On Non-related Ideas

Hume asserts that all ideas correlate directly to an impression, such that there are no innate ideas. He also believes that ideas are related in our minds by resemblance, continuity, and cause and effect. In his view, ideas are weaker and less vivacious than impressions, and beliefs are strong and lively ideas that are called up through repeated relations of ideas. With all this, we shall investigate the following proposition: Is there a value in calling up non-related ideas? Our relations between ideas become fixed into patterns like boot prints in the snow. Is there value in a fresh snowfall or a belief in nothing? Unrelated ideas are a priori without reasoning, and in this sense more animal than human. In strong relations, that is in beliefs, there exists the benefit of speed and quick thinking; however, thinking and reasoning are lost. Belief may help us to act quickly, but quick thinking goes along with prejudice and imprecision to the situation. When we die, we return to the same place we were before we were born, a place of nothingness. Entrenched paths within the mind stifle the ability for agile thinking. A sudden non-related idea can bring forth more fruit to a thought than a continual wearing in of a path. Those who wear in their relational paths are not philosophers. Philosophy is the discovery of new paths, and the welcoming of non-related ideas. Sometimes it is good to think like you don’t exist.

On the Underlying Factors of Philosophy

If we divide philosophy into three categories (knowledge, self, and society), we see behind them several undividable factors, each of which is significant in a holistic sense. These factors of underlying importance to philosophy are:

Ethics
Questions
Meta-Cognition

Expressed in a wider sense, these are the underlying goals of philosophy:

How do we live a good life (a life of happiness), and how do we help others to do the same?

How do we ask the big questions, and revisit them often enough that our answers can be adjusted to our specific time and place?

How do we liberate ourselves from the constant danger of getting tricked by our own thinking?

On Laser Beams and Lighthouses

Our noesis, as intentional force of perception, can be used across scales. We can imagine ourselves a laser beam or a lighthouse; burrowing deep into a thing as a singular point of light, or scanning the horizon in all directions with a broad swath of illumination. Philosophy uses both of these methods to illuminate the world around us.


On the Process of Philosophy

Morality is one of the most important reasons for philosophy. Nietzche’s genealogy of morals and transvaluation of values is especially poignant. But what is the process by which we should think? A philosophy on the process of good thinking is important for every philosopher to consider. Without a good process, morality is not possible.

On Doubt

Those who philosophize should do so in such a way that their thinking is actionable and they are given the confidence to exist within the world. It is a philosophical problem that the dumb are the loudest, and the philosopher meek. Let the unsureness of thinking ring loud; it is a virtue to be unsure. Let good philosophy instill doubt.

On the Ideals of Philosophy

Philosophy must give people hope, and it must change their perspectives.

Philosophy must deal with the relations of ideas, and it must switch between the meta-philosophical and the focused enquiry.

Philosophy must be spoken plain enough to be understood, but yet must also mirror the thought process itself.

When writing philosophy for others, we must question: why does the reader seek out this philosophy?

Philosophy is not just a collection of ways of seeing, but possesses the potential to change our ways of being.