the importance of philosophy

24 Mar, 2026

After my previous post dunking on the self-help genre ¹, I made a point about putting more emphasis on fiction/history/biography/philosophy books. That last one can raise a few eyebrows from people.

I think people tend to get the wrong idea about philosophy, largely because of how it's introduced in school and what we learn through the proxy of others. Schools will give you barely a shaving off the iceberg. I think the only thing I learned about philosophy in school was Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and a handful of enlightenment thinkers like Descartes. This obviously became more in-depth in college, but most of us aren't taking PHIL-1010.

From our peers it can often be worse. Stoicism tends to get conflated with emotional distancing, and is often appropriated by ligma male grindset dorks. These people are called "Broics" by modern Stoics, or people in the philosophy space. We often hear about philosophical ideas from other people in an almost game-of-telephone like way. You have the idea, then someone's interpretation of that idea (accurate or not), then someone's interpretation of the interpretation, and so on.

You might get an account of the usual suspects. Descartes, Marx, Aurelius, Plato, Aristotle, etc. and think that's all there is to philosophy. You might think philosophy is pointless (which ironically is a philosophical stance). I want to illustrate why engagement with philosophy is important if not completely universally necessary.

This is gonna be a long one, so buckle up.

what philosophy is

Philosophy comes from the ancient Greek word philosophia, meaning "love of wisdom". It basically entails trying to answer fundamental questions about life. These range from trying to find the meaning of life to contemplating on if what we are seeing is or if what we are seeing is an abstraction of what is. It ranges from immediate importance as a fundamental basis for how one lives their life to asking yourself stoner shower thoughts.

There are basically 4 major disciplines in philosophy: metaphysics (what is reality?), ethics (aka moral philosophy), epistemology (understanding the matter of and nature of knowledge), and logic (the study of correct reasoning).

logic

I feel like logic is a trigger word for people who had one too many encounters with Ben "I can't get my wife wet" Shapiro wannabes. Let me tell you that understanding how logical reasoning works is incredibly important. It basically underpins everything.

There's basically 2 branches of logic, formal and informal. Formal logic is basically math in the sense that it follows a set structure. Math is essentially applied logic. You take an argument and apply it through a sort of frame work to logically justify said argument. For example, "If all spiders have 8 legs, and a tarantula is a spider. Then all tarantulas have 8 legs". We have premise and conclusion. However we can fall into formal fallacies, in which the very structure of the argument is flawed. For example: "If it is a dog, then it is an animal. It is an animal. Therefore it is a dog." The structure falls apart completely.

With informal logic we encounter arguments in our natural language (i.e. debates, discussions, and rhetoric), applications of critical thinking, etc. This is what we are most familiar with and what we mostly think of when we think of logic. It's less about following a strict framework and instead is about the application of logic in the real world. This is where we encounter logical fallacies like Ad Hominem, slippery slope, strawman arguments, etc.

We can also run into sound vs. unsound reasoning. Example: "If all mammals give birth then a platypus is a mammal". It comes to a correct conclusion, but the reasoning fails because platypuses don't give birth, they lay eggs, it is therefore unsound reasoning.

Applications of logic are how we either become convinced by an argument or use it to justify our own. Debates and discussions about veganism, anarchism, anti-natalism, etc. are all employing logical reasoning.

ethics

Ethics is about figuring out right and wrong, and why something is right or wrong. The most important branch of ethics in my opinion is applied ethics. This is where we get into subjects like "is abortion morally right?", "Is it wrong to kill animals for food?", "is killing another person justifiable?", and so on. In this we seek to understand real moral dilemmas that cause us to question our actions and motivations. This is where logic comes in to make for convincing arguments for and against a certain position.

Normative ethics is basically the theories for how people should act. Examples include deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics. Virtue ethics is about proposing virtues like courage and compassion as the grounds for morality. Deontology places the importance on if an action itself is moral or not, and that we should do/avoid moral actions on that premise. Whereas a consequentialist will act morally based on if the end result is morally right.

All of these you might see within yourself and those around you, and your moral framework might shift on given subjects. Lets use the premise of "should you be compassionate to fascists". Virtue ethics would say yes, as it is imperative to be compassionate to all people. A consequentialist might say yes or no depending on if the end result leads to that fascist changing their outlook on life or if it would put more people in harms way (a focus on the end result). A deontologist might say yes because the act of compassion itself is morally righteous and thus should be applied. I'm hoping you get the point I'm trying to make here.

metaphysics

Metaphysics often gets seen as what that one dorky wannabe-intellectual touts they are studying (despite having no clue what the fuck it actually is besides it sounds challenging to study). Metaphysics itself is about the study of reality. What is real. When you think of someone getting high as a god damn satellite and asking really stupid questions, it's basically metaphysics. Seriously, you'd be surprised how many stoners I've been around that have accidentally parroted Plato's theory of Forms.

"Dude, like, what if what we are seeing isn't REALLY the thing, but like an abstraction of the REAL thing?"

Riveting stuff.

This is probably what people would consider pointless philosophy as there isn't really any real applications. Things like questioning what is the self, do we have free will, what is existence, etc. You can get to some important stuff, the concept of gender as a social construct falls into the camp of metaphysics.

If you want a fun plan, get stoned with some friends and then start debating on if we have free will.

Epistemology

This explores different types of knowledge as well as the limitations of knowledge. This is where we get "book smart" vs "street smart". I.e. propositional knowledge and practical knowledge.

Epistemology is probably another crucial aspect that everyone should be more learned in. As epistemology encompasses skepticism (questioning if knowledge is ever truly obtainable with certainty), empiricism (knowledge being obtained through the senses), justification, truth, and belief.

An example of epistemology in practice is questioning the knowledge of a colorblind person if a stoplight is red. Another example is affirming or denying the existence of a god.

Epistemology takes into account if one person finds enough justification that God exists using epistemic sources like testimony, perception, etc. to back the claim. Same thing with the aforementioned colorblind stoplight observer, using their sense of sight to conclude the green light is red or vice versa.

Basically, dealing with beliefs, reasoning, truth, and evidence all are what are contained in epistemology.

Epistemology is what allows us to call into question our reasonings and beliefs. We may ask ourselves "well why do I believe that?" and then start down a path that either further justifies our belief or our truths or then seek to dismantle them. This is how people deconstruct from religion.

Other branches of Philosophy

Above is the kinda core 4 that you would see in most academic circles and online discourse. Here are some other ones that are worth looking into.

Existentialism is a sort of a mix between multiple branches. As it understands the metaphysical point of the lack of objective meaning in the universe. And then will go into the ethics side of things, what people ought to do about it. Camus, Beauvoir, Kierkegaard, and so on all fall into this camp.

Aesthetics is basically the philosophy of art. What is beauty? What does it mean to have good taste? When you engage with art and ask questions about it, you're essentially engaging with aesthetic philosophy.

Education philosophy dives into theories and frameworks for education. Things like Montessori education are examples of applications of educational philosophy. Applications of critical thinking and avoidance of indoctrination are also part of this branch of philosophy.

Political philosophy talks about concepts for political foundations. Conservatism, anarchism, fascism, communism, liberalism, libertarianism, etc. all are all forms of political philosophy. The main crux is to examine the foundations of politics and questioning the legitimacy of institutions. I think that last one is incredibly important as so much of our lives are dictated by institutions that insist upon their own legitimacy.

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