Indre Survilaite

Ausra gymnasium, Kaunas, Lithuania

 

I

Bertrand Russell is mostly known for his works in logics and analysis. He raised the ideas of the philosophy of logical atomism. Let’s stop here and play a little with the words from the second sentence. We get this statement: “Philosophy is like an atom. Atoms may gain a charge and become ions. The “charge” of philosophy depends on the situation and people’s opinion.” This is not Bertrand Russell’s statement; this is an idea of a philosophy interested science geek, who will now try to prove her idea by logical approach.

To prove their point, philosophers sometimes invite us to use our imagination and show familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect. For example, let’s remember Plato’s story about people living in a cave. He used it to illustrate his ideas of the ‘real world’ and the ‘world of ideas’. Here’s another example: Jostein Gaarder in his book “Sophie’s world” compares the universe to a giant white rabbit that is being pulled from the Great Magician’s hat. He also compares people to fleas that live in the giant rabbit’s fur. I figured I could also use this method. Let us invent a new chemical element (a nonmetal, to be more specific) and call it philosophium, Ph. Like atoms of most elements, a philosophium atom may lose or gain electrons and become an ion. And now we will take a look at how its charge varies in different situations.

The most common use for philosophium is mind stimulation. In „Sophie’s world“ Jostein Gaarder compares Socrates with a mosquito: as a mosquito stings a mule and keeps it moving, so Socrates’ questions kept people thinking. Sadly, we know what happens to annoying mosquitoes, but that’s another story… As we see from the given example, the effects of philosophium can be either positive or negative, so our atom stays neutral.

Maybe some people just don’t like to think. If we all happened to be sitting in Plato’s cave, bound in chains, watching the shadows play on the wall, and suddenly we would become free, I don’t think that all of us would decide to go out of the cave. Some people would be too afraid of the light, and would rather stay inside where everything is familiar. That may be the reason why some people don’t like philosophizing - they are afraid that new thoughts or discoveries would shake up their little world, make the walls of their shelter fall, and they would loose their sense of security and stability. And human beings (especially in this era of progress and change) are very fond of unchanging things. So this aspect of philosophy adds to both its positive and negative sides and we still have a neutral philosophium atom.

What can we be certain about? I give you three seconds to guess. Three…two…one. And the answer is …nothing! Yes, nothing. Some of you may have said you are certain that the sun will always rise, but you were wrong: scientists have already proved that the sun will eventually burn out, and we should also not forget the phenomenon of polar night. Maybe the others said that the laws of science could bring you certainty. I have read this description somewhere, that “a theory can not be called scientific, if it can not be falsified”. We can not even be certain that if we go to bed tonight, we will wake up tomorrow morning. Lack of certainty adds to the negative charge of philosophium.

So we have found out that in order to be able to philosophize (use philosophium) we have to sacrifice our ability to feel safe and certain but what do we gain?

A well known effect of philosophium is that it makes us ask many questions, especially ‘why?’ Some even say that raising questions is the most important point in philosophy. But philosophy is, as Bertrand Russell says, “unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises”. Since people like certainty so much, this statement increases the negative charge of our ion. But philosophy gives us many possibilities to choose from. Thus, while losing certainty we gain freedom of choice. Let’s paraphrase a popular Lithuanian commercial slogan, and say: “Philosophium - your right to choose!” Our philosophium ion has only one negative charge again.

When it comes to controlling the masses, free thought is undesirable. Even one person thinking differently or expressing other people’s ideas opposing the dominating ideology is a hazard to the system. But it may not always be exactly so. Let’s take the Middle Ages as an example. Christianity was the ruling system of belief and the Antique culture was forgotten, since it was ‘pagan’. But some Christian philosophers of that era such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine were able to adapt Aristotle’s and Plato’s thoughts to the principles of Christianity. Therefore, we may state that versatility is a positive property of philosophium, which allows our ion to gain one positive charge.

We have come to the end of our experiment and the point where we have to sum up the results. Throughout the whole experiment the philosophium ion has either gained or lost the charge, but the negative and positive charges compensate each other, what leaves us with a neutral phlosophium atom. Therefore, I can state that the charge of a philosophium ion mainly depends on the opinion of the person using it.