This are my thoughts in response to Bertrand Russel’s “The Value of Philosophy,” from chapter 15 of his book, The Problems of Philosophy.

The life of the practical self is doomed to confinement. Every action and belief it holds only derives from what it knows to be good and true, and conflicting yet otherwise freeing information is avoided and holds the self in a state of repulsion. It is only when that knowledge confirms the set-in-stone beliefs of the self that it is assimilated. So, this practical self hoards knowledge that results in a fulfillment, but only of the poor, primordial beliefs that it never considered to doubt. Those unexamined fundamental thoughts closes the self off from particular behaviors yet glorifies other ones, for the self’s own sake, and not for anything but the self. The self has entrapped itself in itself, and the only way out is through itself.

Therefore, the self must renounce itself. It will acknowledge that the fulfillment it may have experienced is false, since it has been successful only by it’s own faulty terms. It will acknowledge that it doesn’t know truth, but only it’s truth. It will acknowledge that it’s pursuits of passion have only confirmed the things it is ought to destroy in order to experience freedom. Once this has been done, the self is not so beholden to fulfilling itself anymore, and can expand.

In this expansion, the self ventures into the world to find knowledge. It pursues knowledge without selfishly adapting that knowledge to itself, but adapting itself to the knowledge. The self becomes interdisciplinary, as to not redefine itself in a field and become stuck again. Conflicting ideas are sought after, so the self learns to contemplate without repulsion. With a newfound variety, the self has become undefinable, and stays free from any cages it could put itself in. Now, because of knowledge, the self has an ambiguous nature, and cannot act for the self at all, since fundamental principles would be required out of directed behavior. 

Now, in every present moment, riddled with ambiguity, the self can now redefine itself. Through reason, it can now deduce what is best for it’s fulfillment, and can live out it’s beliefs through action. The self can change it’s habits and everyday nature to fully embody and create a novel being. All rhetoric, socialization, and justification can be for the sake of it’s new beliefs. Life of the self has now become fundamentally different from the self it used to be. 

This however, is a false solution, as the self has been rejailed, and will have to confront the same issues it did before. 

Recognition of this temporality of the variety of the beings of the self is imperative. All beings will eventually become a cage for the self, so one must traverse these beings with great velocity and grace to escape their trap. With this method, we become like improvisational artists. We revel in our current being, and when circumstances become claustrophobic, we let go of the character flawlessly. Knowledge can also be obtained with this strategy. when we identify our being with a particular task, we gain knowledge in that field through action. This temporality should be capitalized on to avoid definition of the self. 

Through avoiding definition of the self, we unintentionality create a meta-self of ambiguity, fueled by the search of knowledge. Thus, philosophy makes us ambiguous, and the sign of success is the being of ambiguity.