Understanding Philosophy Through Paradox

Understanding major branches of philosophy like moral philosophy, value philosophy, metaphysics and more through paradoxes which pose questions that will take up on the readers’ mind and make it easy for anyone to start.

Introduction

Philosophy, as we know it from the Greeks, is the love for wisdom. But how should one start learning about it? The way definitions get one nowhere; rather, they make one feel as if philosophy, like all other subjects, is just another field. But by intriguing one’s very mind, we can understand things better. So, to do that, we will not talk about the fields like epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics in the usual way. Instead, we will learn from paradoxes.

Paradoxes

Before going to the actual part, let’s go through the boring part. What is a paradox? A paradox is simply something that initially looks very absurd, but on looking deeper, it reveals a deeper truth. And what we are going to do with paradoxes is that we will take six branches of philosophy: that is, existentialism, metaphysics, moral philosophy (or ethics), philosophy of mind, and then, at last, existentialism. We will pose one paradox for each category, and then we will take a question from the respective paradox we have posed, and then we will think about the very question. That way, one can really start studying philosophy, not just reading about it.

1. Epistemology

The first paradox is of epistemology, which means the study of knowledge or the study of the nature of knowledge itself. The paradox that we will be studying in epistemology is more like a story. The story goes like this: two students—let’s call them A and B. Both students just came out of the exam hall after finishing their papers. Student A had studied all night long; he had burned through nights and days, he had worked hard to get full marks. But by some misfortune, student A made one mistake and scored less than expected. On the other hand, student B had never studied at all. Student B guessed every answer right—maybe it was intuition, maybe a pattern he saw—but whatever it was, he got them all correct. Thus, the question being posed is this: who is truly the holder of knowledge here? Is knowledge the one who worked hard, who read books and prepared for the exam, or is knowledge simply being right—like student B, who guessed everything correctly? One could say that there are 27 birds flying over the Pentagon, but is that true? Maybe by some coincidence, there really were 27 birds. Is that knowledge? Did you really know there were 27 birds? The very first question that epistemology, from the paradox of epistemology, asks is this: is knowledge really knowing, or is it just being right?

2. Metaphysics

The second paradox that we will be covering will be from metaphysics. Metaphysics is that branch of philosophy that examines the basic nature or the most fundamental structures of reality. In the second paradox, the story goes like this: there was once a person, or a father, we could say, and he had a child. The child saw his father day in and day out. The father, however, kept going through surgeries—sometimes it was a skin surgery, sometimes it was a heart surgery, sometimes other surgeries. But little by little, the father had so many surgeries that every part of him was new—there was nothing of the old father left. But for the child, even though he was seeing a person with different facial features, if he were to go some years back, he would not recognize the father he sees now. The metaphysician poses this question: is a person’s identity tied to their memory or to their body? If, for example, the body always stayed the same and never changed, then, even if the body stayed the same and the father’s memories changed—say he had some disease that caused memory loss—would the child still see him as the same person? Or, if the memory stayed the same but the body changed, as we described in the paradox, is he still seeing his father? Who is really his father? What is identity? What defines identity? Is it the person’s memories, or is it the person’s body? For memories can be forgotten—people forget things. You may have met someone years ago and completely forgotten them, but that doesn’t mean their identity changed. Maybe you still remember their face, you still remember who they were, but you don’t remember anything you did with them. So, what is actually an identity? Is the father the same person, or is he a different person?

3. Moral philosophy/Ethics

The third paradox is from ethics. Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Moral phenomena are how we humans diverge and evaluate the subject of morality—like good and bad—so to speak, through human experience and social reality. The third paradox that we will study, or we will pose, is this: there is a surgeon. The surgeon has five patients. Each patient needs a different surgery—one needs a kidney, and others need different organs. There are five patients in total. Then, another person comes in—just a healthy person, there for a routine checkup. The surgeon could take the organs needed for each patient from this healthy person and save five lives, but in doing so, he would kill one. It feels wrong. And the same situation happens if the person willingly donates his organs while dying—in that case, he is saving the five patients. Of course, both are dying, but when he was a healthy person, killing him for his organs felt wrong, but when he willingly gave them while already dying, it felt right. So, what really is moral in this? Should we sacrifice one to save five, or is it only right if that one willingly gives himself up? When is one truly right?

4. Aesthetics

The fourth paradox is from aesthetics. Aesthetics is a type of value philosophy. We won’t go into that, but aesthetics is the systematic study of beauty, art, and taste. In this fourth paradox, we will study a paradox about paintings. The paradox is as follows: there are two paintings side by side in a museum. People look at one and ignore the other. One is by a famous artist, and the other is by an unknown artist whose background is not known. In this case, what really is beauty? Is beauty the story behind the painting? If the painting is by a great, known artist, then the story behind it is that a great artist created it, and everyone will stare at it. But on the other hand, the painting by the unknown artist—maybe it was his life’s work, maybe it was a masterpiece, a magnum opus—maybe he painted it while his life was at stake. There was a great story behind it. Is it really the story that makes it beautiful, or does the painting itself, regardless of its origin, make it beautiful? What really is beautiful in this?

5. Philosophy of mind

The fifth paradox is from the branch of philosophy of mind, which deals with the nature of mind, its relation to the body, and the external world—about consciousness, the problems of consciousness. The fifth paradox is about an actor. Let’s take, for example, a great actor, a very renowned actor, known all over the world. The actor acts in a movie—a movie that almost everyone in the world watched. The actor did a great job; the emotions were flowing out, and people were crying while watching the movie. The actor himself was doing it so perfectly that no one else could have done it better. He was putting emotions into it, but in his mind, he was thinking, “What will I eat for dinner today?” So, in this paradox, the question is: is the behavior we observe what we can use to access one’s mind, or if we have a perfect actor in the world, who moves us emotionally, is it still not real for him—since he may be thinking of something else? If all we observe is behavior, how do we really justify belief in inner experience at all?

6. Existentialism

The last paradox that we will see is from existentialism. Existentialism is a family of philosophical views in which people inquire about an individual’s struggle so that one can lead an authentic life, despite the apparent absurdity or the incomprehensibility of existence. The paradox goes as follows: it is posed by Albert Camus in “The Myth of Sisyphus.” He says that a man—precisely Sisyphus, a king—was given a punishment to roll a rock for eternity up a hill. He kept rolling the rock. Initially, he was unhappy, for there was no meaning in pushing the rock—because whenever he got to the top, the rock would slide down again. He couldn’t do anything, for he was cursed by the Greek gods to always keep pushing the rock. But Albert Camus proposes that even though Sisyphus was initially unhappy and not really into pushing the rock, after some time, he knew it was absurd—that he was pushing the rock, because it never reached anywhere. Camus proposed that pushing the rock is like life—that life is absurd. But Sisyphus pushed it anyway. Thus, Sisyphus became happy, even though he was in an eternal cycle of rolling the rock. Albert Camus argues that even though life is absurd in itself, one should find meaning—though life gives none. The question here is: is it really okay for him to keep pushing the rock uphill when it really does nothing—when it always falls down? Should he stop, or should he keep doing it?

Conclusion

Now that we have seen all six paradoxes from the major branches of philosophy, you may have noticed that each part ended with a question. What we must do is think about these questions deeply. In doing so, we may get a grasp on things we didn’t previously understand. Thus, we will be able to truly start studying philosophy, rather than just reading about it. And we should continue to look for more paradoxes so that we can study philosophy in a deeper, more meaningful way.