Essay about What I Learned About What Philosophy Means

In the beginning of our book we learned about what philosophy means, the ultimate aim of philosophy, and we learned about critical thinking. Philosophy is “the love or pursuit of wisdom” (p5). After learning a good way to describe philosophy, we met a female philosopher named Perictione. She believed humanity exists in order to contemplate the principle of the nature of the whole (p5). Moving on to the ultimate aim of philosophy, we learn some of the goals of philosophy. A couple of these goals proposed by philosophers are the complete liberty of the mind and to care for the well-being of the soul (p8). The section on critical thinking explains how everyone has a philosophy of life and how doing philosophy is different from this. Doing philosophy is more about thinking philosophically and ensuring that your beliefs are the most accurate and enlightened beliefs possible (p8-9). Some qualities of a critical thinker are open-minded, mentally active, curious, independent thinkers, and passionate (p11-12). In order to think critically and to “do” philosophy, it is helpful to possess these qualities. On page 11 there is an interesting quote from Bertrand Russell that says, “Most people would rather die than think-in fact they do.” It can be quite the challenge to really sit back and think about how and why we believe certain things. It’s a struggle I have had my whole life and it has held me back from living my life. On the other hand, my thoughts run around a million miles a…