The School of Life - Big Ideas for Curious Minds: An Introduction to Philosophy

Published in 2018 by The School of Life
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AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY THE SCHOOL OF LIFE PRESS Introduction:
What Is Philosophy? Learn to Say
Whats on Your Mind Its Hard to Know
What We Really Want When Someone Is Angry,
Maybe Its Not You
Who Is Responsible People Are Unhappy,
Not Mean Maybe You Are
Just Tired What Is Normal
Isnt Normal Why Its Hard to Know
What You Want to Do
with Your Life Good Things Are
(Unexpectedly) Hard Weakness of
Strength Theory The Need to Teach
Rather than Nag The News Doesnt Always
Tell The Whole Story Art Is Advertising for
What We Really Need Why Do Some People Get
Paid More than Others? Shyness:
How to Overcome It Why Grown-up Life
Is Hard Philosophy is quite a mysterious subject that most people dont know
anything about. The average school doesnt teach it, the average adult
does not understand it, and the whole subject can seem odd and kind of
unnecessary. Thats a real pity because in fact, philosophy has a lot to
teach everyone, whatever their age. It might even be the most important
subject you will ever study. This book wants to open the door for you
to show you what philosophy is all about, and how it can help you to
understand life.

The word philosophy itself gives us a bit of a clue as to why the subject
matters. Its originally a word from Ancient Greek: the first part, philo ,
means love ( philately means the love of stamps). The second part, which
comes from the word sophia , means wisdom. So, when you put the two
parts together philo-sophy it literally means the love of wisdom. Philosophy helps us to live wise lives. But what does wisdom mean? Its
not very obvious, at first.

Is being wise just about being clever? No, its
much more than that. Its about being sensible, kind, calm and accepting

of how life can sometimes be (which isnt always perfect, and sometimes
really quite hard). To get a better idea of what wisdom might involve, we can think about its
opposite: not being wise. Imagine that your mum loses her keys. There
are unwise ways she might deal with this. Maybe she starts shouting at
other people: Who moved my car keys? (even though probably no one
did move them).

Or maybe she gets into a panic and throws herself onto
the sofa, moaning that shes a complete idiot and that her entire life is
ruined. Poor mum! What would a wiser mum do? Instead of ranting and raving, or starting
to panic straight away, she would think: Well, car keys do tend to get lost
from time to time. I must have put them somewhere maybe theyre in
the coat I was wearing yesterday. She could ask (calmly) if you had seen
them, and she might even laugh about how silly she was to forget where
shed put them. There are lots of situations where you can see the difference between
unwise and wise ways of dealing with stuff that happens. There are lots
of problems, both big and small, in everyones lifeincluding yours, too,
of course.

We can never get rid of them entirely (though we try hard), but
we can all get better at how we deal with our problems. We can try not to get angry so often, try to shout
less, and try not to panic or hurt the people
we love. Philosophy tries to help us act more
wisely when facing the problems in our
lives that we cant do much about.

UNWISE RESPONSES Accuse your brother of cheating
(though you know they didnt really) Tell everyone how much you hate the
game you were playing Feel that its incredibly important that you
lost, and that you wont get over it for ages or WISE RESPONSES Remember its only a game, and that whether
you have good luck says nothing about what
youre like as a person Remind yourself that youre bound to win
some other time and that there are other,
more important, things in your life UNWISE RESPONSES Be horrible back to them Feel that maybe you deserve
to be treated badly or WISE RESPONSES Wonder what might be
upsetting them Tell them calmly that they hurt your
feelings, and ask whats wrong UNWISE RESPONSES Keep on asking when youll get there Tell everyone that you are
very, very bored Complain that the journey is too
long every couple of minutes or WISE RESPONSES Admit to yourself that its going to
take ages no matter what you do Look at things out of the window
and make up a game or story Design the perfect house or submarine
in your head to pass the time UNWISE RESPONSES Shout about how disgusting it is Throw it on the floor Refuse to eat it or WISE RESPONSES Politely explain what you would