Why Study Philosophy? #1

This series will explore the value of studying philosophy. My goal is not only to survey different philosophers, but more importantly, to help us become more intentional with our own thoughts. Especially in our current age, when we are bombarded with an inundation of information—so much that it’s difficult to separate what’s useful from mere distraction—I turn to philosophy as a guide. Philosophy teaches us critical thinking, provides clarity of thought, and readies us to analyze problems deeply, allowing us to navigate complexity with purpose and confidence.

My idea is for each post to have a subject matter, and from there I will select readings/excerpts from a couple of philosophers to help us navigate through the subject matter. For the intro post, I will be pulling Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and Chapter 15 from Bertrand Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy titled “The Value of Philosophy” to explain why philosophy is important.

Plato's Allegory of the Cave is a thought experiment from The Republic that depicts prisoners chained in an underground cave. Since birth, their necks and legs have been shackled, so they can only look straight ahead at the cave wall in front of them. Behind the prisoners is a fire and in between the fire and the prisoners are people who carry various objects which casts shadows on the wall of the cave that the prisoners stare at.

In the worldview of the prisoners, all they know is the shadows. They have no concept of the fire behind them, or the objects being carried. The prisoners are confident and even take pride in their understanding of the shadow world. However, from our perspective, it is easy to see they are not getting the full image.

Plato expands this allegory by hypothetically freeing a prisoner. He describes that the individual prisoner who turns around would be blinded by the light. They would need time to acclimatize. They would be uncomfortable with confronting the objects because the prisoner already has his own preconceived notion of reality. But as time progresses and he continues looking at the light, his eyes would adjust, and he would come to see the world for what it really is. Plato continues by explaining what would happen if the freed prisoner tried to explain this new reality to the prisoners still in the cave. They would mock him and call him a fool. The prisoners who were still in shackles were too sure of their existence. They had settled. They were comfortable. Any new information would disturb their notion of reality and deeply unsettle them like the freed prisoner.

So, this leads us to the question, “What does Plato’s allegory of the cave have to do with us today?” Arguably, this concept is more relevant than ever, just in a different setting compared to the cave. Most preeminently with how content and information are distributed to us.

In our digital age, Plato’s cave manifests itself through the algorithms that curate our online experience. Social media platforms, search engines, and news feeds act as the fire behind us, meticulously casting shadows on our screens. These algorithms prey off our preferences and biases, then feed us content to confirm what we already think, creating reinforcing echo chambers. Just as the prisoners became experts at predicting what shadows would appear next, we have become equally as skilled at consuming content that aligns with our existing perspectives. We scroll, keeping our eyes peeled for political views, recommended products, and content similar to what we’ve watched in the past.

The parallels are even more striking when we must consider how little tolerance we have for encountering challenging ideas. When we stumble across content that is contradictory to our beliefs or makes us question our values, our natural impulse is to disregard it. If we see something we don’t resonate with, a swipe of a finger coupled with our nonexistent attention span renders that content forever forgotten. Like the prisoners, we are turning away from the light out of comfort and security.

What’s worse is that we aren’t even creating our own individualized echo chambers. These algorithms that we built “brick-by-brick” are arguably herding us into collective caves, and we may be too prejudiced to see what is really happening. Essentially, the algorithm is not only telling us what content we like, it’s telling us what our personality should be and who we should try to become. Consider a person who likes a couple of fitness videos. Afterwards, the feed starts figuring out what in the fitness realm draws out the most attention. Suddenly, the feed is infested with "gym rat" merch, supplements, and videos that are designed to maximize hypertrophy.

The direct action of being fed content is not inherently bad. The problem resides in the fact that this content is manufacturing our identity and how we perceive the world, and we’re not fully aware of it. We tend to view reality through these constructed lenses. The “gym rats” might think they’re leading experts on discipline and health. The “entrepreneurs” might think that they have the insight and ambition to create a multi-million-dollar business. The “political activist” might think they have profundities about the underlying structural problems that no one else is able to see. These are of course generalizations, and I’m not saying that because your feed has content in one of these categories that you necessarily do these things. I’m saying it’s necessary to be mindful that when you see something enough times, it’ll most likely rub off on you. We spend many hours on our devices every day, and we are completely at the mercy of what the device chooses to show us.

This doesn’t mean that we must radically alter the preferences we have by reading news sources we have never seen before or removing content we genuinely enjoy from our feeds. The shadows depicted in the cave are still part of reality, they just aren’t the full story. We must be cognizant that there is always more nuance and subtlety than meets the eye. Do we think and live the way we do because of genuine contemplation, or are we allowing ourselves to be collectively herded into these manufactured archetypes because forging our own path requires the kind of intentional effort and thought that the digital world discourages? It is up to us to have the due diligence to confront what is foreign and uncomfortable. The situation that we are currently in is ironic because we are so unbounded in terms of ideas, perspectives, and knowledge; yet, we choose to be like the prisoners, restricting ourselves to the caves without even knowing it.

But why should we bother with the discomfort of freeing ourselves from these self-imposed shackles and forcing our eyes to adjust to the light? Because through this discomfort, we are conditioning ourselves not to settle for easy fixes or shortcuts. Bertrand Russell states that philosophy is solely concerned with problems and there are no definite answers. Although you may be disappointed that philosophy isn't going to offer us a neatly packaged solution, philosophy will offer us clarity and freedom. Through rejecting the comfort of the cave and struggling through the light, we gain the agency to think freely and intentionally, deciding for ourselves how we engage with the world.

Regardless of how confident we are in our abilities to make sense of the reality we are thrown into, problems or questions constantly resurface. Russell writes that our ability to philosophize "removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect." In other words, philosophy preserves our curiosity. It prevents us from becoming complacent with a single point of view, actively seeking other perspectives, ultimately making us what Russell calls "citizens of the universe," individuals unconstrained by "narrow hopes and fears."

The meaning of this cosmic citizenship is quite profound: instead of forcing all of reality through the narrow bottleneck of ourselves—which is small, limited, and unknowing—we conform ourselves to the vastness of what reality has to offer. This transforms our relationship with existence itself, allowing us to "enlarge our conception of what is possible." In a world designed to keep us restricted to our digital caves, we have the liberating choice to embrace complexity and uncertainty.

Contributors: Lawrence Zhao and Grant Zhang