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Modern Day Philosophy?

 




A thought popped into my head the other day, and I haven't stopped thinking about it. 

Why is modern philosophy so weak?

That sounds full of judgement, clearly there are many modern day (and impactful) philosophers. A quick Google search this morning easily gave me a list of the top 50 living philosophers. Being able to generate a list of 50 people in 2 seconds seems to blow up my comment rather quickly.


What is philosophy then?

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind and language. The questions are often posed as problems to be studied and resolved.


With academic philosophy healthy and strong, I started to wonder where my feeling and original question came from. I am now considering that it is not modern philosophy that is weak, the reality is it handles more complexity and nuance in the topics it explores than every before, rather it is the general importance and interest it has with the general population that has changed.

Think about yourself for minute, the last thirty, sixty days. Issues that have been on your mind, problems that you are struggling with, positions you are holding at work on in your personal life. Have you leveraged a philisophical approach (questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and presentation) when exploring these questions and frames?

Or has your default been more to text a friend to bitch about something?

And yes, I put "text" there purposefully as we seem to prefer methods of communication that allow us to communicate while not being fully present or focusing our attention to the activity.


Even my Google expedition this morning into modern philosophy highlighted another intresting question for deeper exploration; the immdiate first level results didn't return any person's work that has been popularized in the last 20-30 years. The modern day bigs all have been born between 1940 and 1960. While not old, they are a couple of steps removed from succedding generations.

Current Western culture is riddled with impatience. People today are (or have convinced themselves) too busy to engage in a lot of critical thought and discussion. We are happy to be a cog in the machine while we try to build ourselves up via social media. With people feeling like they don't have time to sit and think, to work with the core of a situation or take a good look at their own choices and beliefs to question whether or not their actions will yield the results that they are after.


This focus on immediacy when we want an answer, when we want something for oursleves circles back to how we think; more specifically that we no longer really take the time to really think, we are impatient even with ourselves!

Ancient Greece wasn't filled with genius intellect across the base of its population, that's not why there is such a strong tie to philosophy when most people heard the word. I offer that what they did have and what is much different than where we are now, was a pure appreciation and desire for knowledge. They thrived being able to question and challenge, to take ideas and upend them, to look at things from different perspectives and not being slaves to "the right answer".

Today most people would rather spend time on Tik Tok, Instagram FaceBook or Twitter, endlessly scorlling social media for inspiration and to find that quick fix for life rather than asking real questions and seeing where that leads.


Not challenging yourself is comfortabe, and as a species we prefer comfort. Being comfortable means that you are in a particular mindset and environment - probably one you like. 

Just like the Galapagos Islands show us, nothing changes if conditions stay the same.

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