The Tyranny of Merit. Can We Find the Common Good? (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020).
39.
D. Markovits, The Meritocracy Trap. How America’s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite (New York: Penguin, 2019).
40.
A. Wooldridge, op. cit., Part V.
41.
R. Plomin, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are (Boston: MIT Press, 2019). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/nature-vs-nurture.
42.
H. Gardner, Multiple Intelligences. New Horizons in Theory and Practice (New York: Basic Books, 2006).
43.
S. Pinker, Enlightenment Now. The Case for reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (London: Penguin, 2019).
44.
J.W. Goethe, quoted by S. Zweig, The struggle against the devil: Hölderlin—Kleist—Nietzsche (Madrid: El Acantilado, 2021) (Spanish Edition), p. 78.
45.
Mathew, 20: 1–16.
46.
Matthew, 25: 14–30.
47.
Ibidem.
48.
Ibidem.
49.
I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (ed. C.M. Korsgaard, M. Gregor, and J. Timmermann) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
50.
J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
51.
Rawls’ MAXIMIN [abbreviation of “maximum minimorum”] is the rule of choice that asks that, in any distribution, the most disadvantaged situation be considered first (that of the individual who benefits least from the distribution).
52.
N. Warburton, op. cit., Ch. 38.
53.
Ibidem.
54.
C. Kukathas and P. Pettit, Rawls: A Theory of Justice and Its Critics (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), and N. Daniels (ed.), Reading Rawls. Critical Studies on Rawls’ ‘A Theory of Justice’ (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989).
55.
T. Nagel, “Rawls on Justice”, 82 The Philosophical Review 2 (April 1973), pp. 220–34.
56.
M. Sandel, op. cit.
57.
Matthew, 25: 14–30.
58.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.159.3810.56.
59.
M. Sandel, op. cit.
60.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-outsource-idUSKBN1CF1IF.
61.
S. Iniguez and P. Lorange (eds.), Executive Education after the Pandemic: A Vision for the Future (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
62.
https://www.edx.org/es/bio/michael-j-sandel.
63.
Plato, Apology, op. cit. Ibidem.
64.
J. Locke, Some Thoughts concerning Education (London: Kypros Press, 2016), Kindle ed.
65.
Ibid., 32, loc. 339.
66.
N. Warburton, op. cit., Ch. 15.
67.
Homer, The Odyssey (London: Penguin, 2003), Books 12–14.
68.
Juvenal, The Satires (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).
69.
J. Locke, op. cit., 14, loc. 167.
70.
Ibid., 67, loc. 728.
71.
Aesop, The Complete Fables (trans. O. Temple) (London: Penguin, 1998); H.C. Andersen, The Emperor’s New clothes and Other Stories (London: Penguin, 1995).

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IE University, Madrid, Spain
Santiago Iñiguez

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Iñiguez, S. (2023). Part I: Wisdom—Why Should We Practice Philosophy?. In: Philosophy Inc.. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20483-8_1

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20483-8_1
Published: 13 December 2022
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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