Philosophy

Today my mom and I entered into a discussion about philosophy.  One of her childhood friends posted a comment on facebook quoting Nietzsche.  I strongly disagreed with the quote - but I disagree with a lot of what he says anyway.  I began wondering about what makes a philosopher, what makes one person's opinions more read than anothers.  The interesting thing about philosophy is that it really is just rooted in one person's opinions.  I like that, to a certain extent, because I am pretty opinionated myself (just ask my husband, who gets the brunt of my rantings.)  Anyone can philosophize, all it requires is an opinion and some observation to go with.  See, I am  philosophizing right now, rudimentary as it may be.  So, we read philosophy, ruminate on it and decide what we believe in conjuction with what we have observed.  I think it is a great tool for self reflection.  But we approach it with caution, remembering that it is just someone's opinion.  It is, therefore, transitory and subject to change.

Then I thought about those things that to me are more than philosophy, the things I believe so strongly that there is no room for question or change.  Those things, it turns out, are not philosophy, but doctrine.  Doctrine, and the expounding of doctrine, is deeper than philosophy - it is truth.  It is not transitory.  It will not change.  Our prophet and apostles are not philosophers, but are prophets, seers and revelators - in other words, they give us truth that is sure. 

Interestingly, we can find the same purposes in philosophy and the expounding of doctrine.  We find an attempt to understand the world around us, our purpose, morality, our relation to others and God.  But, the difference is that philosophy is subject to opinion whereas doctrine is subject to Godly truth.  When we study the words of philosophers, we decide what we believe and discard the others as their opinion.  For example, I will rarely find anything I can agree with among Nietzche and his nihilistic cohort.  Oh the other hand, when we study doctrine, we will find it is truth, no part of which we need to discard.  The witness of that, which we recieve through prayer and confirmation from the Holy Ghost will ingrain doctrine inside of us in a way that philosophy never will be.