How To Have Productive Philosophical Conversations

Philosophical ideas are your abstract children.

I don't have any abstract children, yet I still have poetry- and art, and music. Can anyone explain how being abstract makes an idea more profound, and or illuminating, than an earth bound image projected in a common way? Thank you for your time.

Scott, this is quite a beautiful insight. I like how you give us the details. Some of it came on to me naturally, but I put a little empathy in the mix of it all.

This is something worth rereading. This will for sure be in my bookmark list. Like the program Luminosity to help with my memory skills I'll read this once a day as well.

Some good advice here.

The only thing I would add is, make an effort to define your terms.
Often philosophical discussion can descend into trivial word games in which combatants are in exact agreement with the state of the topic or the issue discussed and the only difference was the fact that they were simply using a particular word differently.

Or the argument turns out to be little more than a tautology once the the definitional cards are on the table.

For example the ideas behind reason, purpose or function can have multiple meanings. It can be useful to consult the canon. Aristotle is very good on this issue with his 4 causes, and talking about his ideas can be an end in themselves - sorry for the pun.

Where's the "like" button for this kind of thread? Nice one Scott!

Some good advice here.

The only thing I would add is, make an effort to define your terms.
Often philosophical discussion can descend into trivial word games in which combatants are in exact agreement with the state of the topic or the issue discussed and the only difference was the fact that they were simply using a particular word differently.

Or the argument turns out to be little more than a tautology once the the definitional cards are on the table.

For example the ideas behind reason, purpose or function can have multiple meanings. It can be useful to consult the canon. Aristotle is very good on this issue with his 4 causes, and talking about his ideas can be an end in themselves - sorry for the pun.

I wonder how long people actually take to create their posts. Do they rattle their ideas off very quickly with only the briefest of spell checks? Someone from the community please let me know!

Hi, I'm new here and this "how to post most effectively" thread is interesting. Funny how some of the posting problems have popped up in this thread about how to avoid the posting problems!

There is often a subtext to a post. No matter the subject, the subtext is "I'm smart, you're stupid." Sometimes the subtext is very subtle, but it still irritates. If we can scan our posts before posting and eliminate this subtext it will help a lot.

To the person who said that we should prepare and learn the terms and concepts, I would say ok, to a point. There are many of us who haven't read the books, don't know the philosophical definitions of the words, and aren't likely to learn them before posting here. Please bear with us and help us learn the lingo.

"What do you mean by that?" is a very useful question. It means that I'm reading closely and want to understand more. I think it's a great question and I don't mean it in any threatening way.

A discussion like this is a team sport and we're all on the same team. If we help each other to understand and grow, the discussions may get better. We can hope.

No matter the subject, the subtext is "I'm smart, you're stupid."

Speak for yourself.

Speak for yourself.

Yeah, absolutely. good one.

Best way to have productive conversations is to have multiple. Mainly because info takes time to sink in and contemplate.

You'll gain more with a 10 min philosophical conversation every other day w/ someone than spending that amount of time in one.

Changing Minds by I forget William Gardner perhaps is a good book.... main thing I took away was that changing minds is a slow process, and I find that to be true. Although we do at times feel like we have Eureka moments of insight really those moments are the result of thoughts that were building up and digesting in our mind for a while.

The natural response from any and everyone tends to be to disagree and get defensive playing either the devils advocate or being vehemently opposed if it is something we disagree w/. But regardless of how much people disagree they do take counter arguments presented to them into consideration it just takes time to contemplate w/ other ideas. The same is true of all of us we grow and gain from insights from each other but its not an immediate process.

We could also anwer questions, like where and how does one unsubscribe.

A Helical Vim wrote:

I wonder how long people actually take to create their posts. Do they rattle their ideas off very quickly with only the briefest of spell checks? Someone from the community please let me know!

I often take a long time to sort out my thoughts and getting them into language that makes sense helps me to have the ideas and even to recognise what I believe. I edit my posts because I think of something when I am doing something else. I am sometimes careless about typos and spelling .