In universities and academy, Philosophy is still dominated by white men but minoritized groups start slowly to sit at the table too. And yes, they are as good and as bad as white men.
For me, it was extremely hard to go back to university due to class schedule, clients' commitment, being a friend, a daughter, a partner, a stepmom and becoming a mother and to do it in a a language I didn't exactly master (doing so much better now).
One can have many questions and it's very likely philosophers, historians, life and social scientists have thought and said something about it. Whether it is about the meaning of life or the function of proteins.
I have learned what's correlation, causation, how most of our ideas aren't good enough, and about the history of our thinking such as objectivity or probabilities.
Learning how to think philosophically is one of the best abilities one can have. It was during these classes that I have heard the best questions ever, where I have listened to young people (and myself 😅) discussing ideas with the purpose of making them better and throwing them out when they weren't good enough. With no drama or ego.
The authors I instinctively chose to read helped me to have a glimpse on why the practice of questioning was important. It made me realise nothing is really objective, neutral or universal and that we need to understand why and how we came to think in a particular way.
It's 2019 and I decided to apply for a Master in Philosophy, Science and values (I still have to write my final dissertation to finish it). More than twenty years have gone by since I was first confronted with philosophy.
During my twenties, my bookshelf gradually became inhabited by philosophers or people who engaged philosophically such as Alain de Botton, Lou Marinoff, Theodore Zeldin, Robert M. Pirsig, Camus, Beauvoir, Sartre, Chomsky, Bertrand Russell...
I work as a consultant in the areas of strategy, organisational culture and business agility, so my job isn't academic, but curiosity drove me to investigate and research beyond management books and cliché PowerPoint quotes. It improved my conversations.
Today is
#worldphilosophyday and I am sharing the place
#philosophy has in my life and how it changed over the years.
As a teenager I hated it, at school analytical philosophy was very far from my interests and not even Sophie's World from Jostein Gaarder brought me closer to it. As an young adult in the university, I only read Greek philosophers and though their work is unquestionably relevant, it seemed very far from my reality.
Wondering how this works, let's figure it out!
