Ten Commandments of Philosophy

1. Allow the spirit of wonder to flourish in your breast. Philosophy

begins with deep wonder about the universe and questions about who we
are, where we came from, and where we are going. What is this life all
about? Speculate and explore different points of view and worldviews. Do
not stifle childlike curiosity.
2. Doubt everything unsupported by evidence until the evidence
convinces you of its truth. Be reasonably cautious, a moderate skeptic,
suspicious of those who claim to have the truth. Doubt is the soul’s
purgative process. Do not fear intellectual inquiry. As Johann Goethe
(1749-1832) said, “The masses fear the intellectuals, but it is stupidity
that they should fear, if they only realized how dangerous it really is.”
3. Love the truth. “Philosophy is the eternal search for truth, a search which
inevitably fails and yet is never defeated; which continually eludes us, but
which always guides us. This free intellectual life of the mind is the noblest
inheritance of the Western world; it is also the hope of our future” (W.T.
Jones).
4. Divide and conquer. Divide each problem and theory into its smallest
essential components in order to analyze each unit carefully. This is the
analytic method.
5. Collect and construct. Build a coherent argument or theory from
component parts. One should move from the simple, secure foundations
to the complex and comprehensive. As mentioned previously, Russell once
said that the aim of philosophical argument was to move from simple
propositions so obvious that no one would think of doubting them via a
method of valid argument to conclusions so preposterous that no one
could help but doubt them. The important thing is to have a coherent,
well-founded, tightly reasoned set of beliefs that can withstand the
opposition.
6. Conjecture and refute. Make a complete survey of possible objections to
your position, looking for counterexamples and subtle mistakes. Following
a suggestion of Karl Popper, philosophy is a system of conjecture and
refutation. Seek bold hypotheses and seek disconfirmations of your
favorite positions. In this way, by a process of elimination, you will
negatively and indirectly and gradually approach the Truth. In this regard,
seek to understand your opponent’s position, for as John Stuart Mill
wrote, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. If
he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does
not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either
opinion.” Mill further urges us to face squarely the best arguments our
opponent can muster, for until we have met those arguments we can never
be sure that our position is superior. The truth seeker “must know (the
opponent’s arguments) in their most plausible and persuasive form; he
must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject
 has to encounter and dispose of, else he will never really possess himself
of the portion of the truth which meets and removes that difficulty.”
7. Revise and rebuild. Be willing to revise, reject, and modify your beliefs
and the degree with which you hold any belief. Acknowledge that you
probably have many false beliefs and be grateful to those who correct you.
This is the principle of fallibilism, the thesis that we are very likely incorrect
in many of our beliefs and have a tendency toward self-deception when
considering objections to our position.
8. Seek simplicity. This is the principle of parsimony, sometimes known as
Occam’s Razor. Prefer the simple explanation to the more complex, all
things being equal.
9. Live the Truth. Appropriate your ideas in a personal way, so that even as
the objective truth is a correspondence of the thought of the world, this
lived truth will be a correspondence of the life of the thought. As
Kierkegaard said, “Here is a definition of (subjective) truth: holding fast to
an objective uncertainty in a appropriation process of the most passionate
inwardness is the truth, the highest available for an existing individual.”
10. Live the Good. Let the practical conclusions of a philosophical
reflection on the moral life inspire and motivate you to action. Let moral
Truth transform your life so that you shine like a jewel glowing in its own
light amidst the darkness of ignorance.
Selected Reading

WISDOM by Alfred North Whitehead

The fading of ideals is sad evidence of the defeat of human

endeavor. In the schools of antiquity philosophers aspired to
impart wisdom, in modern colleges our humbler aim is to teach
subjects. The drop from the divine wisdom, which was the goal
of the ancients, to textbook knowledge of subjects, which is
achieved by the moderns, marks an educational failure,
sustained through the ages. I am not maintaining that through
the practice of education the ancients were more successful than
Alfred North
Whitehead
ourselves. You have only to read Lucian, and to note his satiric
dramatizations of the pretentions of philosophers, to see that in
this respect the ancients can boast over us no superiority. My point is that, at
the dawn of our European civilization, men started with the full ideals which
should inspire education, and that gradually our ideal has sunk to square with
our patience.
Though knowledge is one chief aim of intellectual education, there is
another ingredient, vaguer but greater, and more dominating in its importance.
The ancients called it “wisdom.” You cannot be wise without some basis of
knowledge; but you may easily acquire knowledge and remain bare of wisdom.
Now wisdom is the way in which knowledge is held. It concerns the
handling of knowledge, its selection for the determination of relevant issues, its
employment to add value to our immediate experience. This mastery of
knowledge, which is wisdom, is the most intimate freedom obtainable. The
ancients saw clearly—more clearly than we do—the necessity for dominating
knowledge by wisdom. But, in the pursuit of wisdom in the region of practical
education, they erred sadly. To put the matter simply, their popular practice
assumed that wisdom could be imparted to the young by procuring philosophers
to spout at them. Hence, the drop of shady philosophers in the schools of ancient
Greece. The only avenue towards wisdom is by freedom in the presence of
knowledge. But the only avenue towards knowledge is by discipline in the
acquirement of ordered fact.
The importance of knowledge lies in its use, in our active mastery of it,
that is to say, it lies in wisdom. It is a convention to speak of mere knowledge
apart from wisdom, as of itself imparting a peculiar dignity to its possessor. I do
not share in this reverence for knowledge as such. It all depends on who has the
knowledge and what he does with it. That knowledge which adds greatness to
character is knowledge so handled to transform every phase of immediate
experience.
In a sense, knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows; for details are swallowed
up in principles. The details of knowledge which are important will be picked up
ad hoc in each avocation of life, but the habit of the active utilization of well-
understood principles is the final possession of wisdom.