Comment by IrishTechie
7 hours ago
That seems like a rather cynical take. I think you’re conflating philosophy as guidance for how to live (stoicism etc) and philosophy as more of a science to explore unanswered questions, which are naturally going to have very different practitioners and audiences?
The latter can be applicable to the former. Traditionally the connection was acknowledged, with Socrates the prototype of the philosopher who believed that happiness, ethical living, and philosophy were inextricably linked. Obviously philosophy has come a long way since Socrates, but academic philosophers continue to give lip service to the idea that philosophy can be valuable in everyday living, if not in ethics then in processing information, critiquing arguments, and understanding the origins and limitations of ideas.
I think we've known since the time of Socrates that the practice of philosophy is not the practice of happy living. Philosophers tend to be miserable. Socrates himself chose to drink poison over moving to a different city. I think most philosophies, despite their myriad differences, agree that what people tend to want is not what philosophy will give them. Maybe some of the answers philosophy yields can be applied to increase happiness, but philosophy in practice tends to produce questions.
Most philosophers would not agree that yielding questions instead of answers makes philosophy unhelpful, nor that the happiest life is necessarily the one in which pain is most successfully avoided.