How to avoid answering anything important

Remember that having failed in the quest for inspiration from great religious works I threatened to go off and study Philosophy, that great answerer of the all the big questions. Explanations on such things as knowledge, truth, freedom, identity, goodness and of course God, I thought laid within my reach.

Well I've started at least, by looking around for a couple of "popular" introductions to the subject. I picked a modern one "Think" by Simon Blackburn and an older one (1912) by somebody I'd heard of "The Problems of Philosophy" by Bertrand Russell.

A couple of mistakes I made in my initial thinking:

• I thought, modern would be easier to read (and therefore read "Think" first)
• I thought slim wouldn't take long to read (hence "problems of philosophy")
• I believed reviews that said "a beautifully clear account";

There is nothing beautifully clear in philosophy except the questions it intends to answer.

Well, I have read both of these books now and I need to read them again at least one more time to actually start to really understand the language used.

Some of the words used encompass so much understanding behind them that it is worthless to carry on reading until you fully understand them. For instance the word "a priori" (ok, two words) means just "assumed knowledge" right. So how can you spend a big chunk of a book discussing what it means.

However, I have learned a lot from the books but I have no confidence to apply or discuss any of it yet so I shan't be answering whether there is a god or not this week? But I have learned enough to put together a new definition for philosophy

• Philosophy is the science of how to avoid answering anything definitively.

And what good has anybody got out of my studies so far

• Enabled me to help a colleague to understand she could study philosophy without it challenging her faith (remember this is me, the faithless one talking here)
• Allowed a discussion of what rhetoric really is over the family dinner table (quite surreal really)
  

Oh, by the way, for all of you who pretended to read "Zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance" when you were (much) younger and it was trendy to read it, you should read it now and those that did (well done) should read it again. That is what I should have read first followed by Bertrand Russel and then Simon Blackburn and not the other way around. Things might have been much clearer then.