Need a Career Boost? Start Thinking Like a Philosopher
Who can benefit from philosophy? Is it only for the tenured academic? Is it just for ancient thinkers like Plato and Nietzsche? Is philosophy a topic that should be reserved for modern thinkers like Sam Harris? What about Steve Jobs? Jobs blurred the lines that define who a philosopher is. He was a great thinker and used his thinking to shape products — which have permanently changed the way we interact with the world — and inadvertently shaped corporate culture.
Philosophy is a tool for everyone. It teaches us how to think. Philosophy is often a game of logic and rhetoric. You may occasionally be immersed in an esoteric topic — one that you’ll consider for weeks on end, seemingly without a conclusion — but this is good. Philosophy is filled with competing opinions and logical breakdowns for why one explanation may be more reasonable than another. What’s important isn’t that we come to concrete conclusions, it’s that we learn to think. You will learn to distinct what’s logical and reasonable from what doesn’t make sense. (And you will also see how tricky language is.)
We aren’t usually taught how to think. If we are taught, we aren’t taught very well. But thinking is something we do each day of our working lives. We have to think about how we draft the email to the person who ranks much higher in the company’s chain of command. We think of approaches to navigate difficult conversations with coworkers, bosses, clients, and customers. If we aren’t trained in the art of thinking, how can we ask the right questions to problems, and better yet, how can we answer them correctly? We aren’t winning in life or business by simply solving problems, but by solving problems that will actually impact our bottom lines.
Speaking on design in his leadership series of online classes, Julio Ottino, the Dean of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Northwestern University said it best. “In design, the majority of time is spent on building understanding, because there is no big prize for solving correctly what turns out to be the wrong question.” Though his thoughts were on design, they still ring true elsewhere. We must remember to always solve for the right questions. Philosophy can help us get there.
Philosophy as a Means to Learn and Listen
“What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he already thinks he knows.” — Epictetus
With philosophy, you have to entertain the possibility that an idea that you don’t immediately agree with — or necessarily like — might actually be true. You have to be open to hearing an interpretation of things, compare it to others, analyze, then consider it against additional factors and make a decision on what to do with the information. Isn’t this how we should approach each area at work?
In order to be willing to learn and improve, we have to be willing to hear, consider, and act when appropriate. If we’re unwilling to let go of our biases to hold on to our own ideals of truth, we’ll never find a better route to navigate the problems we face, whether it’s something as simple as a process for projects, or something as critical as a communication strategy for a company initiative.
Famed writer and essayist Flannery O’Connor said, “To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around.” This applies to self and to business. We can’t make conclusions about our products or companies unless we have accepted the ‘Truth.’ This comes from removing the self-conceit that assumes we already know. We have to remove the self-conceit that doesn’t want to listen to alternatives.
Philosophy as a Means to Lead
You can’t be a great leader without being a great thinker. Many of the leaders who have shaped companies, countries, and cultures were deeply in tune with philosophy. Thomas Jefferson left behind a philosophical legacy. Current world leaders read the meditations of the philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Sun Tzu was an influential military strategist partly due to his abilities as a philosopher.
In Plato’s The Republic he writes, “I need no longer hesitate to say that we must make our guardians philosophers. The necessary combination of qualities is extremely rare. Our test must be thorough, for the soul must be trained up by the pursuit of all kinds of knowledge to the capacity for the pursuit of the highest — higher than justice and wisdom — the idea of the good.”
And if these ideas don’t apply to you — maybe you don’t want to be a leader — you still have a job. Anyone with a job can admit the difficulties that will arise from the work that they do. It’s often that we’ll be pulled away from our families. We’ll be placed in tough, tiring, and trying situations. Throughout your career you could face termination, a difficult boss, or a job that you don’t like. The types of tests that will come during our careers are inevitable. It’s just a matter of what type of tests we get, not whether or not we get them. No one is immune. Even someone who works for themselves must deal with deadlines, potential clients and customers, and other variables that cause problems.
Philosophy as a Tool for Inner Peace
The last, and likely greatest use of philosophy, is to make sense of our own lives. It helps us find purpose. This is often done by contemplating the infinite, like Marcus Aurelius notes when he says: “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” Or we learn to understand the psychology that drives humans from Holocaust survivor and psychotherapist Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. (Understanding what motivates humans will help the bottom line of your business and get your employees on board.)
Lastly, we can be at peace with our lives. We can be at peace with the hands we are dealt and what we’re doing with them. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used the phrase “Amor Fati,” which is Latin for “love of fate.” Nietzsche believed that this constant reminder to embrace one’s fate and to love everything about it is the formula for human greatness. This idea was echoed by the Stoic philosophers Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus.
The purpose of philosophy isn’t simply to be well read and know dense information that may or may not ever be brought up in polite company. The purpose is to hone thinking skills. To learn how to lead and how to be a better person. And lastly, to find peace in what can otherwise be a chaotic and tumultuous existence. I’ll leave you with these words from Seneca that sum it all up.
“Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy.” — Seneca
