A cold rainy day has me procrastinating—I should be doing my taxes, anything more profitable than this. A compulsion has me wanting to close out tabs, and I have had William James and the Examined Life from The Socratic Dictum in a tab for several days and after too many crashes. The more I read today, the more I recognized this piece had more for me than satisfying my James fanboy curiosity, but also something for “Chasing Ashes” and for me personally:
We have seen how one’s basic beliefs about life and the world have significant personal, existential, and societal implications. As James reminds us, “philosophy’s results concern us all most vitally” (1). There is, however, a final practical and personally meaningful implication of the examined life. A properly examined life frees one from tyranny. Unless we foster an attitude of wisdom and self-reflection, we run the risk of being bound to a harmful, wrong, and tyrannical view of reality. We could become captives of our own erroneous conceptual schemes or those of society if accepted blindly and uncritically. Every idea that comes to us from culture, politics, or the media has philosophical implications. If we take ideas unreflectively and without conscious examination, we might become victims of either ourselves or society. On the other hand, if we develop our rational potential and help others to do so as well, human freedom is possible. In the end, the decision to be made is to accept ideas uncritically and run the risk of living like habitual animals (as James indicated), or to seek freedom through self-examination and critical inquiry. Tyranny or freedom, that is the ultimate existential choice.
Think about it. You may also find it useful.
sch 3/3
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