Ever since I was a child, I firmly believed that education is the key to personal development, harvesting the critical thinking skills, and nurturing ethical growth. Only through philosophy do I think it is possible for us to lead a happy life that contributes to the society, protects the socially weaker, and gives a meaning to our own existence. Doing philosophy is a validation of life. Let me explain some of the key terms I have just raised above: education, philosophy and validation of life.

Education is what forms our characteristics, personalities and beliefs. This of course involves the environment in which one is brought up, and the religious beliefs as well as the socio-political circumstances of the regions of the world are necessarily parts of it. What do we mean by education? Generally, people who score high points at schools are considered to be the successful ones, but are they really? This brings me to the core of the education, which is philosophy. Philosophy, as you know, comes from the ancient Greek word, the love of wisdom. Here, wisdom is comprehensive. As soon as one wonders, “what is this?” or “why is this the way it is?” and begins the quest of search for answers, I believe, constitutes as philosophy. Philosophy, hence, was often called “Natural Science” because it dealt with the knowledge about how nature works, vis-à-vis, who we are and how we ought to live if we want to live as human beings. This gave rise to ethics and we have always been thinking about what justice is or what constitutes as a happy life. What makes me happy does oftentimes hurts other people, and it is awfully important that we must be aware of the consequences of what we do because of this. If we are to secure happiness, it must be for all of us. Is happiness for all possible? This is what we will discuss primarily amongst other things. Philosophy is the power to think – even when we do not know the answer to the questions, we keep thinking about the questions and we keep trying to find answers that are best for all. In other words, if we give up the power to think and simply decide to stay to live, then we are no different from animals and hence we will lose any possibilities to achieve happiness. The realm of humanity is essentially about how we ought to live in order for each one of us to be happy. It is a normative life. Only here can we find a validation of life. For affirming one’s own existence is to validate one’s being. Without happiness, we cannot validate our own being. We must not give up thinking, but our lives are such that we must keep thinking. This, I believe, rests at the heart of philosophy. In doing philosophy, however, we not only think about happiness and ethics, but also natural world and how nature works – but this is only because we want to be happy. If we know how nature works, then we can apply that knowledge to medicine and science so as to get rid of illness and inconvenience. However, we must also think about the consequences of getting rid of what seems to be uncomfortable for us – death and inconvenience. For seeking for immortality is contrary to human life and oftentimes in stories, the one who attains immortalities tend to suffer. The same goes for inconvenience. If our lives become so easy – convenient – we lose the essence of who we are: the beings that can think. So, we must nurture ourselves enough to lead a happy life without destroying it. That is to say, we must find the Golden Means. Furthermore, our essence is not only in the fact that we can be rational but also in the fact that we can be empathetic to each other, for without empathy, happiness for all is not possible. We are such complicated beings that we must keep thinking in order so that we will not make the same mistakes our predecessors made, and we need to keep aiming higher in our morals. I believe philosophy can give us different reasons for each of us to live a happy life, for happiness is not the same for everyone. In my course, we will learn about history and how smart people in the past thought about nature in order so that we can find our own purpose in life.