What has been on my mind? Not too much honestly. I have been a little on the low-energy side of life these days. I get through the day, doing everything that needs to get done. However, I have just been finding it harder than I have over the past few months to wake up and get on with the day. I suppose I just feel a reluctance. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am leaving Colorado and everything that currently entails my daily life in about a month. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I have not been exercising and eating as regularly as I had been in the prior months, or maybe it has to do with the fact that I have not been drinking enough water. I don’t really know, but I do know something is different. It's mainly the feeling of being in the world that is different. Over the past few months, I had been feeling my essence in my body, how like a liquid, it filled every inch of my body from head to toe. But these days I feel like my essence is just a little outside my body, still attached but just a little uprooted, perhaps floating next to me. Does anyone else ever feel that way? I know people do. I think when people say they feel like they are not grounded, I am pretty sure that’s the feeling they are feeling.
I have had to learn to be okay with feeling whatever I am feeling, so although my initial instinct is to do whatever it takes to get back to feeling grounded, centered, and focused as I had been the weeks prior, I also recognize that it is also okay to feel how I am currently feeling. In fact, it makes sense. There is a lot of change happening over the next month and although it is an exciting change, it's also just a lot. I leave for Austria in about a month. I will be there for the next two years completing my master's in philosophy. I have already applied for and have been approved for a residence permit, I have already booked my flight and I have already found a place to stay. So Austria is definitely happening. I am looking forward to it all, living in Vienna, studying philosophy, being in the same city for more than a couple of months, just all of it. And at the same time, there is still a lot to figure out, at least initially. I still need to email the organization through which I found my room to find out where I am to pick up the keys to my room, I need to apparently register my address, I need to make an appointment to pick up my residence permit once I arrive in Austria, I need to figure out how to get the student semester pass for the public transit there, need to get a phone plan, need to figure out how to sign up for the required student health insurance, I don’t know I am sure I am forgetting a thing or two, but I am sure you get the idea. Yeah yeah, I know people do it all the time, but that does not make it feel any less overwhelming. I know I will get it all done though, mainly because I really want this, but also because there is nothing else I want more at this point in my life than to study philosophy in Vienna Austria.
Not to be dramatic, except maybe a little, but deciding to move to Austria to pursue a master's degree is the first time I have truly decided on anything. Yes, I am saying that everything I have done up to this point I did not do because at some point I sat down, deliberated, and then decided on it. No, up until this point in my life, I have done everything I have done solely because it was something to do. I have just kind of been stumbling into things left, right and center. I went to college because it felt like a thing to do after high school. I went to Dartmouth specifically because a teacher in high school told me to apply, my top choice was actually Cornell. I thought they had a pretty Library. When decisions were released and I found out I had actually been waitlisted for Cornell and accepted to Dartmouth, I was very disappointed. Eventually, I decided on Dartmouth mainly because it felt like everyone around me was expecting me to decide on Dartmouth, and I figured why not. Since leaving college, I have worked in wilderness therapy, at a ski resort, at the Boys and Girls Club, and most recently at the Department of Human Services mainly because those were things one could do instead of doing nothing. I traveled across South America and across Europe, once again, because it was something one could do instead of doing nothing. In truth, I can not think of a single thing I have done with a strong sense of conviction, it has always been out of a “I might as well” type of attitude. I can’t help but wonder if other people have reasons for the things they do or are we all just stumbling in and out of things hoping by doing we might find something worth keeping?
Naturally, now I find myself wondering why can’t I do nothing if I truly feel like I have no reason to do anything? What about doing nothing is so scary to me? The truth is I actually really love doing nothing. I could spend my whole life doing nothing and that is scary to me. It is scary because I also want to make the most out of life, so the idea of doing nothing year after year only to one day find myself at the end of my life with the realization that I let life pass me by is terrifying. Additionally, I do believe that not knowing what to do or how to live is not reason enough to do nothing. I think living is one of those things you figure out how to do by doing. So even if one does not know how to be and is awkward and weird as shit like I am I think if you just keep trying and inevitably fucking up and getting things wrong over and over again, so long as you are learning from your mistakes and missteps eventually you will figure out a thing or two. I think that is reason enough to do things even when you don’t know what you want to do or even whether you want to do anything. So, sure to some degree I kind of just go stumbling into things and then stick around long enough to see what comes of them, but to a greater extent everything I have done and everywhere I have been was mainly out of a necessity to keep moving, which sometimes has felt like all I could do. If you are still a little unsure about what I am trying to convey here then listen to the song Breathe & release by Riley Pearce. In the song, he tries to convey all this and does so in much fewer words.
While I am excited to have actively made a decision about something and although I am trying to go into my master's program with an open mind, the skeptic in me keeps rearing her head. Recently I have been putting some serious thought into why I want to study philosophy. I think a lot of people who know me would argue that while I do enjoy philosophy, my true passion lies in Astronomy, and I mean they are not entirely wrong. Some friends recently went as far as saying they think astronomy is a dream I have given up on, and maybe they are right. The fact of the matter is I have never put in as much effort into astronomy as I have put into philosophy and at the same time, I have just never put in that much effort into anything. To be clear, that is not something I am proud of and it is also not something I am ashamed of, it's just the facts. In high school I never had to put in any effort, school was just easy. In college, school was not easy, but besides what was absolutely required, I just did not have it in me to put in anymore. A while back I was texting a friend from college and I don’t recall exactly what we were talking about but I remember sharing with him that I do think in college I really should have sought out a therapist and then I deleted it. I don’t know why I deleted it because it is true I really should have sought out a therapist in college. I suppose at the time I just thought waking up every day feeling like shit was normal, turns out it is not. Wild. I was also worried that if I let anyone into my head and let them poke around, with how little of a grip I already had on my self and reality, I could easily lose my grip entirely. For some reason, It just always felt like losing my mind completely was a possibility and that was terrifying. So I decided to devote every ounce of energy I had to maintaining what little grip I had on my self and on reality. With all my energy being devoted to that, I was left with very little to give to school or the people around me. So I found myself spending a lot of time alone and when I was around people, engagement was kept to a minimum. I just did not have the energy or space for much. All that to say I did not put in effort not because I did not want to, but because I just did not feel like I could. These days I am doing much better, I don’t have to dedicate quite as much energy as I have had to in the past to feel sane, which has freed up a lot of space and energy for me to explore other things which has been lovely, but some days still take more effort than others. Because of everything I have experienced and sometimes still do, I occasionally find myself wondering if being sane is a conscious decision one has to make every day and at every moment. For me, it always feels like I am one slip away from losing it entirely. If all of this makes no sense to you, all I can say is I envy you.
Anyway, I digress. We were talking about Astronomy, philosophy, and me giving up on my dreams. Right now, I just want to give my all to something and it just so happens that the something I have decided on at the moment is philosophy. After my masters, I have no idea where I am headed next. Most likely, I will be applying for dual PhD programs that allow me to build on my philosophical background to do research that means something. So I might go for a PhD in philosophy and science, possibly astronomy, I might go for a philosophy and law PhD, or I might just say fuck academia entirely and do something else, who knows because I don’t. It all really depends on who I become by the end of my master's program. So I suppose I will have to leave that matter up to time. In the meantime, I am mainly concerned with how I want to do philosophy, a question I have never seriously dwelled on. I am sure I would have dwelled on it if I had done a philosophy thesis during my undergrad, but I did not. Dwelling on the matter now, one thing became apparent, although how one does philosophy depends on the area of philosophy they are working within, there are some broad ways in which how philosophy is done can be described. Some ways philosophy can be done include; making logically consistent arguments and through inductive and deductive reasoning proposing theories. Focusing on defining and clarifying concepts by taking words and ideas apart with hopes of getting to the heart of things. Come up with thought experiments and from them formulate theories about what is the case. Take a historical approach where one looks into how ideas have evolved over time, how they were affected by context, and what that means for us now. Observe the practical applications and implications of theories and tweak them accordingly. A philosopher could also take an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on findings made in other disciplines to make and support their theories. This hardly covers all the ways philosophy can be done, but the last one I mentioned, the interdisciplinary approach, interests me the most. I think that is how I would like to do philosophy. In theory, I would like to utilize findings in Astronomy and physics to make and back philosophical theories in epistemology and metaphysics. How practical that really is, I suppose I will find out in graduate school.
You have to understand, to me, astronomy and philosophy are and always have been one and the same, at least astronomy and the branches of philosophy that interest me. I would argue that philosophers and Astronomers are trying to answer similar questions, the important questions like, what the fuck is going on? I think the only thing that differentiates philosophers from astronomers is their methods. While astronomers rely on the scientific method, philosophers rely on logic and reason. I am sure philosophers have made some strides, but because of the currently established and accepted criteria for knowledge, while the contribution of astronomy in helping us understand the universe and our place in it is undeniable, the contribution of philosophy in helping us understand the universe and our place in it is debatable at best. I suppose this is where my skepticism comes in. I am and have always been skeptical about the methods and aims of philosophy. I often find myself wondering how anything sensible can be accomplished through philosophy if nothing in philosophy can be verified. The lack of verifiability in philosophy kind of makes philosophy feel like just a space for people to share their opinions on things and as someone interested in objective truth that is a little discouraging. I think the main issue with how philosophy is done is how far removed it is from everything. Philosophers will be over there theorizing about what can be known and what counts as knowledge meanwhile through science new discoveries are made all the time. How does what is happening in the scientific world affect philosophical theories on knowledge and how do philosophical ideas impact science and how it is done? In this question lies my interest in philosophy despite my obvious skepticism of philosophy and its methods. In other words, I am curious about the ways findings made within the sciences can be used to inform philosophical theories about knowledge, the limits of it, and what counts as it.
The idea of utilizing findings made in the sciences to inform philosophical theories about the world appeals to me because of my current perspective on logic and its limits. I was recently in San Francisco visiting a friend. We decided to go to the beach for the day. On the drive there we spent some time talking about philosophy. I don’t remember what question she asked, but at some point I found myself making a connection that resulted in me thinking of philosophy in a way I hadn’t before. If you have read my other post, you know of the following stance taken by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein: logic tells us nothing about the world, it tells us only of the internal relationship between ideas. Well, I found myself thinking, if that stance is true and I see no reason why it wouldn’t be, what does that mean for philosophy? To understand the significance of this question, we need to first acknowledge the simple and obvious fact that the primary method utilized in philosophy, at least the philosophy I am familiar with which is analytical and continental philosophy or just simply western philosophy, is logic. Now, if we accept that logic tells us nothing of the world, how can a whole discipline rely primarily on it to understand the world and all it entails? I don’t know about you, but that makes no sense to me. So to everyone who has ever attempted studying philosophy seriously and then making the very sensible decision to pursue other things or to anyone who often feels an urge to glance down at philosophy with a condescending sneer, I understand where you are coming from. In fact, I am tempted to do so myself. However, I don’t because I see the potential. In other words, I do think if a philosopher were to ground their theories and ideas about the world, what it entails, and what it is like in findings made in subjects such as physics, astronomy, chemistry, etc then philosophy as a discipline could accomplish more. They could come up with theories that are observable. It would become a field grounded in reality rather than just being one that exists on its own line not always intersecting with reality. I really do think If a philosopher views the findings made through the sciences as a pool of data from which they can draw from to make and back their theories about the world, I think they can potentially produce something concrete, it could be a way to make philosophy potentially verifiable. I am not arguing that this is how all philosophy should be done, all I am saying is this is how I would like to do philosophy.
This will sound like a silly question, but I do have to ask, Is the goal necessarily always to be in line with reality? I know right, what am I talking about, but stay with me here. In a previous post, I said I think reality and truth are different with reality being the world as it appears to us and truth being the world as it is. Although truth is inaccessible to us, by learning about reality we can get a glimpse of it. Science, I think, tries to understand reality, but philosophy is and always has been concerned with truth. Sure to an extent most of the time, philosophers are just shooting arrows in the dark and hoping they hit something. They have so many theories about so many things, but no way to verify any of them, so it does feel like they are aiming for truth without adequate tools. Every here and there they might hit something but most of the time they miss. That being acknowledged, I think to another extent, because philosophy is not as restrictive as other disciplines, their theories on things can wander further so long as they remain logically consistent. In other words, philosophers are not limited by what seems to be the case, they have the freedom to dwell on what could be the case regardless of how things appear to be. That in many ways makes them best equipped, compared to any field, to uncover the truths about the world. That is because of their unique methods, philosophers are able to wander into domains other disciplines may not be able to wander into due to the limits of their methods. I suppose it is because of this freedom, the potential of it that I have always been interested in philosophy. So sure I am all for an interdisciplinary approach when it comes to doing philosophy, but at the same time, I remain skeptical about the methods utilized in the sciences. The assumptions on which the scientific method is based, the criteria by which knowledge is defined, and even what counts as science and what doesn’t aka the demarcation problem
I suppose I am also very interested in the philosophy of science. I am interested in how philosophy can be utilized to clarify scientific concepts, to critically assess scientific assumptions as well as the scientific method. I am curious about how it can inform the formulation of new concepts and theories, and how philosophy can foster dialogue between different sciences, as well as between science and society. Philosophy already has impacted the sciences in some critical ways which, as someone just getting into it, I find encouraging. One way I will mention is the way in which philosophy altered the criteria that must be met for data to be considered knowledge. We are all familiar with the scientific method heavily relied on by scientists. Well although many people contributed to the creation of the scientific method, it was Karl Popper who proposed the idea of falsifiability, he argued that it should be the case that for something to be considered knowledge it has to be falsifiable otherwise, it is just nonsense, an idea termed logical positivism within philosophy. I will mention, that he did kind of build off an initial idea proposed by this group of academics in Austria known as the Vienna Circle, they had proposed that for data to be considered knowledge one has to be able to prove it. Popper just said the opposite and gets all the credit. But the point here is that this is a clear instance of where philosophy fundamentally altered our perspective on the world and how we relate to it. I think that is pretty darn cool. There are many others I could mention, but this post is already getting too long.
While on the subject of knowledge, I am tempted to get into the social epistemology also known as the social dimension of knowledge. You know, the ways in which knowledge is influenced by social factors such as language, culture, norms, and whatnot. Social epistemology deals with matters such as epistemic injustice where questions such as who has the final say on what counts as knowledge, who has access to knowledge, and who doesn’t. Other matters addressed within social epistemology include the socially constructive nature of knowledge and the larger implications of knowledge especially within the context of ethics and politics. I find it all rather interesting. I don’t know, social epistemology really does interest me. It's part of the reason I studied Sociology in college along with philosophy. I was and still am just amazed by how reality can be defined by society and how like an organism, society changes, and with that change comes a change in what counts as reality. Maybe I should have accepted that offer from George Washington and gone for a master's in philosophy and social policy after all. Well before I go too far down that path, I will just share a quote I like to call to mind when I start dwelling on all the lives I will not get to live.
You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetic justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.
― Albert Camus, Notebooks, 1935-1951
Anyway, I am excited to move to Vienna and dive into studying philosophy, properly. I am sure it will be challenging, hard, and probably frustrating at times. But I hope along with all that is also exciting and fulfilling. I obviously have a lot of takes on what philosophy is and how it could be done, but I am sure as I learn more about philosophy both in and out of the classroom my perspective will change, which I look forward to.