well, so ill rephrase my question on philosophy?

[heber]

so thinking back on this philosophers. lets put socrates for instance and see what his point of view will be. He got murdered because his ideals about gods and that nature were inaccurate to theirs. He rebelled agaisnt that and died with honor because he knew that under his life was the truth. The truth that im talking about with which youll be willing to die for. Asking questions is philosophy, but to ask them independently. We cannot ally with others ideals, and think that this is the true path of a philosophers. By nature we do ask questions, but is our duty to solve them.We can agree on this right. So, what were should the solution derive from. Ourselfs or others. We are born individually and die individually, we are one in this vast universe. So to those who think that philosophy is some type of thoughts chained up in a collective cycle, are wrong.. Philosophy is not meant to persuade others , or to convice others. Is really to fullfill our individual lives and to provide us space

[answerer]

The big trap that most people fall into is believing what they know in their head and feel in their heart and what they just "know to be true" but that doesn't make it true, it's just a statement about how much they believe it and really shows how limiting our own perspectives can be. The truth will be there whether or not you acknowledge or live it, etc. so dying for the truth really is self righteousness. None of us are right or wrong because none of us will ever really know anything more than what our five senses tell us. No matter how great or low we perceive one another, it's still only that - a perception.

[Samyw efc]

I think anything can exist if someone wants to believe it enough, like god if someone wants to believe there is someone there for them that would help them that is there right to think it as long they don't preach it down people throats, unfortunately i don't believe in god, as he wouldn't have let my baby die or let good people die young, he should take the bad people who needs to be got rid of, but i do believe in life after death and that there might be something better that we can learn from so i think philosophy probably not just about questions but about beliefs as well.

[Boris the Oval Banana]

I believe it is the duty of every philosopher to start from "the ground-up," so in essence I agree with the underlying argument. Unfortunately, it is almost completely impossible, from a "metaphysical perspective," to get beyond hard solipsism. How can you PROVE that anything but you exists?
At this point you have to let empirical evidence in (unless you know something REALLY cool).
It therefore follows that if you are permitting the analysis of your own observations, you can at least permit the analysis of your observations of the opinions of others.

To further demonstrate - you would not be able to type at your computer and ask this question on the Internet, if there were not others out there. You cannot (from all empirical evidence) single handedly create the internet, create yahoo answers, and then populate the world with internet users who like yahoo answers.
In fact, if you weren't at least partially interested in the input and opinion of others, your own question would be irrelevant. QED.

So I agree that philosophy is "ours to answer" but I disagree that it is a purely independent enterprise...
...because (unless we utterly eschew all empirical data) we already relied on the efforts of others in order to ask this question.

[Ben]

Well, I am not too sure that Socrates was executed (not murdered) because his ideas about the gods of the times were not in tune
with current religious practises.

Socrates was offered help to flee to a-less-offencive-to-his-ideas environment and rejected it.

I think Socrates had become too nihilistic in nature, and had decided to let life take its course by taking advantage of the opportunity to go without having to commit suicide.

You must agree with me that every Philosopher brings a little of nihilism in his or her nature.

Regarding asking questions in Philosophy,
you are right. That's what Philosophy is all
about.

To Philosophers the answers are not
important. These usually lead to dead ends.

It seems contraditory that I have chosen to answer questions rather to ask them here at
Yahoo. That's because I have arrived to the conclusion that I can be more of a help to the masses in the cave by aswering their questions about the outside world.