The Impact and Importance of Philosophy

Philosophy

ZhouyunGu

The word “philosophy” comes from the Ancient Greek word “philosophia”, which means “love of wisdom.” In history, there were thousands and hundreds of philosophers in the world, such as John Locke, George Berkeley. etc. However, why do those people to learn philosophy? Is it worth our time to study it and why? A philosopher named Bertrand Russell shows his answers in chapter XV of his book “The Problems of Philosophy”. He states that philosophy is worth to spend our time to learn it because philosophy can help people learn new knowledge, find new sciences, frees people’s mind and give them pleasure, affect how people think and react what happen to them. People can get new knowledge from philosophy. Like Bertrand says,

“As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we find...that even the most everyday things lead problems which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy, though…is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts ad free them from the tyranny of custom.” in Bertrand’s book, it means that due to a person is used to believe everything that he knows, his mind is trapped and cannot see what real world might be. Once he starts to think and question, the way he watch the world changes. He will realize what the difference is between his new world and old world. As the person philosophize more deeply, his new world refresh and become totally uncertain to him again. People always feel satisfied after they learn or reach a new way of understanding about everything. It’s like a child get a new toy. Everything is new to

People are in the process of becoming high civilized under influence of philosophy. First, learning knowledge is a necessary work to do. As people become more knowledgeable, civilization will be higher. For example, in the past, people didn’t know what’s in sky. Then, they imagined there were gods or God lived there. This was a way people tried to give explanations to those mysteries they seen. After Hans Lippershey, a Dutch eyeglass maker, invented the telescope, scientists used it to discover the sky and proved there were no gods in the sky but a vast and black space with shining stars above the sky. People are more intelligent than past. Second, free people’s mind is an important thing. For instance, in 14th century, philosophers started an influential cultural movement called the Italian Renaissance. People moved their attention from on God to human. Painters began to enhance the realism of their works. Later in late 17th-century, a new cultural movement, the Enlightenment, was sparked by philosophers such as Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Voltaire etc. The movement is a revolution in human thought because people dared challenge their traditional ideas and faith and call for human rights. People began search real truth proved by sciences rather than believing superstition. Those movement highly improved people’s civilization. After those, people do what human should do. Situation about prejudice decreases and people