Why Philosophy is Useful

I think PHILOSOPHY is important.
It gets a bad rap sometimes due to its unique vocabulary. And lets face it, books and arguments about essences and logical fallacies aren't really that sexy. But nonetheless, I think the study of philosophy is an important process; it is a posture that can be used to refine our internal values and to make sure that we are in concert with our values (and ultimately solidarity with our community)

Philosophy can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.
I take as some of my general operating assumptions to be the following:

• Humans (in general) after satisfying the lower 4 levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs (sex, food, shelter, safety, etc.) find it psychologically satisfying to pursue the escape of "the grip of time and chance". We are born. We self actualize. We bury our Grandparents, our Parents, our Siblings, and then... facing our own death. We want to have control... Our inquiry into understanding comes from this desire for control.

This is where the project of Metaphysics comes in. What else is out there? How can we (or can we at all?) get beyond that which we can manipulate with our faculties? Beyond the "hard sciences"?

• Language is one of the defining elements of Humanity. Humans, as far as we can tell, are unique in our creation, because we have the ability to "describe". This portable, memorable descriptivism is our great power over the environment we live within.

Language is tricky. Beautiful, useful, vitally important, and elusive. Language tricks us from time to time. It is a shape shifting medium of understanding; operationally unstable, yet powerful and useful. The noun "language" is often more of a verb than a noun. We think of it as static, because functionally it stays relatively stable, but it is actually dynamic. It morphs over time and in accordance to our needs. "Language" is a verb. It is something that we do.

It is process. We can point to a fire and think of it as a noun, but it is actually a verb (more like "the process of burning") Fires are warm, fires are good for so many things, but they should be watched, always watched.

This descriptivism (and more importantly re-descriptivism), is our great evolutionary advantage over our environment. We use descriptions (words) to organize with other anthropoids with which we share common values to accomplish certain tasks. When these descriptions cease to yield a result that is favorable, we quit using them, or we re-describe. This re-description is the "doing" of language. It is in this re-description that the power of language resides. It is important to recognize the capacity we have to redescribe- because to think of words as static is to fall victim to the tool.

Language is in the service of man. And in as far as language fails, we must re-describe in a way that is more useful, more beneficial to the shared values of a particular community.

Law is for the man, not man for the law...