Personal Philosophy
Does Metaphysics deal in any meaningful way with our own existence?
Can Epistemology inform what we think we know?
How does Ethics relate to our personal virtues and vices, and can Logic illuminate our own deductions?
How do the great questions of Life reflect the questions we ask ourselves about our own lives?
M
etaphysics, insisted the idealist philosopher F H Bradley, “is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct”. Very human, that – to prefer bad reasons to believe what we want to believe over good reasons to believe what offends us. And so much in philosophy seems an affront to how we really see ourselves.
Our own thoughts seem – perhaps more than anything else – so personally, privately and essentially ours.
Our own thoughts seem – perhaps more than anything else – so personally, privately and essentially ours. But does that sense of ownness come through in Epistemology’s reflections on knowledge and experience, knowledge and certainty, knowledge and doubt, knowledge and faith… or skepticism?
We feel intrinsically that our existence has meaning and that we possess free will – while Theology and Ontology contend for our souls (or maybe deny them entirely).
Do the opposing pro and prescriptions of Deontology and Teleology truly express our notions of duty, obligation, virtue and choice in a way that speaks resonantly to our own morality?
So much knowledge, wisdom and insight is distilled in our philosophical tradition – yet sadly how remote it frequently seems, how contrived and bloodless and eristic and cold.
In The Secret World of Personal Philosophy we aim to forge a cleaner fit between what the greatest minds have claimed about us, and what we intuitively know to be true of ourselves.
