Philosophy Case

The word Philosophy comes from the Greek philosophia meaning "love of wisdom." Philosophy is about gaining a better understanding of one self. The practice of philosophy is important because it helps one understand one's self-awareness. Philosophical knowledge requires careful thinking, reasoning, and an ability to ask and address difficult questions that will help one comprehend one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires. There are many benefits that can be derived from studying philosophy. For instance, philosophy can help us acquire problem-solving skills, communication skills, and, most importantly, self-knowledge.

Philosophy is about asking difficult questions and developing answers that will lead us to deeper thinking. Throughout one's lifetime one faces many obstacles, during which one must analyze concepts or arguments in a way that leads towards developing solutions for specific problems. Philosophy helps one search for knowledge that makes one understand one's self-awareness. To exemplify this idea imagine starting senior year of high school and deciding that college is the next step. However, your parents want you to stay close to home, but you have decided you want to go out of state. This scenario is an issue that requires one to have problem-solving skills. Through self-awareness one typically gathers both one's concepts and arguments in order to compare them to those of one's parents in efforts to reach a solution that can easily be defended. For instance, financial aid package might have been better, and the school has the specific program you plan on studying. As one can see philosophy allows one to solve our problems based on one's self-awareness. On the other hand, one might not be too intrigued by philosophical knowledge as a source for problem solving. One might contemplate that there might be two perfectly acceptable solutions instead of just one for a specific problem. Having two solutions instead of one does not help us come to an understanding with our self-awareness.

Other benefits resulting from the study of philosophy also includes when one is able to use one's communication skills in order to express ideas, feelings, and thoughts. A significant part of philosophy is being able to listen intently, to analyze the situation, and lastly, to evaluate one's answer before responding to the situation at hand. Conversations and debates are a great opportunity to listen to others level of understanding of one self and to simultaneously express one's understanding on the given topic. For instance, throughout The Republic by Plato, Socrates uses a process of debate where he becomes well known for by only raising questions without expressing his own understanding. This method can simply be defined as hypothesis elimination. Throughout Socrates dialogues, hypothesis are identified and eliminated if it leads to a contradiction. This process allows