Category: Humans of Philosophy

My taste buds were bland and unstimulated. I could only taste what was fed to me– “knowledge” from textbooks and “recommended readings” to prepare myself for exams. I followed teachers’ and tuition teachers’ instructions religiously.

I was taught that studying hard and regurgitating what was taught is a virtue that every good student should have and the opposite is a vice that should be avoided.

However, I began to question this dichotomy of good and bad, praised and accepted blindly by almost everyone, when I tasted the flavour of emptiness lingering at the back of my tongue when I received my results for the Malaysian Certificate of Education. I got straight As, but I felt empty. I realized that my 5 years of hard work were translated into only a few letters burned onto a piece of embossed paper, which many others also have. And I also realized that I have spent my 5 years of high school life operating like a machine; I never knew or wondered who I am, what I want, how I want to live, and why I do everything I do. My consciousness has way departed from the piece of cert I was holding, and I felt my emptiness grow to the extent that it can fill up the entire space of the auditorium. I didn’t know if my peers felt it too, but it seemed like most of them were either busy sharing the good news with their parents over their phones, or for those who didn’t do so well, they had droopy eyebrows drawn over their faces.

While most of my peers made the choice to immediately continue their higher education, I decided to take a more unconventional path. I didn’t have a plan in mind; I was hoping to figure out my path by letting go of any forms of structures or rigidity. I took a gap year; the decision was doubted and questioned by many, as expected, but I didn’t let others’ opinions take me down.

The Taste of Life

For the first time in my entire life, I tasted the tang of life – it is a little nerve-wrecking, but it is mostly exciting and enriching.

I believe everyone’s quale of life is different (in Philosophy, “quale” is a subjective or phenomenal quality of an object as perceived by a person). But for my case, life feels most lived when I experience breaking my own bubble of knowledge through questioning, inquiring and challenging the status quo.

During my gap year, I partook in a kaleidoscope of activities and ventures I never thought possible when I was trapped in “bad faith” in my high school years. In Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism, “bad faith” is a phenomenon where one refuses to confront choices or alternative possibilities in his or her life by yielding to the values or norms in society, and end up disowning his or her freedom. One of the best discoveries I made during my gap year was discovering the beauty of philosophy. It was through an online course I took called the “Introduction to Philosophy” by the University of Edinburgh. I could still vividly recall the module on Epistemology (the study of knowledge) which got me rethinking the “knowledge” I have learnt throughout my high school years. I never knew that knowledge is “justified” through beliefs and is not regurgitated, I never knew the foundation of knowledge can be shattered through scepticism, and I certainly never knew we could question almost everything in this reality, including the seemingly infallible facts of science.

The Taste of Passion

Embarking on a philosophy degree journey, I tasted passion for the first time.

It wasn’t easy at first, but philosophy opened up worlds that weren’t available to me. I learned to suspend my judgments rather than blindly accept what is presented to me, embrace opposing viewpoints and consider alternative perspectives, and analyse the strengths and weaknesses of arguments. The skills that philosophy taught me are not easily discardable, like the information I learned and regurgitated back in high school.

It taught me better critical thinking, decision making and problem solving. For instance, when I am faced with obstacles at work, my years of training in philosophy allowed me to work through the problems in a logical framework, by analysing the logical consequences of each possible solution and figure out the most viable outcome that minimizes the utility lost.

Many people, including you and I, have practiced or are currently practicing philosophy in our everyday life, from the way we think, the questions we ask, to the way we behave; you are probably just not aware of it. For example, you are upset about not performing well on a task at work or school, so you decided to take a break from your work, practice meditation, listen to some music, and distance yourself from the situation at hand. You tell yourself, you have already done your best, and whatever your boss thinks or how the results turn out to be is not up to your control. Without you realizing, you are actually practicing Stoicism’s Dichotomy of Control – you practice focusing on things that are within your control and accept that certain things are not worth frustrating over with. In short, philosophy brought me out of my bubble of knowledge, and most importantly, it ensured my journey of learning and living is one that is full-bodied. 

It didn’t stop there. I wanted to share this joy I found in my encounter with philosophy with more people in Malaysia. I believe the Malaysian education system can do better in terms of instilling creativity and critical thinking amongst the students.

The Malaysian education system, for those of you who have experienced it, can be characterized as a linear model where teaching and learning form a one-way current – that is, the educators disseminate the information to the students and the students absorb them like a sponge.

This is because we follow the British education system established in Malaysia since the British colonisation era. Things have progressed since then, but the pace of progress of education is significantly slower than the progress of science and technology in our country.

We are educated in ways that cannot sufficiently prepare us for the challenges of the modern world.

The skills required in today‘s working environment are vastly different from those of a few decades ago. With the rapid progression of science and technological advancement, it is not open to the workforce to rest on their laurels. It is the eagerness to learn new information and the critical thinking ability to assimilate and apply the new knowledge we learned that allow us to keep up with the constant change in contemporary society. Here is where Philosophy comes in.

I co-founded the Malaysian Philosophy Society with Dr. Tee Chen Giap, for this very reason – to introduce and integrate philosophy and critical thinking into the education system and everyday life of Malaysians.

Taste of Hope

It was during that time that I tasted hope – the hope that there is room for change in the education climate in Malaysia. We have been working towards the goal of building an ecosystem of philosophy and critical thinking here in Malaysia by holding onto that piece of hope since the end of 2016. Our modus operandi is making philosophy practical, that is, using philosophy to solve everyday life and real-world problems, through the content, events and projects we do.

It is worth noting that we are not dumbing down philosophy, rather, we make the already practical aspects of philosophy more explicit by:

• Actively analysing local problems through the lens of philosophy,
• Translating general questions that philosophers ask into specific ones targeted on local issues, and
• Collaborating with multidisciplinary thinkers and policy makers to plant philosophy’s position in the hearts and minds of everyday Malaysians. 

I hope, in the near future, we can all taste the local flavour of kemajuan (progress) in our country through philosophy. To end, I would like to cordially invite you to hold the hands of courage to open the terrain of your taste buds to new stimuli and spices out there, for you will be surprised by the new possibilities that are opened up to you.

I would of course encourage you to give the dish of philosophy a try as well. Whether you like it or not, at least you have given it a go.

What got you into the field of Philosophy?

I’d split this into a more “formal” and “informal” introduction into Philosophy. Formally, I took a political philosophy course in my senior year of university which taught me so much about different types of conceptions of justice. Informally, I think, like everyone else really, I’ve always had questions or instinctive reactions to questions of everyday life that I’d wondered about and tried to answer. 

How has Philosophy has helped you in your everyday life?

It’s helpful – as you think of the questions you have to ask everyday, whether personal or professional – to have a framework or several frameworks in which to try and answer them. Of course, some questions are strictly technical. For example, “How does a flute make the sounds that it does?” But there are other questions which can’t really be answered technically. For instance, “If there were three people in the room, how would I choose who to give the flute to?” Do you give it to the best player? How about the one who needs it most to make money for their family? Or maybe just give it at random?

Why do you think Philosophy is so uncelebrated in today’s society?

I’d say more that it’s uncelebrated only because most people, by definition, have to be personal philosophers to deal with everyday life, only that they may not think it counts as philosophy. For instance, choosing whether or not to, say, postpone a given spending to the future requires some philosophy on how you view the future. So, I’d say that, in the day-to-day issues where there is no one right answer (there can be several wrong answers), we do turn to philosophy to try and justify our choices.

Do you think (honestly speaking) that philosophy has any real value in the world of employment?

Yes! As above, in situations where there isn’t a right answer – happens all the time at work – we need a way to frame how we think about making a given choice. And this isn’t as simple as a personal preference between, say, ice cream flavours (vanilla for me), but for a question like, “Which job should I pick? The one that pays me more or the one that is better for my long-term career prospects”

There’s philosophy in everything, so be on the lookout. And you don’t have to read the classical texts (which can be very dry with anachronistic language) to wet your toes. Watch movies – start with Watchmen or watch TV series like Game of Thrones. Philosophy isn’t and shouldn’t be about folks in ivory towers pontificating about the nature of life; it’s something innate in all of us as we make decisions everyday in our lives.

I was standing by the roadside, waiting for my family members to finish their errands, when another person, on the other side of the road, caught my attention. He was shirtless, seemed to not have showered for a while, and perhaps not even have a home to go back to. He sang and chatted with himself, prompting other pedestrians to dubiously stare at him and avoid him as he passed them. A sight of an unfortunate human driven into lunacy. Does he know that he is out of touch with reality? I imagined him picturing himself as a king, clad in a fancy robe, singing happily to his spectators. It was then that a second* but a major existential crisis hit the oh-too-innocent-15-year-old May: But how can he know what is real? 

How can *we* know what is real? 

How do I know that I am not imagining all this?

What if I am actually also shirtless, even though I think I am wearing a pretty cool t-shirt today? What if I am actually pressing mushrooms on a rock when I thought I was pressing on my laptop’s keyboard? 

When I arrived home, I asked Google whatever questions that were multiplying in my head from that encounter. Several keywords came up including ‘mind’, ‘consciousness’, ‘René Descartes’, ‘Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream’, and, of course, ‘philosophy.’

I was stunned by the results of my Google search. People do think about these questions after all.  However, I quickly realized that not all people care about these questions. For a while, I kept looking for somebody who would be impressed by my discovery of Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream** and who would discuss its significance. It was not a very successful quest. Nevertheless, more questions were added to the pile. What makes us different from animals and non-living things? Is it because we apparently have a soul and consciousness? But what do we mean by ‘soul’ and ‘consciousness’ and where do they come from? Interestingly, it was also through philosophy and not from my science class that I first heard about Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (even though it was admittedly too much for my young brain). What is time? What is space? 

My head was about to burst from these questions and not really knowing anyone to ask was tough. But it took only one listener to get me going, who was a professor / mentor / friend that I later met when I moved to a boarding school. I talked to him about my questions, without any high hopes really. Later that afternoon, I received a recommendation from him of an episode of the BBC’s In Our Time podcast, titled “Consciousness.” More importantly, his message that accompanied the recommendation was particularly moving: 

For Wee Soo May, whose dream is to answer the question, “What is consciousness?”

That was the first to many more philosophy-related recommendations from him, which provided tentative answers to some of my questions, at the same time complicated some of my other questions, and opened my eyes to many more philosophical dilemmas as well as reassured me that there are people who think, talk, write and dream about these puzzles. 

However, another challenge came up. Malaysia does not offer a Bachelor’s degree in pure philosophy. Moreover, in Malaysia, a double-degree was not an option, even though I have always been interested in not just philosophy but also science. I had (and still have) a lofty goal to combine both physics and philosophy to understand the world and our place in it.

Luckily, I received a scholarship to study in the States, an opportunity that brings my intellectual inquiry to a higher and more formal level than ever before. In my first philosophy class in college, I found myself struggling to suppress a broad smile amidst my seriously thinking classmates when the professor posed the Euthyphro dilemma: “Is the holy holy because it is loved by the gods, or do they love it because it is holy?” 

My first response to the question was: I am home. I was excited to finally get the chance to answer all the big questions in life.

After finishing that class and many more philosophy classes, I have come to the conclusion that my questions can never be totally answered. Instead, they grow in number and complexity. It is a rare occasion to be absolutely sure about something and I had to reconsider many, many ideas and values that I thought were definitely true. Why? Let me give you a glimpse of the typical life of a philosophy student.

Usually, a philosophy class starts with a central question (e.g. How do we know? What is a right?) and explores the different answers that philosophers offer.

Then you will be asked to say what you think is right or wrong, in the form of a comment during a discussion or in a form of a term paper. The hard part of this task, at least for me, is that completely opposite answers can be very, very convincing that it becomes difficult to even know what you believe in anymore. Sometimes, the question itself is absolutely absurd. Is time real or ideal (i.e. exists only in our minds)? I thought, How am I supposed to know what the answer really is?? Needless to say, sinking into an existential crisis becomes second nature. 

Then, what good can philosophy ever be if all it seems to do is to shatter your sense of confidence and send you into the dark abyss? The answer, I believe, lies in what is causing these phenomena.

The variety of contradictory yet persuasive perspectives from different thinkers, including from me and you, allows one to really ponder: what is the assumption or set of assumptions that motivates our faith in our perspectives?

Some people think that it is easy to disprove ‘faulty’ perspectives or claims with the help of logic. For example, if somebody says that a rainy day will wet the floor and if one finds the floor wet, it is definitely because it has rained earlier. However, we know that is not necessarily true. It could be that somebody spilled water on the floor. In philosophy, not all statements and perspectives can be easily refuted with logic.

For example, David Hume believes that we know things mainly through senses and experiences. We can never imagine colours without ever seeing them with our own eyes. We (or Isaac Newton, really) formulated the law of gravity because every time we throw something, it always drops back to the ground. But if we have never had this experience, we could never have thought that it is impossible for things to remain up in the air long after we tossed them upwards.

However, René Descartes thinks that we know and understand things not through the senses but through our power of reason. He thinks that if we take a solid wax and heat it till it melts, we still have the understanding that it is the same object, despite the fact that all its properties ―smell, shape, texture―have changed. If we know the world only through our senses, we would have thought that solid wax and liquid wax are two different things. Immanuel Kant later came with an answer (i.e. transcendentalism) that seemed to combine the opposite views but that view does not come without more headache-inducing problems.  

Yet something, even a little part of the argument, has to be wrong or at least questionable (or perhaps we can have two contradictory yet right answers?). And that is what philosophy professors expect when they ask for your answers to bizarre questions. They do not care so much about whether you think that time is real or whether you think that Hume is right. What matters is why you think so. Every claim you make has to be backed by sound (i.e. logical and true) arguments and assumptions. In many cases, you are also expected to come up with a strong counterargument that can challenge your overall argument. 

Long story short, the good thing about philosophy is that it exposes us to many distinct perspectives and forces us to contemplate our statements really hard. At the same time, it compels us to understand the diverse thoughts out there that people have.

If you ask me if philosophy has any benefit to society, it is that it allows us to be receptive or open to others.

I end this article with a quote from Bertrand Russell, who articulates this sentiment perfectly in his book, ‘The Problems of Philosophy’:

“The mind which has become accustomed to the freedom and impartiality of philosophic contemplation will preserve something of the same freedom and impartiality in the world of action and emotion. It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man’s deeds. The impartiality which, in contemplation, is the unalloyed desire for truth, is the very same quality of mind which, in action, is justice, and in emotion is that universal love which can be given to all, and not only to those who are judged useful or admirable. Thus contemplation enlarges not only the objects of our thoughts, but also the objects of our actions and our affections: it makes us citizens of the universe, not only of one walled city at war with all the rest. In this citizenship of the universe consists man’s true freedom, and his liberation from the thraldom of narrow hopes and fears.“

Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

*The first existential crisis occured when I was eleven because my confusion about the sheer multiplicity and irreconcilability of religions had finally come to an irrepressible climax.

**Zhuangzi, a Chinese philosopher (c. 369-286 BC), had a dream that he was a butterfly. He happily flew around, fluttering his wings, only to wake up and find that he was Zhuangzi. He then wondered if he was Zhuangzi dreaming that he was a butterfly or if he was actually a butterfly, dreaming that he was Zhuangzi. 

Getting into Philosophy as a Combination of Accident and Choice

There was a point in my life where things got really dark. You could call it an existential crisis but at that time I didn’t know there was such a thing. I was actually studying biomedical science in Melbourne back then. After a series of family incidents, I decided to withdraw from the course and fly back immediately. Credit transfer wasn’t an option at that time and I didn’t want to repeat those Chemistry 101 modules again. So I wondered, what if I could start everything anew? 

After searching stuff on Google and months of reading, I came across several overarching ideas like existence, virtues, utilitarianism and many others. All of them seem to link to this field called philosophy. This made me realise that there is more to life than just medicine, engineering and law. All my life I thought I was destined to become a doctor and specialise in something. I thought that it would allow me to live a life with meaning and purpose.

But philosophy has shown me that there are in fact many ways to do that. Since then, I’ve never stopped asking. 

Philosophy’s Values in Daily Lives

I wouldn’t say that philosophy helped me in the sense that it’s some kind of solution to every single problem in life. It doesn’t work that way. Rather, it’s the process of inquiry that happens when studying philosophy that is somewhat helpful. The process of asking questions, leading to more questions and not answers. 

And that can sometimes make life worse for some, especially if you like quick answers and don’t like being perplexed. But it enables you to grasp the complexity of life and the world as we know it. It can help you develop an open mind towards things and at the same time question them deeply.

For me, it feels like being on the red pill. You’ll feel worse in the beginning, like everything’s wrong with the world. But gradually, you become more aware, conscious and curious. And that has helped me a lot. 

Studying philosophy doesn’t automatically make you a rational or ethical person. You can still do the rationally or ethically inappropriate thing even when you entirely know it is so. That’s why you have philosophers who are embroiled in scandals or support Trump’s policies. 

And that’s normal. After all, we’re just human; emotional beings who can make mistakes.

The Underwhelming Support of Philosophy in Malaysia

Because it doesn’t teach you how to make money (laughs). 

There are so many reasons for this question.

But I guess with regards to why very few Malaysians study philosophy as their major, it’s fair to say that a significant number of people have never come across this “subject” in the first place. Not to mention the misconceptions that could arise when with such an unfamiliar subject.

In Malaysia, there’s no full-fledged degree in philosophy available at local universities. Thus, it is often the case that Malaysians come across philosophy whilst studying abroad as electives/courses are most likely encountered in foreign universities. 

Also, the way philosophy is taught at universities is also very unappealing. I mean, who wants to listen to dull professors droning on dry theoretical stuff? Or even read long, sometimes messy and complex arguments written by dead people? Not everyone can handle that for three, four years. 

However, I’m sure there are ways to make philosophy engaging. It’s just that there aren’t many people who are exploring ways to make philosophy interactive and accessible to the general public.

Although we have great popularisers like Mark Manson, Alain de Botton, Ryan Holiday and others, we definitely need more marketers to promote philosophy. Like how course advisors promote accounting degrees perhaps. Seems to work well with parents. 

But our society placing more importance on business and marketing degrees and having less appreciation for the humanities— that says a lot about our current state of the world.

Philosophy and Employment – Can They Go Together?

See, that’s the problem with employment and the world of work nowadays.

On the one hand, you have job-seekers who are aiming to study specific majors and universities that employers like in hopes of getting a “good career”.

On the other hand, you have employers who only assess applicants based on degree certificates and assume that Harvard grads would automatically solve their problems, instead of investing more into their talent selection process to understand more about their potential employees. 

Now, I’m not blaming the job-seekers for acting this way. They are just doing based on the advice given by the Gen-Xers, usually suggestions relevant to their time when they were working. In fact, I used to be like them too, believing in the fairy-tales told by some family members that “you should take this course”, “you’ll have a bright future ahead of you”. Even the prerequisites of the job description says so: 

Now, I’m not blaming the job-seekers for acting this way. They are just doing based on the advice given by the Gen-Xers, usually suggestions relevant to their time when they were working. In fact, I used to be like them too, believing in the fairy-tales told by some family members that “you should take this course”, “you’ll have a bright future ahead of you”. Even the prerequisites of the job description says so:

“Minimum Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration or equivalent”. 

Although they mean well, you still end up at your desk with your boss wondering why you can’t do the job and you wondering what on earth went wrong. There is just a huge mismatch between what you study and what is expected from the job.

Because of technological developments, what you learn at university simply becomes outdated by the time you graduate. 

Therefore, you’re asking the wrong question. If you’re looking to gain value so that employers are willing to hire you quickly, then you should invest in acquiring the “hard” technical skills that would enable you to solve the problems employers face. There are many ways to do this like taking an internship, enrolling in a coding bootcamp or a Google certification. Otherwise, why would they want to hire you? 

I’ve read sources saying how philosophy can help with “soft” skills such as critical thinking, analysis and problem solving.

Since they can be transferable in any career setting, such skills are useful in a world where industries are constantly disrupted and changing.

And so by having such skills, it enables them to be adaptable to the changes that occur within their career. 

I appreciate the reasoning from these sources but I would also further add that other majors like Math, Psychology or even History can be as equally as valuable. Therefore, I’d recommend others to study based on the topics that you are interested in or passionate about. Rather than overthinking too much on what skill set degree X can offer you. Because skills, whether they’re “hard” or “soft”, often need a lot of practice for one to gain mastery. In most cases, they don’t stop at graduation and often continue into working life. 

In the case of philosophy, you should study it because you love wisdom. You want to understand yourself, the things around you and what all of this means. 

If you’re thinking whether to study philosophy in terms of return-on-investment (ROI), then don’t bother because you simply can’t attach it with a price tag. 

Resources to Get Started with Philosophy 

After studying philosophy as an undergraduate, one thing I realised is that you don’t actually need a degree in order to be a philosopher or do philosophy. There’s a bonus for going through the academic route though as it gives you the discipline to study in the form of schedules and curated readings. But it’s not like you cannot build one yourself. 

Unless you are considering to pursue academia (which I previously wanted to but not now), then getting a philosophy degree is not necessary.

For starters, I’d highly recommend to begin understanding the process of philosophy, i.e. how it’s done e.g. logic, learning how to learn, critical thinking and reasoning. Regardless whether you’re interested in Chinese, Continental or any other school of thought, the process of coming up with these concepts and ideas remains pretty much the same. 

If you do not have the means to get a degree but still want to pursue the academic path as close as possible, you can even stalk for reading lists in university course handbooks online. Cold-email professors, course coordinators or existing students if you need to. Don’t be afraid to ask. 

Also, there are many active communities in Malaysia who are passionate about philosophy today like the Malaysian Philosophy Society, PPFPM and Socrates Cafe. It’s always good to reach out to these groups and exchange ideas. These are great opportunities to not only learn new stuff but also develop an open mind to examine life itself. 

However, if you’re shy, you can start by writing your thoughts on paper. As you write, ask yourself philosophical questions such as what is your meaning of life, do humans have free will, what makes an action good, etc. Don’t be afraid to question our beliefs, even if it means thinking differently from people you know. You may not realise it but you are already doing philosophy.