How study and knowledge of Philosophy instills pleasure and satisfaction at having traveled the path toward wisdom.

Many of the great mysteries of life are essentially unknowable - the issue of free will versus predestination; the nature of truth, beauty, goodness, liberty, equality, and justice; the issue of God and morality, the origin of the universe, the meaning of life. These are questions and issues where the answers are based on observation, hearsay, interpretation and opinion.

There are three ways you can cope with questions of this sort. You can simply ignore them and live life in apathy without any sort of framework to guide you, an approach that is both dangerous and unsatisfactory. Or, you can adopt the views of someone else and accept their beliefs in good faith and in a spirit of belonging as many people do with religious and political issues, an approach that saves a great deal of time and energy, but may not be altogether satisfactory. Or finally, you can try to build your own framework using observation, hearsay, interpretation, opinion, and of course, your own logic. This latter approach is philosophical thought and is the way of the philosopher.

The great questions are difficult and challenging issues, and when you finally arrive at an opinion you hold so strongly that it becomes a belief, you feel a profound sense of satisfaction at having put to rest one of life's great issues. As you answer more and more of these philosophical questions, you become more at peace with the world and you begin to move toward wisdom. Wisdom, I think, is something that cannot be achieved, only approached. If you think you've found it, you're probably in the wrong place.

The study of philosophy puts you in touch with great thinkers, both historical and contemporary. By letting them introduce you to issues, tools and their solutions, you can shortcut the solutions to philosophical questions and you can often learn how much more there is to think about.

And certainly, there is a great deal to think about. Generally, in western philosophy there are five fields of study: logic, esthetics, ethics, politics, and metaphysics. Logic is the study of ideal methods of inquiry, thinking and understanding. Esthetics is the philosophy of art, form, and beauty. Ethics is the study of ideal deportment and the nature of right and wrong. Philosophical Politics is the study of ideal social organization, liberty, equality, and justice. Finally, Metaphysics is the study of the ultimate reality of matter (ontology), of mind (philosophical psychology), and of their interrelation in terms of perception and knowledge (epistemology).

Add to these western concepts the ideas of Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Native American and African philosophers and you begin to develop a good idea of the scope of human thought on many of these questions.

It's easy to assume that what "other people" think is just so much myth and superstition; but what you find with careful reading is that, even though we each have our own cultural perspective, we are really not all that far apart. And as you advance on your path to formulating your own philosophical thoughts and beliefs you will find yourself greatly enriched by having journeyed through the minds of so many of your fellow thinkers.

- Jake