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Wednesday 16 November 2011

Socrates

Lake


The unexamined life is not worth living.

For me this statement of Socrates’, as told by Plato, is sufficient to explain the necessity of studying philosophy. Everyone is pitched into the world blindly and makes do as best they can with the things they are given. For many, this muddling through is hard enough, and examining their motives and the rightness of their actions is just an added, and superfluous, difficulty. However, if we do not examine our lives and use the wisdom we gain from it to plan the future, we are no better than animals following instinct to survive. To take control of your life you must engage your mind. This is not to say that everyone must become a new Socrates, or study academic philosophy, but to paraphrase Voltaire ‘we must all cultivate our own wisdom.’

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