Thinking differently

I had no idea about why most philosophers lived a different – and generally miserable – life before I studied the philosophy of social sciences as part of my PhD course.
Philosophers, by nature or nurture, never take things for granted – they question and doubt even their own cherished beliefs and convictions. They look beyond the apparent, talk above the common sense, and feel things deeply. They are ‘endowed with restless spirits and inquisitive minds – not like most other people.
In the search for truth, order and beauty, philosophers most often forget or ignore material comforts and banal desires. For them, life is more spiritual or metaphysical than material. They are more interested in observing objects and events to get food for thought rather than to think and reflect on how to get food.
Socrates, for example, believed that an unconsidered life is not worth living. He was convinced that acquiring wisdom constituted the core and cord of human existence. Rather than accepting the prevailing myths, he tried to introduce a culture of logical arguments as the basis for understanding natural and social phenomena. However, going against those established norms and beliefs proved to be a sad story.
Plato, whose ideas still dominate our thinking in many fields, too lived a challenging life. Of particular importance was his work on epistemology – how do we know what we know. He attempted to distinguish between one’s subjective opinions and valid knowledge.
Valid knowledge, according to Plato, is based on a claim about truth backed by evidence. It is the nature of evidence that has always been a subject of considerable debate and dispute. Science, as a body of knowledge, demands empirical evidence (facts collected through observation and experimentation) for any claim to be accepted as true.
Philosophy, on the other hand, relies on logic (mostly deductive and inductive reasoning) to draw conclusions. Religion, particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, refer to revealed scriptures for evidence. Both science and religion accord importance to the use of logic in inferring unknown phenomenon from some known facts.
Karl Marx, one of the most controversial philosophers in history, devoted his entire life to understanding and resolving social conflicts. Though he himself lived in misery, Marx raised human consciousness about how class struggle translates into conflict. He rejected capitalism for its exploitative and dehumanising character. He was forced to live in exile for his revolutionary ideas.
Imam Ghazali, a renowned Muslim philosopher, had to undergo a different kind of misery. He wrestled with Greek philosophy, so vociferously advocated by rationalists, on the one hand and meditated profoundly to understand the underlying meaning and substance of the Holy Scriptures on the other. He even relinquished his job at Madressah Nizamiyya and lived like a recluse for four years to look at Islamic injunctions from a Sufi perspective.
Is philosophy relevant today? Is the life of a philosopher really miserable? The questions that philosophy attempts to answer are enduring. No one can escape those questions. They relate to the nature of being, the basis of morality, and the purpose of life etc. One may artificially avoid these questions but no one can deny their impact on life.
Hedonism may temporarily relieve man from answering perplexing questions but such an attitude disconnects and alienates him from his true nature and thus deprives himself from enjoying the silent melody of his soul. Philosophers may have had miserable lives but they live on today through their work and the legacies and ideas they have left behind.
The writer teaches at FAST-NU, Peshawar.
Email: zeb.khan@nu.edu.pk