Four Philosophical Moments That Changed My Life

Studying philosophy has changed my life.  I can think of at least four philosophical moments that led me to change my personal views about religion, morality, and politics from the ones I was raised to live by.

The first philosophical moment that changed my life was in an Introduction to Philosophy class at a community college.  I was raised to believe that God’s existence was basically self-evident to anyone who bothered to look and that denying God’s existence amounted to a kind of intellectual and moral failing.  But, after taking an Introduction to Philosophy class it became clear that God’s existence was not self-evident and that divine command theory was the worst option as far as moral theories go. I was devastated, and I’ve never been the same since although it would be years later until I finally came around to rejecting theism altogether.

The second philosophical moment that changed my life was in an undergraduate philosophy of science class.  In that class we read Philip Kitcher’s book Abusing Science and I learned that the Creation Science I had been taught to believe made sense only if I accepted “naïve falsificationism” and was based on mistaken ideas about evolution.  (This class was at a Baptist university.)  After this it became clear that I could no longer accept the Fundamentalist doctrines that I had up until this point believed.

The third philosophical moment was also in an undergraduate philosophy class on contemporary ethical theory.  We read, and I very much agreed with, Alasdair MacIntyre’s book After Virtue.  For the next several years I explored Aristotle’s philosophy and Thomism generally – which were quite prominent in the philosophy department at my Baptist school – and considered converting to Catholicism.  I remained a theist, albeit a skeptical one, until 1999 when I finally came to acknowledge that I didn’t believe those things anymore.

I was doing my doctorate coursework when a fourth philosophical moment changed my life.  About mid-way through my undergraduate education I read Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, which I also agreed with very much.  Even though I rejected the religious beliefs I was raised to live by I remained very conservative, politically speaking.  Or at least I did up until the time I began seriously reading the works of liberal political theorists as well as “postmodern” philosophers like Nietzsche and Foucault first hand instead of accepting the interpretations of them espoused by conservative intellectuals.  Eventually, I came to reject conservatism as a political position and moved closer to liberalism while also developing a greater appreciation for the merits of so-called “postmodern” philosophy.

Comments

[Jon Cogburn]

You told me that, like me, you decided to be a philosopher the first time you heard Motley Crue's [sic, there should be umlauts all over that] "Home Sweet Home." So now you are saying one thing to me and a different thing to everyone else, when you think I'm not reading? Not very philosophical Philosopundit.

[Chris]

I swear on a stack of Bibles and The Book of Mormon that MC was playing during all four of those events.

[Bagwell]

2¢ here...

Living with a German Linguist I can safely say that those umlauts are better typed as "Röck Döts" as they don't provide the vowel changing that the umlaut does. A true umlaut is historically a hidden "e" that was written above the vowel to provide a front rounding to the sound...not compensate for a hair band's short comings in the spandex (NO offense meant to Lemmy!!! I'm quite sure there are no shortcomings in Lemmy's trousers).

That said, watching the methodical and actually quite conservative (read slow and steady...light on impulsivity) blossoming of Philo over the years has been quite the inspiring story...for every hopeless right-wing fuck I deal with, I should remember that for the open heart, the truth will out.

[Josh Charles]

What about 'Godel, Escher, and Bach?' That was a life changing experience for me... Sort of philosophy, sort of logic, and a brilliant hypothesis.

[Bagwell]

That was a prettyy good book IMHO....Mine was reading the Kinsey report in the library in 8th grade, then Justine in the book store at 17. When I realized my attraction was to the self-imposed limits of the above authors, I knew I had to look into this.

[Smokahontas]

My conservative, Southern Baptist views on religion, morality and politics were canned in one night, about 10 years ago. I met a magician who helped me see the truth about the universe. My tiny perception of the world suddenly zoomed out to allow me to see and feel and be everything, all at once. A very intensely meditative experience. Good work, Philo-san.

[Chris]

Do you happen to know where that magician is performing?

[Bagwell]

In his pants would be my guess.