Philosophy, or the science of bullshit.

Here’s what Bertrand Russell had to say about philosophers……..

Hitler was a Kant, and it’s no surprise he was a Kraut, along with most of the leading lights of this field.

Wagner, Wollf, Kant, Nietszche and all the other idiot Kraut philosophers shared something - other than being fools with too much time and too little respect for scientific fundamentals - they all wrote a load of rubbish which is still preached today at most of the world’s leading universities.

This must be the single prime example of a bunch of bullshitters setting up an entire branch of thought based on nothing more than a few shared life experiences of very boring people who were unable to come up with enough independent ideas to join the scientific or mathematic world. This is where the pre-1900 German philosophers diverge from the likes of Bertrand Russell and Einstein; (German, but firstly a scientist) men who DID excel in science yet still were able to discuss ostensibly philosophical subjects from an intelligent and respected point of view.

Do you realise that there are people out there who gain doctorate degrees through the study and definition of this absurd branch of thought?

A couple of thousand years ago, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates had a valid reason for the study of philosophy – science didn’t exist aside from a number of alchemists whose only raison d’etre was to find ways of turning lead into gold; gravity hadn’t been discovered and the sun revolved around the Earth. Everything had yet to be discovered, so supposition was the only form of expression there was.

So, nowadays, what do philosophers do? They are not smart enough to participate in the molecular biology or physics fields, and too lazy to study law or accounting, so they sit around and discuss the deranged wonderings of a group of drug-crazed (or lead poisoned) German philosophers from the 16^th 17^th and 18^th centuries.

You will get no change from asking an academic why these studies even exist now; academics have a severely vested interest in prolonging the studies and hence their chairs and tenures at the universities which feel the need to be seen to pursue "classical studies".

Let’s be realistic at least and set up chairs and degrees in bullshit.

We could have a BB to replace the BA, so Bugger All becomes the accepted Bachelor of Bullshit and would be highly sought after by politicians seeking new talent in their spin camps. Above that, the MB, Master of Bullshit, which would be closely associated to Master of Wine, where you accept the word of someone telling you what you like and dislike.

Finally there would be the ultimate Doctorate in Bullshit, or DB, no doubt graduates of which would be highly sought after as public relations experts for breweries. (One of them anyway, I can’t see Lion employing a DB graduate)

For hundreds of years, philosophy has been the means of escape for undergraduates incapable of accepting the discipline and study requirements of a physical science degree. Science requires exact answers, while in philosophy, any answer is acceptable as long as you can back it up with a reasoned argument.

A classical example is that Nietszche took seven steps to prove that 2+2=4, while my three year old daughter can use four fingers to prove the same equation in about 2.3 seconds. This stuff is so insidious that even Betrand Russell took about 50 years to figure out that sensory perceptions are actually real. (Schrodinger's cat, humph!)

Let us go a step further. I say that all philosophers are full of shit. I can be a smart-arse and prove it very quickly by pointing out that as mammals, philosophers have colons, and unless they have just undergone a colonic, they will indeed be full of shit.

That, however is not philosophy, it is logic. The following is a philosophical argument proving the same thing:

Philosophy would be to say that the root of Philosophy is to take information which is learned by a combination of individual experiences, assimilated knowledge and hearsay. Since all assimilated knowledge is also hearsay and inadmissible, only individual experience can be used as a basis for learning the subject. As most students of philosophy go straight from school to university and are taught by word of mouth and the written page, they do not have any, let alone sufficient, life knowledge to base a study upon.

Ergo, philosophy is shit and all philosophers must be full of it since most philosophers are academics with no life knowledge outside of the ivy-clad of whatever university they take up valuable space at.

There is one upside however; McDonald’s. Without graduates of this subject and its bedfellows, the great golden arches restaurant chain would not be able to point to having all those graduates working for them.

Next time you see someone with one these degrees, there is an easy way to piss them off. Ask them for their philosophical viewpoint on abortion. This is something which is outside of their understanding as it combines a concept – that the foetus will in fact become a viable human being, with ethical – is it a question for anyone other than the mother carrying the foetus, with the religious – does a foetus have a soul.

They will tie themselves up in knots so quickly you will need to bring a respirator with you, although I am told that someone dying of self-inflicted strangulation of the larynx can be quite entertaining to watch.