From the West Briton newspaper - 05 May 2011

From footballers to philosophers

It’s useful to have heroes in life, people whose achievements or talents we admire. Our heroes can show us just what is possible and might inspire us to achieve, or at least to aim for, great things for ourselves.

My heroes have developed from a childhood obsession with George Best to a current fascination with great philosophers and their works.

While I might have sometimes got close to matching George Best’s performances in the bar my efforts on the football field have never been in any way comparable to the sublime skills of the Manchester United legend.

The work of the best philosophers however can give us an insight into what is needed to lead a meaningful life.

I favour writers whose work has a solid connection with the real world over those analytic thinkers who ponder questions that have little relevance to the way we lead our lives.

My true philosophical hero is the great French writer Michel de Montaigne. Although he was writing in the 16^th century his work is still as fresh and useful as ever. Montaigne is the ideal philosopher, who writes like a wise elderly uncle who has seen, done and understood as much as it is possible for one man to see, do and understand.

He was hugely knowledgeable but wore his learning lightly and his sole interest seemed to be that he might help us to understand a little more about ourselves and the world we inhabit.

Crucially he was fully aware that what we do is more important than what we say, as he wrote: “The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts.”


And he possessed a worldliness that meant he was always concerned with real life decisions rather than high minded principles. As he explained of his own behaviour: “As familiar company at table I choose the amusing rather than the wise, in bed I prefer beauty to goodness and for serious conversations I like ability even combined with dishonesty and similarly in other things.”

The topics that Montaigne covered were wide-ranging and could serve as a manual to life, indeed he spoke of philosophy as “the moulder of judgment and conduct”.

But while he was happy to offer his thoughts on issues from the education of children to cannibalism, from the importance of friendship to the best way to conduct yourself when approaching death, his desire for knowledge was matched by his realisation that ultimate answers to questions about the meaning of life are unreachable. As he said: “I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything but catch nothing except the wind.”

He is my favourite philosopher, his Essays would be the book I would take with me if I were cast away on a desert island. We need heroes, and ones that can help us to live a little more wisely should be cherished.

ends

From the West Briton newspaper - 20 January 2011

Do the right thing

At this time of long dark nights and post-Christmas empty bank accounts many of us are focusing on what we might do to improve our situation in life.

That could mean getting a new job, taking up a new hobby, losing weight - whatever we think will make our lives better and bring us more happiness.

New Year's resolutions often fall by the wayside as January rolls on but some simple ancient philosophy might help us to keep up the good intentions that mark the start of the year.

Aristotle, the Macedonian philosopher and tutor to Alexander the Great, was fascinated by the notion of the good life and what practical steps we could take to achieve it.

He realised the importance of reasonable material success but stressed that true happiness comes from our actions and behaviour. "The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow," he said.

Aristotle believed that we judge a thing to be good by how well it performs its function - just as a good knife is one that cuts well, a good person is one who lives well by acting virtuously.

He thought that without due reflection on our behaviour it is easy to fall into extremes. Virtuous living, however, could be found in the midway point or the golden mean between the extremeties.

So between cowardice and foolhardiness we find the virtue of courage; between stinginess and profliggacy we find generosity; between crash dieting and eating everything we can get our hands on we find the virtue of a healthy appetite.

The art of living virtuously is learned by practice. As Aristotle said: "People become builders by actually building...in the same way we become just by doing just acts."

Behaving in a virtuous way over time brings the happiness of living well, of fulfilling your potential as a human being - virtue carries its own reward.

As far as I'm aware, new year's resolutions did not exist in the 4th century BC when Aristotle was writing but I think he would have approved of the thinking behind them - sparked by a desire to make the most of ourselves and realising that something is amiss within our lives we act to put ourselves on the desired path going forward.

As the great man said: "It is those who act rightly who get the rewards and the good things in life."

ends

From the West Briton newspaper - 16 September 2010

Anything is possible

The latest book by Professor Stephen Hawking has once again sparked a flurry of articles in the media about the nature of the universe and whether there is a God.

While my capacity for understanding quantum physics is limited, I'm extremely interested in a key question posed by the professor.

He views the history of science as a history of theories that have got progressively better at defining and explaining the universe, and asks: "Will this sequence eventually reach an end point, an ultimate theory of the universe... or will we continue forever finding better theories but never one that cannot be improved upon?"

While this is an incredibly thought provoking question, it also seems to be unanswerable, and to me that is a beautiful thing.

As a committed religious sceptic I believe that knowing that we do not know all of the answers is a position that should be embraced.

The great philosophers were fully aware of this more than 2,000 years ago. As Socrates, the father of western philosophy, said: "True wisdom comes to each of us when we realise how little we understand about life, ourselves and the world around us."

The mystery at the heart of our existence is an inspiration and when contemplated upon, has very real consequences in our everyday lives and the way we conduct ourselves, the decisions we make and the passions we pursue.

Uncertainty and the absence of irrefutable knowledge might be at first unsettling - as the existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard put it: "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."

But it also means that everything is possible.

There are no pre-written laws on tablets of stone - we are making it up as we go along and we should revel in the fact.

In every aspect of our lives, our freedom from pre-determined laws is a blessing, not a curse.



Albert Camus 1913 - 1960



As the great French writer and thinker Albert Camus said: "Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better."

ends

From the West Briton newspaper - 10 june 2010

Eternal wisdom as a guide to life


Aristotle 384 BC - 322 BC

 "It is from a feeling of wonder that men start now, and did start in the earliest times, to practice philosophy," said Aristotle, one of the great philosophers of the ancient world.

Who can fail at some point to feel that sense of wonder when looking out onto the world - a sense of awe in contemplating the universe and what part we might play in it.

Some people turn to various forms of religion as a way of making sense of their lives. The answers offered by religion have never satisfied me and instead I have found my solace and my inspiration in philosophy.

We are told by advertisements that confidence is to be gained through buying a new razor, self-assurance in a new car and happiness in a fizzy drink. But what was said by Epictetus in AD100 still holds true today: "It's not my place in society that makes me well off, but my judgments, and these I can carry with me. These alone are my own and can't be taken away."

Philosophy, which literally means love of wisdom, earned itself a bad reputation in the 20th century for becoming increasingly remote and academic and reducing the key questions of existence to mathematical formulae.
This approach does not interest me.

My concern is with philosophy as it was originally intended - as a guide to how we might lead better and more fulfilling lives.

Over thousands of years the key questions we ask ourselves have not changed - why are we here, what are we meant to be doing and, in Monty Pythonesque fashion, what is the meaning of life?

We might become more acutely focussed on these issues when we have time to stand back from the day to day demands of modern living or when we face big choices in life or big events such as the death of a loved one.

Fortunately we have thousands of years of wisdom on which we can draw. Years in which truly great minds have devoted themselves to addressing these fundamental questions of life.

Through asking ourselves the right questions and being honest in our answers I believe it is possible to achieve a clear eyed view of the world which can only help us to make clear decisions about the sort of lives that we want to lead.

I would not pretend that final, unequivocal answers have been found. For me the joy is in the journey of discovery, the exchange of ideas, the recognition of the timelessness of truly perceptive thought.

 

Marcel Proust 1871 - 1922

 As the great French writer Marcel Proust said: "We don't receive wisdom - we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
ends