The Most Profound Philosophical Ideas

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. Reading philosophy isn't fun; it's a slow process that requires your full attention. But it is one of the most rewarding things you can do. It fills you with the sense of growth you won't find anywhere else. It allows you to analyze your delusion and question the world around you.

I got interested in philosophy at a time in my life where I didn't feel a sense of purpose, like life was not worth living. I found it difficult to motivate myself and wanted to figure out what all this was for. Many years later, I've read more philosophical texts than I could count. Many of them only provided me with fleeting memories, but some taught me lessons I will carry for life. Here are the most important things I've learned from reading philosophy.

Most of our beliefs lay on a bed of assumptions that, when examined closely, fall apart. Is there a god? What is morally right or wrong? Do we have free will or are our lives just predetermined? Does everything happen for a reason or is it just one big game of chance? Does anything exist for sure outside of my own mind? Does life have meaning? These are our life's most essential questions, yet we often assume the answers or don't bother pursuing them.

I know with confidence that the moon revolves around the Earth, but how do I know that the Moon and Earth don't simply exist in my mind alone? "All I know is that I know nothing" is a famous quote from the grandfather of Western philosophy, Socrates. He was notorious for challenging the ideas put forward by the sophists and questioning the authority of his time. In ancient Greece, Socrates used a dialectic to dismantle what others thought to be true. This is where you use questions to expose how beliefs commonly held to be true are, in fact, false.

In the first dialogue written by Plato, Socrates never wrote anything down. He engages a man named Euthyphro in a dialectic. Euthyphro is punishing his own father, claiming that his actions were wicked. Socrates questions the nature of wickedness, for which Euthyphro did not have a satisfactory definition. How can Euthyphro charge someone of sin if he doesn't even know what it is? This dialogue is important because to engage in philosophy is to question pre-existing beliefs, including your own. You want to be at a place where you feel like you don't know anything for certain and are open to learning new ideas and beliefs.

All I know is that I know nothing. Ancient academic skeptics insisted that we can't know anything for certain besides what we perceive with our senses, and even then, only the raw sensations are sure, not any judgments we make about them. Accepting that there's so much you don't know opens you up to new information that could potentially change your life.

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Back to our story. It's easy to forget about death. Our lives...