Philosophy is the oldest of all disciplines. It is an embodiment of the Socratic insight that the unexamined life is not worth living. The leaf blowing in the wind simply moves with the wind. It does not ask why. To live an examined life, to do Philosophy, on the other hand is to ask why. It is to seek wisdom about the workings of the world around us, about our own minds and selves, and the interaction between us and the world. In time certain questions and answers coalesce into a field of their own and a new science is born. What remains with Philosophy, as Philosophy, are the empirically intractable “big questions”: what is being, what is knowledge, how should we act, how should we govern ourselves, etc.

 

Engaging with Philosophy is not only intrinsically worthwhile it is also important for humanity to flourish. In today’s world when science and technology have given us unbridled power over the world it may seem that there is no need for philosophical examination. It may seem that science and technology are capable of fulfilling all our needs and desires. But, even for us to be lead to our rationally desired ends we must rationally examine the ends we desire. For that we need Philosophy.

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While Philosophy is the oldest of all disciplines, the Department of Philosophy is one of the youngest departments at Ramanujan College. Our department, established in 2016, is in its infancy but we attempt to impart to our students the maturity, the reason, and foresight to not just succeed in the world as it is but to question it. We encourage our students to seek clarity, to think rationally and analytically. We urge them to question their own deepest beliefs and to think outside the boundaries of their uncritically held assumptions. In this way we hope our students may not be just leaves in the wind, but by learning to question the world as they find it they can form it the way it should be.

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