Understanding Denial and Delusion

Abstract

The preceding sections of this book have been structured and presented in the following way. Initially, a number of significant questions were raised having to with the relative overall importance and apparent relative functionality of philosophical thinking and pursuit in relation to those things we appear to consider as most important. Questions explored here have been along the lines of: what is the status of our collective philosophical thinking when we consider how we commonly tend to expend our thinking energy in the pursuit of our endeavours; in other words, to what extent is philosophical thinking and the work of philosophy important to how we carry out our lives? In the current era, why does philosophical thinking, and the work and outputs of such thinking, appear to have such a low status (to the extent of vanishing, for all intents and purposes) in relation to what seem to be our main concerns and interests? From consideration of this question, can we safely entertain the idea that we tend to deny philosophical thinking and philosophical work to various extents; and, if this is so, why might this me be the case? How can we most usefully think about what the costs might be of denying philosophical thinking and philosophical work? Are we even aware that this situation might exist and may be expanding in scope and impact? Entertaining and commencing the exploration of such questions in the first section opened the door to the possibility that, collectively, we are faced with a very serious challenge that might be best cast in terms of a potentially fatal philosophical problem — fatal not only to philosophy, but fatal to what we appear to have begun to construct as a prosperous world that we hope will be for all.