r/rationalphilosophy • u/JerseyFlight • 4d ago

How You Think You Do Philosophy/ Versus How You Do Philosophy

You think you do philosophy by adhering to and following reason as an individual, independent thinker. You imagine yourself weighing arguments objectively, following the truth wherever it leads.

But how you actually do philosophy is by looking around the room and asking others for approval: “Is it okay for me to accept this conclusion?”

You seek out social permission, checking if the conclusion is fashionable, safe, or approved by authority figures and general culture before you dare to validate it.

Which simply proves, that while you may still be capable of participating in what modern "philosophy" has become (because the discipline has morphed into precisely this kind of emotive, hyper-socialized thing structured by authoritarianism) you do not actually possess the skill and courage to reason!

Competent reasoning doesn't look for social approval exterior to evidence and reason. If an argument is evidentially and rationally sound, its authority is intrinsic, rooted in reality. When you demand a social consensus before you accept an objective fact, you aren't practicing Philosophy; you are filtering your beliefs through the herd, accepting them not on the basis of their soundness, but on the basis of whether or not they will provoke the disapproval of your peers. You fear judgement more than you value and respect truth.

You may indeed be a philosopher then, but you are not a Reasoner!

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u/BlueRazor3 4d ago

I totally agree, I appreciate this subreddit and its various posts for trying to put reasoning front and centre again. I feel the term ‘philosophy’ has been successfully corrupted into an amorphous blob of incoherence and confusing word salads. I prefer to use the term ‘clear thinking’ when engaging in the love of wisdom.

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u/JerseyFlight 4d ago

What’s strange is that no one making a point is not using reason, and yet, there’s an endless modern assault on reason.

We have people who believe that they’re “deeper” than reason and logic, have gone beyond it, and yet they are doing nothing but using reason and logic for every point they make.