Academic Philosophy vs Socratic Philosophy

[Nick_A]

-1-

Simone Weil wrote:Simone Weil lamented that education had become no more than "an instrument manipulated by teachers for manufacturing more teachers, who in their turn will manufacture more teachers." rather than a guide to getting out of the cave.


If this were actually true, then all education would be wasted on all the kids who do not become teachers.

However some students who don’t become teachers dedicated to passing on accepted societal beliefs to keep their jobs may actually learn something more closely associated with Plato’s description of man as "a being in search of meaning."

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” ~ Albert Einstein

[-1-]

However some students who don’t become teachers dedicated to passing on accepted societal beliefs to keep their jobs may actually learn something more closely associated with Plato’s description of man as "a being in search of meaning."

True, true. (Does not contradict at all what I said, AND it is true.)

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” ~ Albert Einstein

I tend to think AE was wrong in this assertion. He learned the alphabet by education. He learned the multiplication table by education. He learned to solve nonlinear second-degree differential equations with three unknowns by education. Heck, he even learned how to tie his shoelaces by education.

He was way off the mark in this assertion, and he is spreading untruthful, malicious and nefarious propaganda in this missive!

Somebody had to say it.

-- Updated 2017 March 26th, 7:55 pm to add the following --

You called the following statement a FEAR.

"There is a strong possibility that the major problem in education is educators believing they know and understand education."

You also applied the statement to engineers, doctors, and street sweepers.

It it a fear or something different?

-- Updated March 26th, 2017, 2:44 am to add the following --

Please explain, is it a fear or something else?

It is something else.

[Eaglerising]

DISSIMULATION – Thank you for responding and for the additional clarification. I greatly prefer face-to-face dialogues. Every language has limitations, especially when it only involves the written word. Voice and body language greatly improves communications.

You asked, “What is the divisive difference between Socratic dialogue and argumentative philosophy?” Argumentative is based upon knowledge (an authority), creates conflict, and often becomes a contest, each side attempting to prove he or she is right and their opponent is wrong. It based upon the accumulation of knowledge and its objective is a conclusion.

Alternative philosophy doesn’t recognize any authority, ventures into the unknown, and is the negation of knowledge (understanding). It’s motivated by the love of wisdom and isn’t interested in reaching a conclusion because it understands wisdom is always evolving. It loves simplicity. Case in point, rather than examining countless types of conflict, it examines the source of all conflict.

You asked, “Why is Socrates insight into the human condition more Authentic then Descartes?”
I used Socrates merely as an example. I could have used Descartes, Plato, Krishnamurti, or said “alternative philosophy.” It wasn’t my intention or desire to compare a single philosopher to all modern philosophy.

You said, “It appears to me your comparing Philosophy with present education, education of philosophy and philosophy are very different things.”

I am talking about education as well as how philosophy is taught in colleges, which involves the accumulation of knowledge and authority. I am also talking about how it is used and how effective it is.

Watching the decline of “common sense” and the rising amount of fear within people over the past 50 years prompted me to begin this string. It probably would have been better if I asked, how has philosophy helped increase the number of people who know how to think as oppose to what to think. Or, how has philosophy made people less fearful.

[Nick_A]

DISSIMULATION – Thank you for responding and for the additional clarification. I greatly prefer face-to-face dialogues. Every language has limitations, especially when it only involves the written word. Voice and body language greatly improves communications.

You asked, “What is the divisive difference between Socratic dialogue and argumentative philosophy?” Argumentative is based upon knowledge (an authority), creates conflict, and often becomes a contest, each side attempting to prove he or she is right and their opponent is wrong. It based upon the accumulation of knowledge and its objective is a conclusion.

Alternative philosophy doesn’t recognize any authority, ventures into the unknown, and is the negation of knowledge (understanding). It’s motivated by the love of wisdom and isn’t interested in reaching a conclusion because it understands wisdom is always evolving. It loves simplicity. Case in point, rather than examining countless types of conflict, it examines the source of all conflict.

You asked, “Why is Socrates insight into the human condition more Authentic then Descartes?”
I used Socrates merely as an example. I could have used Descartes, Plato, Krishnamurti, or said “alternative philosophy.” It wasn’t my intention or desire to compare a single philosopher to all modern philosophy.

You said, “It appears to me your comparing Philosophy with present education, education of philosophy and philosophy are very different things.”

I am talking about education as well as how philosophy is taught in colleges, which involves the accumulation of knowledge and authority. I am also talking about how it is used and how effective it is.

Watching the decline of “common sense” and the rising amount of fear within people over the past 50 years prompted me to begin this string. It probably would have been better if I asked, how has philosophy helped increase the number of people who know how to think as oppose to what to think. Or, how has philosophy made people less fearful.

Where Socratic philosophy helps us to "remember," the approach of academic philosophy aids in forgetting the need for meaning that calls us from the depth of our being. One of the best books I know of that concerns itself with the question you've rasised is Jacob Needleman's "The Heart of Philosophy"

From Jacob Needleman’s book: “The heart of Philosophy.”

Chapter 1

Introduction

Man cannot live without philosophy. This is not a figure of speech but a literal fact that will be demonstrated in this book. There is a yearning in the heart that is nourished only by real philosophy and without this nourishment man dies as surely as if he were deprived of food and air. But this part of the human psyche is not known or honored in our culture. When it does breakthrough to our awareness it is either ignored or treated as something else. It is given wrong names; it is not cared for; it is crushed. And eventually, it may withdraw altogether, never again to appear. When this happens man becomes a thing. No matter what he accomplishes or experiences, no matter what happiness he experiences or what service he performs, he has in fact lost his real possibility. He is dead.............................

……………………….The function of philosophy in human life is to help Man remember. It has no other task. And anything that calls itself philosophy which does not serve this function is simply not philosophy……………………………….

[-1-]

How do you reconcile the referring to authority, to Jacob Needlemann's book, with "Alternative philosophy doesn’t recognize any authority, ventures into the unknown, and is the negation of knowledge (understanding)."

Alternative philosophy is the negation of understanding. This is more than enough for me to forever abandon the pursuing of alternative philosophy.

If you venture into the unknown... without finding facts, knowable things... then the unknown remains unknown... nothing changes... so what's the point? So that you can confidently say at cocktail parties, "I ventured into the unknown and came back without any knowledge of it, because I, (for instance) did not want to disturb its beauty and tranquility by analysis and observation." If this gets you chicks -- and God knows it gets chicks for Deak Chopra, by the truckloads -- then fine, at least you drew a benefit. I wish I could come up with some similar gimmick.

I just think you ought not to have hijacked the word "philosophy" for naming this movement. You should have called it "alternative doing nothing" or "alternative here is nothing", or something similarly different.

-- Updated 2017 March 27th, 3:56 am to add the following --

"Alternative philosophy doesn’t recognize any authority, ventures into the unknown, and is the negation of knowledge (understanding)."

Why did you call it Socratic philosophy earlier? The movement you describe is dead set against all that Socrates was trying to get at. Please, I encourage you to stick with its real name, "alternative philosophy".

"I used Socrates merely as an example. I could have used Descartes, Plato, ”

Yes, you could have used those names and remain equally as wrong as using Socrates' name.

What I see is you ab ovo reject referring to authority, and then next you refer (however wrongly) to authority. You maxed out on "hypocritical" in two adjacent ideas.

And what's the point of pursuing something that negates knowledge? Other than perhaps being a major ideology in the drug culture, I see nothing of value in pursuing the negation of knowledge.

[Eaglerising]

-1- You have misread what I stated. Understanding is the negation of knowledge. I view things as a possibility. I approach my investigations from the unknown. I either don't know something or I understand it. The accumulation of knowledge or belief is not involved. The same applies to any form of authority.

When we are young we are taught to question authority. What we don't see is that we unknowingly make ourselves an authority when we establish something as an authority. When we are an authority, functioning in the known, we automatically reject anything that conflicts with hour perception and beliefs. And everything we investigate is colored by our perception as oppose to approaching it freshly, free of any authority.

Seeing and acknowledging you "don't know" what you think or belief you know allows you to see and experience THOUGHT, the authority it is, cannot do that. It is unable to acknowledge it doesn't know. If you do that exercise and carefully observe your experience, you'll see that for yourself. And you have determined it without rejecting or believing it anything.

Thought can only recognize what it has learned and experienced. It is unable to recognize anything outside its field of existence.
Thus, there is no conflict or rejection when we approach our investigations from the unknown.

-- Updated March 27th, 2017, 4:52 am to add the following --

We are unconsciously aware of the various emotional attachments we have to the words we use. Some words have stronger emotional attachment than others. We can easily see this by observing who we respond to different words.

I something that is said or expressed triggers a strong emotional response, anything said or done beyond it isn't seen or recognized because we are focused on the emotion we are experiencing.

It is the same with the word "but," because we pay attention to what is after "but" and ignore everything that preceded it.

[-1-]

-1- You have misread what I stated. Understanding is the negation of knowledge.

Is this something I am supposed to understand, or misunderstand? Please indicate.

I either don't know something or I understand it. The accumulation of knowledge or belief is not involved. The same applies to any form of authority.

I somehow doubt that the above is truly the case. Some knowledge you must accumulate (language skills*, math knowledge, mapping language items to real objects, name of Socrates and Hyppodron, etc.) (*Language skills: this MAY be a knowledge base to which you put an upper limit on for yourself, I don't know.)

You say your understanding something is on the opposite end of "I don't know". Therefore you are not negating knowledge with understanding, but negating not-knowledge with understanding. You misplaced a negation there, dropped by mistake (this is a part of what I was trying to refer to when I amended my assessment of your own attitude to your language skills), and therefore your own misunderstanding of your own negation wrecked intellectual and logical havoc in your entire anschluss of alternative philosophy.

When we are young we are taught to question authority. What we don't see is that we unknowingly make ourselves an authority when we establish something as an authority. When we are an authority, functioning in the known, we automatically reject anything that conflicts with hour perception and beliefs. And everything we investigate is colored by our perception as oppose to approaching it freshly, free of any authority.

Hoppla! This is the problem you've been facing all your life, and I can fix it for you.

Your educators told you to question authority. They said this from your perspective of their being an authority.

So you should have questioned their statement, and arrive at the conclusion immediately, that you should not believe authority. And therefore you should not believe authority when they tell you to not beleive them.

Therefore you should ALWAYS BELIEVE AUTHORITY.

Whew. I hope I did not come too late to your rescue, friend.

Thus, there is no conflict or rejection when we approach our investigations from the unknown.

Here we agree. I also agree that we should investigate the unknown, and we may as well start with the unknown when we investigate the unknown. I won't conflict or reject this approach.

-- Updated March 27th, 2017, 4:52 am to add the following --

We are unconsciously aware of the various emotional attachments we have to the words we use. Some words have stronger emotional attachment than others. We can easily see this by observing who we respond to different words.

I something that is said or expressed triggers a strong emotional response, anything said or done beyond it isn't seen or recognized because we are focused on the emotion we are experiencing.

It is the same with the word "but," because we pay attention to what is after "but" and ignore everything that preceded it.

What do these two paragraphs have to do with anything in the discussion?

[Eaglerising]

-1- I added the latter because of how you responded to my posts. Instead of withhold judgement and seeking clarification, you focused on part of it and criticized it.

Yet, you closed by saying, "I agree that we should investigate the unknown, and we may as well start with the unknown when we investigate the unknown. I won't conflict or reject this approach." This is what I have been saying using different words. I acknowledge and freely admit my writing skills are poor because of various learning disabilities such as dyslexia and the inability to remember proper diction for more than a few hours. That doesn't mean that I do not understand what I am expressing.

If you would read my earlier posts in this string, you would see how the limitations of the written word can easily cause misconceptions.

[-1-]

If you would read my earlier posts in this string, you would see how the limitations of the written word can easily cause misconceptions.

I know that this is the refuge in which you keep hiding the inadequacies of your theory. I think Dissimulation also alluded to that. But you can't hide forever, you will be rooted out. Because language is adequate to describe thought. They are like parallel universes. One reflects the other truly.

If you want to say that YOU have limitations in the written word, that I can accept. You can't blame language for that happening, though.

You said, and I say this as an example only, not to ride on it or to labour the point; this is just to show you that your limitations are not the limitations of the language:

(1) I either don't know something or I understand it.

(2) Understanding is the negation of knowledge.

The language is clear in both instances. I understand the statements. You understand the statements. Everyone understands these statements. There is no misunderstanding. You said two DIFFERENT things, things that are incompatible with each other, and you blame the language for it.

I am sorry. It is not the language's fault. You made the mistake of not using the language right. I had not misread you, as you also claimed.

The language is not the guilty party in the committing of mistakes due to limitations.

[Eaglerising]

When you understand something there is NO residue. Understanding isn't physical like words, symbols or images. Unfortunately, we use words to communicate with and those words are incapable to transferring the non-physical to the physical. Likewise, understanding cannot be transferred from one person to another like knowledge because it has to be experienced. Another limitation is everyone's vocabulary isn't the same, their definitions of the words are not the same, the emotional attachment to various words are different, what they have experienced is different, and what they understand is different. A single word such as tree means different things to different people. Their perception of a tree isn't the same as yours.

Nothing by itself is able to see itself. It takes something different from itself to see itself. You need some type of mirror to see your face. Your hand needs something other than itself to observe itself. Likewise, thought is unable to see or observe itself. It takes a higher form of consciousness that is different and outside thought’s field of existence to see and observe thought. Likewise, a higher level of consciousness than the latter is required to observe the latter observing thought. Thought, knowledge, or any authority are NOT involved in the latter two examples. All this is foreign to those who haven’t experience it.

Debating or arguing over what another has experienced and understand is like trying to prove to another that you are hungry, tired, or honey. it's useless. You have to be the source for seeing and understanding of it, it cannot come from anything external of you.

-- Updated March 27th, 2017, 12:37 pm to add the following --

Here is another example of the limitation of words.
Do words convey the emotion and understanding someone experienced regarding the death of his or her spouse?. Do words increase or decrease what is being expressed if the receiver has never experienced the death of a loved one?

[Nick_A]

When you understand something there is NO residue. Understanding isn't physical like words, symbols or images. Unfortunately, we use words to communicate with and those words are incapable to transferring the non-physical to the physical. Likewise, understanding cannot be transferred from one person to another like knowledge because it has to be experienced. Another limitation is everyone's vocabulary isn't the same, their definitions of the words are not the same, the emotional attachment to various words are different, what they have experienced is different, and what they understand is different. A single word such as tree means different things to different people. Their perception of a tree isn't the same as yours.

Nothing by itself is able to see itself. It takes something different from itself to see itself. You need some type of mirror to see your face. Your hand needs something other than itself to observe itself. Likewise, thought is unable to see or observe itself. It takes a higher form of consciousness that is different and outside thought’s field of existence to see and observe thought. Likewise, a higher level of consciousness than the latter is required to observe the latter observing thought. Thought, knowledge, or any authority are NOT involved in the latter two examples. All this is foreign to those who haven’t experience it.

Debating or arguing over what another has experienced and understand is like trying to prove to another that you are hungry, tired, or honey. it's useless. You have to be the source for seeing and understanding of it, it cannot come from anything external of you.

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” ~ Socrates

Will teachers of academic philosophy ever admit they know nothing even though they are armed with and argue over a multitude of facts?

-1- doesn’t seem to appreciate the purpose of philosophy. Facts cannot reveal value as it relates to human being. Facts are isolated partial truths which have their importance. Objective value is essential for a human perspective reflective of wisdom; the goal of philosophy. IMO you are right to express the limitations of language. Plato describes the limitations of language and facts as they relate to acquiring human understanding.

"If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows." ― Plato, Phaedrus

[-1-]

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” ~ Socrates

Plato's Socrates never ever said the above. The closest approximation to the quote is as follows:

There is a passage in Plato's Apology, where Socrates says that after discussing with someone he started thinking that:

τούτου μὲν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐγὼ σοφώτερός εἰμι· κινδυνεύει μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν οὐδέτερος οὐδὲν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι· ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.
I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything [about the topic Socrates and the man discussed], so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

Notice:

Socrates claims to know nothing about great and good; he does not claim he knows nothing.

What Socrates says is he does not fancy to know what he does not know. Which still leaves him knowing what he does know.

The quote you wrote, as quoted by me in the first line of this post, is a variatioin on one of the most misquoted phrases in Western thought.

[Nick_A]

“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” ~ Socrates

Plato's Socrates never ever said the above. The closest approximation to the quote is as follows:

There is a passage in Plato's Apology, where Socrates says that after discussing with someone he started thinking that:

τούτου μὲν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐγὼ σοφώτερός εἰμι· κινδυνεύει μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν οὐδέτερος οὐδὲν καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὗτος μὲν οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι οὐκ εἰδώς, ἐγὼ δέ, ὥσπερ οὖν οὐκ οἶδα, οὐδὲ οἴομαι· ἔοικα γοῦν τούτου γε σμικρῷ τινι αὐτῷ τούτῳ σοφώτερος εἶναι, ὅτι ἃ μὴ οἶδα οὐδὲ οἴομαι εἰδέναι.
I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything [about the topic Socrates and the man discussed], so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

Notice:

Socrates claims to know nothing about great and good; he does not claim he knows nothing.

What Socrates says is he does not fancy to know what he does not know. Which still leaves him knowing what he does know.

The quote you wrote, as quoted by me in the first line of this post, is a variatioin on one of the most misquoted phrases in Western thought.

The last sentence she wrote in the notebook found after her death was: "The most important part of education--to teach the meaning of to know (in the scientific sense)."
The whole of Simone Weil is contained in these few words.
- Biographical Note, Simone Weil, Waiting for God (GP Putnam's Sons 1951, Harper 1975) p xi

Socrates and Plato would have known what she meant. Even now some would understand what she meant. Do you?

[-1-]

I wouldn't have known what she meant without the added part in parentheses. I suspect it's not her addition. So whoever put that part, may or may not have altered the intended meaning of her original thought.

I don't think the person who put the explanatory phrase in parentheses knew what she meant either. That person had to have some real anxiety, I presume, stemming from not understanding her; and therefore that person, being a convergent thinker, HAD to make sense of it for his or her very own sake of keeping his or her sanity. So her or she arbitrarily, clumsily, and perhaps misleadingly, affixed that explanation. Pretty beginner-style, I'd say.

Nobody knows what she meant. I bet Plato did not know and Socrates did not know.

Only she knew. And that is not completely certain, either.

And that's her in her entire existence, essence, and teaching. To teach, preach, advocate and promote an idea nobody could for sure understand and know, and much less so to bring it to a level of practicality.

[Nick_A]

I wouldn't have known what she meant without the added part in parentheses. I suspect it's not her addition. So whoever put that part, may or may not have altered the intended meaning of her original thought.

I don't think the person who put the explanatory phrase in parentheses knew what she meant either. That person had to have some real anxiety, I presume, stemming from not understanding her; and therefore that person, being a convergent thinker, HAD to make sense of it for his or her very own sake of keeping his or her sanity. So her or she arbitrarily, clumsily, and perhaps misleadingly, affixed that explanation. Pretty beginner-style, I'd say.

Nobody knows what she meant. I bet Plato did not know and Socrates did not know.

Only she knew. And that is not completely certain, either.

And that's her in her entire existence, essence, and teaching. To teach, preach, advocate and promote an idea nobody could for sure understand and know, and much less so to bring it to a level of practicality.

You underestimate the concept. This is the norm for modern secular society which has been closed by pragmatism to what it means to know as it concerns science. Knowing is the combination of truth and value. Science reveals true facts but has no concern for their objective value. Since pragmatism ignores objective value, only a small minority will be open to placing scientific facts in a human perspective awakened to a scale of objective value. It gets in the way of pragmatism. Consequently it is safe to say as Simone did that what it means "to know" is the essential question. But who is open the question? People prefer to argue subjective values for the sake of pragmatism.