Why philosophy? | Andre Ye

Commentary: Who Are You to Study Philosophy?

Garden of Ideas, Fall 2024 edition.

In the opening to his final book What is Philosophy?, the great thinker Gilles Deleuze writes these heavy words:

“The question ‘what is philosophy?’ can perhaps be posed only late in life, with the arrival of old age and the time for speaking concretely. It is a question posed in a moment of quiet restlessness, at midnight, when there is no longer anything to ask. It was asked before; it was always being asked, but too indirectly or obliquely; the question was too artificial, too abstract. Instead of being seized by it, those who asked the question set it out and controlled it in passing. They were not sober enough. There was too much desire to do philosophy to wonder what it was, except as a stylistic exercise. That point of nonstyle where one can finally say, ‘What is it I have been doing all my life?’ had not been reached.”

Four years later, on 4 November 1995, Deleuze jumped out of his Parisian apartment, to his death.

Well, I think the time — or at least, a time — for speaking concretely has come for me. I am at the end of one of my lives — I’m a senior, finished with my philosophy degree, and nearly finished with my computer science degree. I am seized by the question “What is it I have been doing all my life?” but just as much seized by the question “What is it that I will do with my life?” And insofar as philosophy has been central towards understanding and living my life, from that moment of quiet midnight restlessness does surge the question “What is philosophy?” I have some thoughts on these questions, and I would like to share them. I just ask that the reader acknowledges firstly that these are my thoughts principally for myself, and I do not claim to preach to or impose upon others; secondly that these thoughts are partial and not whole, and are sticky to contextualization and caveats; and thirdly that I am young and stupid, susceptible to the naivete that accumulated experience erodes, yet attracted to the prose of someone who is old and wise, or at the very least thinks they are. Thus everything that I say is defeasible; even I do not sometimes believe what my recently past selves have written. But the question “what is philosophy?” is urgent, and I will not wait until near my death to try and answer it.

Who Are You to Study Philosophy? This is a violent question. It’s clearly very exclusionary, as if to say: Why do you think you belong to philosophy? What right do you have to study philosophy? Justify your reason for entering the realm of philosophy or thou shall not pass! For pedagogical reasons, to make all feel welcome in philosophy classrooms, instructors want to spend more time talking about the “content of philosophy” and less about doubting why students should study philosophy at all. For disciplinarily existential reasons, philosophers want to emphasize that (near-)universally positive aspects of philosophy, as well as the instrumental benefits of philosophical training (e.g., philosophy can help us analyze the world, it helps us become clearer thinkers, etc.). Philosophy has enough of an “elitism” image: do we really need to push even interested students away? Philosophical education says, in a very Christian way:

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

So this violent question — Who are you to study philosophy? — is very repressed in our philosophical education and in the minds of young philosophers.

I think one of the symptoms of this repression is that it gives rise to “bourgeois philosophy.” That word “bourgeois” has many connotations, many of which are useful (which is why I chose the word) and some that are not. What I mean by “bourgeois philosophy” is what Deleuze describes as “stylistic exercise” — abstract, indulgent, highly intellectual philosophy, engaging in thoughtful discussion striving towards “truth” formed by knowing and counterposing lots of names for philosophical positions — the aesthetic of sophistry (getting into the fray of things, making arguments, convincing people) and the integrity of Socrates (thoughtfulness, respect, concern for truth or truth-adjacent values). It’s bourgeois in that it has the space to be respectable, to recognize individuals’ positions (“intellectual property”) in discussions, to be concerned with values. The bourgeois philosophy I speak of includes not only the obvious candidates like Plato and German idealism but also the analytic curriculum, inclusive atmospheres, survey-styled structure of our philosophy classrooms. And this is excellent. I love bourgeois philosophy. It’s a great context to learn in. It should not be totally abandoned.

But my concern with bourgeois philosophy is that, in depending on and facilitating the repression of that ever-important question “Who are you to study philosophy?”, it also represses the answer: “Because I am a troubled human with problems to solve.” When we are interpellated into the roles of bourgeois philosophy — e.g. “equally valid contributors in the classroom”; Socrates and his interlocutor/victim — we tend to lose attachment to our visceral, situated, lived, restless-at-midnight problems. These problems can be existential — What am I doing with my life? What will I be when I die? How should I make X decision? They can be ethical — Should I vote for Washington Initiative Measure No. 2066? What should I do, if anything, about Israel/Palestine? Should I feel bad when I eat meat, and should I stop? They can be about language — We keep on talking past each other, what is meaning? I was called a slur; what should I do about it? And what really is a slur anyway? — or science — How can we be sure about our scientific knowledge? It feels like scientific progress isn’t progressing; what exactly is scientific progress? But I don’t think we can replace, for example, the ethical question of what to do about Israel/Palestine, about abortion, etc., with the ethical questions of why I should save a child drowning in a lake, the trolley problem, and the other such problems that analytic ethics have offered. Certainly, they may be useful tools. But shouldn’t we be more preoccupied with why these tools are useful to our problems, like Philippa Foot was when she introduced the trolley problem to think about abortion, than with the tools themselves? On ethics, I appeal to the Queen of Queens, Iris Murdoch:

“…there are ‘moral facts’ in the sense of moral interpretations of situations where the moral concept in question determines what the situation is, and if the concept is withdrawn then we are not left with the same situation or the same facts. In short, if moral concepts are regarded as deep moral configurations of the world, rather than as lines drawn round separable factual areas, then there would be no facts ‘behind them’ for them to be erroneously defined in terms of. There is nothing sinister about this view; freedom here will consist, not in being able to lift the concept off the otherwise unaltered facts and lay it down elsewhere, but in being able to ‘deepen’ or ‘reorganize’ the concept or change it for another one. On such a view, … moral freedom looks more like a mode of reflection which we may have to achieve, and less like a capacity to vary our choices which we have by definition.”

And on matters like philosophy of science, philosophy of language, etc., shouldn’t we first become deeply acquainted with the problems that give rise to these fields — e.g., experience the struggle of introductory physics, the (in?)congruence between classical and quantum mechanics, trying to learn another language, getting called a slur / misgendered / verbally harassed — and then read Popper, Kuhn, (Wimsatt), Frege, Russell, (Butler)? Rather than vice versa, where the theories are learnt and then some kind of homage is paid to the problems it could maybe help us with? So let our philosophizing be about the freedom for reflection, in Murdoch’s words, with attachment to our problems, and not the autopoietic study of capital-F Facts and capital-T Theories. When we come across a choice between philosophical positions, let us ask the methodological question “what is the deciding criterion immanent to the problem?” and never forget nor cease revising our answer to the question “what is our problem?” We just might realize, as I have many times in the past, that this kind of consciousness resolves many distinctions without differences (relative to our problems), and reframes conversations in much more productive directions.

Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan says something very insightful about documentaries:

“The documentary tradition is one that gives voice to the victim. For a long time, I have wondered about the function of the victim and to what extent facing the victim is, in fact, a redeeming act. I would say it’s almost a Christian situation, where you have a victim that is suffering for you [the spectator] and through his suffering he redeems the spectator and more: He says, you are human because you feel my suffering. So it comforts the spectator, [affirming his] position of being the ‘good one.’ However, I am interested in interrogating the spectator, to ask him the question: What would you do? What are you?”

Isn’t bourgeois philosophy really very similar, in giving voice to the “victim-philosophers of problems” while redeeming the student for hearing them out, for feeling out their arguments, while repressing the problems facing the student — What would you do? What are you? Who are you to study philosophy?

The question Who am I to study philosophy? forces me to understand my problems. And if I do not have a problem X, then do I really need to philosophize about X? Hume appears to suggest that we do not:

“I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain’d, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.”

We do not always need to philosophize. Philosophy is not the frame by which we need to approach all things in the world, or even all problems. Read some history, study some physics, travel and experience the Other, be among friends. The lurking Platonist in us looks suspiciously at this view and spits, “these are the dirty ways of sophists”; “the unexamined life is not worth living”; “philosophy is king.” But it is really through living that we understand what is worth examining (that is, genuine problems). The problems that matter will confront us at the “right time” in life. The world that we live in, and the World that is I, has no shortage of problems. Philosophy is a powerful tool — but it does not have to be and is not, all-welcoming, all-embracing, all-applicable, warmly inclusive. Re-introduce the Other into philosophy that we encountered when we were all, at some point, the Other to philosophy — struggle with it, love it, abandon it, pick a fight with it. The problems will guide us on how to use philosophy.

I close with the words of Deleuze:

“We sometimes go on as though people can’t express themselves. In fact they’re always expressing themselves… it’s not a problem of getting people to express themselves but of providing little gaps of solitude and silence in which they might eventually find something to say. Repressive forces don’t stop people expressing themselves but rather force them to express themselves; What a relief to have nothing to say, the right to say nothing, because only then is there a chance of framing the rare, and ever rarer, thing that might be worth saying.”

In those little gaps of solitude, let us ask ourselves the uncomfortable question: Who am I to study philosophy — here, now? And let us speak only when we have posited the answer.

Car Salespeople

2022.

When I asked my ten-year-old cousin what he thought of the existence of the number zero, he responded bluntly (to my chagrin): “philosophy is stupid, no one agrees and nothing happens.” Although dressed in more docile clothing, this is fundamentally the same objection that I get often from my peers and philosophy faculty from their students (“oh, you study philosophy… why? What’s the point exactly?”).

I admit that it is a question I myself struggle to grapple with.

There are many answers given, and I understand why many don’t find them satisfactory. “Study philosophy to learn the truth” – “I don’t care about your abstract conception of truth, and given how much philosophers argue, I doubt there’s any truth to be found there at all.” “Study philosophy to know yourself” – “I don’t particularly care to know myself any more than I already do.” “Study philosophy to learn the good” – “I can think about and even live the ethical life without entertaining pointless and reactive formalisms.” “Study philosophy to learn critical thinking” – “There are many fields I can study to rigorously exercise my mind, and higher-paying ones at that.” The last-ditch attempt: “Study philosophy because you love wisdom” – “Why should I love wisdom?” – “… why wouldn’t you? It’s natural, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

I think the problem is that such answers have been formulated as if by car salesmen who, seeing that you do not yet have the object they have to sell, rush to find reasons why you should desire it. And like the disgruntled customer confronted by an obnoxious advertisement, we ignore. Car-salesmen-types unwittingly serve a dual function: in telling you that you should desire an object, they also give you the consciousness that you do not yet have that object. (A basic Freudian observation.) If you decide that your prior objectless life has in fact been pretty good, you might leave the car dealership empty-handed yet more self-sure about your agency (“I know myself, and I said no”) than if you hadn’t gone to the dealership at all. And you surely will say no to any other future car salesmen.

In my view, philosophy is not an object which can be picked up off the shelf, examined for its utility, and placed back when the customer invariably finds shinier objects nearby. (It is, of course, no surprise that philosophy has become this way in the professionalization of academic inquiry, such that philosophy is known as one major out of many.) And to get at what I think matters about philosophy, we need to dilute its rigid boundaries.

The history of philosophy is congealed into every moment of your living. It’s not something which you should want, it’s what you’ve always been doing. There is not a moment of your existence in which you are not in contact with philosophical questions – and, if you pay attention, you will notice that there is not a moment of your existence in which you do not behave as if you had answers to those questions. Let’s take a pertinent example: why are you studying at a university? Maybe you’re an Enlightenment idealist – you believe in the inherent good of knowledge (why?). Maybe you’re a humanist who wants to use the sciences for social good – you believe that there is such a thing as social good (is there?), and moreover that science is a sort of ethically positioned beast (is it?) which you can tame (can you? Why you? How?). Maybe you just like the subject you’re studying and there’s a nice job lined up after you graduate – you believe that you know what you like (do you, really?) and that individuals who can pursue what they enjoy should. Maybe you’re here to have fun – you believe that it’s morally acceptable to have Hedonist parties on Greek Row every week without regard for the homeless several blocks away on the Ave (is it? – maybe it is). Maybe you’re disillusioned and going through the motions to make a living – you believe that your will is fundamentally subjugated under that of the market’s (is it? – maybe it is) and that you in fact can live as a sort of machine (can you?).

We all behave as if we have answers to philosophical questions – questions which are by no means trivial. So does philosophy matter? If you’ve read this letter to the end and thought about the points I’ve raised, then I claim that you’ve acted as if the answer to that question is “yes”.

Philosophy: Who Needs It? Ayn Rand

Delivered at West Point New York, March 6, 1974.

Since I am a fiction writer, let us start with a short story.

Suppose that you are an astronaut whose spaceship gets out of control and crashes on an unknown planet. When you regain consciousness and find that you are not hurt badly, the first three questions in or mind would be:

Where am I?
How can I discover it?
What should I do?

You see unfamiliar vegetation outside, and there is air to breathe; the sunlight seems paler than you remember it and colder. You turn to look at the sky, but stop. You are struck by a sudden feeling: it you don’t look, you won’t have to know that you are, perhaps, too far from the earth and no return is possible; so long as you don’t know it, you are free to believe what you wish—and you experience a foggy, pleasant, but somehow guilty, kind of hope.

You turn to your instruments: they may be damaged, you don’t know how seriously. But you stop, struck by a sudden fear: how can you trust these instruments? How can you be sure that they won’t mislead you? How can you know whether they will work in a different world? You turn away from the instruments.

Now you begin to wonder why you have no desire to do anything. It seems so much safer just to wait for something to turn up somehow; it is better, you tell yourself, not to rock the spaceship. Far in the distance, you see some sort of living creatures approaching; you don’t know whether they are human, but they walk on two feet. They, you decide, will tell you what to do.

You are never heard from again.

This is fantasy, you say? You would not act like that and no astronaut ever would? Perhaps not. But this is the way most men live their lives, here, on earth.

Most men spend their days struggling to evade three questions, the answers to which underlie man’s every thought, feeling and action, whether he is consciously aware of it or not:

Where am I?
How do I know it?
What should I do?

By the time they are old enough to understand these questions, men believe that they know the answers.

Where am I? Say, in New York City.
How do I know it? It’s self-evident.
What should I do? Here, they are not too sure - but the usual answer is: whatever everybody does.

The only trouble seems to be that they are not very active, not very confident, not very happy – and they experience, at times, a causeless fear and an undefined guilt, which they cannot explain or get rid of.

They have never discovered the fact that the trouble comes from the three unanswered questions – and that there is only one science that can answer them: philosophy.

Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existence, of man, and of man’s relationship to existence. As against the special sciences, which deal only with particular aspects, philosophy deals with those aspects of the universe which pertain to everything that exists. In the realm of cognition, the special sciences are the trees, but philosophy is the soil which makes the forest possible.

Philosophy would not tell you, for instance, whether you are in New York City or in Zanzibar (though it would give you the means to find out). But here is what it would tell you: Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute—and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? Are the things you see around you real—or are they only an illusion? Do they exist independent of any observer—or are they created by the observer? Are they the object or the subject of man’s consciousness? Are they what they are—or can they be changed by a mere act of your consciousness, such as a wish?

The nature of your actions-and of your ambition—will be different, according to which set of answers you come to accept. These answers are the province of metaphysics—the study of existence as such or, in Aristotle’s words, of “being qua being” — the basic branch of philosophy.

No matter what conclusions you reach, you will be confronted by the necessity to answer another, corollary question: How do I know it? Since man is not omniscient or infallible, you have to discover what you can claim as knowledge and how to prove the validity of your conclusions. Does man acquire knowledge by a process of reason—or by sudden revelation from a supernatural power? Is reason a faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses—or is it fed by innate ideas, implanted in man’s mind before he was born? Is reason competent to perceive reality—or does man possess some other cognitive faculty which is superior to reason? Can man achieve certainty—or is he doomed to perpetual doubt?

The extent of your self-confidence – and of your success – will be different, according to which set of answers you accept. These answers are the province of epistemology, the theory of knowledge, which studies man’s means of cognition.

These two branches are the theoretical foundation of philosophy. The third branch—ethics—may be regarded as its technology. Ethics does not apply to everything that exists, only to man, but it applies to every aspect of man’s life: his character, his actions, his values, his relationship to all of existence. Ethics, or morality, defines a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the course of his life.

Just as the astronaut in my story did not know what he should do, because he refused to know where he was and how to discover it, so you cannot know what you should do until you know the nature of the universe you deal with, the nature of your means of cognition—and your own nature. Before you come to ethics, you must answer the questions posed by metaphysics and epistemology: Is man a rational being, able to deal with reality—or is he a helplessly blind misfit, a chip buffeted by the universal flux? Are achievement and enjoyment possible to man on earth—or is he doomed to failure and distaste? Depending on the answers, you can proceed to consider the questions posed by ethics: What is good or evil for man—and why? Should man’s primary concern be a quest for joy—or an escape from suffering? Should man hold self-fulfillment—or self-destruction—as the goal of his life? Should man pursue his values—or should he place the interests of others above his own? Should man seek happiness—or self-sacrifice?

I do not have to point out the different consequences of these two sets of answers. You can see them everywhere—within you and around you.

The answers given by ethics determine how man should treat other men, and this determines the fourth branch of philosophy: politics, which defines the principles of a proper social system. As an example of philosophy’s function, political philosophy will not tell you how mush rationed gas you should be given and on which day of the week—it will tell you whether the government has the right to impose any rationing on anything.

The fifth and last branch of philosophy is esthetics, the study of art, which is based on metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Art deals with the needs—the refueling—of man’s consciousness.

Now some of you might say, as many people do: “Aw, I never think in such abstract terms—I want to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems— what do I need philosophy for?”

My answer is: In order to be able to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems—i.e., in order to be able to live on earth.

You might claim-as most people do—that you have never been influenced by philosophy. I will ask you to check that claim. Have you ever thought or said the following? Don’t be so sure—nobody can be certain of anything. You got that notion from David Hume (and many, many others), even though you might never have heard of him. Or: This may be good in theory, but it doesn’t work in practice. You got that from Plato. Or: That was a rotten thing to do, but it’s only human, nobody is perfect in this world. You got that from Augustine. Or: It may be true for you, but it’s not true for me. You got it from William James. Or: I couldn’t help it! Nobody can help anything he does. You got it from Hegel. Or: I can’t prove it, but I feel that it’s true. You got it from Kant. Or: It’s logical, but logic has nothing to do with reality. You got it from Kant. Or: It’s evil, because it’s selfish. You got it from Kant. Have you heard the modern activists say: Act first, think afterward? They got it from John Dewey.

Some people might answer: Sure, I’ve said those things at different times, but I don’t have to believe that stuff all of the time. It may have been true yesterday, but it’s not true today. They got it from Hegel. They might say: Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. They got it from a very little mind, Emerson. They might say: But can’t one compromise and borrow different ideas from different philosophies according to the expediency of the moment? They got it from Richard Nixon – who got it from William James.

Now ask yourself: if you are not interested in abstract ideas, why do you (and all men) feel compelled to use them? The fact is that abstract ideas are conceptual integrations which subsume an incalculable number of concretes— and that without abstract ideas you would not be able to deal with concrete, particular, real-life problems. You would be in the position of a newborn infant, to whom every object is a unique, unprecedented phenomenon. The difference between his mental state and yours lies in the number of conceptual integrations your mind has performed.

You have no choice about the necessity to integrate your observations, your experiences, your knowledge into abstract ideas, i.e., into principles. Your only choice is whether these principles are true or false, whether they represent your conscious, rational conviction—or a grab-bag of notions snatched at random, whose sources, validity, context and consequences you do not know, notions which, more often than not, you would drop like a hot potato if you knew.

But the principles you accept (consciously or subconsciously) may clash with or contradict one another; they, too, have to be integrated. What integrates them? Philosophy. A philosophic system is an integrated view of existence. As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation— or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified whishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.

You might say, as many people do, that it is not easy always to act on abstract principles. No, it is not easy. But how much harder is it, to have to act on them without knowing what they are?

Your subconscious is like a computer – more complex a computer than men can build—and its main function is the integration of your ideas. Who programs it? Your conscious mind. If you default, if you don’t reach any firm convictions, your subconscious is programmed by chance—and you deliver yourself into the power of ideas you do not know you have accepted. But one way or the other, your computer gives you print-outs, daily and hourly, in the form of emotions—which are lightning-like estimates of the things around you, calculated according to your values. If you programmed your computer by conscious thinking, you know the nature of your values and emotions. If you didn’t, you don’t.

Many people, particularly today, claim that man cannot live by logic alone, that there’s the emotional element of his nature to consider, and that they rely on the guidance of their emotions. Well, so did the astronaut in my story. The joke is on him—and on them: man’s values and emotions are determined by his fundamental view of life. The ultimate programmer of his subconscious is philosophy—the science which, according to the emotionalists, is impotent to affect or penetrate the murky mysteries of their feelings.

The quality of a computer’s output is determined by the quality of its input. If your subconscious is programmed by chance, its output will have a corresponding character. You have probably heard the computer operators’ eloquent term “gigo” – which means: “Garbage in, garbage out.” The same formula applies to the relationship between a man’s thinking and his emotions.

A man who is run by emotions is like a man who is run by a computer whose print-outs he cannot read. He does not know whether its programming is true or false, right or wrong, whether it’s set to lead him to success or destruction, whether it serves his goals or those of some evil, unknowable power. He is blind on two fronts: blind to the world around him and to his own inner world, unable to grasp reality or his own motives, and he is in chronic terror of both. Emotions are not tools of cognition. The men who are not interested in philosophy need it most urgently: they are most helplessly in its power.

The men who are not interested in philosophy absorb its principles from the cultural atmosphere around them – from schools, colleges, books, magazines,newspapers, movies, television, etc. Who sets the tone of a culture? A small handful of men: the philosophers. Others follow their lead, either by conviction or by default. For some two hundred years, under the influence of Immanuel Kant, the dominant trend of philosophy has been directed to a single goal: the destruction of man’s mind, of his confidence in the power of reason. Today, we are seeing the climax of that trend.

When men abandon reason, they find not only that their emotions cannot guide them, but that they can experience no emotions save one: terror. The spread of drug addiction among young people brought up on today’s intellectual fashions, demonstrates the unbearable inner state of men who are deprived of their means of cognition and who seek escape from reality—from the terror of their impotence to deal with existence. Observe these young people’s dread of independence and their frantic desire to “belong,” to attach themselves to some group, clique or gang. Most of them have never heard of philosophy, but they sense that they need some fundamental answers to questions they dare not ask—and they hope that the tribe will tell them how to live. They are ready to be taken over by any witch doctor, guru, or dictator. One of the most dangerous things a man can do is to surrender his moral autonomy to others: like the astronaut in my story, he does not know whether they are human, even though they walk on two feet.

Now you may ask: If philosophy can be that evil, why should one study it? Particularly, why should one study the philosophical theories which are blatantly false, make no sense, and bear no relation to real life?

My answer is: In self-protection—and in defense of truth, justice, freedom, and any value you ever held or may ever hold.

Not all philosophies are evil, though too many of them are, particularly in modern history. On the other hand, at the root of every civilized achievement, such as science, technology, progress, freedom—at the root of every value we enjoy today, including the birth of this country—you will find the achievement of one man, who lived over two thousand years ago: Aristotle.

If you feel nothing but boredom when reading the virtually unintelligible theories of some philosophers, you have my deepest sympathy. But if you brush them aside, saying: “Why should I study that stuff when I know it’s nonsense?”—you are mistaken. It is nonsense, but you don’t know it — not so long as you go on accepting all their conclusions, all the vicious catch phrases generated by those philosophers. And not so long as you are unable to refute them.

That nonsense deals with the most crucial, the life-or-death issues of man’s existence. At the root of every significant philosophic theory, there is a legitimate issue—in the sense that there is an authentic need of man’s consciousness, which some theories struggle to clarify and others struggle to obfuscate, to corrupt, to prevent man from ever discovering. The battle of philosophers is a battle for man’s mind. If you do not understand their theories, you are vulnerable to the worst among them.