A Jesuit and Philosophy-Reflection
In their daily encounters, most Jesuits in formation run into questions such as: ‘Which year of ‘training’ (or seminary) are you in? What are you studying?’ And so on. For most at AJU Community, the answer is straightforward, ‘I am studying philosophy.’ Numerous instances of answering this question got me thinking: Why do we study philosophy? And what is philosophy? A response requires offering an account of the defining features of philosophy. This is a tall order that I will not attempt to delve into. I offer a sneak peek into some of my convictions as to why I take delight in Philosophy and why anyone else should care about Philosophy.
Philosophy can be regarded as taking a step back in order to listen and to understand something/someone. It is to reflectively listen to oneself, to other people, including the ancient and great philosophers, and to try to evaluate and comprehend the issues at hand. These issues are mostly concerned with our beliefs, our conceptions, and attitudes about ourselves and the world. Philosophy is an endeavour to appreciate other people’s views and to be grateful for the commonality. It also entails taking note of the differences/diversities in views and being able to articulately argue for one’s view.
Philosophy is in the business of asking extremely broad, provocative, and fundamental questions that end up raising problems. The resultant problems are not normally considered as problems at all in most other areas of human life and human inquiry, such as in mythologies or even at times in the sciences. This is because philosophy revolves around thinking deeply (and at times hard) about life and our place in the world, beyond the physical or the obvious. It seeks to know what underlies a particular phenomenon, as well as to grasp the general picture of reality.
For instance, philosophy will entertain questions such as: why is there life at all? Is there a morally permissible ground for bringing to an end the life of someone else? Is the world we live in the best possible world? Is a world free of pain and suffering conceivable? These questions that result in problems on commonplace assumptions and presuppositions in life are the hallmark of philosophy. In philosophy, there are no questions that cannot be asked. The greatness of philosophy depends on the seriousness, astuteness, and rigor with which we ask such questions. This makes Philosophy have a distinctive feature of freedom of thought that yields these questions.
This freedom of thought enables a person to face some age-old questions of life, as well as to address emerging issues such as: What is the meaning of life? What if God does not exist? What is the nature of the universe? Can machines think? Are the rich western countries morally obliged to ensure the availability of Covid-19 vaccine to resource-strapped countries? The freedom of thought that comes with the study of Philosophy is centred on the role and importance of ideas. Ideas run the world. Ideas are ubiquitous; from the parliament buildings where a motion of impeachment is discussed, or courtrooms where lawyers argue a lawsuit, to the family where a mother teaches her child that the term ‘dog’ is only applicable to dogs, and not to every four-legged creature like cows or lambs or goats. Ideas run the world.
Wherever there is a human person, there are ideas. Human life is a marketplace of ideas. Ideas drive the human imagination, creativity, learning, and decision-making process. They enable us to make sense out of our existence, of the world, and to see life from a cosmic perspective. Where there is a tragic failure to use ideas, humans retreat into cocoons of easy answers to the big and challenging questions of reality. This offers easier alternatives that do not necessitate deep and creative thinking. The result is the propagation of unsound approaches to reality. This is seen in some of the ‘-isms’ around us, such as racism, nationalism, fundamentalism, and so on.
The solution to these ‘isms’ therefore lies in a rigorous study and understanding of philosophy. Ideas are to our minds what food is to our bodies, and a healthy mind means the energies of the healthy body will be put to good use. Philosophy is thus putting one’s energy into these ideas to make sense out of them with all their implications and complications. It is to draw connections between ideas and to compare them with other people’s views, especially those of the ancient thinkers and/or those before us. It is from ideas that we develop concepts and conceptual frameworks to find our way in the world.
Concepts give form to the ideas of our experience and abstractions to make them intelligible thus enabling us to make sense out of reality. They constitute the basic units of our philosophical viewpoints which make the articulation of our views possible. Concepts, especially when they are abstract, can be problematic to define resulting in disagreements about what they mean. For example, the concepts of a good person, the good life, of freedom, or even of God tend to mean (or to be interpreted to mean) different things in different societies. Thus, the idea of concepts is beyond the meaning of words, it is the interpretations of the meaning that we give our experiences and abstractions using words. Our experiences do not make much sense out of the world when viewed in themselves or in bits. Consequently, concepts tie them together forming our conceptual frameworks; the grand concepts through which rational agents comprehend reality.
Conceptual frameworks thus give us the all-embracing perspective or picture of reality that informs our articulation of particular concepts. In more concrete terms, conceptual frameworks are viewpoints or sets of values through which we understand and shape our world as well as define our lives within it. Concepts and conceptual frameworks, therefore, are for us the ways and means of putting the products of our thoughts -our ideas- in clear and readily understandable language. This grants us the ease of doing philosophy in style through the precise argumentation or analysis or synthesis of worldviews.
What are the reasons for studying Philosophy? There are many reasons why people study Philosophy. A Jesuit may summarize his reasons into two. The first uncontested reason remains the canonical requirement by the Mother Church for ordination to the priesthood. We need not belabour this reason! The other reason is the importance of ‘Philosophy qua Philosophy’. There is a thin line between the two. Most of the supportive evidence for the former applies to the latter. But we can draw a distinction: The former remains attractive mainly to potential candidates aspiring for ministry in the Church. The latter treats philosophy as a discipline open to both the believer and the non-believer, to the converted and the non-converted. Both reasons apply to a Jesuit in all their fullness. Wherever there is rational-agent, there you will find Philosophy in all her splendour. But it is more especially to the latter that the Jesuit surrenders himself; to allow philosophy qua philosophy to break the man and bring him to a dynamic and personalised relationship with the search for Sophia.
First studies in Philosophy may not make a Jesuit in formation a philosopher, but it sure provides the essentials needed to become one. Keeping in mind and at heart the end goal of his formation, a Jesuit studies philosophy intending to understand its revolutionary nature. We often find ourselves in an increasingly dynamic society where our old habits, our ideas about reality, and how we live are challenged, modified, and at times changed. Amid this flux, Philosophy is not just the source of our views on reality, morality, and knowledge, but also a means to understand ourselves, our history, and our world anew.
Jesuits have many reasons for doing whatever they are engaged in, all pointing to the A.M.D.G, and for the Jesuit studying Philosophy, the aim is to have a deepened comprehension and internalization of the context of his existence. This entails the context of his vocation, his understanding of the content of his faith and the charism of the Society, as well as an increased awareness of the relationships he is called to in the increasingly secular society he finds himself in. Philosophy is to the Jesuit in formation a most trustworthy toolkit that enables him to see the world with new eyes; to answer old questions and to ask new ones in wisdom.
Written by By Victor Mureithi SJ
