Insult Yourself and Get Nasty

[emjay]

Generally, philosophy is an overrated and esoteric mental excessive with the occasional joy of engaging in a little verbal jousting. If you don't take it with a grain of salt or yourself too seriously it adds a little spice to life. Kind of like beer snobbery,...its still just beer.

I'd have to agree, especially since you qualified your statement with "generally." Most philosophizing that goes on in these forums (including my own contributions) often amounts to little more than listing flavor notes of Trappistes Rochefort 10. But I have to say, if I employ bad logic and somebody calls me on it, that's a learning experience. Even when done in the context of an online forum, it can help keep the mind sharp.

However, in the grand scheme, philosophy has been rather important (if not integral) to cultural development. I also think that philosophy should be taught in high school-- at the very least a "critical thinking" course. Furthermore, I am of the opinion that college curricula ought to make Phil 101, intro to ethics, and intro to logic mandatory for all students, regardless of major. The value in logic speaks for itself, but if everyone had an ethics course under their belts, this actually might improve things at the societal level.

So, yeah, take philosophical musings with a grain of salt. But I also like to think there is value in philosophy beyond our own enjoyment of it.

Just to say vulcan, in case you took it otherwise, my reply to Neo was not disparaging philosophy, just pointing out some of its dangers... pointing out that it's not straightforward and prone to red herrings... especially in the realms of metaphysics etc... if it were straightforward, people wouldn't have been arguing the same questions since the dawn of time. I love philosophy and it wasn't for lack of interest why I didn't finish that course, just difficulty learning.