Philosophy. Sexy.
Not usually two words you see so close together. And the only person you would expect to try to make the case for their proximity, would have to be a philosopher. So let me give it a try.
Now that I have your attention by mentioning sex, let me tone down the comparison. Yet ever so slightly.
To be sure, compared to what contemporary culture advertises as sexy, philosophy likely won’t be part of the mix. That is, philosophically speaking doesn’t get included in news-yak about Miley Cyrus. It’s not on the forefront of TMZ episodes or imbibed by participants on The Bachelor. (Granted, perhaps that does philosophers a favour. But I digress.)
Even with journalism – sadly even with the CBC these days – very seldom do you hear a deep, critical discussion of the subject at hand. Or a good grilling of the guest.
It demonstrates just how deeply trends in popular culture have infiltrated, and lowered, our expectations. To use one of its own clichés against itself: “Dumbed down.”
All of this doesn’t mean philosophy has nothing to say about popular culture. Even Miley Cyrus. In that regard, philosophy has quite a bit to say.
But how?
Back to the sexy part. In my first year of college I took my first philosophy course... largely because I came from a family that liked to argue. Perhaps not in the high-minded sense of the philosophical analysis I came to study doing my Ph.D., but we liked to debate. Heatedly too. So a course in philosophy seemed like the natural thing to try.
Into the first few weeks of the course, a transformation began for me. No hyperbole. I discovered my brain.
The professor did it by asking us the foundational questions of philosophy posed throughout two thousand years: “What do you know?” “How do you know?” “Is there a difference between your opinion, what you believe, and what you know? If so, how are they different?” “Who are you?” “What are you? Do you have a ‘soul’? A ‘mind’? Or is it just a body and a brain?” “What’s the meaning of life?” “What is moral?” “What is justice? How do we decide?”
Because at the time I was deeply involved in religion, we also looked carefully at the questions that still fascinate me today. It’s the discipline in philosophy called the Philosophy of Religion. It has been going on for centuries, with inquiry by some of the greatest thinkers of humanity: “Is there a God?” “Are there arguments for his/her/its existence?” “What is ‘the problem of evil,’ and does it make God’s existence unlikely?” Back to morality again, “Can we be good without God?”
Philosophy, I learned, was where it all began. Not only in the cerebral questions of the meaning of life, but the sciences as well, as the early philosophers were the first astronomers, biologists, chemists, even physicists. Then, over the centuries scientists branched off on their own, with philosophy also becoming more exact.
As I was presented with how to think philosophically, it felt like gears and machinery in my head started up. Even today, when I talk with students about these subjects, I can see in their eyes the same ignition switch of the brain being turned on.
Back in that first year of college was when I discovered that one’s mind could be the body’s most powerful organ. And while a brain isn’t, again, what one might associate with “sexy,” that might only be because we, as a culture, don’t encourage careful, critical thought.
But if we do – if you do – you might find the pleasure of doing so. Not some nice pleasure like thinking a happy thought, but the pleasure of figuring something out. Having an insight into something that previously was a bit of a mystery. Or an assumption you had but then were able to correct. The feeling you get – that chemical secreted by your brain that gives you pleasure can be overwhelming.
Maybe the comparison between philosophy and sex isn’t so far off after all.
G. Elijah Dann holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Waterloo and a doctorat en théologie from the Université de Strasbourg. He teaches philosophy and religion at Simon Fraser University. He is author, co-author and editor of several books on philosophy, ethics, and religious belief. Visit elijahdann.com for more info.
