What is Philosophy?

[schurem]

Hello fellow Infidels,

In greeting I extend this post, and ask you what I and many of my fellow students, and even many of my professors seem to ask ourselves: What is Philosophy?!

Is it a bunch of leftovers from the birth of all the sciences from greek philosophy?
Is it the one and only way to truth and understanding?
Is it the meaningless and unintelligible banter of musty europeans?
Is it the pursuit of clarity in ideas on ideas themselves?

Sound off, and spare me the trouble of reading each and every thread in this forum to get to know you fine folk (I have read enough of the threads to see you are that; fine folk)

:D

[jon1]

From Philosophy Pages, Philosophy is "Literally, love of wisdom. Hence, careful thought about the fundamental nature of the world, the grounds for human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct. As an academic discipline, philosophy's chief branches include logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and the appropriate aims and methods of each are the concern of metaphilosophy." In a sense, philosophical questions (these days) are "leftover" since they are the kind of questions that can't be answered by science but I think to look at philosophy as "leftovers" is a bit irreverent.

[Luiseach]

Originally posted by jon1
From Philosophy Pages, Philosophy is "Literally, love of wisdom. Hence, careful thought about the fundamental nature of the world, the grounds for human knowledge, and the evaluation of human conduct. As an academic discipline, philosophy's chief branches include logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, and the appropriate aims and methods of each are the concern of metaphilosophy." In a sense, philosophical questions (these days) are "leftover" since they are the kind of questions that can't be answered by science but I think to look at philosophy as "leftovers" is a bit irreverent.

A very nice definition...however, just as an aside, philosophy is itself frequently an irreverent pursuit. :D

[FloatingEgg]

I always thought of Philosophy as someone's attempt at creating a guide book for life. Eventually, the book is passed around to enough people that it becomes meaningless. Then someone writes another book, and the cycle begins again.

[Clutch]

Philosophy is the project of trying to understand (in the broadest sense of the term) things (in the broadest sense of the term).

[schurem]

intersting replies (except for the book definition, which is exactly what my books say)
keep em comin!

how about this one:
one of my professors likes to pound on how philosophy is not a science, but a sport, or an artform...

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by schurem
What is Philosophy?!

1) If we could sufficiently answer that question is a fully satisfying way there would be no reason to study philosophy.

2) Philosophy is a systematic examination of the most fundamentally held statements that can be made about the world for the sake of getting them right.

DC

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by jsimmons
I always thought of Philosophy as someone's attempt at creating a guide book for life.

This is a common misconception. A great amount of philosophy has to do with how we know things and what is there in the first place. Answers to these may or may not have anything to do with how we live life.

DC

[Tyre]

Another book answer...

"Philosophy studies the fundamental nature of existance, of man, and of man's relationship to existence."

[schurem]

Originally posted by DigitalChicken


quote:Originally posted by jsimmons
I always thought of Philosophy as someone's attempt at creating a guide book for life.



This is a common misconception. A great amount of philosophy has to do with how we know things and what is there in the first place. Answers to these may or may not have anything to do with how we live life.

how we could or should live our lives is however one of the major fields of philosophy, in the guise of ethics, isn't it?

[FloatingEgg]

This is a common misconception. A great amount of philosophy has to do with how we know things and what is there in the first place. Answers to these may or may not have anything to do with how we live life.

All of that is in the appendix of the guide book.

[DigitalChicken]

Originally posted by schurem
how we could or should live our lives is however one of the major fields of philosophy, in the guise of ethics, isn't it?

Yes ethics is one of the branches of philosophy.

DC

[Clutch]

Originally posted by schurem
one of my professors likes to pound on how philosophy is not a science, but a sport, or an artform... I like it. But maybe I'd say that philosophy has important things in common with each, rather than saying it is a sport, is not a science, &c.

I tell my students, for instance, that they should think of learning philosophy as rather more like learning swimming, and rather less like learning multiplication tables. It's something you can only learn by doing it, and not just by memorizing catch-phrases or names and dates. (And, like swimming, there's no one stroke that is the "right" one -- though some are more efficient than others.)

[stilus]

Just wanted to say hello and "have fun!" to schurem :)

I really like the "Swimming" analogy, though I must admit from the outside it often looks more like waddling through muddy waters to me ;)

[Amos]

At one time philosophy was considered the finest of fine arts and because it could rationalize what was perceived as the supernatural the idea of philosopher king was given to him.

Maybe it is wise to point our that the "love of wisdom" is not the same as the "search for wisdom" and so philosophy cannot be a subject of study.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by schurem
What is Philosophy?!

I have asked this question here before. As best I could tell based on the debate that followed:

philosophy is the study of philosophy.

Starboy

[DoubleDutchy]

Originally posted by Starboy
I have asked this question here before.


I remember (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47547) :eek:

[Bob K]

http://www.bobkwebsite.com/basicphilosophy.html

http://www.bobkwebsite.com/defphilosophy.html

Definition of the Term Philosophy

Philosophy = Greek: "philo": "love" + "sophy": "knowledge" = "Love of Knowledge" = A view of life; a view of all things and events in the universe.

Personal Philosophy

An individual's personal philosophy is his set/system/collection of concepts/principles/techniques for analyzing/evaluating/judging the causality [causal relationships/cause-and-effect relationships between/among people/things/events] of the people/things/events of reality, who/which are the natural phenomena of reality; an individual creates a personal philosophy from his experiences in determining which people/things/events in reality and which concepts/principles/techniques [ideas/thoughts/thinking] in his mind realize/achieve positively/negatively his desires/fears/priorities.

[deano]

it is contemplation.

[premjan]

socially irrelevant religion.

[lasers are brilliant]

someone once said:

"philosophy is to science what pornography is to art"

can't remember who, though. Sorry.

[freeth1nker]

Eh?

Something I learned in the first day of philosophy class...
philosophy = thinking = language = grammar
Then, my teacher told to us to try and think of anything without language. And most found it impossible. (Visual art, music, math all count as languages, btw.) Well, he was a scholar of the philosophy of language, so I guess it showed his bias.

It is many things. Other branches of philosophy not yet mentioned are ontology, aesthetics, epistemology, logic, and the numerous interdisciplinary fields, i.e. philosophy+psychology, linguistic philosophy, philosophy+literature, philosophy of science, philosophy of math, etc. etc.

I think the person who hit the spot with this question was DigitalChicken


1) If we could sufficiently answer that question [in] a fully satisfying way there would be no reason to study philosophy.

2) Philosophy is a systematic examination of the most fundamentally held statements that can be made about the world for the sake of getting them right.


#1 is right on. For #2, I agree with "Philosophy is a systematic examination of the most fundamentally held statements that can be made about the world," including the fundamentals of what is "right" itself.


Is it the meaningless and unintelligible banter of musty europeans?


socially irrelevant religion.


someone once said:

"philosophy is to science what pornography is to art"

can't remember who, though. Sorry.


These comments just make me believe that whoever said them are completely ignorant of what philosophy is. I urge people who say these things to at least take a course in introductory philosophy instead of just quoting popular websites.


Addenum: For branches of philosophy, I guess I forgot theology and the philosophy of religion. It's obviously not a personal favourite of mine and probably most people around here.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Eh?

Something I learned in the first day of philosophy class...
philosophy = thinking = language = grammar
Then, my teacher told to us to try and think of anything without language. And most found it impossible. (Visual art, music, math all count as languages, btw.) Well, he was a scholar of the philosophy of language, so I guess it showed his bias.

Arg! Philosophy is to thinking, language and grammar as astrology is to the stars. Expecting a philosopher to back their claims by objective experiment on nature would be like expecting astrologer’s to back their claims by objective experiments on actual stars. It is a BIG joke! If I want to know anything about thinking, language or grammar I will consult the scientific literature in that area. In as much as some of its practitioners have tried to distance themselves from reality challenged philosophers and do actual science it posses claims that have a basis in reality.

Starboy

[freeth1nker]

Originally posted by Starboy
Arg! Philosophy is to thinking, language and grammar as astrology is to the stars.

And ignorance is to you as the Bible to a fundy. :p


Expecting a philosopher to back their claims by objective experiment on nature would be like expecting astrologer’s to back their claims by objective experiments on actual stars. It is a BIG joke!
So is theoretical mathematics, which has no basis in reality. So maybe math is all bullshitting as well. :rolleyes:

If I want to know anything about thinking, language or grammar I will consult the scientific literature in that area. In as much as some of its practitioners have tried to distance themselves from reality challenged philosophers and do actual science it posses claims that have a basis in reality.

Okay, first of all, a lot of philosophers today back up their claims with "scientific experiments." Chomsky did when he said that language structures are innate. Of course, you could take the same research data and come up with completely different conclusions. So much for scientific objectivity... :rolleyes:
I would argue further that the basis for grammar is not in "physical" reality, either. There are plenty of literature on the evolution of language and how grammar came about. But actually regarding the study of grammar and semantics themselves, well, I don't see how they form a basis in "reality" in the very limited sense you are using the word.

A lot of fields don't use "experiments" to back up their claims, because they are not necessary in every field, only in the scientific enterprise. For example, a scholar of literature, when analyzing the Ulysses, do you expect him to write up a formal lab report about Joyce's unique stylistics and symbolisms in his field of study? How do you propose that an "experiment" is to be done in that field, anyway?

It is ludicrous to assume the same methodology should be dogmatically applied in every discipline. It's true that philosophical thinking oftentimes takes a different route than scientific thinking. There is both beauty and merit in the diversity that makes up our intellectual culture. Assimilation is futile.

[Starboy]

freeth1nker:

There are many pure mathematicians that do not care a wit if mathematics can be used to describe reality. Even so your comment has nothing to do with philosophy or science. The fact that some philosophers are also scientists means nothing. There are also poets that are scientists and musicians that are philosophers. Hell, there are priests that are astronomers. Again it has nothing to do with this discussion. Performing experiments on nature is not a requirement of philosophy. In fact philosophers could care less, they are far more interested in quoting other philosophers than advancing and demonstrating any new ideas. You see when you require that your claims have a basis in reality it is at that point you are doing science.

As for grammar, it is obvious that it is an artifact of living creatures and their brains. Actual study of living creatures and their brains, their evolution and how the brains of other creatures that have grammar compare to our own is much more likely to yield a real understanding. If you couple this with experimenting with creatures and brains to further this understanding, it is easy to see that philosophies “mind” centric approach will not get very far. This is probably why Chomsky took off his philosopher hat and put on his scientist hat.

Now if you like philosophy and you want to study it, have at it. What chomps my ass with regards to philosophers is that they do feel competent to comment on reality centric enterprises when philosophy as a discipline is a reality moron.

Starboy

[Keith Russell]

Starboy, not all philosophies--nor all philosophers--are alike.

For every true statement about philosophy (or philosophers) that one could make, there are probably an equal number of valid exceptions.

Some philosophers are qualified (and capable) of commenting on the 'human condition'.

Many of them are not.

(But, the same can be said of scientists, artists, atheletes, doctors, lawyers, and politicians, too.)

Being irrelevant is not a condition unique to some philosophers alone...

K

[freeth1nker]

Originally posted by Starboy
There are many pure mathematicians that do not care a wit if mathematics can be used to describe reality.

Um... that's because mathematics is not a description of reality. Do you see any "numbers" in the real world? Tell me where I can find a 2? Seriously though, it has applications to the physical world doesn't mean its fundamentals are also based in that area. That's the difference between math and physics.


Even so your comment has nothing to do with philosophy or science. The fact that some philosophers are also scientists means nothing. There are also poets that are scientists and musicians that are philosophers. Hell, there are priests that are astronomers. Again it has nothing to do with this discussion.
You were saying no philosopher ever try to back up their philosophical claims with scientific evidence. I just gave an example of it. So, it is relevant to the discussion that you started by saying "Expecting a philosopher to back their claims by objective experiment on nature would be like expecting astrologer’s to back their claims by objective experiments on actual stars."

Performing experiments on nature is not a requirement of philosophy. In fact philosophers could care less, they are far more interested in quoting other philosophers than advancing and demonstrating any new ideas.
Generalization. First of all, it is true that a lof philosophers look into the work of previous philosophers by refuting or further exploring their ideas. But that is how the study of philosophy grows. It's like science. Scientists look at previously accepted theories and come up with reasons to refute/modify them.
And you're right, performing experiments is not a requirement in philosophy. Neither is it in literature or mathematics. Do you believe they are useless and should be abandoned as well?

You see when you require that your claims have a basis in reality it is at that point you are doing science.
***Philosophy does have a basis in reality, if you consider things like morality, culture, and language a part of reality. But I don't know, maybe you don't.

As for grammar, it is obvious that it is an artifact of living creatures and their brains. Actual study of living creatures and their brains, their evolution and how the brains of other creatures that have grammar compare to our own is much more likely to yield a real understanding.
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "real" understanding. All I can infer is that this approach to studying grammar is more scientific and that's what you mean by "real." As I said before, studying the origins of grammar and studying grammar itself, are not the same thing.
Understanding the evolutionary aspect of grammar and its anthropological affects, or cross-examining the grammatical structures of different languages... All of these yield different perspectives of the same phenememon. There is no one "right" (scientific) way to solve the problem, as you would like to suggest.

If you couple this with experimenting with creatures and brains to further this understanding, it is easy to see that philosophies “mind” centric approach will not get very far.
That is an unfair assessment, because what you're describing there is a completely scientific endeavour, i.e. the scientific aspect grammar. Of course, scientists will be better for equipped in doing "science" than philosophers, just like linguists are better at language than engineers. :rolleyes:

This is probably why Chomsky took off his philosopher hat and put on his scientist hat.
He also put on a political hat, filled with ridiculous conspiracy theories. So... what's your point? Sometimes, a field is not completely contained in itself. There are many inter-disciplinaries. Oftentimes, philosophy crosses over with science, or with psychogy, or art. There is no law that says you can't do both.

Now if you like philosophy and you want to study it, have at it. What chomps my ass with regards to philosophers is that they do feel competent to comment on reality centric enterprises when philosophy as a discipline is a reality moron.
What exactly is your definition of reality? See ***.

Addenum: What's more, philosophy isn't always "mind-centric." It's a misconception, and I've already given at least one example of a philosopher who backs up their claims with empirical evidence.
Besides, if by "mind-centric", you mean it uses things like reason and intellect, can you think of an academically respectable field that isn't "mind-centric"?

[Starboy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
***Philosophy does have a basis in reality, if you consider things like morality, culture, and language a part of reality. But I don't know, maybe you don't.

feeth1nker, you missed my point. Sure philosophy makes claims about reality, same as religion. So what that it does. What makes it questionable is that there is no requirement by the descipline of philosophy to test or check those claims against actual reality in any way. Such philosophical pronouncements are just unsubstantiated speculations. Who cares, the world is awash in such claims. It is the insistence that they are important that borders on fraud.

Starboy

[freeth1nker]

Originally posted by Starboy
feeth1nker, you missed my point. Sure philosophy makes claims about reality, same as religion. So what that it does. What makes it questionable is that there is no requirement by the descipline of philosophy to test or check those claims against actual reality in any way. Such philosophical pronouncements are just unsubstantiated speculations. Who cares, the world is awash in such claims. It is the insistence that they are important that borders on fraud.

Starboy

Firstly, you never answered my question. Do you think that math and literature are useless speculations too? They have no basis in reality either. And what about the countless other intellectual fields that don't follow the scientific method? What is your opinion of them?
And I think it's highly unfair to ask for experiments in nature, i.e. to subject philosophy to the scientific method, simply because of the inherent differences of these two fields. Philosophy and science deal with fundamentally different questions. Is it fair to ask for experiments in nature when you're trying to answer the question "why should I be a good person", or "what makes life meaningful", or "what is beautiful in art, music, or literature"? (And these questions obviously have a basis in reality.)
Most classical philosophies attempt to apporach these questions via some kind of "method", so it's not just random speculations.

[wordfailure]

Hello, Starboy.

These are the words of Suzanne Langer from Philosophical Sketches I would be interested in your reaction. Seems to me that philosophy may be taking some heat from you for what is really just plain old human behavior. We don't suddenly all become faultess, unfortunately, by merely turning an eye toward philosophy.

As soon as one thinks at all seriously and strenuously about nature, society, mind, truth, or any other big and complex subject, the traditional ways of conceiving it prove to be too muddled to allow any distinctions and definitions that might reveal hidden relations, or make obvious ones intelligible. The thinker, therefore, is confronted by the task of criticizing and correcting, perhaps even rejecting, the accepted images and tacit assumptions and of building up a new, more abstract, more negotiable set of concepts.

Such a systematic critique of common sense is philosophy. As William James said, "The word means only the search for clearness where common people do not even suspect that there is any lack of it." Philosophy is the pursuit of meanings. It is not a process of finding new facts; the discovery and generalized statement of facts is science. Philosophizing is a process of making sense out of experience, rather than adding to experience itself as factual learning and experimental investigation do.

[premjan]

the desire to be intellectually above "common people".

[DoubleDutchy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Firstly, you never answered my question.
Starboy never does. You'll have to live with it:

Dejà vu. (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47547)

[Starboy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Firstly, you never answered my question. Do you think that math and literature are useless speculations too? They have no basis in reality either. And what about the countless other intellectual fields that don't follow the scientific method? What is your opinion of them?
And I think it's highly unfair to ask for experiments in nature, i.e. to subject philosophy to the scientific method, simply because of the inherent differences of these two fields. Philosophy and science deal with fundamentally different questions. Is it fair to ask for experiments in nature when you're trying to answer the question "why should I be a good person", or "what makes life meaningful", or "what is beautiful in art, music, or literature"? (And these questions obviously have a basis in reality.)

Most classical philosophies attempt to apporach these questions via some kind of "method", so it's not just random speculations.

I do not require philosophy or literature or anything else be held to a reality check unless it makes reality claims. If a writer or philosopher or priest claims that something exists and is real then their claims are subject to a reality check be that the scientific method or the methods of journalism, archaeology or history. In the case of philosophy, from its very beginning, it has made reality claims with little to no attempt to subject them to reality tests. It was the insistence of early scientists that reality tests be made that created the break between science and philosophy. If those pioneers of science had stayed with the program of philosophy we would still be talking about phlogiston and be trying to turn lead into gold using alchemy. So when philosophers make claims about literature, language or grammar or anything else having to do with reality they should not be concerned about the thoughts of the philosophers of the past but instead should be concentrating on what evidence there is to support their claims. This complete disregard for reality puts philosophy in the same category as the religious and borders on fraud.

In the case of mathematics, in its purest form, it not only makes no reality claims but also could care less about reality. The fact that it can be used to describe reality actually irks some mathematicians. In regards to a reality check for mathematics, I have no issues. Mathematics and literature is a topic you have injected into this discussion, not I.

Lastly, I am not concerned about the questions philosophy asks, since I have yet to see that its answers have any validity in reality.

Starboy

[Starboy]

Originally posted by wordfailure
Hello, Starboy.

These are the words of Suzanne Langer from Philosophical Sketches I would be interested in your reaction. Seems to me that philosophy may be taking some heat from you for what is really just plain old human behavior. We don't suddenly all become faultess, unfortunately, by merely turning an eye toward philosophy.

As soon as one thinks at all seriously and strenuously about nature, society, mind, truth, or any other big and complex subject, the traditional ways of conceiving it prove to be too muddled to allow any distinctions and definitions that might reveal hidden relations, or make obvious ones intelligible. The thinker, therefore, is confronted by the task of criticizing and correcting, perhaps even rejecting, the accepted images and tacit assumptions and of building up a new, more abstract, more negotiable set of concepts.

Such a systematic critique of common sense is philosophy. As William James said, "The word means only the search for clearness where common people do not even suspect that there is any lack of it." Philosophy is the pursuit of meanings. It is not a process of finding new facts; the discovery and generalized statement of facts is science. Philosophizing is a process of making sense out of experience, rather than adding to experience itself as factual learning and experimental investigation do.

Yet another definition of philosophy:

“Philosophy is the pursuit of meanings”

Hmmmmmm, sounds like religion to me.

Starboy

[freeth1nker]

Originally posted by Starboy
I do not require philosophy or literature or anything else be held to a reality check unless it makes reality claims.
Those who make reality claims have their own ways of checking. It's just not the way we're used to.

If a writer or philosopher or priest claims that something exists and is real then their claims are subject to a reality check be that the scientific method or the methods of journalism, archaeology or history.
There is also a philosophical method for reality claims. Why am I repeating myself? It's just not sinking in for you, is it?

In the case of philosophy, from its very beginning, it has made reality claims with little to no attempt to subject them to reality tests.
It does. It's just a different kind of test. Oh blah... from its very beginning, what separated philosophy from religion was that it used empirical evidence. The first scientists were all natural philosophers. They were interested in nature and made observations about it. And FYI, the first philosopher Thales was a scientist.

The following is a summary from The Pre-Socratics.

A.1 The Origins of Philosophy

On May 28, 585 B.C. a solar eclipse cast Greece temporarily into darkness. There had been solar eclipses in this part of the world before, of course, but this one was unique. What was so special about this eclipse was that it had been predicted. And it is the prediction of this solar eclipse which is widely agreed upon as the birth of science and philosophy (this far back in history the two disciplines are indistinguishable), and the predictor, Thales of Miletus, as the first practitioner of this new discipline.

What does it mean to say that Thales was the first philosopher and scientist? Certainly it does not mean that he was the first person to investigate nature and to ask the questions "how?" and "why?" For almost as long as there have been human beings, there have been attempts to explain the world around us. Even the most ancient cultures asked fundamental questions about the workings of natural phenomena and about our place within the cosmos. What distinguishes Thales' attempt from all those that went before him?

There are two primary characteristics that distinguish Thales from all previous thinkers. First, he separated the natural world from the supernatural world by recognizing that natural events fall into general classes (such as earthquakes, rather than a specific earthquake) and that these general classes of events can be explained by appealing to regular sequences of cause and effect, rather than to random acts on the part of anthropomorphic gods. His explanations, unlike the explanations of all those who went before him, do not attribute any sort of human personality to nature. All the previous attempts to understand the world can be described as "mythologies." To answer the questions "why?" and "how?" earlier investigators personified natural phenomena into gods and goddesses, giving them human psychologies and human motivations. Divine jealousies, love affairs, births and deaths provided the framework for explaining the natural world.

Thales' second achievement was to recognize the superiority of rational argument over all other sorts of authority. In the Greece of Thales' day, it was the poets, such as Homer and Hesiod, who had the authority to give explanations of the world, and this authority did not rest in their impressive use of reason, but in their aesthetic sensibility and their alleged divine inspiration (every poem began with an invocation of the divine muses, who were thought to inspire the poet and to speak through him). Though in some sense these accounts were rational (e.g. Hesiod claimed that mountains were born of the earth and that night was born of day) what made one account superior to another was its greater explanatory power. Thales, on the other hand, recognized that what makes one explanation better than another is how well it fits with, and accounts for, the evidence.

Thales, then, was the first to react against the poetic, mythological tradition that (1) attempted to explain nature by projecting human personalities onto it, and (2) appealed to divine authority and literary merit rather than to rationality. Like the poets of his age, Thales wanted to give an account of the origins of the universe (a cosmogony) and to explain the phenomena he observed around him. But unlike all those who had gone before him, he wanted to give this account in natural, rational terms. His was an attempt to discover a real lawfulness within nature, and so observation and prediction become of crucial importance: observation because it reveals the patterns within nature, prediction because it confirms that the patterns thus deduced are correct. In this light, we can see why Thales' prediction of the solar eclipse of 585 B.C. is commonly viewed as the birth of science. What enabled Thales to make this prediction was his newfangled belief in the inherent lawfulness in nature, the belief that natural phenomena follow certain fixed patterns of cause and effect.

It is easy to overlook the enormity of this achievement; when we turn to the content of Thales' philosophy it sounds downright laughable (his fundamental tenet, after all, is that everything in the world is really water). Modern students are tempted to dismiss this hypothesis as a ridiculous mistake and to overlook the enormous cognitive advance that it represents. But Thales' water- centric theory, however off target, is at least trying to give the right sort of explanation, an explanation that treats nature as lawful and as wholly separate from the supernatural, and that at the very least uses rational argument to back up all claims.
"

It was the insistence of early scientists that reality tests be made that created the break between science and philosophy. If those pioneers of science had stayed with the program of philosophy we would still be talking about phlogiston and be trying to turn lead into gold using alchemy.
Yeah, Thales has nothing to do with the birth of science. :rolleyes:

So when philosophers make claims about literature, language or grammar or anything else having to do with reality they should not be concerned about the thoughts of the philosophers of the past but instead should be concentrating on what evidence there is to support their claims. This complete disregard for reality puts philosophy in the same category as the religious and borders on fraud.
Philosophy is based on evidence! Philosophical evidence is just different from the one you're talking about. What kind of evidence do you want when you're extracting philosophical themes from a piece of literature or art?? There is a method for that too, and the evidence is also different.

In the case of mathematics, in its purest form, it not only makes no reality claims but also could care less about reality. The fact that it can be used to describe reality actually irks some mathematicians. In regards to a reality check for mathematics, I have no issues.
That's not what I said. As far as I'm concerned there is "no requirement" for reality checks in mathematics, either. Why is your opinion about it any different than about philosophy? And where would science be without math?

Mathematics and literature is a topic you have injected into this discussion, not I.
Yes, yes, I did.

Lastly, I am not concerned about the questions philosophy asks, since I have yet to see that its answers have any validity in reality.
If you are not concerned with the questions that philosophy ask then why hell are you even in this forum?

[freeth1nker]

Originally posted by Starboy
Yet another definition of philosophy:

“Philosophy is the pursuit of meanings”

Hmmmmmm, sounds like religion to me.

Starboy

No. The definition for religion is... (from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

religion (rî-lîj´en) noun
Abbr. rel., relig.
1. a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Do you see "the pursuit of meanings" anywhere? Nope.
And btw, what wordfailure there wasn't a "definition", it was an interpretation.


This is irking me intensely. Frankly, I don't see how anyone could go through life without philosophizing. What would you do about moral issues? What is right and wrong? Science don't tell you the answers to that. Do you just accept popular opinions about morality?
I could go on & on. But I don't think I want to, it's been a joyous and eventful night for me. I've accomplished in my 17 years of existence what took Wittgenstein the good part of his lifetime: I came out of the closet.
I'll be back to entertain your ludicrous derisions of philosophy tomorrow.

[99Percent]

Philosophy is about first determining what are the questions that are unanswerable and then attempt to answer them.
Where do we come from? How and why do we exist? Do we even exist? What is the purpose of existence if any? What is happiness? Can we be happy? What happens when you die? Why do we die? Do we really die even? Must we die? Can't we live forever? What is truth? What is knowledge and how do we acquire it? Can we know everything? Do we even know anything? What is good or bad? Does good and evil even exist? What or who determines what is good or bad, and why? What is consciousness? Does consciousness even exist? What is pain and pleasure? Where does pain and pleasure come from? Where does everything come from? Where is it going to end? Is it going to end even? Do we have free will? What is free will? What is time? What is the past, present and the future? (insert your own questions here)
The difference between philosophy and religion is that the philosopher doesn't pretend to have all the answers to the above, much to the contrary he knows that these are tough questions with no definitive answers. Religion OTOH pretends to have all these questions answered even dogmatically so.

Personally I think anyone who values his own existence should attempt to try to answer these question himself.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
No. The definition for religion is... (from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

religion (rî-lîj´en) noun
Abbr. rel., relig.
1. a. Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe. b. A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
2. The life or condition of a person in a religious order.
3. A set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.
4. A cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Do you see "the pursuit of meanings" anywhere? Nope.
And btw, what wordfailure there wasn't a "definition", it was an interpretation.


This is irking me intensely. Frankly, I don't see how anyone could go through life without philosophizing. What would you do about moral issues? What is right and wrong? Science don't tell you the answers to that. Do you just accept popular opinions about morality?
I could go on & on. But I don't think I want to, it's been a joyous and eventful night for me. I've accomplished in my 17 years of existence what took Wittgenstein the good part of his lifetime: I came out of the closet.
I'll be back to entertain your ludicrous derisions of philosophy tomorrow.

Freeth1nker, I am not claiming that "the pursuit of meanings" is the definition of philosophy, it is wordfailure. Take it up with him/her. This thread as others like it point out just how busted philosophy is, since few can agree on what philosophy is. Many of its advocates appear to think it is everything. In looking at 99Percent’s post it would appear that (s)he sees it as a kind of contemplation. I have no problem with that. Its interesting to note that for a good many of those so called “philosophical questions” just a dollop of actual knowledge about reality can lead to far more insights then the constant “mind” centric drone that is so often encountered in classic philosophical reveries. But if you see philosophy as contemplation that is fine with me, but instead of calling it philosophy why not call it contemplation?

But Freeth1nker, you are not saying that philosophy is contemplation, you said “philosophy = thinking = language = grammar”. It is such classic philosophy BS it made me want to retch. Thinking, language and grammar were going on long before anyone could even remotely be thought of as a philosopher. They are part of reality and can best be understood by taking a reality centric approach not the classic “mind” centric approach of philosophy.

Starboy

[Starboy]

Freeth1nker, as long as you are trotting out the definitions here is what Webster’s has to say about philosophy:

From Websters
Main Entry: phi·los·o·phy
Pronunciation: f&-'lä-s(&-)fE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -phies
Etymology: Middle English philosophie, from Old French, from Latin philosophia, from Greek, from philosophos philosopher
Date: 14th century
1 a (1) : all learning exclusive of technical precepts and practical arts (2) : the sciences and liberal arts exclusive of medicine, law, and theology <a doctor of philosophy> (3) : the 4-year college course of a major seminary b (1) archaic : PHYSICAL SCIENCE (2) : ETHICS c : a discipline comprising as its core logic, aesthetics, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology
2 a : pursuit of wisdom b : a search for a general understanding of values and reality by chiefly speculative rather than observational means c : an analysis of the grounds of and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs
3 a : a system of philosophical concepts b : a theory underlying or regarding a sphere of activity or thought <the philosophy of war> <philosophy of science>
4 a : the most general beliefs, concepts, and attitudes of an individual or group b : calmness of temper and judgment befitting a philosopher

1a. (1) All learning that is not practical – hmmmm that’s what I’ve been saying!

1a(2) Apparently physics is philosophy but medicine is not?

1b. (1) science == philosophy. That’s funny, I didn’t learn physics from philosophers, they were scientists.

1b(2) ethics == philosophy, yeah right.

1c. Now this is what is taught in philosophy departments and is considered to be philosophy by the vast majority that teach the subject.

2a. pursuit of wisdom – so broad as to make everything philosophy. A distinction that makes no distinction is no distinction.

2b. BINGO!

2c. Could be what you were trying to define it as. However I can’t help but think that if philosophy were serious about analyzing the grounds and concepts expressing fundamental beliefs it would do less BS and more actual research on human beings.

3a. an incestuous definition.

3b. That is no longer the fashion. People now prefer to talk of <science of war> or <science of advertising>. Philosophy is too lame.

4a. bordering on religion.

4b. WTF?


Originally posted by freeth1nker
Those who make reality claims have their own ways of checking. It's just not the way we're used to.

There is also a philosophical method for reality claims. Why am I repeating myself? It's just not sinking in for you, is it?

It does. It's just a different kind of test. Oh blah...

Freeth1nker, you appear to agree with me that philosophy makes no attempt to check its claims against reality.

Originally posted from freeth1nkerfrom its very beginning, what separated philosophy from religion was that it used empirical evidence. The first scientists were all natural philosophers. They were interested in nature and made observations about it. And FYI, the first philosopher Thales was a scientist.

Yeah, Thales has nothing to do with the birth of science. :rolleyes:[/b]

Freeth1nker, back in the time of Thales no one called themselves philosophers or scientists. The distinction between the two occurred many centuries later. It does point out that philosophers have this nasty habit of declaring people philosopher even if those people viewed philosophy with contempt. Bacon is a classic example and is considered to be one of the founders of science. If you read Bacon he sounds just like me. He was disgusted with philosophy because it made reality claims with no attempt to verify those claims against reality.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Philosophy is based on evidence! Philosophical evidence is just different from the one you're talking about. What kind of evidence do you want when you're extracting philosophical themes from a piece of literature or art?? There is a method for that too, and the evidence is also different.

freeth1nker, your argument is more philosophical sophistry. Philosophy has evidence but it is not evidence? What you are saying is that you have to cut philosophers slack because philosophy is slack. What has not occurred to you is that there is a new way to knowledge called science that has set a new standard for claims and evidence. If philosophy can’t cut it then fine, but why should I or anyone else take is seriously?

Originally posted by freeth1nker
That's not what I said. As far as I'm concerned there is "no requirement" for reality checks in mathematics, either. Why is your opinion about it any different than about philosophy? And where would science be without math?

It is what you said, by way of comparison of philosophy to mathematics and science. When you screw up admit it, oops, I forgot, that isn’t what philosophers do. I am not comparing mathematics to anything. You have injected this red herring into the discussion and you admit it. Mathematics is a different subject. As for where science would be without math I do not know. Many developments in science have pushed advances in mathematics and visa versa. There is also a good deal of science that contains little to no mathematics, such as TOE and there is a great deal of mathematics that most scientists could care less about. But again you have changed the subject because this discussion is not about the use of mathematics to science but about the reality challenged nature of philosophy.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
If you are not concerned with the questions that philosophy ask then why hell are you even in this forum?

freeth1nker, the OP of this thread was “In greeting I extend this post, and ask you what I and many of my fellow students, and even many of my professors seem to ask ourselves: What is Philosophy?!”

The answers to that question I think illustrate nicely just how busted philosophy is as a discipline.

Starboy

[99Percent]

I can see why freeth1nker is getting exasperated. I will try to take it from here if he doesn't mind :)
Originally posted by Starboy
Freeth1nker, I am not claiming that "the pursuit of meanings" is the definition of philosophy, it is wordfailure. Take it up with him/her. This thread as others like it point out just how busted philosophy is, since few can agree on what philosophy is. I agree that the word "philosophy" has been abused tremendously lately. College professors have made philosophy a joke. Some "philosophers" themselves have pretended to completely destroyed it as even valid. But that doesn't mean that we don't each ask basic philosophical questions (like the ones in my previous post). Its fundamental human nature to think about these questions. And that is what philosophy is really about. You can either ignore the questions (can't see how though), try to answer them (philosophy) or blindly accept the answers of others (religion).Many of its advocates appear to think it is everything.Its not everything, but it is the fundament to knowledge. You can't pursue science for example if you don't have a philosophical base that supports science as a valid method to acquire knowledge.In looking at 99Percent’s post it would appear that (s)he sees it as a kind of contemplation. I have no problem with that.What do you mean "its a contemplation"?Its interesting to note that for a good many of those so called “philosophical questions” just a dollop of actual knowledge about reality can lead to far more insights then the constant “mind” centric drone that is so often encountered in classic philosophical reveries.I challenge you to answer these questions using "actual knowledge". First define "actual knowledge" and then list each one of these questions with their respective answer using "actual knowledge".But if you see philosophy as contemplation that is fine with me, but instead of calling it philosophy why not call it contemplation?Again, what do you mean by contemplation? Lets look at the dictionary definition:

con·tem·pla·tion n.
1. The act or state of contemplating.
2. Thoughtful observation or study.
3. Meditation on spiritual matters, especially as a form of devotion.
4. Intention or expectation: sought further information in contemplation of a career change.

Definition #1 is circular. #3 seems to relate to a mindless activity and #4 too mundane. #2 is the only one that might have relevance but I don't think so. "Observation or study" is not about asking fundamental questions and trying to answer them. Better stick with the word "philosophy".But Freeth1nker, you are not saying that philosophy is contemplation, you said “philosophy = thinking = language = grammar”. It is such classic philosophy BS it made me want to retch. Thinking, language and grammar were going on long before anyone could even remotely be thought of as a philosopher.Incorrect. We can suppose that they all occured at the same time. When ancient humans buried their dead (and this can be seen with archeology), they were already having philosophical thoughts.They are part of reality and can best be understood by taking a reality centric approach not the classic “mind” centric approach of philosophy.You might be surprised to find out that this last statement of yours is actually a philosophical one.

We can explore it even further - What is reality? How do we know what is reality? Is your reality the same as mine? How would you know that? Is it possible to know that? Can reality be communicated (language)? How is it communicated (grammar)? ect.

[freeth1nker]

Okay. I will try one last time.

Originally posted by Starboy
Freeth1nker, I am not claiming that "the pursuit of meanings" is the definition of philosophy
I didn't either. I said it was an interpretation.


, it is wordfailure. Take it up with him/her.
I have no problem with his/her interpretation of philosophy. You equated it to religion, and I was demonstrating why it's not.

This thread as others like it point out just how busted philosophy is, since few can agree on what philosophy is.
Because it covers so many areas. IMO, that is the beauty of philosophy. I will use one more allegory to illustrate this point. From continental philosophy, that "everything is textuality," take a literary text for example. One text with all the same words in it can develop multiple literary interpretations. All equally consistent, but all contradictorary. The fact that no one can agree on a single interpretation doesn't mean it's meaningless. The meaning lies precisely in the plurality of interpretations and I would say the same for philosophy.
Now, I can very well see how you might think this is all BS. That there is only one right path to finding the answers and that's through science. IMO, that kind thinking is more akin to religion.
But looking at the history of philosophers, many philosophers themselves have insisted that they have the one right answer to the problem. Many of them have been dogmatists too. But that still doesn't justify your condemnation of the entirety of philosphy.

Many of its advocates appear to think it is everything. In looking at 99Percent’s post it would appear that (s)he sees it as a kind of contemplation. I have no problem with that. Its interesting to note that for a good many of those so called “philosophical questions” just a dollop of actual knowledge about reality can lead to far more insights then the constant “mind” centric drone that is so often encountered in classic philosophical reveries.
You keep re-asserting that. And I keep asking you to back it up. What kind of reality-based evidence would you look for when trying to find out what is the nature of beauty? Do we have free will? How can one find happiness? (And I don't mean in the sense of endorphines.) Or what is a meaningful life? Please tell me.

But if you see philosophy as contemplation that is fine with me, but instead of calling it philosophy why not call it contemplation?
Well, I would say contemplation is part of philosophy.

But Freeth1nker, you are not saying that philosophy is contemplation, you said “philosophy = thinking = language = grammar”.
It is one interpretation that I was offering for the sake of this discussion. I don't adhere to it as dogmatically as you do to your methods.

It is such classic philosophy BS it made me want to retch. Thinking, language and grammar were going on long before anyone could even remotely be thought of as a philosopher.
No one said they didn't. There is also no restriction which says that philosophers can't study them, or that philosophy can't be those things. Empirical observation has been around long before the discipline of science, but that doesn't mean science isn't about empirical observations. I don't see what your logical fallacy is supposed to prove.

They are part of reality and can best be understood by taking a reality centric approach not the classic “mind” centric approach of philosophy.
Like I said a million times, not all of philosophy is "mind"-centric approach. Those who do did were still following a method. Moreover, some of the questions they deal with are not reality-based, in the limited sense you are using the word "reality."


Edit: I am making a lot of spelling & grammatical errors that completely changed the meaning of my sentences. Plz wait for me to correct them before you reply.

[Starboy]

99Percent, my comment about philosophy as being contemplation was a lame attempt on my part to try to extract what you were trying to communicate as your idea of philosophy. Perhaps what you meant by philosophy is that it is just asking questions but not answering them or perhaps just questions from a specific set of questions? Or only those questions that philosophy has decided to call philosophical? If that is so, what is it that makes them philosophical?

As for science requiring a philosophical base, it is more of what I have been talking about. Why does science require a philosophical base to explore reality? Isn’t this just a presumption on the part of philosophers that somehow they have knowledge of reality that is important in exploring reality? If so how did they come by it and how do they know it is important? It is yet another example of the "mind" centric approach of philosophy and how it presumes a view of reality it doesn't posses. You see, you can’t escape the fact that if your goal is to understand reality there is no substitute for actual explorations of reality. Philosophical musing are just BS.

Starboy

[99Percent]

Starboy, first understand that science is a method, a tool for acquiring knowledge. Science itself is not knowledge. Knowledge is what you have in your head (maybe).

Philosophy is about figuring out if science is a valid tool or method for getting knowledge.

You see, you can’t escape the fact that if your goal is to understand reality there is no substitute for actual explorations of reality.Which this in itself is a philosophical claim. You haven't answered me yet: what is reality? what is an understanding of reality? What is an "exploration"? etc.

[freeth1nker]

Sorry 99percent. Didn't see your post. I think we must've posted ours at around the same time. BTW, I'm a she. Continue on please...

[freeth1nker]

Okay, okay. I promise this will be my last post.

The meaning of philosophy isn't in the denotations for the word.
I don't agree with what Mr. Webster has to say. And if the person in OP was only looking for that, why don't you think he/she just looked it up in a dictionary? Because we all know that dictionary sometimes give inaccurate definitions. Look at what they say about atheism:

Main Entry: athe·ist
Pronunciation: 'A-thE-ist
Function: noun
Date: 1571
: one who denies the existence of God
- athe·is·tic /"A-thE-'is-tik/ or athe·is·ti·cal /"A-thE-'is-ti-k&l/ adjective
- athe·is·ti·cal·ly /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb

I wouldn't say that an atheist "denies" the existence of God, like there is a God in the first place, and we are just "denying" it. I would much prefer something along the lines of "one who lacks belief in the existence of any dieties."
Of course, the last entry for religion that I posted was also hotly disputed: "A cause, a principle, or an activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion." I could insert atheism under "principle" and it would fit the definition of a religion. So the dictionary isn't flawless.
Anyway, I think 99percent gave a good enough distinction between philosophy and religion.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Freeth1nker: Philosophy is based on evidence! Philosophical evidence is just different from the one you're talking about. What kind of evidence do you want when you're extracting philosophical themes from a piece of literature or art?? There is a method for that too, and the evidence is also different.

Starboy: freeth1nker, your argument is more philosophical sophistry. Philosophy has evidence but it is not evidence?

Where in the above quote do you see I say it's not evidence?? I said it's a "different kind of evidence". That is not the same as violating the law of non-contradiction in my book. Where did I ever say "philosphy is evidence but it is not evidence"?? You are putting words into my mouth.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starboy: What you are saying is that you have to cut philosophers slack because philosophy is slack. What has not occurred to you is that there is a new way to knowledge called science that has set a new standard for claims and evidence. If philosophy can’t cut it then fine, but why should I or anyone else take is seriously?

No, I'm not telling you to cut philosophy any slack. I'm just insisting on a little more open-mindedness in looking at things like evidence.
Once more, a clarification:
First let's look at what evidence is. Not to obsfucate things, I will just use the first entry in my dictionary.
1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment
And now take
A scientifice question:
A) What are the mechanisms of genetic variation overtime?
A philosophy question:
B) What is good and evil?
The kind of "things" we look for to form a conclusion about A) would be very different than the kind of "things" we look for in trying to answer B). Don't you agree? That's what I mean by a different kind of evidence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Freeth1nker: It is what you said, by way of comparison of philosophy to mathematics and science. When you screw up admit it, oops, I forgot, that isn’t what philosophers do.

No. I was comparing it because you are objecting to philosophy on its lack of a "reality basis." I was merely pointing out that it was also true for many other disciplines and that if you think that of philosophy, why doesn't that same critique apply to others as well? I never said philosophy is math! They both have one thing in common that you object to: their reality-challenged nature!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the questions in that post I've already replied to.


Addenum: For people like Thales, the reason they are considered philosophers and scientists is because like Aristotle, their writings concerned both physics and metaphysics.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
I have no problem with his/her interpretation of philosophy. You equated it to religion, and I was demonstrating why it's not.

When I compare philosophy to religion what I am saying is that like religion philosophy makes presumptions about reality without any requirement to check them against reality.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Because it covers so many areas. IMO, that is the beauty of philosophy. I will use one more allegory to illustrate this point. From continental philosophy, that "everything is textuality," take a literary text for example. One text with all the same words in it can develop multiple literary interpretations. All equally consistent, but all contradictorary. The fact that no one can agree on a single interpretation doesn't mean it's meaningless. The meaning lies precisely in the plurality of interpretations and I would say the same for philosophy.

In this particular interpretation of philosophy, as I see it, all you are saying is that different people can see things in different ways. Is that so? Are you tying to say that philosophies are like assholes? Everybody has got one.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Now, I can very well see how you might think this is all BS. That there is only one right path to finding the answers and that's through science. IMO, that kind thinking is more akin to religion.

Maybe it is religion, but science is based on a very simple idea. If you want to know about something study the actual thing, not other’s speculations. In other words if your goal is to understand reality there is no substitute for actual exploration on reality.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
But looking at the history of philosophers, many philosophers themselves have insisted that they have the one right answer to the problem. Many of them have been dogmatists too. But that still doesn't justify your condemnation of the entirety of philosphy.

Rejection because of dogmatism is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one. In fact I agree that science is dogmatic. I further contend that it is the specific dogma of science that has driven its success. You see, dogmatically requiring natural phenomenon be explained naturally and that those explanations must be supported by further observation and experimentation of nature is practiced very dogmatically by science.

It is because of the incredible success of science in demonstrating how important it is to actually study reality to understand it, that I reject philosophy due to its many reality claims that it blindly hangs onto due to its religious presumption of a view of reality that it doesn't posses.

Scientist may be dogmatic but they have the good sense to not assume what it is they are trying to understand. I guess that is at the root of their dogmatism and the primary reason philosophy is wacko.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
You keep re-asserting that. And I keep asking you to back it up. What kind of reality-based evidence would you look for when trying to find out what is the nature of beauty? Do we have free will? How can one find happiness? (And I don't mean in the sense of endorphines.) Or what is a meaningful life? Please tell me..

It was a long list and I do not contend that my claim applied to all the questions, but as an example lets take this one:

"What is pain and pleasure?"

The philosopher would go on forever about the mind, being and existence. The scientist would set up a lab experiment on test subjects, take measurements, propose explanations, test those explanations, publish their results and so forth. The explanations they have come up with are well known and have to do with stimulating specific nerves that transmit those stimuli to the brain where they are interpreted as pleasure and/or pain.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Well, I would say contemplation is part of philosophy.

It is one interpretation that I was offering for the sake of this discussion. I don't adhere to it as dogmatically as you do to your methods.

freeth1nker, I have no idea of what philosophy is and as far as I can tell neither do its advocates. Be that as it may, I have seen philosophical presumptions about reality stated often with no desire or attempt to back them up with actual observation of reality. Such things are just not what philosophers do. Even so, for me that is just one of the several things that causes me to dismiss philosophy as BS.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
No one said they didn't. There is also no restriction which says that philosophers can't study them, or that philosophy can't be those things. Empirical observation has been around long before the discipline of science, but that doesn't mean science isn't about empirical observations. I don't see what your logical fallacy is supposed to prove.

Philosophers can study anything they want. I have no problem with that. What I’m bothered by is their claims that what they have to say is important to science, art or anything else other than philosophy. I will agree that philosophers are very qualified to comment on philosophy so much so that based on much of what is published in philosophy today I would say that that philosophy IS the study of philosophy.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Like I said a million times, not all of philosophy is "mind"-centric approach. Those who do did were still following a method. Moreover, some of the questions they deal with are not reality-based, in the limited sense you are using the word "reality."

I agree, not all philosophy is mind centric. But gee, I bet if you did a survey of the philosophical literature published as philosophy over the last 500 years I would hazard a guess that %99.999 of it is. Now if philosophers were very keen to distance themselves from their past and made it clear to all new students of philosophy, that was then this is now, well then I would say that you had a point. But hell, they are not only teaching the dross of 500 years ago, they teaching the crap of over 2,000 years ago as if it were important. Now you might say, oh my, that is not the intent. Philosophers teach that crap because they want their students to learn how to think by looking at the thinking of all those reality challenged philosophers. Well its not working! What you get from these philosophers is more regurgitation of those old lame ideas! And just about all of them are clueless to the presumptions they have picked up from their studies.

Starboy

[Starboy]

Originally posted by 99Percent
Starboy, first understand that science is a method, a tool for acquiring knowledge. Science itself is not knowledge. Knowledge is what you have in your head (maybe).

Philosophy is about figuring out if science is a valid tool or method for getting knowledge.

Which this in itself is a philosophical claim. You haven't answered me yet: what is reality? what is an understanding of reality? What is an "exploration"? etc.

99Percent, you go on thinking that science has no knowledge in and of itself. Furthermore you keep on thinking that an enterprise that is unable or unwilling to test its claims against reality is competent to comment on an endeavor that does actual explorations of reality. And lastly you keep using that hammer (the only tool you understand) on what you see as a nail (everything). Just don't expect me to see philosophy as relevant or important to anything but philosophy.

Starboy

[Starboy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
The meaning of philosophy isn't in the denotations for the word.

That is fine with me. I have seen the definitions offered in its stead and it appears they hold great meaning to those that think they understand philosophy but leave me flat since I make no such claim.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Where in the above quote do you see I say it's not evidence?? I said it's a "different kind of evidence". That is not the same as violating the law of non-contradiction in my book. Where did I ever say "philosphy is evidence but it is not evidence"?? You are putting words into my mouth.

Okay, I am putting words in your mouth. You will have to clarify what you mean by “a different kind of evidence”.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
No, I'm not telling you to cut philosophy any slack. I'm just insisting on a little more open-mindedness in looking at things like evidence.
Once more, a clarification:
First let's look at what evidence is. Not to obsfucate things, I will just use the first entry in my dictionary.
1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment
And now take
A scientifice question:
A) What are the mechanisms of genetic variation overtime?
A philosophy question:
B) What is good and evil?
The kind of "things" we look for to form a conclusion about A) would be very different than the kind of "things" we look for in trying to answer B). Don't you agree? That's what I mean by a different kind of evidence.

I disagree. You can look at good and evil philosophically or you can look at it scientifically, you could study good and evil as social phenomenon. Now I understand your point, which I think illustrates quite nicely what I am getting at. If you were someone that wanted to have a good understanding as to what good and evil was would you read the work of philosophers each taking a stance from their own “mind” making implicit and explicit claims full of the presumptions of their own experience and culture with no clear way of separating one from the other or would you read the work of scientists that have studied good and evil across many cultures, conducted experiments, and checked their claims and explanations with further study of other cultures and circumstances. The answer is obvious, the scientific study is most likely to be the most informative and most likely to reveal the prejudices that plague philosophy but remain hidden because of the presumption of a view of reality that they do not posses. That is my point.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
No. I was comparing it because you are objecting to philosophy on its lack of a "reality basis." I was merely pointing out that it was also true for many other disciplines and that if you think that of philosophy, why doesn't that same critique apply to others as well? I never said philosophy is math! They both have one thing in common that you object to: their reality-challenged nature!

I think we have already been over this. For some reason you think a comparison between mathematics and philosophy is reasonable. I don’t think so. As I have said before, I don’t think there is a comparison because mathematics makes no reality claims whereas philosophy does. Mathematics doesn't even make any claims that mathematics is important to reality; it is science that claims it is useful for describing reality. Also as I have repeated several times before, if other human endeavors make reality claims without any attempt to justify those claims against reality then I do take issue with them especially if they insist that what they have to say is important.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Addenum: For people like Thales, the reason they are considered philosophers and scientists is because like Aristotle, their writings concerned both physics and metaphysics.

A distinction only important to philosophers.

Starboy

[freeth1nker]

I know I said my previous post would be the last one, but I lied. This is just pissing me off now. Starboy, if you think philosophy is all BS, then why did you bother to come here? A dogmatic adherence to science is just as unreasonable as blind faith in a religion. All your criticisms of philosophy have all been completely based on your so-called reality-based approach, and yet you've failed to demonstrate what exactly you mean by reality.

Originally posted by Starboy
Maybe it is religion, but science is based on a very simple idea. If you want to know about something study the actual thing, not other’s speculations. In other words if your goal is to understand reality there is no substitute for actual exploration on reality.
And philosophers do that, without resorting to dogmatism.

Rejection because of dogmatism is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one. In fact I agree that science is dogmatic. I further contend that it is the specific dogma of science that has driven its success.
Well, any dogma can be succesful. Just look at religion. It's been the paradigmatic crux for centuries before science took on that role recently. The fact that something is successful does not attest to its reasonableness, or justifies why it should be followed.

It is because of the incredible success of science in demonstrating how important it is to actually study reality to understand it, that I reject philosophy due to its many reality claims that it blindly hangs onto due to its religious presumption of a view of reality that it doesn't posses.
What "religious presumptions" are you talking about? A majority of philosophy surely is not based on any religious presumptions. Science itself hangs blindly to its own metaphysical presumptions; this is what makes it important to study how we study reality.

Scientist may be dogmatic but they have the good sense to not assume what it is they are trying to understand. I guess that is at the root of their dogmatism and the primary reason philosophy is wacko.
I don't see how philosophers "assume" what they are trying to understand? Your assertion that "philosophy is wacko" because scientists don't assume is a total non-sequitur.


Freeth1nker: You keep re-asserting that. And I keep asking you to back it up. What kind of reality-based evidence would you look for when trying to find out what is the nature of beauty? Do we have free will? How can one find happiness? (And I don't mean in the sense of endorphines.) Or what is a meaningful life? Please tell me..

Starboy: It was a long list and I do not contend that my claim applied to all the questions,
Then you concede that there are different kinds of evidence than just scientific evidence? And that philosophical questions necessitate a completely different approach than scientific questions? That was the whole point I was trying to make! That in those areas, the scientific method is inept, and that is where philosophy becomes meaningful!

but as an example lets take this one:

"What is pain and pleasure?"

The philosopher would go on forever about the mind, being and existence. The scientist would set up a lab experiment on test subjects, take measurements, propose explanations, test those explanations, publish their results and so forth. The explanations they have come up with are well known and have to do with stimulating specific nerves that transmit those stimuli to the brain where they are interpreted as pleasure and/or pain.
If you are asking what pain and pleasure, in a restrictly scientific sense, then I don't see what there is for a philosopher to do. You just used a biased example to demonstrate your point. There are some questions that can be clearly answered by other fields where philosophy don't need to intervene.
Also, some questions have numerous perspectives, i.e. scientific, philosophical, sociological, etc. The fact that you are only interested in the scientific dimension of a phenomenon doesn't mean that everything else is irrelevant.

freeth1nker, I have no idea of what philosophy is and as far as I can tell neither do its advocates.
As far as I can tell, with your dogmatic ignorance of philosophy, you are in no position to be commenting on what its advocates know or don't know about it.

Be that as it may, I have seen philosophical presumptions about reality stated often with no desire or attempt to back them up with actual observation of reality.
And I have seen philosophical presumptions about reality stated often with desire and attempt to back them up with actual observation of reality. (I gave an example earlier with Chomsky.) What's your point?

Such things are just not what philosophers do.
Such things are just not what you say they do.

Philosophers can study anything they want. I have no problem with that. What I’m bothered by is their claims that what they have to say is important to science, art or anything else other than philosophy.
So if a biologist comes up with a theory that completely contradicts the laws of physics, the physicists should just stick their noses out of it, right?

I agree, not all philosophy is mind centric. But gee, I bet if you did a survey of the philosophical literature published as philosophy over the last 500 years I would hazard a guess that %99.999 of it is.
Let's see you back up that claim with some evidence. Amidst the fevour of modern day science, I would say that the majority of contemporary philosphers are eager to back up their claims to empirical research.

Now if philosophers were very keen to distance themselves from their past and made it clear to all new students of philosophy, that was then this is now, well then I would say that you had a point.
Um... jeez, do you think it's not clear to students that when they are reading Aristotle, it is not written in their present era? (It is also not that difficult to find out what time period something is written in.) And as for scientific errors, well, they didn't have particle accelerators 2000 years ago. Nonetheless, I've never seen any philosophy instructor insisting that these scientific mistakes be taken as facts. For someone who despises irrelevant claims that are utterly lacking in evidence, you sure love making them.

But hell, they are not only teaching the dross of 500 years ago, they teaching the crap of over 2,000 years ago as if it were important.
If they are trying to talk about intellectual history, then yeah, it is important. Like I said again, no philosophy prof ever insists that we substitute today's scientific discoveries for something believed 2000 years ago.

Now you might say, oh my, that is not the intent. Philosophers teach that crap because they want their students to learn how to think by looking at the thinking of all those reality challenged philosophers.
I don't see a better way to encourage open-minded thinking. Maybe we should just indoctrinate them with your scientific dogma and we'll have a utpoia. :rolleyes:

Well its not working! What you get from these philosophers is more regurgitation of those old lame ideas!
Firstly, there has to be some original ideas in order for them to be regurgitated. And where do you think they come from? Oh that's right, through re-evaluation of the old ideas!

And just about all of them are clueless to the presumptions they have picked up from their studies.
Speak for yourself.

That is fine with me. I have seen the definitions offered in its stead and it appears they hold great meaning to those that think they understand philosophy but leave me flat since I make no such claim.
So what you don't understand is BS??

You will have to clarify what you mean by “a different kind of evidence”.
I did! Read that post again.

I disagree. You can look at good and evil philosophically or you can look at it scientifically, you could study good and evil as social phenomenon. Now I understand your point, which I think illustrates quite nicely what I am getting at. If you were someone that wanted to have a good understanding as to what good and evil was would you read the work of philosophers each taking a stance from their own “mind” making implicit and explicit claims full of the presumptions of their own experience and culture with no clear way of separating one from the other or would you read the work of scientists that have studied good and evil across many cultures, conducted experiments, and checked their claims and explanations with further study of other cultures and circumstances.
It is true that philosophical works often contains the cultural/historical biases of its authors, but so do scientific works! An anthropologist, in the attempt to study the culture of indigenous tribes in the Amazon, interferes with that culture and their reports are often saturated with their personal baises. This happens all the time. This is what makes social sciences, unlike the natural sciences, extremely tricky business. Different scientists, based on the same facts, can come to radically different conclusions.
Moreover, your example doesn't illustrate your point at all. Okay, let's say you look over the research of several social scientists and you will see that different cultures had many different notions of morality. In Alexander the Great's time, incest was okay. In the 18th century England, slavery was not considered immoral. Today, there seems to be a huge taboo for homosexuality. I'm sure your research will reveal all these facts, but science can't tell you what is good and evil. From that point on, how could you determine what exactly is morality? The scientific method is very good for uncovering facts but it won't tell you how you should treat your neighbour.

The answer is obvious,
Only according to your short-sighted perspective.

the scientific study is most likely to be the most informative and most likely to reveal the prejudices that plague philosophy but remain hidden because of the presumption of a view of reality that they do not posses. That is my point.
I'm sure scientists are objectively insouciant creatures that don't hold a single prejudice. The scientific community has as much politics and prejudices as any other field. Science may reveal our prejudices, but it is human nature to retain them. Morality is itself prejudicial, because you are preferring one set of ethics over another; unless of course, you argue for something like universal morality, but then you'd have to be a philosopher. :p

Edited with a little less ad hominems.

[99Percent]

Originally posted by Starboy
99Percent, you go on thinking that science has no knowledge in and of itself. That is correct. Please refute what I am saying, if you care, instead of just reasserting it.Furthermore you keep on thinking that an enterprise that is unable or unwilling to test its claims against reality is competent to comment on an endeavor that does actual explorations of reality.You have refused to answer my questions regarding the nature of reality, so your point remains baseless. And lastly you keep using that hammer (the only tool you understand) on what you see as a nail (everything).We don't even claim we "understand" (whatever that means) philosophy itself. You are the one using the hammer (science), the only tool you understand, to attempt to nail everything including philosophy.Just don't expect me to see philosophy as relevant or important to anything but philosophy.What is ironic is that you are using philosophy yourself, without even realizing it ;) You already have a philosophical outlook, for better or for worse.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by 99Percent
That is correct. Please refute what I am saying, if you care, instead of just reasserting it.

99Percent is it very arrogant to presume that philosophy is the only way to know things. Science is an ancient word for knowing. And there is no doubt that scientific knowledge exists. Now it is interesting that a philosopher would claim that science doesn’t have knowledge. How reality challenged can you get.

Originally posted by 99Percent
You have refused to answer my questions regarding the nature of reality, so your point remains baseless.

Here is the part that I don’t think you will understand. Science doesn’t claim to know reality. It claims to seek to know and understand reality. You see if scientists knew reality they would not have to spend all that time and money constantly exploring it. Not only do scientists not know reality they may never know reality. That being said, they know far more about reality than philosophy could ever know. So in answer to your question regarding the nature of reality, stay tuned. Reality is not proved it is discovered.

Originally posted by 99Percent
We don't even claim we "understand" (whatever that means) philosophy itself. You are the one using the hammer (science), the only tool you understand, to attempt to nail everything including philosophy.

Come now 99Percent. The most arrogant presumption of reality has got to be metaphysics, an endeavor that stinks to high heaven of philosophy. Talk about presuming a view of reality that no one possesses.

Originally posted by 99Percent
What is ironic is that you are using philosophy yourself, without even realizing it ;) You already have a philosophical outlook, for better or for worse.

It’s not really ironic since I am sure that you would claim that everyone has a philosophy whether they like it or not. It is a distinction that is no distinction.

Starboy

[wordfailure]

It's a little surprising to me that someone could read the Suzanne Langer quote I posted and summarize simply that philosophy is the pursuit of meanings, and then to equate that with religion's search for meaning (whether it exists or not). Oh, well. It's unfortunate that Langer didn't foresee a need for more bias-proof language. She could have said 'examination of meaning' perhaps.

But I do feel that there are legitimate criticisms regarding the practicing of philosophy. My personal view of philosophy is that it is how we are forced to deal with unknowns. When things become known, they are, and ought to be, moved out of philosophy. We are going to fuss with unknowns, like it or not. An open, systematic field of study is necessary, lest we all end up with quirky private interpretations of reality nobody else understands. Argument, disagreement, and criticism, even Starboy's kind, are invaluable, IMO.

[Amos]

Originally posted by wordfailure
My personal view of philosophy is that it is how we are forced to deal with unknowns. When things become known, they are, and ought to be, moved out of philosophy. We are going to fuss with unknowns, like it or not.

Well that's interesting because I hold that just the opposite is true. In my view philosophy is the love of wisdom and not the search for wisdom. In our search for wisdom the unknown must first be discovered before it becomes known and once known it becomes part of our outlook on life.

The missing link here is our recognition of the "philosophic mind" wherein the unknown already exists as a known but has not yet become known in our conscious mind. Scientific discovery (the experiment) is a tool used towards our understanding of the unknown that is already known in our philosophic mind but needs to prove itself before we can fully understand it.

[Starboy]

Originally posted by freeth1nker
I know I said my previous post would be the last one, but I lied. This is just pissing me off now. Starboy, if you think philosophy is all BS, then why did you bother to come here?

I wonder myself. You philosophers don’t appear to be as un-dogmatic as you would like to think. Yes I have attacked philosophy, and yes I have derided it and ridiculed it. Many of my serious attacks are obvious. So obvious that I am amazed that most philosophers are not aware of them and do not have arguments to deal with them. I find it fascinating that most responses are not all that thoughtful or insightful. It’s almost as if the vast number of its advocates have adopted philosophy for reasons other than the pursuit of wisdom or knowledge. In any case there is no reason why philosophy should get a free ride and there is no reason why philosophers should not be prepared to listen to and ponder criticisms. My discussions on this forum do not represent philosophy’s finest hour.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
A dogmatic adherence to science is just as unreasonable as blind faith in a religion. All your criticisms of philosophy have all been completely based on your so-called reality-based approach, and yet you've failed to demonstrate what exactly you mean by reality.

Freeth1nker, you have not been pondering what I have been saying. Also your presumption that dogmatism is somehow “bad” is a very philosophical point of view and stinks of its own dogmatism. Open your eyes! Science has its dogmatism and it is working, and it is beating the crap out of philosophy at its own game. As for what I mean by reality, well that is another presumption of philosophy. I can’t tell you what I mean by reality because science it the process of discovering reality. To presume what it is you are tying to discover is what philosophy does! Not science! I can give you a synopsis of what science thinks reality is at this moment but it changes as science discovers more of reality.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
And philosophers do that, without resorting to dogmatism.

Well, any dogma can be succesful. Just look at religion. It's been the paradigmatic crux for centuries before science took on that role recently. The fact that something is successful does not attest to its reasonableness, or justifies why it should be followed.

What "religious presumptions" are you talking about? A majority of philosophy surely is not based on any religious presumptions. Science itself hangs blindly to its own metaphysical presumptions; this is what makes it important to study how we study reality.

Okay freeth1nker ponder this. As un-dogmatic as philosophy would like to think it is, it is as dogmatic as any other human endeavor. If philosophy contained no presumptions it could make no assertions about anything, like the statement that “dogmatism is not what people should do”. Now lets see how un-dogmatic you can be. Let’s assume that religion, philosophy and science all have their dogma, presumptions and claims and that for the last several hundred years we have been witnessing a bakeoff if you will. Let us compare their claims against their results. Religion claims that it can make people moral, that it can save peoples souls and so forth. Philosophy claims that it can help people gain wisdom and that it can help people determine if something is “true” and that by practicing philosophy you can somehow more rigorously explore a subject. Now this is an extreme over simplification but you get the idea. Look at the claims of the disciplines and see how they have succeeded. Let’s see if your philosophical perspective will allow you to perform this in an unbiased way.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
I don't see how philosophers "assume" what they are trying to understand? Your assertion that "philosophy is wacko" because scientists don't assume is a total non-sequitur.

freeth1nker, your answer exposes your own dogmatism and presumption. Philosophy implicitly assumes there is a reality otherwise why all its hubbub of the last several millennium about “truth”. One of the presumptions of philosophy is that “truth” is reality. Yet philosophers have no problem making statements like “you should not be dogmatic” or things like Okham’s razor. When you make statements like this you are presuming properties of reality that few in philosophy seem prepared to question or test. It is one of the many dogmatisms of philosophy. Perhaps it is not a question of dogmatism is bad, but more a question that some dogmas work better at achieving their claims than other dogmas. The fact that philosophy is chock full of dogma and yet is oblivious to this and insists that dogmatic thinking is not to be taken seriously just illustrates how busted it is. I can’t see how anyone can take it seriously.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Then you concede that there are different kinds of evidence than just scientific evidence? And that philosophical questions necessitate a completely different approach than scientific questions? That was the whole point I was trying to make! That in those areas, the scientific method is inept, and that is where philosophy becomes meaningful!

From Websters
Main Entry: 1ev·i·dence
Pronunciation: 'e-v&-d&n(t)s, -v&-"den(t)s
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 a : an outward sign : INDICATION b : something that furnishes proof : TESTIMONY; specifically : something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter
2 : one who bears witness; especially : one who voluntarily confesses a crime and testifies for the prosecution against his accomplices
- in evidence 1 : to be seen : CONSPICUOUS <trim lawns ... are everywhere in evidence -- Amer. Guide Series: N.C.> 2 : as evidence

From dictionary.com
ev·i·dence P Pronunciation Key ( v -d ns)
n.
1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.
2. Something indicative; an outward sign: evidence of grief on a mourner's face.
3. Law. The documentary or oral statements and the material objects admissible as testimony in a court of law.

tr.v. ev·i·denced, ev·i·denc·ing, ev·i·denc·es
1. To indicate clearly; exemplify or prove.
2. To support by testimony; attest.

Idiom:
in evidence
1. Plainly visible; to be seen: It was early, and few pedestrians were in evidence on the city streets.
2. Law As legal evidence: submitted the photograph in evidence.

So which kind of evidence are you talking about?

Originally posted by freeth1nker
If you are asking what pain and pleasure, in a restrictly scientific sense, then I don't see what there is for a philosopher to do. You just used a biased example to demonstrate your point. There are some questions that can be clearly answered by other fields where philosophy don't need to intervene.
Also, some questions have numerous perspectives, i.e. scientific, philosophical, sociological, etc. The fact that you are only interested in the scientific dimension of a phenomenon doesn't mean that everything else is irrelevant.

This is very funny. What is the sociological perspective and where do I go to see things from that perspective? Am I already not part of society? Is that not already part of my view of reality? Where do you go to get the philosophical perspective? Do you have to become a ghost or leave your body? As far as I can tell freeth1nker, we all share very similar perspectives of reality. They only differ by the dogmas and presumptions that we apply to color our view. Your philosophical dogma blinds you to this.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
As far as I can tell, with your dogmatic ignorance of philosophy, you are in no position to be commenting on what its advocates know or don't know about it.

Hello! I do not claim to even know what philosophy is. However if you live in this world you will come across the claims, dogma and presumptions of philosophy. After all, as you claim everyone has a philosophy and there has been this human endeavor that calls itself philosophy that has this huge body of literature that has accreted for more than two thousand years. From what I see of it, it is stupid.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
And I have seen philosophical presumptions about reality stated often with desire and attempt to back them up with actual observation of reality. (I gave an example earlier with Chomsky.) What's your point?

freeth1nker, when I answered that so called philosophical question “What is pleasure and pain?” with an explanation based on science you said it wasn’t what philosophers do. Even you seem to understand that when you do science you are being a scientist and not a philosopher. Chomsky’s resort to science is an indication of the failure of philosophy not the strength of philosophy.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
So if a biologist comes up with a theory that completely contradicts the laws of physics, the physicists should just stick their noses out of it, right?

You are so funny freeth1nker. Scientists require that all science be about the same reality. The reality of the biologist is the same reality of the physicist. At any given point in time scientists may not know what the connections are but it is the dogma of science that it is all the same reality. Recent developments in science have born this out. The entire hubbub about genetics is the connection between physics and biology. And if a biologist finds something that contradicts physics the physicists would sit up and take notice. Just as when Astronomers discover things that contradict physics. This is one of the several ways in which Nobel Laureates are made. As per scientific dogma, the reality of the philosopher is the same reality as the physicist or the biologist, or the sociologist, etc. Philosophers for the most part don’t get this. This is because they presume a view of reality that is above reality, a god’s eye view of existence. This view is the metaphysical view. It is the view that is presumed by “truth”. It is the religious view.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Let's see you back up that claim with some evidence. Amidst the fevour of modern day science, I would say that the majority of contemporary philosphers are eager to back up their claims to empirical research.

Okay, lets take Ockham’s razor. Show me the research? How about the philosophical claim that dogma is always bad? Or that philosophy is dogma free? These are biggies! All I see from philosophy with respects to these claims is a big thud!

Originally posted by freeth1nker
Um... jeez, do you think it's not clear to students that when they are reading Aristotle, it is not written in their present era? (It is also not that difficult to find out what time period something is written in.) And as for scientific errors, well, they didn't have particle accelerators 2000 years ago. Nonetheless, I've never seen any philosophy instructor insisting that these scientific mistakes be taken as facts. For someone who despises irrelevant claims that are utterly lacking in evidence, you sure love making them.

That people know the nonsense of Aristotle is not due to the efforts of philosophers but due the efforts of scientists. Even removing the obviously wrong-headed claims of Aristotle, this still leaves a body of claims made by Aristotle that philosophers deem worthy of study, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what they could possible be? You are the philosopher, you tell me.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
If they are trying to talk about intellectual history, then yeah, it is important. Like I said again, no philosophy prof ever insists that we substitute today's scientific discoveries for something believed 2000 years ago.

This is not entirely the case. Philosophy professors claim that you must study these crusty philosophers if you are to understand science today. If that were so then physicists would be studying Aristotle in physics class, instead of Maxwell, Einstein or Feynman. Philosophy claims it is important to study these crusty philosophers but I do not see why it is important. It may have been important a thousand years ago, but it is hardly important today.

Originally posted by freeth1nker
I don't see a better way to encourage open-minded thinking. Maybe we should just indoctrinate them with your scientific dogma and we'll have a utpoia. :rolleyes:

Better yet we should indoctrinate students with the presumptions and dogma of philosophy and make them think that they are being open-minded and free of dogma.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry about not addressing the rest of your points but they appear to be a regurgitation of previous discussions and I tire of the repetition. If you got something new to say let me know, I'll do the same.

Starboy

[Starboy]

Originally posted by Amos
Well that's interesting because I hold that just the opposite is true. In my view philosophy is the love of wisdom and not the search for wisdom. In our search for wisdom the unknown must first be discovered before it becomes known and once known it becomes part of our outlook on life.

The missing link here is our recognition of the "philosophic mind" wherein the unknown already exists as a known but has not yet become known in our conscious mind. Scientific discovery (the experiment) is a tool used towards our understanding of the unknown that is already known in our philosophic mind but needs to prove itself before we can fully understand it.

Hey Amos! How ya been? Yours is the best explanation of the "philosophic mind" I have seen yet.

Starboy

[wordfailure]

Hello, Amos. The 'love of wisdom' thing seems to me like philosophy as thinking for sport. The periodical Philosophy Now has a little "Philosophy in a nutshell" box on the editorial page that says 'philosophy is often translated as love of wisdom or love of truth.' But a magazine for general philosophy seems a bit like recreational thinking, doesn't it? I mean wouldn't you expect that people would have specific concerns that perhaps philosophy could shed light on rather than say 'lets sit down and read some philosophy, whatever it happens to be'? It seems a bit like taking up photography only to focus (puns are dangerous things) on lenses, cameras, films, and such rather than photographs, which are after all the whole point, no? Philosophy itself isn't the point is it? Isn't understanding the real goal?

[Starboy]

Originally posted by wordfailure
It's a little surprising to me that someone could read the Suzanne Langer quote I posted and summarize simply that philosophy is the pursuit of meanings, and then to equate that with religion's search for meaning (whether it exists or not). Oh, well. It's unfortunate that Langer didn't foresee a need for more bias-proof language. She could have said 'examination of meaning' perhaps.

Do you know Suzanne Langer? How do you know what she was trying to say. Without further input from her as to this discussion, she says what she says.

Starboy

[freeth1nker]

First of all, I never said philosophers nor philosophy itself is completely free of dogmas. In fact, I subscribe to Nietzsche's view at the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil that all philosophers have been dogmatists. I don't even think it's humanly possible to rid yourself of all prejudices, and I even said in a prior post that countless philosophers were dogmatists. So I don't get where you get whole idea that philosophers are not dogmatic, or that philosophy claims itself to be undogmatic, but it certainly isn't from me. Would you care to show me some evidence where philosophy thinks of itself as undogmatic? Or did you just pull that whole thing out your ass? Along with all your straw-man arguments about dogmatism...

Originally posted by Starboy
In any case there is no reason why philosophy should get a free ride and there is no reason why philosophers should not be prepared to listen to and ponder criticisms.
If your so-called criticisms actually constituted something more than straw-mans, I might be inclined to take them seriously.

Open your eyes! Science has its dogmatism and it is working, and it is beating the crap out of philosophy at its own game.
WTF? First, you claim you have no idea what philosophy is. Then you say science is beating philosophy at its own game. How the hell can you know that if you don't even know what the game of philosophy is??? Do you simply enjoy making vacuous remarks for the sake of sounding bold?!!!

As for what I mean by reality, well that is another presumption of philosophy. I can’t tell you what I mean by reality because science it the process of discovering reality.
Okay. If you don't know what reality is, then how do you know the things you're discovering is part of reality or not?? Do you simply accept that it is because science has discovered it?

To presume what it is you are tying to discover is what philosophy does! Not science!
How do you know what philosophy does when you don't even know what philosophy is?? (You admitted so yourself.)

Philosophy claims that it can help people gain wisdom and that it can help people determine if something is “true” and that by practicing philosophy you can somehow more rigorously explore a subject.
Well, I can't speak for everybody (and obviously not you) but it has helped me in all of the above areas.

freeth1nker, your answer exposes your own dogmatism and presumption.
Wow. Really? I didn't know you could give an answer without a presumption. :rolleyes:

Philosophy implicitly assumes there is a reality otherwise why all its hubbub of the last several millennium about “truth”.
I thought you said you didn't know what philosophy is, then how do you know what it implicitly assumes? What's more, no one said philosophers don't assume there is a reality.

One of the presumptions of philosophy is that “truth” is reality.
As far as I know, "truth" is what we can know about reality (a term you still refuse to define). But hey, you're the expert on philosophical presumptions. :rolleyes:

Yet philosophers have no problem making statements like “you should not be dogmatic” or things like Okham’s razor.
When you make statements like this you are presuming properties of reality that few in philosophy seem prepared to question or test.
A lot of philosophers question Occam's Razor. And many, i.e. Nietzsche, knows that philosophers are filled with prejudices and dogmatism, himself included. If you are saying that philosophers don't question other philosophers' presumptions, then you're dead wrong. That's what they do.

Perhaps it is not a question of dogmatism is bad, but more a question that some dogmas work better at achieving their claims than other dogmas.
I agree.

The fact that philosophy is chock full of dogma and yet is oblivious to this and insists that dogmatic thinking is not to be taken seriously just illustrates how busted it is. I can’t see how anyone can take it seriously.
Um... please show me evidence where "philosophy" insists that dogmatic thinking is not to be taken seriously.

So which kind of evidence are you talking about?
I've already defined it for you in an earlier: A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment.

This is very funny. What is the sociological perspective and where do I go to see things from that perspective?
I wasn't talking specifically about the issue at hand. Take the example of good and evil question. The sociological perspective would be different society's view of morality and how it affects the people and culture.

Am I already not part of society? Is that not already part of my view of reality?
The sociological perspective has nothing to do with you, it has to do with the study of sociology, which is society as a collective. You, as an individual, may choose to obey of defy your society's norms. Therefore, being a part of society does not a necessarily gives you the sociological perspective if you are a maverick, and probably not of other societies as well.

Where do you go to get the philosophical perspective?
Yourself.

Do you have to become a ghost or leave your body?
No, you become a zombie so you could suck the brains out of dead philosophers. :rolleyes:

As far as I can tell freeth1nker, we all share very similar perspectives of reality. They only differ by the dogmas and presumptions that we apply to color our view. Your philosophical dogma blinds you to this.
No, I agree with your first two sentences. But who are you to say that your dogmas and presumptions, i.e. your most fundamental presuppositions, is not part of your reality? Those presuppositions are like our senses, it allows us to make sense of the world. Can we even look into a microscope without our eyes? "Reality" as we know it could not exist without them, therefore, we don't all share the same/similar perspectives of reality if we have different presuppositions. Just think of how different a blind person sees the world vs. someone with sight.

Hello! I do not claim to even know what philosophy is.
You mean you don't?? Then, from where spewth all your statements about philosophy in this thread?? Preconceptions, misconceptions, stereotypes, maybe??

However if you live in this world you will come across the claims, dogma and presumptions of philosophy. After all, as you claim everyone has a philosophy and there has been this human endeavor that calls itself philosophy that has this huge body of literature that has accreted for more than two thousand years. From what I see of it, it is stupid.
Maybe you're just too stupid to understand it. :p

freeth1nker, when I answered that so called philosophical question “What is pleasure and pain?” with an explanation based on science you said it wasn’t what philosophers do.
No, my point was that it wasn't a philosophical question to begin with.

Even you seem to understand that when you do science you are being a scientist and not a philosopher. Chomsky’s resort to science is an indication of the failure of philosophy not the strength of philosophy.
Well, Chomsky wasn't a scientist, because he didn't actually go out to do the "science" himself; he relied on scientists for that. What's more, his claims in themselves were philosophical, he just relied on scientific evidence as well as rational argumentation for support. I see no problems between science and philosophy. It's only you who can't seem to get out of the rut of your either/or thinking.

You are so funny freeth1nker. Scientists require that all science be about the same reality. The reality of the biologist is the same reality of the physicist. At any given point in time scientists may not know what the connections are but it is the dogma of science that it is all the same reality. Recent developments in science have born this out. The entire hubbub about genetics is the connection between physics and biology. And if a biologist finds something that contradicts physics the physicists would sit up and take notice. Just as when Astronomers discover things that contradict physics. This is one of the several ways in which Nobel Laureates are made.
You are hilarious starboy. Intelligent people know not to answer rhetorical questions; they can also tell the difference between sarcasm and a serious argument.

As per scientific dogma, the reality of the philosopher is the same reality as the physicist or the biologist, or the sociologist, etc.
My original reply to this wasn't even about dogma, but hey! There had to be a reccurent theme to give your vitriolic diatribe at least the appearance of merit.

Philosophers for the most part don’t get this. This is because they presume a view of reality that is above reality, a god’s eye view of existence. This view is the metaphysical view. It is the view that is presumed by “truth”. It is the religious view.
No, it's other way around, Christianity stole most of their bit from Plato. Nonetheless, this is another one of your bullshit generalizations because you are assuming that all philosophers are metaphysicians, when in fact, that ilk of philosophers had all died as Nietzsche arrived on the scene.


Freeth1nker: Let's see you back up that claim with some evidence. Amidst the fevour of modern day science, I would say that the majority of contemporary philosphers are eager to back up their claims to empirical research.
Starboy: Okay, lets take Ockham’s razor. Show me the research?
Holy fuck! Your ignorance is astounding! Did you even bother to look up what century William of Occam lived in? Well, I'll tell you... it's late 13th century to the early 14th century. In my original reponse, I clearly said contemporary philosphers. Maybe, you should look up the definition of "contemporary." (And yeah, Chomsky would be a contemporary.)

How about the philosophical claim that dogma is always bad?
Okay, since that was my claim, I'll try to justify it here. Firstly, I never said it was always bad. It's inevitable, but I prefer an open-minded apporach to intellectual problems. I was saying that to illustrate the fact that you think science is the only game in town, when it is clear to me that isn't. The scientific/philosophical/other perspectives issue, well, we've already been through that.

Or that philosophy is dogma free? These are biggies! All I see from philosophy with respects to these claims is a big thud!
Hey, I never said philosophy is dogma free! Well, all you see from philosophy with respects to anything is a bid thud, period.

That people know the nonsense of Aristotle is not due to the efforts of philosophers but due the efforts of scientists.
If by nonsense you mean scientific errors, then okay, I'll agree with you on that point.

Even removing the obviously wrong-headed claims of Aristotle, this still leaves a body of claims made by Aristotle that philosophers deem worthy of study, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what they could possible be? You are the philosopher, you tell me.
All I can say is that there is more to literature than scientific accuracy. You are blind to this, because all you can see is the scientific perspective.

This is not entirely the case. Philosophy professors claim that you must study these crusty philosophers if you are to understand science today.
WTF? I've never heard any reasonable human being say that. Can you provide us with an exact quote??

Better yet we should indoctrinate students with the presumptions and dogma of philosophy and make them think that they are being open-minded and free of dogma.
Thank you for extracting words from my post that I never posted.

Sorry about not addressing the rest of your points but they appear to be a regurgitation of previous discussions and I tire of the repetition. If you got something new to say let me know, I'll do the same.
Oh really? How c