I am currently reading Odd John by Olaf Stapledon, an author who is very close to my heart and a very formidable philosopher in his own right.
However, the book's protagonist and antagonist, John, a superhuman, offers the following summary of philosophy and it is a summary that perfectly sums up my feelings on the subject...
"'Philosophy,' he said, 'is really very helpful to the growing mind, but it's terribly disappointing too. At first I thought I'd found the mature human intelligence at work at last. Reading Plato, and Spinoza, and Kant, and some of the modern realists too, I had almost come across people of my own kind. I walked in step with them. I seemed to miss some vital move. The exhilaration of puzzling over these critical points, and feeling one had met a real master mind at last! But as I went on from philosopher to philosopher and browsed around all over the place, I began to realise the shocking truth that these critical points were not what I thought they were, but just outrageous howlers. It seemed incredible that these obviously well-developed minds could make simple mistakes; and so I had respectfully dismissed the possibility, and looked for some profound truth. But oh God, I was wrong! Howler after howler! Sometimes a philosopher's opponents spot his howlers, and are frightfully set up with their own cleverness. But most of them never get spotted at all, so far as I can discover. philosophy is an amazing tissue of really fine thinking and incredible, puerile mistakes. It's like one of those rubber "bones" they give dogs to chew, damned good for the mind's teeth, but as food - no bloody good at all.'"
- Stapledon, Odd John, 2011:31-2
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