What Makes A Good Philosopher?

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Namelesss
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Namelesss »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 26th, 2018, 12:46 pm Nameless:
Not entirely wrong means predominately correct!
[a]That is entirely wrong! Even one percent correct would mean not entirely wrong!

Inconsistent. If 'a' then not 'b'. Can't be both.

On the other hand, imbibing the thoughts of others …

No one who is properly trained “imbibes” thoughts.

There's that vague and self-serving qualifier; 'properly'. Leaving that in there is an automatic 'support' of your argument (you get to define).
That's why I am disregarding such vaguery and dishonesty.
On the other hand, I do enjoy the irony and oxymoronic notion of 'training' someone to think for himself!
It is obvious that the majority of academic graduates have NOT been 'properly trained' (whatever you might mean), according to the evidence.

Rare is the graduate well capable for 'thinking for himself' (philosophy).

I have know some who were and some who were not.

So, again, that makes my point, to some extent.
So. I am not 'entirely wrong', even in your experience.

It was not the fault of their training that those who were not are not.

Yeah, so you say.
Yet you did say that it is because of 'proper training' that they are, and of 'improper training' (by implication) that they are not.

I disagree! 'Depth of Knowledge and understanding' naturally arise to Perspective at appropriate moments.

You cannot know the depth of knowledge of an author’s thoughts “naturally”. You must read the author in depth.

I referred to "Depth of Knowledge and understanding", you made it about some author, I was speaking in general.
There's nothing wrong in looking up recipe, at first, and them moving past it.
Moving past one recipe is moving past many (that we haven't read).
The raw materials that are needed are about all to be found in gradeschool, first few years.

The most profound philosophical thought is informed by cutting edge science.

Here you display your lack of knowledge of the tradition as well as "cutting edge science".

Yeah, so you say.
So, you are implying that it is my ignorance to say that cutting edge science is a necessary informant of philosophy? Really?
You must be a philosophy graduate.

You are taking your argument to the extreme in order to be able to support it, so I have no need to speak to your extreme and irrelevant points.

On the contrary. I am getting to the heart of the issue. It seems it hits a little too close to home for you. That you think the need for teachers is an extreme position is telling.

You are, again, putting words in my mouth to argue against.
That is 'telling' of your inability to refute what I actually offer.

Some basic training is most often helpful; reading, for instance.

Hermeneutics is not basic training. It is a highly developed skill with notable masters.

Yes, dear.
So is brain surgery.
Ever hear of 'metaphor'? Any clue what metaphor is in the world of hermeneutics?
One doesn't need 'training' to find 'meaning' (in general).

Or, how can we know that all of Aristotle's 'laws of logic' are refuted by QM?

First of all, there is no general consensus as to what is going on at the quantum level.

Ah, the academic mind seeking 'general consensus' before entering.
There is no need to even respond to such a disingenuous and fallacious comment.
"The greater the Truth, the less the 'general consensus'!"
So, again, rather self-serving nonsense.
Those forming a 'general consensus' are, most often, wrong.
Few there are capable of understanding any depths of QM, there will never be a 'general consensus' at any depth!

"Quantum mechanics comes on as so off the wall that only a mystical state of mind can even begin to probe it's mysteries!" - Richard Feynman and Chuangtse
How many of your physics/philosophy majors are mystics?

It is not clear whether a probability function is an epistemic or ontological determination. Although popular accounts like to dwell on a conscious observer there are many prominent physicists who reject the idea.

They must be unconscious observers..
And they are wrong, and will be shown to be wrong, and will continue to argue their biases and grant funded beliefs as long as they/you can.
Physicists/scientists are usually incapable of philosophical thought.
That is why physics is a feeder branch of the tree of philosophy.
That is also why science rattles down so many (ultimately) dead ends.

Second, Aristotle’s logic is not refuted by QM.

So you say.

Like classical physics it remains useful at the macro level.

So, for you, temporary pragmatism is a qualifier for Truth?
If that were the case, we'd still be driving Flintstone cars!
The 'useful' is always in flux as Knowledge/experience is gained.

We do not encounter quantum superposition or entanglement in our everyday experience.

Yes we do.
You merely demonstrate your inability to see the relationship between your schizophrenically fragmented 'levels' (micro and macro and all in between).
"As above, so below!" (Don't bother...)

Of course, after learning to read, I can read Aristotle for myself if I need.

You can read the words and perhaps even imagine you are “imbibing” his thoughts, but you will not understand Aristotle at more than a very superficial level.

Another self-serving proclamation. Ignorant, also.
It seems to me that, what you understand and the depth with which you perceive it, would depend on (the basic tools that you were born with, and) your Perspective.

Don’t take my word for it, read him and then read one of the better commentaries and see for yourself how much you did not see or understand.

This is getting boring.
Of course if I was interested in Aristotle's thoughts, no matter how erroneous, I would read him. For data to do my own original synthesis.
IF Aristotle meant that much to me.
WTF are you arguing?
If you like, disappear for a few months/years and go read Aristotle and all the thoughts of others about his thoughts. That aught to keep you out of trouble.

Knowing QM is sufficient without the Aristotelian reference.

Sufficient for what?

How about relevant and modern philosophy.
Unless one needs to show how QM refuted his so called laws of logic.
Then we need to know his laws of logic.
Easily found online, simple. I do not need to waste years prizing out every thought of his that came up with his fallacious 'laws'. Perhaps you need to fill your head with all that sewage. Knock yourself out.

You have never heard of Einstein's 'Beginner's Mind' being so important?

"Einstein’s 'beginner’s mind'"? Beginner’s mind is a concept from Zen.

Yeah, you are 'literally' correct, in a way, but Einstein knew his Zen (but I'm not going to argue this with you);
"Great knowledge combined with a "beginner's mind," however, will help you to see new possibilities in an area where you have a great deal of experience. That is one of the great balancing acts of leadership: how to acquire and use knowledge and experience, while at the same time, be open to answers that lie outside of the paradigm of your "expertise."

Einstein is an example of a great leader who found this balance. He had developed significant knowledge and experience in his field and was an expert. Yet, he was able to set the paradigms aside and look at possibilities far outside the prevailing wisdom. Though his own description of the process he used doesn't explicitly state employing a "beginners mind," that is precisely what he did. He said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge.""

Or, perhaps, someone who didn't learn 'the way it is', and is still free to explore and can think 'for himself'?

One does not do physics without “training/education”. Physicists actually study the work of Einstein and others.

One can train/educate oneself if one can read. It's all online if needed.
Yes, in a way you are correct, but education and training is not necessarily limited to academia.
I hear the educated fools babbling and waving their degrees!
A graduate fool is still a fool, you cannot 'educate' that from them!

Learning ‘the way it is’ is a necessary and indispensable step if one is to go and and think ‘for himself’.

So you say.

You are free to explore and free to ignore the work that has been done and is being done in physics, but doing so is not the key to thinking for yourself if you are to think anything relevant to physics. Or perhaps I am wrong.

I think that I mentioned how knowledge of QM is essential to any relevant/modern philosopher.
How do you think that one becomes conversant with QM, produce section of the market?

So tell us what your contribution is to the field.

If that is a requirement for this conversation, I'd be interested in yours.

What have you discovered without learning something from others?

Shall I begin from the beginning?
I discovered my feet (for myself) at quite the early age.
Need I continue or do you want to argue that?

One benefit of others is that they can tell us where we are misinformed and misguided.

It's my opinion that everyone has an opinion.
And many are the fools that are happy to tell anyone who sees things differently, how 'wrong' they are. Usually incapable of logically/experientially demonstrating and supporting said 'opinions'.

Where what we think for ourselves is at odds with the facts.

'Facts'? How telling for you!
Neither science nor philosophy deal in 'facts'.
'Facts' are whatever YOU are willing to believe!
Actually, there is no difference between 'facts' and 'beliefs'.
Neither belong in science/philosophy!

Unless you have something of import to add, I said what I needed.
Eduk
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Eduk »

Inconsistent. If 'a' then not 'b'. Can't be both.
For someone who thinks Aristotle's laws of logic have been refuted you sure use Aristotle's laws of logic a lot. I can only conclude that you see yourself as a hurricane unable to do otherwise than what you do with no self knowledge or consciousness or intent, which to be fair does go hand in hand with your facts claims (facts surely don't exist from the perspective of a hurricane).
Unknown means unknown.
Fooloso4
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Nameless:
Unless you have something of import to add, I said what I needed.
Well, you have not made it any easier for Wesgtr to identify a good philosopher but you have provided an excellent example of what a good philosopher is not. One cannot be a good philosopher as long as they are ignorant of their ignorance. The problem is compounded and made comical when they mistake that ignorance for wisdom.
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Sy Borg
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Sy Borg »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 26th, 2018, 12:18 pm... Wittgenstein said:
I think I summed up my position when I said: Philosophy ought really to be written only as a form of poetry. (Culture and Value)
Lakoff and Johnson emphasize the centrality of metaphor to language.(Metaphors We Live By, Philosophy in the Flesh)

Sean Carroll also cuts across this division with his ‘poetic naturalism’.
Metaphor is pertinent because reality is thought to be inherently relative, at least at our scale. Science itself is essentially a mathematical metaphor, comparing relativities based on the drawing of artificial baseline absolutes, seemingly reliant on human perception than ontology (although the consistency suggests at least ontological connection to findings).

As far as I can tell, most of the famous talking head scientists today engage in poetic naturalism; Sagan's and NDGT's Cosmos were basically exercises in naturalist poetry and art. Even hard-heads like Dawkins and Cox regularly produce thought-provoking poetic gems in their observations of nature.
Fooloso4 wrote:
Greta wrote:The former tend to lean towards examination of self, rationalising that, without consciousness there is nothing. The latter focused more on the environment on the basis that that self is one very tiny player on a much larger stage.
In the twentieth century what came to be known as ‘analytic philosophy’ eschewed any discussion of the self as ‘psychologism’ and held that it had no place in the search for objective universal truths. That assumption has recently been questioned by some within that tradition. The philosophy of consciousness and neurophilosophy are burgeoning fields, although this is not the quite the same ‘know thyself’.
It appears that "know thyself" and other ancient wisdom is today embedded in psychology, especially in fields requiring high performance in real time such as military, sports and negotiation, and in pop form in the self help and new age arenas.

The deep explorations of the psychodynamic school associated with the German existentialists fell out of favour, largely replaced by Skinner's behaviourism. The latter provided practical results and was more amenable to numerically-based rigour, but it ignored a tremendous amount, a gap that hopefully neuroscience can fill to at least some extent. Do you think that perhaps a baby or two may still be in the discarded bathwater of German existentialism. so to speak?
Fooloso4 wrote:
Greta wrote:The arguments seem to stem from the question as to which is more fundamental - energy or being.
Some hold that Mind or Consciousness is fundamental.
I was treating "mind" and "being" as synonymous. It seems that one needs some kind of a mind for a sense of being, including less complex animals with Simple Minds and only the faintest sense of being (but they are still Alive and Kicking hehehe - sorry, couldn't resist).
Fooloso4 wrote:
Greta wrote:Many non-philosophers dislike wrestling with such existential matters, becoming frustrated and disappointed at how difficult reality is to understand.
I agree, but there are also those who fancy themselves philosophers who claim that it is thinking that creates the problem, that reality makes itself known when we are silent. I am a skeptical agnostic when such things are said by someone who might have gained ‘enlightenment’ but simply a skeptic when it comes to those who read about it and spout off as if having heard something they know something.
I have never paid much attention to thinkers of that style because their output is unreliable. One has the impression that some truth lies within the layers of rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims, but neither do they seem uncommon or special "truths" - usually the kinds of things we wondered about during our teens while infused with suspicious fumes.

As far as I can tell, the mystical or poetic path (which I don't see as separate from science, just accessing a different body of knowledge, albeit a pretty flaky and inconsistent one) is about deeply appreciating the weirdness and elegance within the details of prosaic things usually taken for granted, and it's easier said than done with our easily bored "monkey minds".

It's true - and well known - that quieting one's mind can lead to some desirable and useful states of consciousness, suggestive of other layers of reality that we don't usually access. The issue then is how much time one ideally spends in a mindless state, noting that if a permanent mindless state was desirable then the curl grub I found in a garden bed yesterday is a guru rather than a biological recycler. It obviously comes down to balance.
Fooloso4 wrote:
Greta wrote:Many here won't relate to that - the questioning being more pleasure than chore.
I think that if philosophy is not a form of pleasure it can lead to despair, for philosophy may not provide the answers one seeks. If one does not find the activity of questioning meaningful in itself and cannot bear the puzzlement and uncertainty they are likely to find philosophy unsatisfactory. But then again, there are those who imagine they have found the answers. Those for whom philosophy is a kind of religion.
Yes, and we see that regularly on philosophy forums - people whose paradigms have either triggered or exacerbated depression. It's sad to see these above average minds being wasted on self-destructive negativity. Expectation management is the issue - both of oneself and the world. To that end, even a slight knowledge of history would ideally help people to realise that since the earliest times humans have been assaulted by existential dread; at all times potential total doom and annihilation have lurked just around the corner.

Philosophy, amongst other things, can effectively work as research into a meta level of control. Children and other species have a basic level of control in that they can control their responses but they cannot consciously examine and then recondition those innate responses as humans do. The extra layer of human self consciousness means that mature humans can consciously train themselves to improve those conditioned controls. The military is an example.

Philosophical thinking examines the next level of control again - questioning the way we examine and train our responses. Watching the watcher, so to speak.

This makes philosophy is a potent agent for either good or ill because it can effect pretty well everything about the way one operates. "Bad philosophy" can effectively result in people reconditioning their responses so as to to override their their useful innate responses and replace them with dysfunctional ones based on negative paradigms. The good news is that this dynamic can change very quickly thanks to our neuroplasticity, if the depressed person has tired of the pits.
Namelesss
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Namelesss »

Eduk wrote: April 26th, 2018, 3:35 pm
Inconsistent. If 'a' then not 'b'. Can't be both.
For someone who thinks Aristotle's laws of logic have been refuted you sure use Aristotle's laws of logic a lot.

I speak in the language that you can understand. I do not believe that language, any language, can accurately describe and define Reality.
So you take from the Aristotelian metaphor whatever you might.
I can only conclude that you see yourself as a hurricane

Gee, if you want to get all up close and personal, rather than 'concluding' how I might see myself, you might just have asked.
You wouldn't even have to take me to dinner first.
And, no, I don't see myself as a 'hurricane'.
But thank you for asking.
unable to do otherwise than what you do

Seriously?
Listen to yourself!
Are you able to do otherwise than what you do?
To a thinking person, the merest reflection realizes that NO ONE can EVER "do otherwise than what you do".
So, I guess that you are right, that I am unable to do otherwise than as I do!
(eye roll)
with no self knowledge or consciousness or intent,

Your emotional ad-hom attacks are killing me (gasping for air)!!
I concede all your attempted personal slurs, from beneath your deeply philosophical refutation!
Just in case anyone else is reading this crap, I should, at least respond to the 'self-knowledge slur;
Any philosopher worth a damn Knows that any and ALL Knowledge is Self Knowledge!
If you didn't know that, then the lack, once again, is yours.
which to be fair does go hand in hand with your facts claims

Either grow the nuts to philosophically, logically refute my 'claim' (and every scientist out of gradeschool's and philosopher's claim that neither science nor philosophy deal in 'facts', and I went on to show how they are just 'beliefs', 'chosen' to believe makes them 'facts', but you really don't want to hear this, you just want to, for some emotional reason, attack me and not deal with what I offer.
I bow to the pressure of your personal attack and exit from this convo.
But you might reflect in the mirror, for a bit, and gain some of thaqt 'self-knowledge' that you talk about.
(facts surely don't exist from the perspective of a hurricane).
How would you know?
I don't see the logic. Seems like a non-sequitur fallacy (move over ad-hom)! *__-
And don't call me Shirley!
Namelesss
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Namelesss »

Eduk wrote: April 26th, 2018, 1:29 pm Nameless you can't have it both ways. Either the rules of logic are refuted and I'm correct in saying they aren't or the rules of logic aren't refuted and I'm correct in saying they aren't.
You err, QM says that I CAN have it all ways!

"One must descend the mountain to even speak!"
I can be well aware of the limitations of speech, and yet speak, and speak in whatever metaphor the audience can best understand and relate.
I don't have to be a Xtian to speak using Xtian terminology and metaphor.
I use logic, on here, because that is what the audience understands.
That is the context of philosophical thought.
Tomorrow, Empathy will be the only true and pure communication/communion used or needed. More in line with 'ultimate Universal Reality', rather than a 'local' phenomenon.
Don't let the small stuff throw you, it's ALL metaphor.

QM has refuted the 'laws'. That doesn't mean we just abandon them. Never does the public readily abandon their reality when science finds a new paradigm.
It is an 'evolutionary' process.
Schools teach it to their young.

Newsflash tonight saying that QM operating on 'macro' scale now!
I forget who was, just a day ago, whining that it doesn't.
Surprise;

Quantum entanglement demonstrated at a level visible to the naked eye

https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research ... -naked-eye
Eduk
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Eduk »

When the hurricane blows down my house I am of course emotionally devastated. But on reflection I cannot reasonably charge the hurricane with conscious intent. Of course some people do trip on a tree root and blame the 'malicious' tree but I am not one of those people.
It is curious to me that you say you don't believe in logic or free will but still deal predominately with what isn't 'logical' to you and then grow offended at imagined slights.
I mean I can say A is A and humans are conscious and then get upset by claims that A isn't A and find agency with humans (and thus insult). I can do those things with no problem, but I can't see 'logically' how you can. Then again you don't believe in 'logic' so your appeals to logic are indeed quite logical (even when they aren't). So when 'you' get offended at me I just think of it as the equivalent of a tree root 'tripping' me so I take no offense in your case (as I take you at face value). Or to be more precise I don't believe that you believe what you are saying (or understand what you are saying) because your words are self contradictory and self contradictory words are pretty standard for humans.
I mean in reality I don't much care what you have to say. But I had some small (very small) hope that you might care what you say. Who knows maybe you do, I will likely never know.
Unknown means unknown.
Eduk
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Eduk »

You err, QM says that I CAN have it all ways!
Indeed so I am right in saying that you can't. You are also right in saying it can. But I have decided you are wrong (and I am right to do so), without logic there is no point in moping about thinking you are wrong all the time I may as well adopt a positive outlook.
Unknown means unknown.
Fooloso4
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Greta:
Do you think that perhaps a baby or two may still be in the discarded bathwater of German existentialism. so to speak?
I don’t know if will be found in existentialism. Perhaps something will come out of the current revival of ancient philosophy - Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics. Philosophy as a way of life rather than a search for certainty or objective truth.
I was treating "mind" and "being" as synonymous. It seems that one needs some kind of a mind for a sense of being, including less complex animals with Simple Minds and only the faintest sense of being (but they are still Alive and Kicking hehehe - sorry, couldn't resist).
I thought you might have meant something like Heidegger’s 'Being' or Tillich’s 'ground of Being' which is not a being.
Expectation management is the issue …
Plato’s Phaedo is about Socrates' last discussion with his friends as he drinks the hemlock and is about to die. The discussion turns to the fate of the soul. Being unable to say what happens he warns against “misologic”, literally, hatred of logos or speech. It occurs as the result of a love of philosophy based on excessive expectations. Love turns to hate through disappointment.
To that end, even a slight knowledge of history would ideally help people to realise that since the earliest times humans have been assaulted by existential dread; at all times potential total doom and annihilation have lurked just around the corner.
I’m not so sure. I think existential dread might be a modern phenomena that arose out of relative safety.
Philosophical thinking examines the next level of control again - questioning the way we examine and train our responses. Watching the watcher, so to speak.
I think this is the main reason so many find much of contemporary philosophy irrelevant. The “watcher” has been eliminated. This helps explain Nietzsche’s popularity and increasingly Wittgenstein’s.
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Sy Borg
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Sy Borg »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 27th, 2018, 10:31 am
Do you think that perhaps a baby or two may still be in the discarded bathwater of German existentialism. so to speak?
I don’t know if will be found in existentialism. Perhaps something will come out of the current revival of ancient philosophy - Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and the Stoics. Philosophy as a way of life rather than a search for certainty or objective truth.
I'm more keen on looking to move closer to whatever truth is there (or not). We already trade off reality for efficacy everywhere, perennially wearing blinkers that are useful for survival but abstracted and not in touch with reality, which is why death seems to us like a rude and shocking imposition rather than BAU.
Fooloso4 wrote:
Greta wrote:Expectation management is the issue …
Plato’s Phaedo is about Socrates' last discussion with his friends as he drinks the hemlock and is about to die. The discussion turns to the fate of the soul. Being unable to say what happens he warns against “misologic”, literally, hatred of logos or speech. It occurs as the result of a love of philosophy based on excessive expectations. Love turns to hate through disappointment.
This accords with my prior comment about the potency of philosophy being a meta level of control and how it stabilise or destabilise.
Fooloso4 wrote:
Greta wrote:To that end, even a slight knowledge of history would ideally help people to realise that since the earliest times humans have been assaulted by existential dread; at all times potential total doom and annihilation have lurked just around the corner.
I’m not so sure. I think existential dread might be a modern phenomena that arose out of relative safety.
To some extent. However, I think it would have started due to the seemingly unpredictable and capricious periodic destruction wreaked by nature but ultimately caused by the human capacity to imagine a future based on memories of the past. The ancients remembered storms, volcanoes, floods and fires and feared their return.
Fooloso4 wrote:
Philosophical thinking examines the next level of control again - questioning the way we examine and train our responses. Watching the watcher, so to speak.
I think this is the main reason so many find much of contemporary philosophy irrelevant. The “watcher” has been eliminated. This helps explain Nietzsche’s popularity and increasingly Wittgenstein’s.
So the watcher has been eliminated because the powers that be figure that the current controls - with them on top - is in no need of review?

I think AI will provide a new watcher, simply because it can't be accused on bias; their power to influence will be an extension of the current power of statistical data to influence today. Then there will be questioning of statistical interpretations and the relevance of data sets used to expose crookedness or influence a drive for change. That logically leads to another level of control ... human questioning of the AI assessments of the human shaping of their controls over their innate responses ... and a partridge in a pear tree :)

It's an odd thing that often the most corrupt and ugly things humans do somehow result in progress, eg. tech advancement driven by war or, in this case, it will be attempts to delegitimise exposure of corruption by claiming that the data is "fake".
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Namelesss »

Eduk wrote: April 27th, 2018, 7:32 am So when 'you' get offended at me...
You are projecting, or looking in the mirror, or perhaps; mistaking a lively discussion, sometimes 'dramatic' for effect and delivery of message, for actual 'attachment/belief'. I just follow the script and directions. If you don't like it, take your grievances up with God.
I have never been personally offended or angered or... by anything that you (or anyone here) said!
Though sometimes the conversation was less than sparkling...
(I do offer the respect of answering (assumedly honest) questions.)

Now, the OP asked for opinions.

Odd that I should be attacked for mine...
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Greta:
I'm more keen on looking to move closer to whatever truth is there (or not).
I don't see it as a matter of truth versus efficacy but of an impersonal objective truth versus a truth that takes the individual into consideration.
This accords with my prior comment about the potency of philosophy being a meta level of control and how it stabilise or destabilise.
Yes, that was what I was responding to. I just used the abbreviated quote for expediency.
So the watcher has been eliminated because the powers that be figure that the current controls - with them on top - is in no need of review?
I was thinking more in terms of watching oneself, that with elimination of the self there is no watcher, just correspondence truth.
It's an odd thing that often the most corrupt and ugly things humans do somehow result in progress …
This is how I understand the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They are fruits of the same tree.
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Sy Borg
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Sy Borg »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 27th, 2018, 8:59 pm
I'm more keen on looking to move closer to whatever truth is there (or not).
I don't see it as a matter of truth versus efficacy but of an impersonal objective truth versus a truth that takes the individual into consideration.
That too, fair point. Yet the "impersonal objective truth" is ultimately the agreed truth of the best informed human observers, but you hardly need a dope like me to talk Kant-ish at you :)
Fooloso4 wrote:
So the watcher has been eliminated because the powers that be figure that the current controls - with them on top - is in no need of review?
I was thinking more in terms of watching oneself, that with elimination of the self there is no watcher, just correspondence truth.
I would think that selves were becoming ever more entrenched with selfies, social media, reality TV and 24-hour solipsist news media but maybe I misunderstood what you meant.
Fooloso4 wrote:
It's an odd thing that often the most corrupt and ugly things humans do somehow result in progress …
This is how I understand the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They are fruits of the same tree.
Evidence that there is no hard division between the analytic and poetic :)
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Fooloso4 »

Greta:
Yet the "impersonal objective truth" is ultimately the agreed truth of the best informed human observers …
According to Kant, objectivity is universal subjectivity, that is, according to the categories of the understanding, the architecture of the mind. But realists reject Kantian idealism. Although most may accept the notion of knowledge by consensus, at least as it applies to science, others balk at calling this knowledge.
I would think that selves were becoming ever more entrenched with selfies, social media, reality TV and 24-hour solipsist news media but maybe I misunderstood what you meant.
Yeah, I was talking about analytic philosophy, but point taken regarding popular culture. At the same time though there seems to be a lot more civil mindedness among the young today then there was in the last couple of decades.
Evidence that there is no hard division between the analytic and poetic :)
And there are still those who regard the analytic as the good and the poetic as evil.
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Re: What Makes A Good Philosopher?

Post by Sy Borg »

Fooloso4 wrote: April 27th, 2018, 11:15 pm
Yet the "impersonal objective truth" is ultimately the agreed truth of the best informed human observers …
According to Kant, objectivity is universal subjectivity, that is, according to the categories of the understanding, the architecture of the mind. But realists reject Kantian idealism. Although most may accept the notion of knowledge by consensus, at least as it applies to science, others balk at calling this knowledge.
I suppose the latter figure that humans are discerning patterns in the ripples of reality's deep oceans, not miles from Newton's:
I don't know what I may seem to the world, but as to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
As for inner knowledge, the irony is that the most credible information comes from the kind of comparing of notes amongst practitioners, just like scientists. They check each others' observations and consider the commonalities and differences, and then they experiment to check the results. Then they report their findings, which sometimes become sacred texts.
Fooloso4 wrote:
Evidence that there is no hard division between the analytic and poetic :)
And there are still those who regard the analytic as the good and the poetic as evil.
Fearful perfectionists, worried about life's inherent messiness, inflict pain on themselves and others when they search too fervently for "purity". If chaos is suppressed then it rises slowly, seeping through people's psyches. Some musicians can only accept classical music, finding the relative chaotic elements of jazz and other forms distasteful. Such people are generally thought to have a large pole running from rectum to crown :)

The preciousness is interesting. When I took a few lessons in Alexander Technique the practitioner warned against becoming an "Alexandroid" - getting around in a stiff, unnaturally upright manner. In yoga and meditation classes it's not uncommon to come across very serious types, keen to gain "enlightenment", and it's that similar excessive zeal that would seem to afflict philosophy buffs (I'm presuming not professionals?) who are caught up on style and schools.

I find it fascinating to see the interaction of the various bodies of knowledge, and the coming together to some extent. It makes sense to me as the ancients, wacky as some of their ideas may have been, were not fools, observing more or less what we see, sans the technological aids and prior learning. So the least culturally specific concepts of each schema would be expected to come together over time.
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