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What is Philosophy for?

From a distance, philosophy seems weird, irrelevant, boring – and yet also just a little intriguing. But what are philosophers really for? The answer is helpfully already contained in the word ‘philosophy’ itself: in Ancient Greek, philo means love and sophia means wisdom. Philosophers are people who are devoted to wisdom. Being wise means attempting to live – and die – well. In the pursuit of wisdom, philosophers have developed a very specific skill set: they have over the centuries become experts in many of the things that make people not very wise. Five stand out:
1. We don’t ask big questions
There are lots of big questions around: What’s the meaning of life? What’s a job for? How should society be arranged? Most of us entertain them every now and then. But we despair of trying to answer them. They have the status almost of jokes. We call them pretentious, but they matter deeply, because only with sound answers to them, can we direct our energies meaningfully. Philosophers are people unafraid of asking big questions. They have over the centuries asked the very largest. They realise that these questions can always be broken down into more manageable chunks, and that the only really pretentious thing is to think one’s above raising naive-sounding inquiries.
2. We are vulnerable to errors of common sense
Public opinion, or what gets called ‘common sense’, is sensible and reasonable in countless areas. It’s what you hear about from friends and neighbours – the stuff you take in without even thinking about it. But common sense is often also full of daftness and error. Philosophy gets us to admit all aspects of common sense to reason. It wants us to think for ourselves. Is it really true what people say about love, money, children, travel, work? Philosophers are interested in asking whether an idea is logical, rather than assuming it must be right because it’s popular and long established.
3. We are mentally confused
We are not very good at knowing what goes on in our own minds. Someone we meet is very annoying, but we can’t pin down what the issue is, or we lose our temper but we can’t readily tell what we’re so cross about. We lack insights into our own satisfactions and dislikes. That’s why we need to examine our own minds. Philosophy is committed to self-knowledge and it’s central precept, articulated by the earliest, greatest philosopher Socrates, is just two words long: know yourself.
4. We have muddled ideas about what makes us happy
We’re not very good at making ourselves happy. We overrate the power of some things to improve our lives and underrate others. We make the wrong choices because, guided by advertising and false glamour, we keep on imagining that a particular kind of holiday or car or computer will make a bigger difference than it can. At the same time, we underestimate the contribution of other things, like going for a walk, which may have little prestige but which can contribute deeply to the character of existence. Philosophers seek to be wise by getting more precise about the activities and attitudes that really can help our lives to go better.
5. We panic and lose perspective
Philosophers are good at keeping a sense of what really matters and what doesn’t. On hearing the news that he’d lost all his possessions to a shipwreck, the Stoic philosopher Zeno simple said, ‘fortune commands me to be a less encumbered philosopher’. It’s responses like these that have made the very term ‘philosophical’ a byword for calm, long-term thinking and strength of mind. In short, for perspective.

The wisdom of philosophy is in modern times mostly delivered in the form of books. But, in the past, philosophers sat in market squares and discussed their ideas with shopkeepers or went into government offices and palaces to give advice. It wasn’t abnormal to have a philosopher on your payroll. Philosophy was thought of as a normal, basic activity, rather than as an esoteric, optional extra. Nowadays, it’s not so much that we overtly deny this thought, but we just don’t have the right institutions set up to promulgate wisdom coherently in the world. In the future, though, when the value of philosophy is a little clearer, we can expect to meet more philosophers in daily life. They won’t be locked up, living mainly in university departments, because the points at which our unwisdom bites and messes up our lives are multiple and urgently need attention right now.

Adapted from the website The Philosopher’s Mail. http://thephilosophersmail.com. Access: September, 2018.

TEXTO:

    While virtually all activity, from yoga to sleeping,
requires energy, studies suggest vigorous exercise is
especially effective at burning calories. Seems obvious,
right? But it’s not just during exercise, it’s for hours after
[5] it’s concluded. And that’s where things get interesting.
    The so-called “afterburn effect” is more officially
known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption or
simply, EPOC. And it isn’t new in the world of
fitness. Several studies suggest there’s a strong
[10] correlation between the number of calories burned post
exercise and the activity’s intensity. Simply put: The
more intense the exercise, the more oxygen your body
consumes afterward.
    In one study conducted with participants who
[15] had metabolic syndrome, EPOC also had significant
positive effects—meaning this type of training could be
especially useful in combating certain health issues,
like obesity and diabetes.
    And while one study showed that your afterburn
[20] will increase significantly with duration (i.e. the longer
and more intense your workout, the more you’ll burn),
you don’t necessarily have to work out for a long time
to stimulate the effect.That’s where short, high-intensity
workouts come into play. For example, training protocols
[25] like Tabata, where 20 seconds of all-out effort is followed
by 10 seconds of rest, are one way to trigger the
afterburn; other high-intensity interval workouts
(or HIIT routines) can also get you there. The key with
any of these programs is that you need to be working
[30] hard.
    And you don’t need to stick to traditional cardio in
order to achieve an EPOC effect. Several studies have
shown that weight training with various types of
equipment can also elicit elevated EPOC—and may
[35] even be more effective than cardio training in certain
scenarios. But keep in mind: You shouldn’t engage in
this style of training more than about two to three times
per week on non-consecutive days.

TAO, David. Disponível em: https://greatist.com/fitness/afterburneffect-keep-burning-calories-after-workout. Acesso: 1 nov. 2018. Adaptado.

Rising Temperatures Lead To A Higher

Proportion Of Girls Being Born Than Boys

Rising temperatures in Japan lead to a higher proportion of girls being born than boys, according to a study in Fertility and Sterility. The observation has led the researchers to suggest that climate change could alter the mix of men and women.

Certain species, particularly reptiles, engage in temperature dependent sex selection, in which the sex of offspring is determined by the warmth of the environment in which eggs are incubated. Humans rely on genes, but even for us there are slightly more women conceived in tropical regions than at the poles.

Dr. Misao Fukuda found evidence to support the possibility that human sex ratios may also be influenced by temperature, although in a more subtle way and through a different mechanism.

In 1968, 1.07 boys were born in Japan for every girl. By 2012, that was down to 1.05. A similar shift has been observed in other places, but there is debate about how widespread the trend is, as well as the causes.

Fukuda also looked at data on the ratio of male to female “spontaneous fetal deaths” -- miscarriages after the first twelve weeks of pregnancy over the same period. Here the trend was much steeper, beginning at 1.3 and reaching 2 by the end of the study period.

The fact that female fetuses are more likely to survive is well-known, and there is longstanding evidence that periods of stress affect male fetuses more severely.

Changes to sex ratios for humans are so small that, unlike for reptiles, there is no threat to our survival. Nevertheless, an increase in miscarriages for all fetuses may be one more effect of rapidly changing climates.

Adaptado de: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/fewer-boyschanging-climate  Acessado em 18 de outubro de 2014.