I’m learning philosophy at present, which I’ve been studying since last year. It’s a huge topic, of course, and though I’m mainly focusing on Western philosophy, I have also been reading Chinese and Vedic texts. There are some superb ideas and theories to absorb, but Aristotle (384-322 BCE) stands out for me as being the most monumental influence on Western thought. He examines almost every facet of life, from biology to logic, morality, and so much more in a useful, easy to access language. Surprisingly, it is still as relevant today as it was then. What strikes me about philosophy is that every generation tries to reinvent it. Philosophers rarely agree with each other, and no one seems to come up with much practical advice on how to lead better lives, (apart from William James and the Pragmatists). What is certain is that none of them have the ultimate answer about our existence. And so philosophy just goes round and round in circles of argument and disagreement. The big names are worth reading: Nietzsche, Descartes, Kant, Russell, and Wittgenstein, but for me, philosophy was best described by one of the few female philosophers to be given equal air space by the men – Iris Murdoch. 

Socrates had famously said: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ In her book, The Sovereignty of the Good, she said, ‘An unexamined life can be virtuous, and love is a central concept in morals.’ In this work, she argues that love and simplicity of living are overlooked by philosophers. She said, ‘Good is indefinable because judgments of value depend upon the will and choice of the individual.’

Love, the central tenet of religion, is overlooked by philosophers and many atheists when positing their models of the universe, and Murdoch got that spot on. Like it or not, we don’t need elaborate, sophisticated, scientific explanations about what the purpose of our existence is. We just need the basics of a good life and to have love in it. Everything else is just fluff.