Philosophy: The Love of Wisdom | A Guide to Life

<aside> 💡 Philosophy is a mode of life, an act of living, and a way of being.

</aside>

Modern philosophy has forgotten this tradition, and philosophical discourse has all but overtaken philosophy as a way of life.

Philosophy is not just an intellectual discipline, which can get abstract and divorced from the real world, but is most importantly a way of life that teaches us how to best live our lives.

A carpenter does not come up to us and say, “Listen to me speak about the art of carpentry”, but makes a contract for a house and builds it. So must we, when confronted with life, put our knowledge into practice, and not be like those who devour books and can astonish others by their skill in argumentation, but who, when it comes to their own lives, contradict their own teachings.

<aside> 💡 Philosophy is a mode of existing in the world, which has to be practiced at each instant, and the goal of which is to transform the whole of the individual’s life.

</aside>

Real wisdom does not merely cause us to know: it makes us “be” in a different way.

The goodness of our lives depends on our soul, in which we can make good use of other valuable things such as health, pleasure, happiness, tranquillity, and so on, which can make a real contribution towards a good life.

Sự khôn ngoan thực sự không chỉ khiến chúng ta hiểu biết: nó khiến chúng ta “hiện hữu” theo một cách khác.

Sự tốt đẹp trong cuộc sống của chúng ta phụ thuộc vào tâm hồn của chúng ta, trong đó chúng ta có thể tận dụng tốt những thứ có giá trị khác như sức khỏe, niềm vui, hạnh phúc, sự thanh thản, v.v., những thứ có thể đóng góp thực sự cho một cuộc sống tốt đẹp.

By contrast, a bad soul will create bad desires, bad choices, and the misuse of potential goods, thus we spiral down a bad life, characterised by vice.