Jonathan Rée explains his approach to philosophy in Journeys In Thought

About philosophy
Philosophy is one of the great forms of cultural activity, alongside music, poetry, drama and art. And yet it has a serious image problem. Lots of otherwise intelligent people are convinced that philosophy is obsolete – that the rise of the natural sciences has exposed it as mere verbal doodling, a sedentary and self-indulgent way of whiling away the time. So what, if anything, is the point of philosophy in an age of science?
If you asked me to define philosophy, I would say that it is a battle against the tyranny of the obvious. From the moment we are born we absorb masses of words, conventions, habits and notions from our surroundings. Before long they become second nature, the unconsidered framework of our whole approach to life and the world.

But nothing obliges us to go with the flow. We can sometimes dig in our heels, and adopt a quizzical stance towards the assumptions that have incorporated themselves into our patterns of thinking. If we are lucky, we will be able to put a distance between ourselves and the ideas we normally take for granted. We will be able to get then into proportion, and see them in perspective. What happens on those occasions is what I’d call philosophy.

Advocating philosophy
The works of the great philosophers lie heavy on the library shelves, gathering dust. But the familiar methods of trying to drum up interest in them can all too easily backfire.
A tabloid summary of the gist of a life’s philosophical work may satisfy your passing pub-quiz curiosity. (“Descartes believed that knowledge is based on reason”, for instance, or
“de Beauvoir is the leading representative of feminist existentialism”, or “Hegel held that truth resides not in the part but in the whole”.) But little capsules like these are unlikely to persuade you that the great philosophers have anything really interesting to say to you: can they really be the jewels in philosophy’s crown?

Nor does it help if a few personal anecdotes and historical details are added for the sake of local colour. Philosophers, like poets and artists, tend to lead rather cranky lives. They need to concentrate on what they are working on, for hours or days or months or even years together; and as far as the rest of the world is concerned their behaviour is bound to look eccentric, obsessive, unsociable, and rather tiresome. A book of “Lives of the Great Philosophers” would be like a gallery of fusspots and freaks, maniacs and misfits. It might give pleasure to the kind of readers who enjoy smirking at the weakness, inconstancy or triviality of those they are expected to admire; but it would be no use to inquirers hoping to get some excitement, illumination and joy out of the works of the great philosophers.

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