Can Philosophy Help Us Live Better Lives?

Hosted by Ben

Socrates Café in Seoul (소크라테스 카페 in 서울)

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Greetings,

"The unexamined life is not worth living", said Socrates, and Nietzsche, also famously said, "To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”

It seems that my two favourite philosophers of all time share something in common: beyond time and space, they regard philosophy as a shelter for safeguarding a life worth living.

But is it really the way? What does philosophy do for us to lead a better life? Should we all then be better off living in a barrel like Diogenes and appreciating only the little things, such as people standing out of my sunlight? Or how about Machiavelli, to see people as inherently self-serving and unpredictable, so we must exert to be like a cunning fox and a strong lion to dominate subjects and foes.