034 (1/52) - S is for Save the Humans

034 (1/52) - S is for Save the Humans, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

I remember being quite surprised while teaching English to a class of university students here in Lublin, Poland, when one of the students told me there were no more philosophers. I cannot now remember whether this student attended the local state (i.e. former communist) university or the local catholic equivalent. Ah, Lublin - where communist and fascist universities abide peacably side-by-side!

Whichever, I soon discovered that this is a common opinion, philosophers are a thing of the past, people gaining degrees in philosophy these days, including professors, are simply unable to be philosophers. Imagine studying physics and being unable to become an physicist! I would not say this is a majority view, nor do i wish universities to become places of rote learning with carefully proscribed views. But - no philosophers? No dangerously exciting interplay of concepts and reality? Everything consigned to the dry pages of university texts like last summer's pressed flowers?

In my idea of the universe, anyone can be a philosopher as long as one takes the time to ponder life. A beer or two with friends is enough to trigger the philosopher among many of us - the results do not have to stun the world, they merely have to be perceptive. And since life is ever changing, especially those that we have influence over, the need for new philosophy is always with us.

My own philosophy, which like any philosophy can sound a little irrelevant to many, is always practical in the way that a screwdriver is eminently practical once you learn how to use one and can recognise those situations in which it can be used. One would not expect to be able to walk into a tool shop and buy the most complex tool and expect to know how to use it effectively without some experience or training, and yet the world is full of people flippant about the impracticality of philosophic tools they lack the skill to use. I would say that all philosophy is practical, but like physical tools, we do not all have the ability or training to use them or to use them effectively.