Philosophy: 'What Is It All About?'
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Kenyatta University
Abstract
The number of students enrolling for philosophy courses in our public universities is dwindling. Philosophy,
the mother of all intellectual learning, is on the verge of being erased from Kenyan universities' curricula.
From discussions with students over a whole decade it has become evident to me that one of the reasons
why students fear philosophy is the impression that its main content and purpose is simply the acquisition
of prowess in criticality and in the use of modem symbolic or mathematical logic, with the underlying
hermeneutics of suspicion, skepticism and intellectual paranoia often associated with philosophical debates.
This paper, by tracing the main highlights of the history of philosophy, is intended to avert those fears by
underscoring the fact that, while criticality and modem logic are useful aspects for philosophy, the field of
philosophy per se is not reduced to them; it has its proper content that is open to every person committed
and devoted to the pursuit of truth and its possibility regarding the world and nature, who and what the
human being is- his origin, purpose, activity and end- life and death, society and human relations, good
and evil. Its proper role is sapiential: the 'love of wisdom.'
Description
Published in the International Journal of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of Kenyatta University,4,2 (2007), 121-136
The number of students enrolling for philosophy courses in our public universities is dwindling. Philosophy, the mother of all intellectual learning, is on the verge of being erased from Kenyan universities' curricula. From discussions with students over a whole decade it has become evident to me that one of the reasons why students fear philosophy is the impression that its main content and purpose is simply the acquisition of prowess in criticality and in the use of modem symbolic or mathematical logic, with the underlying hermeneutics of suspicion, skepticism and intellectual paranoia often associated with philosophical debates. This paper, by tracing the main highlights of the history of philosophy, is intended to avert those fears by underscoring the fact that, while criticality and modem logic are useful aspects for philosophy, the field of philosophy per se is not reduced to them; it has its proper content that is open to every person committed and devoted to the pursuit of truth and its possibility regarding the world and nature, who and what the human being is- his origin, purpose, activity and end- life and death, society and human relations, good and evil. Its proper role is sapiential: the 'love of wisdom.'
The number of students enrolling for philosophy courses in our public universities is dwindling. Philosophy, the mother of all intellectual learning, is on the verge of being erased from Kenyan universities' curricula. From discussions with students over a whole decade it has become evident to me that one of the reasons why students fear philosophy is the impression that its main content and purpose is simply the acquisition of prowess in criticality and in the use of modem symbolic or mathematical logic, with the underlying hermeneutics of suspicion, skepticism and intellectual paranoia often associated with philosophical debates. This paper, by tracing the main highlights of the history of philosophy, is intended to avert those fears by underscoring the fact that, while criticality and modem logic are useful aspects for philosophy, the field of philosophy per se is not reduced to them; it has its proper content that is open to every person committed and devoted to the pursuit of truth and its possibility regarding the world and nature, who and what the human being is- his origin, purpose, activity and end- life and death, society and human relations, good and evil. Its proper role is sapiential: the 'love of wisdom.'
Keywords
Philosophy