Author: Soo May Wee

The Dangers of Reading And 3 Ways to Be A Better Reader

Post author By Soo May Wee
Post date April 16, 2023

Why Reading Can Be Dangerous

Reading, as beneficial as it can be, can be dangerous.

We expose ourselves to its danger every time we pick up a book. And every time we utter the phrase “author A says this…” to win an argument or, even more generally, to understand the world, we surrender to the evil of reading.

We learn by reading (among many other ways) but the knowledge we get from reading is usually not original. In some cases, that is okay, mostly for practical sake. Not everyone should spend a huge fraction of their lives to come up with their own laws of gravity. In other cases, it is not so okay. This is because, essentially, the unoriginality of the ideas we get from books can threaten our ability to independently think.

In philosophy, this danger can be very prominent. Many philosophy lovers are at the same time avid readers. It is not unusual then for someone in this circle to know the theories or worldviews of Philosopher A and B by heart and to freely quote them as answers to questions in discussions.

Yet authors have their own perceptions of the world. It follows that their ideas stand between us and the world. Philosopher A or B might have said X but do we think X? And is it really X? These foreign ideas blind us from seeing the world in itself, from developing our own ideas about the world itself, and from seeing our own place in the world.

Does This Mean We Should Stop Reading?

MyPhilSoc

Unfortunately, we all know that not reading would pose a different danger.

We may have saved ourselves from adopting an unoriginal worldview but not reading may equally lead us to building inaccurate facts of the World (the real big world, with other beings in it), even if we may be right about the world–or, more specifically, bubble–in which only we live in.

3 Philosophically Recommended Ways to be A Better Reader

So, how do we deal with this? How do we stay independent despite the influx of foreign yet beneficial ideas from reading?

Read Actively

As we read, we should think over the lines. Does the thing that the author wrote make real sense? Try to think of possible counterarguments to the claims made in the book. Also, do not hesitate to, in a way, take a break from reading. Put the book down and come up with answers to the questions that the book is answering. By actively engaging with the book, the alien barrier between us and the world is removed.

2. Read more, in variety.

The classic comparison: quantity versus quality. Reading more versus reading well. The former always loses to the latter. But reading more does have its own merits. The important key is: more what? More variety, which does often simply mean reading more quantity-wise. True, we might get increasingly confused and–instead of cultivating our own worldview–lose our own foundation altogether when we read many things from different people who think totally differently. But think of it another way. The diversity alone shows that it ultimately requires our autonomy to think what the “answer” (to any question, e.g., What is the meaning of life? What is justice?) should be. The answer could be an entirely new response that we independently create because none of the answers from the books satisfies us. Or the answer could be a synthesis–our own mix-and-match–of all the different answers. And, even if we believe that the answer is exactly the one given by Author X, we–this free, thinking agent–picked that amidst a vast sea of answers. Start reading more here.

3. Read with others.

Reading requires only a book and our mind – an individual activity. But it does not have to be; reading can be social. Similar to the previous point, independence in thought is the outcome after exposing ourselves to diversity. If we only have 1 book instead of 10 different books, we can still find diversity by engaging with other people who have read that 1 book. Book clubs are the best to achieve this!

The thought that reading can be dangerous is neither eye-opening nor ground-breaking, but it is often overlooked and underestimated. We temptingly cite books and readily place foreign, unexamined ideas between us and the truths, instead of directly facing the world. To build and maintain independent thinking, we should read actively, variously and socially.

Relationships Society

Pandemic Social Responsibility: Why Bother Caring About Others During the Pandemic?

Post author By Soo May Wee
Post date August 8, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic brings out many issues that have been swept under the rug or have been assumed to be settled once and for all. In particular, we see the extraordinary extent of individual liberty that people claim they have.

Pew Research Centre

“I am free to do whatever I want; I am free not to wear a mask and not to get the vaccine” is the form of argument that we often see.

I was (and still am) appalled by some people’s stubbornness to not wear a mask but my initial reason for having this response mainly came from my upbringing and not necessarily for more philosophical reasons. My family and the society that I grew up in have always taught me to think about others or to think about the benefits of society as a whole. Even though I align myself with this value, the pandemic made me realize that I did not think more critically about why I should think about others.

No Pandemic Social Responsibility: Anti-Maskers and Anti-Vaxxers

It is when I observed anti-maskers’ and anti-vaxxers’ arguments that forced my brain to do some thinking about it.

The presence of these people shows that not everybody feels the same duty to think about others and I think it is understandable to a certain degree. Nobody is expected to be good but it would be nice if you are good. Nobody is expected to be altruistic but it would be nice if you are altruistic.

Even though some people might pull in religious commandments or objective moral values (that there are things that are intrinsically good and wrong) to justify altruism, not everybody subscribes to religions or moral objectivism.

For example, if we say that thinking about others is good because God loves or demands it or because it is simply good, I do not think this will move the seculars or moral subjectivists (the opposite of moral objectivists) that much.

They could ask us back: “But why–without using God or objective moral values–is it good to think about others? And even if you show me that it’s good, that does not mean that I should do it.” Therefore, it is arguably quite difficult to convince everybody why they should–if not must–care about other people. Conversely, it can be quite difficult to explain to somebody why we should think about others.

Thomas Hobbes’ State of Nature and Social Contract

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As I think of an answer (if I ever have to confront an anti-masker or an anti-vaxxer), two people came to my mind: Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill, both classic philosophers and political theorists from England. Hobbes argues that, before any form of civilization or society was formed, humans were in a state of nature that was akin to a state of war. In this state, there are no laws and everybody is free to do anything to preserve her own well-being and life.

This freedom includes killing others and exhausting resources as much as possible for one’s own benefit. While the infinite amount of freedom that one has seems heaven-like, Hobbes claims that the opposite is true, which is why he calls it the state of war. During this state, people cannot live in peace and they always have to be on the edge because anyone can kill them and take their food and shelter. It is an ugly fight for survival all the time and Hobbes famously describes this life as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” (This is perhaps Hobbes’s most quoted phrase) Therefore, in order to get out of this miserable state and still preserve one’s own life and resources, society is formed.

A society consists of people who agree to obey a set of rules or values for the mutual benefits of every member of the society. In other words, every member of the society agrees to forgo some amount of her infinite freedom in exchange for the security of her life and resources.

This agreement is commonly known as the social contract. One now has the right to life and the right to property possession. Killing and stealing then become terms that we use and assign negative connotations such as ‘wrongness’ or ‘badness’ to. This is different from pre-society or state of nature, where it is simply either ‘taking someone’s life’ or ‘taking unguarded resources,’ and it is neither right nor wrong.

Before we move on to John Stuart Mill, we have to first know the general stances of the political philosophers at the time. Hobbes’s ultimate goal is to show that living in a society, especially one that is under an absolute ruler (a monarch, for example), is much better than living a nasty, brutish, and short life in the state of nature a.k.a the state of war. Other philosophers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau agree with Hobbes about the brutality of the state of nature but argue that a democratic government should be preferred instead.

John Struat Mill on the Limits of Governmental Control and Harm Principle

Compared to the others, Mill has a different point to say.

He believes that no matter which government we are under, monarchy or democracy (or other forms of governments), our freedom can still be threatened by either the tyranny of the monarch or the tyranny of the majority (i.e., when the decision of the majority oppresses the minority, which can be very bad if the minority is actually right).

He proposes that there must be limits to the control that the government has over the citizens because they have their individual freedom to live their lives however they want.

Mill Harm Principle — *Thinking Prismatically*

But here’s the catch. This freedom should always be granted to the individual as long as the individual does not harm other people, which is known as the “harm principle.”

Mill writes, “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” An individual’s act (and freedom) can be rightfully restricted if her act is harming other people. I believe many of us live by this principle that it does not seem that strange. We usually let one be if she does not harm other people, despite how unusual her acts may be. We practise this principle all the time.

Why Pandemic Social Responsibility Is So Important: Combining Hobbes and Mill’s Views

Despite the universality of Mill’s harm principle, we see that some people fought for the right to not wear a mask (excluding people who have breathing difficulties) without thinking that their interest not only harms their lives but also that it harms the right for other people to live, which is a bigger deal than the right to not breathe under a mask.

They cannot then complain that their individual freedom is not respected. Moreover, they fail to see that the more fundamental reason why they could even live to fight for their rights in the first place–their existence–should be attributed to the fact that other people limited their infinite freedom such that we all do not live in the state of war anymore as described by Hobbes.

It is through others’ willingness to sacrifice some part of their freedom that we exist and it is through our sacrifice that they too can exist.

If we do not consider the good of society as a whole and we harm others, then we should not expect ourselves to remain in the society and have our freedom to be equally respected.

Thus, if you have to deal with somebody (who does not believe in objective moral values, in particular) that claims that they have no responsibility to think about others and that they have the individual freedom to do anything, including harming others, remind them if they really do and how they can exist in the first place to argue with you. It may sound like a threat but all it really is is a short overview of the social contract and the limits of individual freedom. *peace out*

Humans of Philosophy

Humans of Philosophy – Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream [Wee Soo May]

Post author By Soo May Wee
Post date May 11, 2021

Bio of the Philosopher

Wee Soo May graduated from the University of Chicago with a BA in Physics and Philosophy. Soo May has lofty dreams in combining the natural sciences and philosophy to understand reality and the human existence. Having received a national scholarship to pursue her studies, Soo May is actively finding effective ways to pay it forward to society (contact her if you know any!), including through MyPhilSoc.

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.

Self-help Work

Kant Stop Procrastinating? How to Stop Procrastination [A Guide from Kantian Philosophy]

Post author By Soo May Wee
Post date December 27, 2020

There are some days when I feel extremely lazy and I wish I did not have to wash my dishes after I eat or write this essay. A part of me whispers, “May, let’s watch a couple more YouTube videos, shall we? Let’s be free to do anything we desire!” I would then slump onto my bed and laze around, enjoying my freedom.

But am I actually free? Some philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, might say no.

There are two concepts of freedom or liberty in philosophy – positive and negative freedom.

Negative Freedom

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Negative freedom comes from the absence of barriers against one’s actions. One is free when one can do what one wants without the presence of any obstacles. This is the type of freedom that we are usually accustomed to. The freedom that I envisioned when I lay on my bed, scrolling through videos, is of this type because I am doing what I desire.

Positive Freedom

Kant claims that we are only free when we follow rules.

What? How can I be free when I am constrained by rules?! But hold on, there is more to Kant’s claim.

The rules cannot be just any rules; they have to be our rules. In other words, we are only free when we abide by the rules that we make ourselves.

The rules have to be our rules.

The second part of Kant’s claim─that the rules have to be our rules─is probably on more familiar ground. It would be more interesting to put this in a political context.

We usually consider the citizens of a democratic country to be freer than those of a totalitarian country because the former actually have a say in the laws that they follow.

Depending on the degree of democracy practised in the country, the citizens are free because they make their own laws and abide by these laws. Similarly, we would think that, as an individual, we are free when we follow our own rules and decisions instead of others’.

How about the first part of Kant’s claim ─ that we are free when we follow rules? In order to understand what he means, we have to first know his idea of a human being.

Kant, like many other earlier philosophers, thought that human beings are imperfect rational beings. Even though we have the power of reason, we are also governed by our inclinations.

This human nature to desire is deemed inferior compared to the power of reason (this claim is also famously discussed in Plato’s The Republic). This is because inclinations are similarly present in other beings such as animals; hence, what really separates us from them is our rationality.

Only humans have the power of reason (animal experts can fight with Kant on this but please spare me).

Therefore, when we follow our inclinations or desires rather than our reason, we have fallen to a lower plane of beings. We fail to act beyond our mere impulses and appetites. We become slaves to our irrational passions.

However, when we listen to our reason, we break free from the chains of our passions and we gain our freedom. And how do we listen to our reason? We use it to make a law and follow it (only rational beings are capable of acting according to laws).

In a broader sense, positive freedom can be defined as the control a person has over herself whereas negative freedomcan be thought of as the absence of obstacles to oneself — a difference between internal versus external factors that determine one’s freedom. Kant’s freedom is the positive kind.

How to Stop Procrastination with Kantian Philosophy

psycom.net

How does all of these connect to how Kant helps me not to procrastinate?

When I find myself spending an hour writing only a sentence because I keep getting distracted by YouTube or Twitter, I tell myself: “May! Kant’s now frowning at you because you are only listening to your irrational desires even though you need to submit this essay.” I know that, rationally, I need to really finish writing and so I follow my reason and make a law for myself: I have to write at least one page by 10 pm. Whenever I start to lose my focus again, I remember Kant (sometimes I would crazily mutter Kant, Kant, Kant) to motivate myself to keep working in order to exercise my positive freedom.

This is not only helpful for my academics but also for many other aspects of my life. When I want to sleep in and skip working out, I think of Kant and I would get out of my bed immediately. When I am about to press the ‘Next episode’ button on Netflix at 3.34 am, after watching 8 consecutive episodes of a show, despite knowing that I will get a headache for not sleeping enough, I think of Kant and I would shake my head and declare under my breath, “I refuse to be governed by this incredibly addictive show and I will practise my rationality and exercise my freedom by going to sleep now.”

In general, whenever you start to put off doing something (e.g., work, sleep, eat) for no good reasons, you can try to fight against the tendency by reflecting on how this can threaten your free will.

Ask yourself: Am I really a slave to my desires? Is my will not free to escape my irrational passions? If you decide that you want to exercise your positive freedom, then make a rule for yourself to complete the work that you need to do and follow it!

Of course, I do not think that negative freedom is bad and, despite the label, it does not mean that it should be negatively perceived.

After all, we do exercise negative freedom most of the time. This is my vote and no one else can influence it. I want to wear this and I do not need others to agree. I choose to say this without any restrictions. But what I hope to do in this article is to suggest an alternative philosophical perspective that you can take when you need some motivation to (or not to) pursue something.