Why read old philosophy? Why not read the work that's created now? Why study programming languages? Why not just use the best programming language? Just as we

Why read old philosophy? Why not read the work that's created now? Why study programming languages? Why not just use the best programming language? Just as we don't know or agree about the best programming language (or we admit there's no "best" for every purpose), one answer is that the ancients may be right. That's a fine answer, but I think it's actually secondary. Just as you don't have to think a programming language is the best to want to learn about it, you don't have to think the ancients were right to study them. What studying other programming languages/older philosophers gives you is insight into the different ways you can formulate ideas or see the world. It's a struggle to enter into a new way of thinking, much harder than learning a new programming language. You have a tremendous number of assumptions that you can't even state that interfere with your understanding. When you start out, a historical philosopher often either looks incomprehensible, or like a modern who is constantly wrong. With enough work you can come to understand how that philosopher conceived the world, so that their arguments begin to make sense. Those different ways of seeing the world are themselves of philosophical value, but they also help you understand how our contemporary understanding arose, and therefore also help you understand which aspects of our contemporary understanding are accidents or optional.