There is a new crisis in modern society, due to skepticism about the legitimacy and importance of the discipline of philosophy itself, when science can provide all the answers. Why should people care about philosophy or philosophers themselves when they live in a world where science is believed to have a much more valuable and more important role in society than the study of philosophy or the humanities? Philosophers are so unique in their keen awareness of their activity in society and actively demonstrate their awareness through criticism of other people and disciplines as this is one of the fundamental Socratic ideas of philosophy; which is a form of self-knowledge (Loncar). Studying philosophy is one of the most practical things that humans could potentially learn and apply to their lives because philosophy is not only characterized by its topic, but also by its method. The values, skills, and methods possessed by philosophers are needed to propose new ideas or arguments against old ones that might one day benefit society. Philosophers can question everything so that society can have new inventions, theories, and answers that science alone could not provide. Over time they propose new ideas that can instigate revolutions and ultimately change the way humans perceive their existence and reality (Hayden). Philosophers are individuals who strive to radically challenge the fundamental beliefs of the humanities, questioning the current culture and values of society through their unique methods and skills that they have acquired by studying philosophy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayThere are many popular misconceptions and stereotypes about philosophers. One of the most common stereotypes of what a philosopher should look like is an older, white, wealthy male with a beard who claims to know the answers to everything but claims to know nothing. There is also a misconception that philosophers ignore science and are arrogant people who believe they are always right because they know everything and everyone else simply doesn't know the truth. People who study philosophy come from a wide range of backgrounds consisting of wildly different races, genders, ages, socioeconomic statuses, sizes, and levels of intellectualism. The individuals who make up the discipline of philosophy are not all super sophisticated and extremely intellectual. Instead, they are human beings who simply like to think about philosophy, and can look like anything and come from any background. Stereotypes of individuals have a huge effect on individual performance and how individuals judge it. People may judge philosophers as less good than other philosophers because they don't fit the typical stereotype of what the image of a philosopher is. Some people question their ability to study philosophy, and if they cannot understand certain ideas of a philosopher simply because they are too abstract for them, they may even avoid the ideas of philosophy altogether; they believe they are not the kind of person who can understand and study philosophy (Loncar). Indeed, studying the teachings of a philosopher and trying to apply his teachings to one's life may be a rather slow and painstaking process initially, but over time the person acquires more knowledge which ultimately makes the person's ability to think critically much simpler and clearer. to themselves (Tillman). The studydisciplinary philosophy is becoming increasingly important in the modern world, more than any other period in human history, due to the rapid progress of sciences taking control over people's lives through technology. If people choose not to ask questions about new discoveries and their ethical implications for society, the entire discipline of philosophy will be discarded as nonessential and unimportant. Instead, it could create a society in which no one has the ability or even the need to think for themselves and no ethical questions would ever arise about new technological and medical advances. Historically philosophers have always been perceived by others in their society as those who possessed the highest levels of achievement and intellectualism, with more knowledge than any other discipline had to offer at the time. Now, the culture is moving away from free-thinking, ambitious, reasonable, and logical individuals who sought to ask questions about the very nature of the commonly shared truths and values of our current culture and existence. Most people choose to take intellectual shortcuts in life and try to blame crutches for the mistakes in their life. They will believe that everything they hear from others is true without even analyzing their beliefs and values because they lose the ability to reason and think for themselves over time. Ultimately, the sciences do not teach a person real moral values that are truly theirs or ways to have a completely different perception of their worldview and existence (Hadfield). Individuals who study the teachings of philosophy and other philosophers can help improve not only their ability to think critically in situations, but also their ability to equip themselves with a greater knowledge of logic which can drastically improve their abilities to critical thinking. Philosophers intellectually can reach the point of being able to propose logical and reasonable arguments to commonly accepted values and beliefs in modern culture and society that most people hold to be true (Hayden). Philosophers are trying to try to understand the fundamental and important issues of society so that society can progress and gain further levels of understanding on how to address the most basic challenges and questions of modern society. Some of the questions that philosophers try to answer may never be answered and may not even find a unified solution. There will always be a constant need for philosophers as their ideas are a crucial component of how everyone experiences their human life. Yet, with all this progress in science, why is there no single empirical answer such as whether God exists, what is the purpose of life, whether there is anything right or wrong in the true sense of the word, and if there is, how such? it is possible to access the values a priori. Philosophers have a certain way of thinking that makes them far more valuable in promoting real progress that impacts human life experiences than any other profession. Their particular way of thinking about the nature of the universe and their existence in it, and also asking fundamental questions about the nature of the universe, the nature of the human mind and thought, and all the interconnections between them, make philosophers have so much more value in the modern era than the sciences (Tillman). Philosophers use a logical, critical, analytical, imaginative, thoughtful and always open-minded method. Philosophers are not people who take intellectual shortcuts in life and will never take for granted that a certain point ofview is empirically right only because it seems plausible and vice versa. Society is currently in the era of modernism derived from the Enlightenment; where more than two hundred years ago, philosophers argued that, above all, reason should be used as the ultimate way to create an authoritative system of government, ethics, religion, and aesthetics, which would allow human beings to access the objective truth about the nature of reality . Philosophers often use the ideas of the Enlightenment as the basis for their modern ideas of liberalism, which carry out cultural revolutions contrary to ideas of intolerance and superstition. Most modern philosophers see the Enlightenment as a primary source of culturally valuable critical ideas, such as the centrality of reason, freedom, and democracy in a modern society. From the point of view of the Enlightenment, the nature of philosophers is particular and authentic due to their ability to apply rationality to every essential problem. This structural change from circumscribed thinking allows philosophers to pursue their ideals and truth values in whatever form it may take, without a possible threat of sanction for violating currently established beliefs. The ideas of the Enlightenment are commonly appreciated by philosophers of the modern world and can bring about cultural revolutions through reason. However, pure reason alone will never be able to answer some of the fundamental questions about freedom, God and life after death because they must only be created through belief in a moral sense of duty (Earle). “Philosophy is not a science” supports the fact that philosophy is not a field of science and that science rather derives from philosophy, but not only that, it created most of the disciplines that modern society has today. According to Julian Friedland, for much of Western intellectual history, “philosophy has been considered the mother of all knowledge,” but we now live in an age where large numbers of people do not know whether or not philosophy is good for society and also what the discipline of philosophy is. Many people see philosophy as a highly intellectual and extremely sophisticated discipline that, according to Julian Friedland, has little or no “relation to objective reality.” The topic as a whole has a lot of things to say about reality, but one of the main general assumptions of philosophy is that none of it qualifies as factual knowledge unless proven scientifically. Philosophers differ from people who study the arts, religion, and literature in fundamental ways because “the etymological meaning is the love of wisdom.” According to Julian Friedland, the etymological meaning of philosophy implies a vast amount of objective knowledge, which can only be achieved "on its own terms, otherwise it would be another branch of science" (Friedland). The Simpsons portrays philosophy in an interesting and unique way by poking fun at modern society's current fixation on trying to achieve success in life. At the beginning of the episode, "A Father's Watch" Bart was not doing well in school, and after his mother, Marge searched online and found a video by an expert, known as "The Trophy Philosophy" and almost instantly thought that Bart would have started to perform better in school if he had followed the advice. Sometime later in the episode, "The Trophy Philosophy" is abandoned due to a new belief proposed by another expert that "too much praise creates narcissistic, arrogant children" who will never go to college and end up living with their parents . Bart later receives a pocket watch from his grandfather and then loses it and believes he will be a failure without the watch because he believes the watchis the only reason he is currently achieving success in life. At the end of the episode, Bart's father finds the pocket watch and returns it to Bart making him happy again and believing that he will be successful in life ("A Father's Watch"). a funny but critical look at how today's society believes that to be successful in life, you have to get good grades, go to college, and get a good job so that you can finally achieve success in life. Instead of imposing on their children the idea that they will not be successful if they do not do well in school or achieve certain goals that their parents have created for them, society must allow their children to set their own goals in life and define the their successful version. Modern culture shifts from one belief to another, and believes everything it sees or hears about even if the source is not credible or even logical. People in society seemingly believe everything they hear or see, never thinking for themselves and choosing to believe in the hopes or goals created by others, thus losing the ability to even question their own beliefs and values. The constant need for approval imposed by the culture of modern society is alarming and must be addressed in order for society to move forward, and by changing society's beliefs and expectations, humans will be able to create their own success instead of being at height than someone else's (“A Father's Watch”). The Sunset Limited makes some compelling arguments for why philosophers are so important to modern society, but it also presents an active critique of modern philosophers and how the Socratic method of discussing philosophical questions can turn many people away from philosophy. The whole movie is about a black man and a white professor discussing philosophical questions about religion, existence and ethics to point out that philosophers are looking for the answers to things and how they arrived at their answers, but they realize that they cannot honestly answer fundamental questions of human life and will most likely never find answers with absolute certainty. The film pits two very different people with completely different values against each other by arguing in black and white about fundamental questions of philosophy, and ultimately asks what the point of philosophers is in asking questions in the first place if the answers can never have a real answer. In the course of their search for the truth they realize that they sincerely know nothing about the world and that it is useless to argue and criticize each other's beliefs when it leads to nothing but hostility and anguish. Throughout the film, the two philosophers are both portrayed as critical, hypocritical and narcissistic, while the black man has a more positive outlook on life, and the white man has a very depressive and negative one (The Sunset Limited). Culture changes too. the values of the most narcissistic philosopher into weak values. Human experiences change values and beliefs, and the white man describes this when he says, “Maybe I have no beliefs. The things I believed in no longer exist. It's foolish to pretend that they do. Western civilization finally went up in smoke and I was too infatuated to see it. I see it now." Philosophers make assumptions from answers to previous questions that may or may not be true, and gain knowledge through life experiences and by studying the writings of other philosophers. They ask us why we do certain things and believe certain things to be true, but they may find that even those truths, once certain, are subject to uncertainty. The way philosophers try to convince people of completely abstract things is by using allegories and narratives to show a blank question..
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