WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS A COMPUTER ANALOGY APPLIED TO MIND

[Apologies in advance]

Starting with the bad assumption that computers are in some way analogous to human minds, I prefer to think of philosophy less as something that explains the world itself, but rather something that orients a particular mind to the world and renders the world (the relevant aspects of the world) useful, usable and desirable. A test of a philosophy should more resemble a usability test than a demonstration, argument, or scientific experiment. Unless of course the user is a professional philosopher, a lawyer or a scientist, in which case the use being tested will itself be demonstration, argument, or scientific experiment. The question is: How well does the philosophy perform in helping the user complete his tasks in his particular discipline?

It’s worth remembering that no user is an isolated actor, but (to extend that computer analogy) but one node in a network. The network supports communication between nodes  nodes via multiple network/communication protocols. And then the data transported faithfully through a network must still find some platform to run on or open in…

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This passage from the Gay Science has always resonated with me:

Get on the ships! — Consider how every individual is affected by an overall philosophical justification of his way of living and thinking–he experiences it as a sun that shines especially for him and bestows warmth, blessings, and fertility on him, it makes him independent of praise and blame, self-sufficient, rich, liberal with happiness and good will; incessantly it fashions evil into good, leads all energies to bloom and ripen, and does not permit the petty weeds of grief and chagrin to come up at all. In the end then one exclaims: Oh how I wish that many such new suns were yet to be created! Those who are evil or unhappy and the exceptional human being–all these should also have their philosophy, their good right, their sunshine! What is needful is not pity for them!–we must learn to abandon this arrogant fancy, however long humanity has hitherto spent learning and practicing it–what these people need is not confession, conjuring of souls, and forgiveness of sins! What is needful is a new justice! And a new watchword! And new philosophers! The moral earth, too, is round! The moral earth, too, has its antipodes! The antipodes, too, have the right to exist! There is yet another world to be discovered–and more than one! Embark, philosophers!