All Roads Lead to Philosophy

There’s a game you can play on Wikipedia. Click the first link in any article, then the first link in that one, and keep going. Almost always, within a dozen clicks, you land on Philosophy. Start at “toaster.” Start at “Beyoncé.” Start at the offside rule. Philosophy, almost every time.

It isn’t a quirk of the encyclopedia. Ask any question long enough and it turns philosophical on you. Start with politics and soon you’re asking what justice is. Start with economics and you’re asking what we owe each other. Start with your phone and you’re asking what a good life looks like, and whether you’re having one. Give it enough time and the practical question and the philosophical one turn out to be the same question.

So be wary of anyone who says they’re “just being practical” as if that settles the matter. Practicality is a philosophy too. It decides that consequences, constraints, and what can actually be done matter more than purity. Fair enough. But it still has to answer the deeper questions: practical for whom, toward what end, and at what cost?

A society has a philosophy whether it admits it or not. So does a company, a family, a bloke with strong views on tax. The only question is whether you chose yours or just inherited it — off the internet, off your parents, off whatever was in the air when you grew up.

All roads lead to philosophy because they all end up at the same questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? And how should we live?