How philosophy can help your business.

[Nightwolf]

Philosophy as an academic discipline can be simply defined as - The Study of Questions. Not ordinary questions, but big questions like "What is the meaning of life?" "What is my place in this world?"

Okay, but what's this got to do with business?

Philosophers are people who try to answer these questions and try to counter already existing theories of these questions. Philosophers basically perform these 2 steps:
1) Understand the other person's view completely.
2) Critically question that view and try to prove it wrong with logic and rationality.

When you properly understand a view, or the value that the other person has, and you question it rigorously, you can determine whether that value is worth having for yourself.

I still don't understand how any of this relates to businesses.

Philosophy can help your business since it essentially allows you to adopt the correct values.

Mark Manson defines "good" and "bad" values in his book- The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*CK -
Good values, he says, are
a) Reality-based
b) Socially constructive
c) Immediate and controllable.

[eg. Honesty- something you have complete control over, reflects reality, and benefits others]

Bad values are
a) Superstitious
b) Socially destructive
c) Not immediate or controllable.

[eg. Popularity- you cannot control what others think about you, not based on reality since you may feel popular or unpopular, not beneficial to the society]

Okay... so I understand that philosophy helps you question and adopt correct values and I have a basic idea of what good and bad values are, what's next?

You must question everything that your business stands for, its current values, objectives, etc. Does your business value making as much money as humanly possible or does it value solving a problem that society faces? Does your business think of its customer as a medium to generating profit or does it think of them as the ones for whom it exists?

Does your business value being unique or does it value being just another provider of a commodity or service?

An example of a good business value would be to be unique. As Naval Ravikant says, "No one can be better at being me, than me" and as Alex Banayan in his book - The Third Door - says, "You cant out-Amazon Amazon".

 

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[Jobless]

I studied your questions and created some of my own.

Can your personal values differ from the values of your business?

About your business "making as much money as humanly possible" vs. "solving a problem that society faces:" How can you do one and not the other?

 

[S.Y.]

Philosophy as an academic discipline will not help any business. It is like a car without a functioning transmission. Worthless.

Philosophy started as a way of life. Practical, not academic. In that sense, yes it is helpful. Not so much in asking questions or identifying values. But more so in finding what pushes people to act, to go from value to action.

(I also fail to see how philosophy can be reduced to Study of Questions, or identification of values. But that is a much broader conversation)

 

[Shono]

Philosophy as an academic discipline will not help any business.

This notion becomes more semantic than purely logical. The etymology of philosophy is to love knowledge or wisdom. Just listen to guys like Felix Dennis, Steve Jobs or Alex Hormozi, they were/are intensely philosophical. I think pursuing any venture whether its spirituality, arts, or even the lifeless and sterile venture of capitalism, could benefit from deep philosophical insight.

 

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[Nightwolf]

Can your personal values differ from the values of your business?

Yes, your personal values can differ from the values of your business.

About your business "making as much money as humanly possible" vs. "solving a problem that society faces:" How can you do one and not the other?

What you value is what you prioritize. If you prioritize solving a problem, making money would be a side effect. But when you prioritize making money, you do not focus on solving a problem which results in you not making said money.

So good values always have a good side effect.
Another personal value example as given above would be honesty. When you are honest all the time, you increase your self-worth and self-respect as a side effect without trying to specifically achieve that goal.

 

[Nightwolf]

Philosophy as an academic discipline will not help any business. It is like a car without a functioning transmission. Worthless.

Anything academic when applied becomes practical. When you study math and learn how to find averages (academic) and then use that knowledge to identify current ratio for eg. (practical) didn't you use your academic knowledge for practical use?

Philosophy started as a way of life. Practical, not academic. In that sense, yes it is helpful. Not so much in asking questions or identifying values. But more so in finding what pushes people to act, to go from value to action.

How do you find what pushes people to act? By asking the correct questions. "Why did I do that?" as opposed to "Why did he do that?"
When you ask the correct questions, you will find the correct answers.
You can only change your actions when you change your values, you change your values by identifying them in the first place, and you identify them by asking yourself questions.

From the business standpoint, when you find out the values of your business you can take action to change them and adopt the good ones to improve the overall state of your business.
So philosophy can indeed help your business.

(I also fail to see how philosophy can be reduced to Study of Questions, or identification of values. But that is a much broader conversation)

Philosophy has 3 main branches:
a) Metaphysics (Study of reality- "Is everything in the world made of matter? If so who created that matter? Who am I in this world?")
b) Epistemology (Study of nature and scope of knowledge- "how do I know that what I think I know is true?")
c) Value Theory - Further subdivided into:
1) Ethics (Study of human conduct)
2) Aesthetics (Study of nature of beauty)

I focused on the Ethics - Value theory- for this post.