Question According to Socrates "An unexamined life is not worth living." How do you examine your life? (I have examined some of my strongly held opinions and tried to make arguments for the opposite opinion and have had a modicum of success but I feel that there must be something more to the process of examining my life.)

Accepted:
February 24, 2008

Comments

Not surprisingly, philosophers have always had a tendency to wildly overrate philosophizing. Let me strike a cheerfully skeptical note!

Just before the "unexamined life" remark, Socrates says "this is the greatest good for a man, to talk every day about virtue and the other things you hear me converse about examining both myself and others". Which is, frankly, absurd. Sure, a few people have a taste for philosophical discussion about virtue (and no doubt it is a good thing that some people are given to think about such things). But it is just daft to suggest that if philosophizing isn't your scene, then you are missing out on "the greatest good", and somehow your life isn't really worth living. Maybe you just prefer to spend time with your friends, or having sex, or going to the opera, or sailing, or hill-walking, or working as a doctor, or bringing up a family, or acting, or gardening, or raising money for Oxfam, or playing string quartets, or doing any of the myriad other things that together can go to make up a worthwhile life, in one pattern or another (fill in your own list in your own way). And why not? You can't do everything, and too much thinking can get in the way.

A bit of reflection about your life now and again may have its place (but usually, not general philosophical reflection about, say, the nature of virtue or "the meaning of life" or such, but reflection on the particulars of the direction of your life). But even that can be rather overdone in our therapy culture. So I certainly wouldn't worry too much about going in for some general process of "examining your life" if there aren't particular problems bugging you (and if there are, then you'll probably know what to think about!).

And... since I thoroughly agree with Peter's comments, I'll add that you can read some similar reflections by going to question 1950.