Why do we engage in philosophy What is there about human beings that leads us to engage in reflective thought, thinking about questions which do not appear to produce practical results It could be argued that in the long run philosophical thought does produce widespread practical consequences. In the political realm, for example, the writings of John Locke significantly influenced the development ofAmerican democracy, while the theories of Karl Marx have brought into being a radically new form of government. It could also be said that what separates us from the animal world and from uncivilized human beings is just this intellectual endeavor, which could be justified as valuable even if only for its own sake.But there is a deeper reason for engaging in philosophy, and that is that we simply cannot turn away from certain questions which constantly confront us. Our human constitution or our human condition predisposes us to want to know. It was Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) ofCambridge University who compared our situation to that of a fly in a bottle. The fly is trying to get out of the bottle but does not know how. The function and aim of philosophy is to show the fly how to get out of the bottle. For us this means that, like the fly, we feel trapped and have difficulty finding our way out. In our case, this fly bottle represents certain levels of ignorance or problems and questions that are difficult to solve and we look to philosophy for help in finding our way out.