Studying Philosophy and the Social Sciences: What Role for the Humanities in a Post-Industrial World?

Why do we study philosophy in our time? How can we benefit from the humanities in a reality driven by scientific developments? What is the possible use of philosophy while man is trying to find a living? What makes the humanities a necessity in a world dominated by machines? How has contemporary technology turned us into dispossessed people unable to do what we love? All the previous questions and many more that come to mind when we pronounce the word philosophy, it is customary to consider it a sign of every meaningless speech, and every argument is useless and superfluous. The current era is the era of technological developments, the era after the industrial revolution and there is no place It is for contemplative thought.

Here, the need appears necessary to clarify the truth. The negative view based on prejudices and not studied has caused the people of this generation to lose interest in studying philosophy, on the grounds that it is a study that will not lead to real benefit in our lives, as we are in a time when everything is linked to the amount of benefits that It is achieved on the ground, and because we used to teach philosophy as a purely theoretical study, a study far from the applications of the contemporary world, it has become a useless fantasy as seen by many.


Is studying philosophy a necessity or just a luxury?

Many consider that the study of philosophy is the preserve of the affluent, those who are not looking for a living. As for the majority of people, they need knowledge that gives them the ability to produce money in a painful reality, and this pushes them to consider the study of philosophy just a luxury that is not needed.

But the truth is that the study of philosophy is a necessity for any human being and cannot be dispensed with. It is the art of knowledge, as the philosopher Fichte put it. It is the art that gives us the ability to think organized and logical, and this kind of thinking is needed by all people, the child, the young man, the student, the employee, the scientist and others. Philosophy is not Just a contemplative thought as it is usually considered, it is the mechanism that organizes thinking and makes it able to ask correct and accurate questions in order to reach satisfactory answers.

This may remind us of what the famous French epistemologist Gaston Bachelard said when he was asked in a television interview: One of the popular ideas is what is said about philosophy that it is useless, so what is your opinion of that? His answer was: Philosophy is a means of creative thinking, so if you want to think without creativity, you do not have to use philosophy.


Do not all business in life require an organized and logical thought?

The answer to this question has already led us to the importance and necessity of philosophy. Philosophy helps us to organize and classify ideas, and it also establishes abstract thought based on reason, which is considered today the basic tool in many abstract sciences such as mathematics, for example. One of the girls says: When we were studying philosophy in school I used to enjoy a lot in the classroom, but I never knew what the actual benefit was outside the classroom boundaries, and later when I entered practical life I gradually began to discover that everything I learned from philosophy appears on the ground The reality is within behaviors based on calm and orderly thinking, and on the ability to control oneself and replace anger with leisure. Philosophy taught me to use my mind well, and this may be one of the tasks of philosophy.


Philosophical reflection and the assumptions of modern science

Philosopher Bertrand Russell defines philosophy as: hypotheses about matters that cannot be finalized from an epistemological point of view, and this puts us in front of the search for the truth of the difference between philosophy and science. Always from philosophy to science, meaning that all kinds of questions that were considered philosophical at one time turned into scientific hypotheses later.

In general, the story of the transformation of philosophical questions into scientific hypotheses begins with the diligent human search for the truth. Since he was found on planet Earth, man has tried to find answers about major questions, and about events and phenomena that he was not able to confront, so he always sought to meditate and think about them with the aim of obtaining answers. It made him overcome the scourges he was subjected to, and at the moment when man began to ask questions away from myth and legends, philosophy was born to begin through which he began to put forward contemplative hypotheses about the emergence of the universe and the incidents that occur in it.

Philosophy tells us about many theories that contributed to the construction of scientific hypotheses later. The circular motion, which Aristotle considered the most complete of motions, is the same that we talked about in mathematics, and the Pythagorean theorems in geometry are still to this day a basis and a necessity for students of planar geometry, and what Democritus brought about the theory of atoms Later, it became a scientific hypothesis par excellence, and it was proved through it that the atom is the basic structure of any substance, and there are endless examples of that. Here is Newton, who established his theory of gravity based on philosophical reflections, and Einstein, who frankly expressed the impact of philosophy on his scientific theories.

Usefulness of philosophy

Philosophy has a benefit that we cannot ignore, and we cannot consider it just a meaningless luxury, and it is not correct to limit it to the oldest definition of it only, which is the love of wisdom. Rather, it is what gives us the ability to employ our capabilities optimally, and it allows us to rethink what we thought was impossible. It contributes to expanding the human view of the world to the level of hypothesis, in the words of Russell, and this means maintaining speculations related to issues that science cannot address at some time, and which, as we mentioned above, turn into a scientific hypothesis.

On the other hand, philosophy has contributed since its inception to man’s self-knowledge, and this has opened the way for man to understand and analyze his inner potentials in order to solve the problems that stand in his way and affect his making of important decisions in life. Self-esteem and its ability to know it's secrets? This will lead, as Socrates said one day, to an organized and accurate mental thought, and the ability to generate ideas and move them in a logical sequence, which reduces the margin for making mistakes over time. Whoever sets the right questions can reach accurate answers about what is happening starting from his personal life.

On the other hand, philosophy helps us to understand our knowledge accurately, as it makes us realize our lack of knowledge, so we seek to build new knowledge, and this is what motivates us to be more aware and humble in front of the knowledge we possess. Ignorant, because he does not really understand the meaning of good, and it may be appropriate here to use the expression of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell: "Love is wise; hatred is foolish.". Philosophy helps us to love ourselves in the first place and then love the world.

All of the above benefits of philosophy become subject to confusion and abuse in a society dominated by the machine, and turned humans into mere consumers who do not want to possess knowledge, but rather wants to own the machine that protects them from making any effort whatsoever, especially intellectual effort, for today knowledge is no longer necessary for many of people as long as they are able to use all means of technology without any effort, and this puts us in front of new challenges, and puts on the shoulders of philosophy the task of restoring awareness to societies that have lost consciousness under the weight of consumption, so what is that task? How has the industrial and technological society changed the human condition from a creative researcher/explorer to a lazy consumer?


Industrial society: alienation or freedom?

Contemporary man suffers from a state of real alienation within his societies, although he has sought for centuries to gain strength through his discoveries and inventions that made life easier for him, but the scourge of development and technological progress has gradually begun to turn into a real burden in his life. Technology has divided us into two main parts: Few individuals invent and develop all technological tools, and many consumers today live off the consumption of what technology offers us.

With this consumer reality, the work system collapses, as the machine becomes more important than man and takes his place, moral values ​​are disrupted, and the supreme value of man becomes dependent on what he owns, so he turns into a dispossessed being unable to get out of the cycle of consumption. Negativity based on receiving and the desire to possess.

Here man lives the essence of alienation, so he separates from his society first with all its components, and becomes alone in a reality that is alien to him, so the separation occurs between him and his product and he is robbed of it, to gradually find himself alienated from himself as well, this alienation that Marx told us about when he described the alienation of the working man from his industrial product who tried his best to bring it to reality.

In this context, Ted Kaczynski may be the best example in our talk about the impact of industrial and technological society on humans, and you may be surprised when we tell you about this character, he is a mathematician and university teacher in America, who took it upon himself to combat technology and its effects in contemporary societies, turning into the most dangerous criminal responsible for bombings in America for more than twenty years, on the pretext that he is fighting all those who support the rise of technology, that technology responsible for the falseness of civilization, and which can cause the destruction of humanity, from his point of view everything that man makes and invents today constitutes a threat to his existence and life, and therefore Kaczynski found his case to justify his criminal and violent actions over twenty years of time.

We do not want the reader to understand here that we justify what Kaczynski did, on the contrary, there is nothing that might justify criminal acts in this way, but we wanted by presenting this example to show how technology affected the formation of selves of this type, capable of using violence in all its forms, even when you want an end that may be noble and just.

The alienation that man suffers has led to unbalanced models of human beings, some are involved and isolated within their reality away from everything, so that their life becomes an electronic tablet, or a mobile phone, and others collapse psychologically to turn with time into a violent criminal, as happened with Kaczynski, and he may transfer the virtual world to reality, so he applies in reality what he sees in the movies, and lives within a framework that includes distorted relationships, and there is a third party that is still to this day trying hard to restore to the human the desire to continue despite everything, without violence or separation from reality, and here The role of philosophy reappears, so what is this role?

Philosophy... and industrial society

Within one of the meetings that brought together many economic and intellectual activities, they talked about the collapse of the education system, the distortion of values, the addiction of young people to technology, and their loss of their desire for knowledge. After a long reflection on the cause, the consensus was clear that the absence of a clear philosophy of the policies pursued in any society would be the end of destruction.

Yes, today we are in dire need of building philosophies that restore man's ability to understand himself, philosophies that contribute to restoring confidence in him in his ability to create and produce, teach him how to face his fear of the effects of industrial development, as he faced one day his fear of nature, so that what he created turns into a reason to continue life and not in death, perhaps his view of the concept of civilization changes.

As a result… it is our responsibility today to share the responsibility to help young people overcome the pressures they suffer, build an intellectual structure for them that enhances the value of work instead of consumption, and builds their ability to choose what they love in order to achieve success in their lives. It is the only way to reconsider the everything.

In fact, all of the above reminds me of the moment when I made the decision to study philosophy one day, that moment that was full of glee and joy, and thorns at the same time. In the end, making a decision of this kind may be more beneficial and necessary than any other decision, for it is more important to study what we like and succeed in it, than to study what we do not like, what does it mean to be a failed doctor because you chose to study your parents’ dreams rather than yours, and what is the point of being an incapable engineer because you were forced to choose a profession you didn’t want? Because the success in choosing a profession we want will be the cause of our individual success, and this individual success will turn into a societal success when everyone can live what he desires.

The desire to acquire knowledge and dive into the depths of the unknown remains an innate human dream, and therefore philosophy will not lose its importance at any time.