Modern Problems, Ancient Perspectives

Hardly anything was as exciting as being alive and wondering what it all meant.

In those 'good old days', information and socializing opportunities were hard to come by. The result was that many human beings remained curious and questioning. Cultural accomplishments - languages, oral traditions - had accumulated sufficiently that big-picture issues could be talked about.

They had not, however, mounted so high that nothing remained to discuss.

We know this because these small populations generated the cosmologies and myths now regarded as common-sense and realism.

In those days - celebrated in Western nations as Hellenism, the pre-Socratic era, Plato and Aristotle - people had the world for their oyster. Would-be philosophers rambled around muttering to themselves and buttonholing anyone who would listen. These conversations spawned the sciences and the arts. They planted the seeds that would grow into corporations, nations and the modern world.

Ironically, these successes diminished the sense of wonder that made them possible. After deputizing scientists and artists to do the heavy-lifting, philosophy shriveled into an arcane activity practiced by people in broom closets and remote corners of universities.

To be sure, philosophers continued to sharpen logical tools, muttering that such skills will be welcome soon enough. They pondered moral and epistemological questions no one else cared about. Not noticing their emeritus status, they soldiered on, hoping to corral at least one eminent truth and repair their reputation.

This has not and cannot happen. Philosophical standpoints define what count as truth. Such benchmarks cannot be tested to determine whether they are correctly situated. The idea that they could 'progress' is equally oxymoronic.

A second difficulty is that every 'candidate insight' triggers an internecine feeding frenzy. Philosophers instinctively attempt to overturn - or at least improve - every point of view they come across. Since they lack anything like Large Hadron Colliders to investigate perplexing questions, mutual sniping is the only tool in their kit.

The result is that all the important questions remain on the table.

This is not failure but an enormous accomplishment. In addition, remarkable insights have been achieved along the way. John Rawls' theory of justice and Immanuel Kant's universalizability test come to mind. Ludwig Wittgenstein discarded the picture theory of language that earned him a doctorate at Cambridge University to challenge commonsense notions in ways philosophers still mine for insights.

No epiphanies however, only increasingly subtle questions.

What's so valuable about not 'being able' to come to conclusions? The answer is that politicians, corporations, nations... have no difficulty coming to and acting upon conclusions. They harvest resources recklessly. They ride rough-shod across everything.

I think this means wars, global warming, global poverty... reflect philosophers' historical failures to challenge, indict, publicize, excoriate... the conceits of their half-witted, doubt-free progeny.

This is my hope for Modern Problems, Ancient Perspectives.... The political, economic and psychological mischiefs traceable to the primitive cosmologies embedded in the sciences, commonsense and religions dramatize the consequences of failed skepticism.

Skepticism is what philosophers are good at. They have kept one another scoreless for thousands of years

This skepticism must be expanded. A new generation of Socratic philosophers is needed to restore mankind's childlike curiosity and youthful optimism - and perhaps save the world in the bargain