Rebecca Roache, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, argues that philosophy provides us with a set of valuable strategies, tools and techniques that can be applied to real
life situations to help us lead better lives. Firstly, philosophical logic
allows us to have substantial and meaningful arguments with people, because
rather than blindly talking past people and simply pronouncing our own
position, we learn to identify the hidden assumptions and flaws in the others
argument. Secondly, in philosophy we learn to ask why ad infinitum, allowing us
to get deeper into the foundational claims that justify what someone is saying.
Thirdly, it allows you to argue via analogy, to explain why certain like
situations should be treated alike. Through exploring her personal experiences,
Rebecca Roache unpacks how these tools can be used to help us tackle the
challenges we face every day. For example, philosophy allows us to see how we
don’t see the world as it really is, we see it through a kind of subjective
lens. But this idea is also applicable to how we see ourselves. We have
deep-seated ingrained beliefs about ourselves that aren’t immediately visible
to us, but they show up in the choices we make. Using the philosophical toolkit
to examine these choice enables honest reflection on the underlying factors
that have shaped past decisions and allows us to make more free and informed
decisions going forward.