What we owe to philosophy

There are many people who think that philosophy is useless. 

Basically, they don’t know what they are talking about.

Science grew out of philosophy. Democracy grew out of philosophy. It took philosophers such as Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and Ayn Rand to conceptualize and justify the market system.

Which means that it is ultimately to philosophy that the average person owes everything that he has.

Have there been wrong things that came out of philosophy? Of course there have been. But wrong things have come out of just about everything else that is there. Equating philosophy with bad things that came out of philosophy is like equating the computer industry with the computer virus, or business with Enron, or science with nuclear bomb, or politics with Mao Zedong, or religion with ISIS. Anything human can go wrong. That does not make it wrong in itself.

Why am I saying this? Because when you are in a pursuit that is unappreciated, sometimes you need to blow your horn. That may be seen as egotistical, even narcissistic; however the process demands it. I will stop going on about this when more people have respect for the pursuit and those who are a part of it. The philosophy majors I’ve known were not more self-centered than the average person; many were much less so. Probably the most compassionate person I’ve known was a lady who had been a Harvard philosophy major.

I want to see people realize how much they owe to philosophy and have more respect for the subject. Right now, people are taking for granted all sorts of things that came out of philosophy and that were not there before. It is important that these people realize what is at the root of such things. Science, democracy and capitalism owe a lot to philosophy. And it is important that people understand such things in order that they do the right thing by all of the above.