Mengapa Belajar Filsafat Itu

Apakah Filsafat Itu?

Secara etimologi berasal dari kata Philoso-phia

(Yunani)
 philein artinya mencintai atau philos artinya
teman
 sophos artinya bijaksana atau Sophia artinya
kebijaksanaan

 “love of wisdom.”
 “love of wisdom.”

 Memberi kita dua hal yang penting untuk

melangkah maju: cinta (love/passion) dan
kebijaksanaan
(wisdom/knowledge/understanding).

 Kata yang pertama harus menjadi perhatian

utama karena aspek ini sering
dikesampingkan dalam academic
philosophy: love and passion.
What is Wisdom?*

 Hampir setiap saat filsafat dipelajari tanpa passion dan tanpa cinta,
sebagaimana mempelajari pelajaran teknis seperti engineering
atau simple mathematics.

 Filsafat harus dimulai dari suatu dorongan passion untuk mencapai

tujuan utama — dan disinilah pertanyaan tentang kebijaksanaan
muncul.

 Filsafat mempunyai titikberat tentang mempertanyakan segala

sesuatu — pertanyaan-pertanyaan yang pada kenyataannya tidak
akan pernah mendapatkan jawaban akhirnya.
2 Complimentary tasks of Philosophy*

 CRITICAL and CONSTRUCTIVE

 The Critical task of philosophy meliputi: memberikan

pertanyaan yang sulit tentang berbagai klaim kebenaran baik
yang telah menjadi kebenaran umum ataupun kebenaran
yang disampaikan oleh seorang filsuf.
 A “critical” philosophy is not one that criticizes, in the carping, censorious
way where “nothing is ever right.”
 CRITIQUE is the attempt to get behind knowledge claims and ask, What
makes them possible?

 The Constructive aspect of philosophy meliputi:

mengembangkan gambaran realitas yang akurat dan
produktif.
The Hope of Philosophy*

 The hope of philosophy is to understand: understand

ourselves, understand our world, understand our values and
the entirety of existence around us.

 We humans want to understand such things and, without

prodding or pushing, we naturally develop philosophy in order
to develop such understanding.

 This means that everyone does at least a little bit of

philosophy, even when they have never experienced formal
training.

 Aristotle (Metaphysics I): “All men by nature desire to know.”

Does Philosophy ever accomplish
anything?*
 Many people tend to think of philosophy as an idle pursuit,
never amounting to much.

 Reason: “If we go back and look at the works of ancient

Greek philosophers, we’ll find that they were asking the same
questions which philosophers ask today.

 Is this true? Certainly not — philosophy is not simply

something for egghead academics in ivory towers.

 On the contrary, all humans engage in philosophy in one form

or another because we are philosophizing creatures.
 FACT: It is true that remaining with philosophy does not
afford an especially wide range of career options.

 But skill with philosophy is something which can be readily

transferred to fields like law, public policy and more.

 Basically, anything which requires careful thinking, systematic

reasoning, and an ability to ask and address difficult
questions will benefit from a background in philosophy.

 Quite aside from career options, philosophy is also important

for those who, on their own time, desire to learn more about
themselves and about life.

 Such activities are themselves philosophical pursuits, and as

such can benefit from any background in an academic study
of the subject.
The philosophical enterprise: three
disciplines
1. Discipline of questioning
 “Cessation of questioning leads only to the stagnation
and arresting of growth.”
2. Discipline of liberation
 What are the consequence if a person engages in “blind
adherence”, “unquestioning acceptance”, and
“thoughtless conformity” in the presence of societal
structures that close avenues to the truth?
3. Discipline of personhood
 “One’s life is one’s life is one’s own unique creative
project.” – Søren Kierkegaard
What are some of the benefits of
studying philosophy?*
 Problem Solving Skills:

 Philosophy is all about asking difficult questions and developing

answers which can be reasonably and rationally defended against
hard, skeptical questioning.

 Philosophers need to learn how to analyze concepts, definitions

and arguments in a way conducive towards developing solutions
for particular problems.

 Because of this, you can also have an increased assurance that

your beliefs may be reasonable, consistent and well-founded
because you have examined them systematically and carefully.
Benefit 2

 Communication Skills:

 A person who excels at communicating in the field of

philosophy can also excel at communication in other areas.

 Philosophers are expected to express their ideas clearly and

precisely, both in speaking and in writing.

 While those ideas may seem incomprehensible to those who

are unfamiliar with the topic or jargon, this also tends to be
the case with the physical sciences.
Benefit 3

 Self-Knowledge:

 It is also worth noting that it isn't just a matter of better

communication with others that is helped by the study of
philosophy — understanding yourself is improved.

 The very nature of philosophy is such that you get a better

picture of what you yourself believe simply through working
through those beliefs in a careful and systematic fashion.
Benefit 4

 Persuasive Skills:

 The whole purpose in philosophy of developing problem

solving and communication skills is not simply to gain a better
understanding of the world, but also to get others to agree
with that understanding.

 Good persuasive skills are thus important in the field of

philosophy because a person needs to defend her own views
and to offer insightful critiques of the views of others.
Who cares about doing philosophy
well?*
 EVERYONE who cares about whether or not their answers are
reasonable, well-founded, well-developed and coherent.

 Those are the qualities which the study of philosophy can bring to a
person's questioning and curiosity, and that is why the subject is so
important.

 We may never arrive at any final answers, but in many ways it is

the journey which is most important, not the destination.
 *Source: Cline, Austin. “Introduction to Philosophy: Defining, Studying, Doing Philosophy
is Important. Why Do Atheists Need Philosophy? We Need to Reason Well About Life & Society.”
Available at http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutphilosoph1/a/philosophyintro.htm.
Reference:
 Cline, Austin. “Introduction to Philosophy: Defining, Studying, Doing Philosophy
is Important. Why Do Atheists Need Philosophy? We Need to Reason Well About
Life & Society.” Available at
http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutphilosoph1/a/philosophyintro.htm.

 Kavanaugh, John S.J.“The Philosophical Enterprise”.

COME AND JOIN US!!!
 “Philosophy is the wisdom of love in
the service of love.”
 Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being

"... [E]vil is an invention of freedom....[A]n

ethical vision of evil is a vision in which
freedom is revealed in its depths as
power to act and power to be; the
freedom that evil supposes is a freedom
capable of digression, deviation,
subversion, wandering."
Paul Ricoeur, The Conflict of
Interpretations