What exemplifies Philosophy?
What exemplifies Philosophy?
I haven't included every single type of philosophy or field but rather attempted to group by what I see as reasonably modern themes. I'm aware that there is an element of apples-to-oranges, that epistemological traditions are being compared with metaphysical, etc.. I'm interested in what people think best exemplifies philosophical thought. Perhaps it cannot even be exemplified?
Please don't include comments about "other" for every single type of categorization I've missed. Only if you think that category best exemplifies what philosophy is or should be. I picked what I thought the most likely candidates.
I haven't included every single type of philosophy or field but rather attempted to group by what I see as reasonably modern themes. I'm aware that there is an element of apples-to-oranges, that epistemological traditions are being compared with metaphysical, etc.. I'm interested in what people think best exemplifies philosophical thought. Perhaps it cannot even be exemplified?
Please don't include comments about "other" for every single type of categorization I've missed. Only if you think that category best exemplifies what philosophy is or should be. I picked what I thought the most likely candidates.
Comments (60)
... Ontological-Ethical (e.g. Epicurus, Spinoza).
I picked empiricist. I am aware that is an "old-fashioned" (I guess...) philosophical category. Yet, I think some works, such as "an essay of human understanding" are among the most important philosophical treatises.
John Locke is one the of the main philophers of modernity, even if he is not now the most popular.
I don't consider exemplification to be a vague concept. Wouldn't you agree that the premise of exemplification is to illustrate and clarify?
Gilles Deleuze et al ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Spinozist_philosophers
[quote=G.W.F. Hegel]It may really be said: You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all.[/quote]
:fire:
I dont think so. To exemplify is to be an example of, and to best exemplify is to be the best example of. So, applied to these branches of philosophy, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. All of them are examples of philosophy, and which is best raises the question in what way?
Buuut... I think that for my own case, at least, is correct about why I chose it: I like these philosophers.
I wonder, though, if there is a philosophical reason I like them, rather than just a personal reason -- which I'd be more apt to believe the personal reason, it'd be interesting if there was some underlying philosophical aesthetic that makes these choices the choices we're thinking about, too.
:up:
Yes. Although, not to quibble, but isn't the entire point of providing an example to clarify? For example, I could provide the truth tables for inclusive versus exclusive disjunctions, which may not be very informative to some people. Or I can offer you can't have your cake and eat it too as an example of an exclusive disjunction, which is much clearer.
If your personal aesthetic is philosophical, then your personal reasons might also be?
Thats ok, I started it.
So, which branch of philosophy serves as an example of philosophy that clarifies what exactly? What philosophy is, maybe?
Anyway dont worry, I have no intention of pursuing this further, unless your next reply is so provocative that I cant resist.
But as soon as I put words to it I can think of a rebuttal in terms of thinking of which is best :D
Even directly -- I was thinking how phenomenological-existential philosophy is "accessible" because we're all subjects, as opposed to scientific or political leaders (which traditional, even Modern, philosophy addresses itself to). But then the terminology is far from accessible without work put in, and then you get some of the same themes from what at first blush may appear "at odds" with the phenomenological-existential approach with, say, linguistic or empiricist philosophy.
I suppose that while I can pick one in the bunch, as soon as I justify it I can think of a reason to pick another one.
I think these categories are too broad to do justice to the authors you associate with them. How about putting forth a grouping of philosophers based on family resemblance?
For instance:
Hume
Locke
Spinoza
Leibniz
Descartes
Russell
Frege
Hegel
Schopenhauer
Marx
Kierkegaard
Zizek
Lacan
Freud
Badieu
Butler
Adorno
Davidson
Quine
Sellars
Rorty
Putnam
Dewey
Peirce
Meade
James
Heidegger
Merleau-ponty
Sartre
Husserl
Deleuze
Foucault
Derrida
Lyotard
Baudrillard
Now that Ive complied these, I see that they fit rather
easily into categories:
Enlightenment
Analytic
Hegelian-Post Hegelian
Structuralist-Critical Theory
Post-Analytic
Pragmatist
Phenomenology
Poststructuralism
Well hermeneutics perhaps. But then, is that a philosophy, or a tool? Depends who you read. Ricouer covers a lot of ground, and he uses hermeneutics liberally.
Would you say that Spinozaism constitutes a "philosophical system", such that "philosophical systematicity" could be considered a category? Is the exemplariness of Spinoza's work a function of its systematicity?
I agree with this last part. I think of philosophy as a diversity of approaches for not taking anything for granted.
So as a kind of mental training or discipline? I would one-hundred percent endorse that.
:up:
For my own interests, mostly the "manifest image" of everyday life, I think there's a lot of interesting ground that could be covered by an epistemological oriented metaphysics, as exemplified by C.I. Lewis and more recently by Raymond Tallis.
But there's just so much value to most of these approaches and subjects.
Yes I noticed. I chose it -- philosophy must have it, along with epistemology. Whitehead can be an example, but should not be the only example.
This is very interesting and prima facie not in my acquaintance. Thanks for sharing!!
:up: I can't argue against that.
:up:
Not that they call it this, Lewis calls it conceptual analysis of the given in experience, whereas Tallis calls his approach "epistogony", literally generation of knowledge, but also "making knowledge visible", which is a kind of analysis of the given.
But both are basically analyzing everyday experience in a manner in which I think "epistemic metaphysics" is accurate.
In any case, the relevant books are C.I. Lewis' Mind and The World Order and Raymond Tallis' The Knowing Animal.
Exactly - his philosophy can be polarizing. It is interesting, but his previous works, before Process and Reality, specifically, The Concept of Nature, is better, or to be more accurate, I preferred.
I mean one can point to Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, Leibniz, Spinoza, Locke and so many others that do excellent work in both these fields, which, incidentally, cannot be done independent of the other, it's basically impossible.
You can emphasize one or the other or try to do both equally. But there is no pure metaphysics nor pure epistemology, so they are wedded in a sense.
Yes, that is one work I couldn't disagree with.
Quoting Pantagruel
The fundamental example that philosophy provides is the betterment of the self. Socrates' questions were to learn about, say, the good, but the reason was to become more, grow, change, and expand our understanding of who we are. In the modern era, Nietszche was creating the space for this after Kant erased us from the picture, Hegel showed us a method to loosen our rigidity, and Wittgenstein took up Socrates reflection on our concepts to find that our desires and interests are within them. Stanley Cavll is my favorite current practitioner, most explicitely in the introduction to Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome, which are essays on what he calls moral perfectionism. Most other philosophical areas are just specialized interests on this theme, or attempts to ignore or circumvent the process entirely.
Quoting Pantagruel
I think philosophy is about texts, or discussions, and so not limited to a position or theory or topic, but I think I see what you are wondering about. And I would say that there is a tendency to avoid our failings and vagaries in hope of something certain and determined, etc., and, to the extent philosophy is tempted to remove our responsibility to ourself, is one way we end up no longer doing the work of philosophy.
how so?
Yes, as I embrace the spirit of Naturalism, I see myself as an agent of the the universe. So my greatest moral duty is maximize my own potentials and my contributions to society.
Knitted my eyebrows right there myself.
I dont know exactly what @Antony Nickles meant, but I can see a sense in which hes right. Kant erased real human individuals from the picture in favour of an abstraction, the transcendental subject:
[quote=Tom Rockmore, Fichte, Kant and the Copernican Turn]Kant is concerned with demonstrating the general conditions of cognition. He does this in part by drawing attention to the distinction between finite human being and the abstract subject reduced to what is sometimes called an epistemic placeholder. Kants theory depends on a non- or even anti-anthropological conception of the subject variously described as the transcendental unity of apperception, the original synthetic unity of apperception, and so on.[/quote]
The context is what exemplifies philosophical thought. Real human individuals, in the form of finite human beings never are alone sufficient for that which exemplifies philosophical thought, even if such beings are necessary for it, hence the erasure of such beings thoroughly eliminates philosophical thought, but doesnt exemplify what it is. This ultimately reduces to ..we werent so much erased, as we were merely presupposed, as finite human beings, in a picture of that by which philosophical thought is first possible, and subsequently exemplified.
The claim that the erasure of us, which in the stated context is merely a plurality of selfs, was something accomplished with respect to that which exemplifies philosophical thought, is the absurdity or, apparent absurdity ..needing address.
Which context? If you mean the transcendental deduction, where the applicability of the categories is proved and the transcendental unity of apperception is established as the absolute requirement of experience, then I think youre wrong. Thats about cognition in general, not only about philosophical thought. Or have I misunderstood you?
Otherwise, you havent been clear so I dont know what youre saying.
Youre overthinking it, perhaps.
The context is ..what exemplifies philosophical thought, pursuant to the OP, or elaborations on it. This asks for something in general, not a specific theory or its predicates. Im just saying the erasure of us from the picture of that which exemplifies philosophical thought, is impossible, in that whatever it is, without us, there isnt any philosophical thought to exemplify.
So us may have referred to philosophers. Right. Well, as that isnt remotely as interesting to me as what I was talking about, Ill quietly leave
When I say (perhaps too flippantly) that Kant "erased us", I was referring to his pre-requirement for logical necessity and predetermination which forced him to remove, in a sense, the individual--say, as in science, where it does not matter who is doing the experiment correctly, the answer will be the same. Nietzsche is reacting to that move in reintroducing "the human", along with history, cultural context, and our continuing responsibility.
Quoting Mww
Wittgenstein would point out that the requirement to be considered "sufficient" to be philosophy is imposed by our desire for certainty, or, as Kant would say:
Quoting Jamal
Quoting Jamal
I was referring to "us" as the condition of human uncertainty faced (or ignored) by each person, making philosophy our ticket to seeing our part (and with others), thus bettering our response, ourselves.
I think this is the basis for a kind of meliorism, versus pessimism. I would typify myself as a melioristic naturalist.
Ok. Thanks.
:up:
Quoting Pantagruel
I take philosophy as a process, more akin to psychotherapy than science or pragmatism or teleology--examining hidden implications, uncovering frameworks created by our desires or judgments, making our ordinary overlooked lives explicit--basically, reflecting on ourselves (even through investigating the world, e.g., Socrates, Hegel, Wittgenstein, etc.) Emerson and Nietzsche and Cavell call this perfectionism, but it is a journey of personal growth, not the establishment of a theoretical attitude.
So from the above useful rationale socio-ethic would exemplify philosophy, well at least mine anyway.
Metaphysics although arguably of no practical use in everyday life can still affect someones ethics, in fact most other branches of philosophy impact ethics in some way shape or form albeit subtly
Apart from Aesthetics but maybe Im missing something here. Most likely, as the appreciation of beauty is universal in the aspect that everyone should be have the right to but subjective from the old saying beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Basically all of your list below.Included "Other" too.
The right amount-or better combination of them-is the most difficult and crucial part thought.A real philosophy oughts,imo,to include Everything that makes human race wonder about.And all of these categories are united together somehow,as everything in general in the universe is united too.
So for me ,the type of philosophy that shows how philosophy should be indeed, is the combination of all types of philosophy.A United philosophy.I vote for "All".
But i say again, it is the way of how philosophy should achieve this combination that makes all the difference.That's the "juice" and the real question I think.
I was thinking about that this morning. I guess this is asking, to what extent is philosophy modular? And it is as modular as you need or want it to be. Cognitive science and philosophy of mind play well together. So do neurology and neurocomputation and linguistics. But you can make a lot of progress just focusing on epistemology, which itself covers a lot of ground.
So maybe, is there some core thing to which all of these various areas of interest contribute mutually, whether individually or in concert? Time and again the answer seems to be the self or (as I see them inextricable) the self-in-society. In which case, those philosophies which examine this theme explicitly, social-ethical which I picked, or maybe cognitive-phenomenological seem to best exemplify what philosophy is about, qua ultimate practical application.
Quoting Pantagruel
I agree. Though philosophy obviously has made contributions in: say, starting science, creating the model for psychotherapy, etc., I would argue that searching for certainty (scientific knowledge) is not really doing the core of what philosophy is anymore (con-tra-visy!!), which is the betterment of me, and my relationship with the other.
A lot of philosophy is simply analogous to the human condition. The Republic is not just about society and politics. We are the Republic; we are rulers over the domain that is our self--it is about how the human self works, as is The Prince, The Bhagavad Vita, Zarathustra, etc. Wittgenstein's Investigations is not about language, as most take it. He is looking at the things we say about the world as evidence of our desires and what matters to us about it--seeing the ordinary things we say as a reflection and/or projection of our self (analogously, in a sense).
Logic, modern "ethics" courses, and how the brain works don't make you a better person the same way as struggling to really understand philosophy through the process of reading it (allowing yourself to be read by/through it), rather than just getting the gist of it off wikipedia or imagining you understand it (or other's posts) at first glance, say, thinking we can summarize it, label it, dismiss it.
And not everything is philosophy. Its peripheral tasks have been peeled off into science, sociology, anthropology, behavioral psychology, etc. So to say it is a matter of interest just means you have other interests than the central domain of philosophy, or just have an end game for "philososphy"--say, fixing skepticism with science or logical theories.
For me: A praxis of ambulatory health, metacognitive hygiene and moral fitness.