Can philosophy bring happiness?

I'm not that user but Philosophy can make you think more critically and once you start down this path of introspection and critical thinking you may or may not start to see all the things wrong with yourself and your life and if you don't have the will power or the means yet to change those things then you will only suffer and suffer more than had you been ignorant to these things.

And they're all on a different journey. Their path to nirvana might very well not be yours.

If you like doing it, yes it can make you happy. But what happens when you stop doing what makes you happy? What's left? Just you.

I should also add that writing philosophy papers will only bring frustration until they're completed, in which case there's a great deal of stress and wild anxiety about how unsatisfactory it really is.

The goal is to understand the cause of suffering. All life is suffering, but the suffering comes from your own wants, desires, lusts, and expectations.

>but the suffering comes from your own wants, desires, lusts, and expectations
This is only partly true because your suffering can come from outward forces such as your entire family dying or someone walking over to you and breaking your legs for no apparent reason. The suffering does not only come from your desires but also an outward force.

It's only served to make me more miserable. But I imagine more optimistic types or believers in different religions can find comfort in certain writings.

That suffering still comes from within, it be spurred by outside forces, but that suffering comes from within you. And it's okay to hurt, it's okay to feel pain, every living thing is suffering, but the suffering comes from us, not outside forces.

>Philosophy can make you think more critically and once you start down this path of introspection and critical thinking you may or may not start to see all the things wrong with yourself and your life
Philosophy is not self-help

It's a touched subject, but not in a pedagogic way, only as observing.

Jean Baudrillard and that stuff really fucked me up for a while. I find peace and comfort in many Buddhist philosophies, many of which may even sound depressing on the surface until you get down into the core of it. I don't even consider myself Buddhist or adhere to the religion itself.

>Philosophy is not self-help
You can say that all you want but it does not make it true. Many Philosophers touch on "self-help" subjects and your introspection skills should increase as you read Philosophy which in turn does help yourself.

yes if you can turn that noun into a verb

People get shot, die in car wrecks, and win the lotto every now and then. Suffering comes from not expecting shitty things. Happiness is a meme, spook, etc. it's a silly thing to strive for. It's completely possible to live a good life without being happy.

You're reading either philosophy very wrongly, or just the wrong philosophers.

>help yourself.
Also, this a pathology, it's called narcissism. It might seen contradictory, but you should forget about yourself as much as possible, if you want to be happy.

And I agree with you completely on it being possible to live a good life without being happy but what I stated was that Philosophy "CAN" make you unhappy because it causes an increase in introspection and some people cannot handle a deeper look into their lives so it causes them unhappiness.

You cannot say Philosophers who deal with things that may help an individual are "wrong philosophers" because Wisdom in and of itself can be used to form a better you who makes better decisions as it should.

You sound like an insufferable businessman selling a self-help book. I want to punch you the face and rape your mother.

P.S. read the Phaedo closely and see how you're full of shit.

>what is stoicism

Yes, because believing that you can apply wisdom to daily living is being insufferable and you assume I am the one who is full of shit.

You shouldn't 'apply' wisdom' to yourself you moron, but apple yourself to wisdom. Fuck you.

lmaoing at these losers who cant get happiness so think noone else can

Marco Aurelius, Epictetus, Camus, Kierkegaard...

They helped me a lot and in my opinion calling them "wrong philosophers" is a pretty big statement for a Micronesian Knitting Internet Forum.

Same could go for Epicurus (I haven't read him though) or certain aspects of Aristotelian or Platonic Ethics.

Sometimes the biggest questions are not those that seek to understand and modify the nature of existence but the nature of man himself.

My 2 cents.

That's popular philosophy, not actual systematic science (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel &c), irrelevant.

Happiness is irrelevant to philosophy, that's what I'm arguing about. However you feel in your daily life is nothing.

And all you do is curse me, you who says to apply yourself to wisdom cannot apply yourself to wisdom. I am applying wisdom to myself and myself to wisdom. They are not mutually exclusive, meanwhile you do neither.

>1st December 2016
>Random Veeky Forums user divides philosophy into "popular philosophy" and "actual systematic science", changing the world at large forever

Because I'm sick of capitalist cunts like you with your petty 'be yourself', 'fulfill your potential' drivel. Philosophy, like you or not, is a science, and a science demands complete dedication to the matter in hand, not anxious desires of self-fulfillment. Wisdom is a not a peaceful, Buddhist restful state of mind, wisdom is struggle.

Why not both? Why do you think Philosophy has to be entirely one or the other? Philosophy can be both a science and an art. It is both. Also you wildly assume I'm a capitalistic cunt. You are full of assumptions and your mind is negative and clouded. You are the product of ignorance.

Please tell me more about wisdom, random shouting angry person.

Individual strife and anxieties have their place and time, philosophy deals with different matters, plain and simple.

Quite a simple way of disregarding my argument. Seems like you didn't even read my whole post!

I've read Plato and Aristotle back in the day and, although I'm not very fond of either, I do remember Aristotle saying that happiness is an habit practiced and not a state of the mind. And iirc Plato saying that happiness comes from humans followong they own distinctive nature which would be the act of thought (thus, pretty much saying that happiness comes FROM philosophy [not that I agree with such a statement]), but I'm not quite sure wether or not I'm misquoting here from Aristotle (my apology if that's the case).

Also, saying it's pop-philosophy just because it applies to day to day life and by any person regardless of philosophical insight or studies seems a little bit elitist.

Philosophy does not exclusively deal with one or the other. They are umbrella'd under one term and it is that plain and simple. However pure you want to keep your Philosophy it is not as pure as you want it to be.

> I'm not very fond of either
You haven't learned a thing, then.

>I do remember Aristotle saying that happiness is an habit practiced and not a state of the mind
Precisely my point, throughout these posts.

>iirc Plato saying that happiness comes from humans followong they own distinctive nature which would be the act of thought (thus, pretty much saying that happiness comes FROM philosophy
That's misleading, Socrates says in the Phaedo that only those completely devoted to the eternal beings are happy, forgetting about all matter of wealth and carnal pleasure. It's implicit that true happiness can only be achieved after death, since the struggle against the mortal never ceases.

>seems a little bit elitist.
Any minimally serious academic subject will be seem as elitist for outsiders, you sound like a SJW.

>Philosophy does not exclusively deal with one or the other.
Sure, but in order to deal with both, you need first to let go of individual desires and focus on the objects of philosophy. It's IMPOSSIBLE to be serious about anything while over-focusing on immediate 'happiness', forget it.