Where Philosophy Went Wrong
Philosophy has become in large part insular and self-referential. Written by philosophers for philosophers. With a specialized language designed only for the initiated, a cramped style of writing intended to ward off attack, overburdened by its own theory laden stranglehold on thinking and seeing, enamored by its linguistic prowess and the production of problems that only arise within this hermetically sealed sterile environment. It either laments the fact that it is regarded as irrelevant or takes this to be the sign of its superiority.
Of course there are exemptions but all too often they are dismissed as quant and old fashioned by those readers who like to flatter themselves by thinking they are ahead of the curve, cutting edge, and creative. Disruption becomes a principle value in its own right whose aim and goal goes no further than that, to disrupt. But unlike its traditional use, which is to force us to confront our lack of knowledge and from that perspective choose to think and act in light of what seems to be most reasonable and best, it is done with a knowing wink, as if to signal that we on the inside know whats what. Everything can and will be called into question and this is mistakenly taken to be a great and wise philosophical accomplishment. In truth, it is nihilism, an impotent gasp that consoles itself for being novel. But there is nothing novel about it.
Of course there are exemptions but all too often they are dismissed as quant and old fashioned by those readers who like to flatter themselves by thinking they are ahead of the curve, cutting edge, and creative. Disruption becomes a principle value in its own right whose aim and goal goes no further than that, to disrupt. But unlike its traditional use, which is to force us to confront our lack of knowledge and from that perspective choose to think and act in light of what seems to be most reasonable and best, it is done with a knowing wink, as if to signal that we on the inside know whats what. Everything can and will be called into question and this is mistakenly taken to be a great and wise philosophical accomplishment. In truth, it is nihilism, an impotent gasp that consoles itself for being novel. But there is nothing novel about it.
Comments (152)
In Eastern culture, whilst it too is also becoming overwhelmed with modern consumerism, there is still a connection between philosophy and culture preserved in (for example) Buddhism in China and Japan (notwithstanding the official atheism of the Chinese Communist party) and the various forms of indigenous spirituality which continue to animate culture in India.
There are however some really interesting counter-cultural currents bubbling up in the West. I've been watching the odd panel discussion by a UK organisation called the IAI, Institute of Art and Ideas, which regularly hosts debates between leading public intellectuals, scientists, and philosophers. Bernardo Kastrup, Raymond Tallis, and Sabine Hossenfelder regularly appear in them, along with many others. There is a ferment of philosophically-oriented channels on YouTube, of varying quality, but some are very good (John Vervaeke is an interesting example). People are searching, asking deep questions, and the interconnected nature of today's world facilitates that. Notably absent from many of those debates are academic philosophers, for the reasons I noted above. But philosophy, as I think Etienne Gilson observed, has previously been declared dead, only to 'bury its undertakers'.
Quoting Fooloso4
I've often held that I am a reluctant post-modernist - perhaps an untheorized post-modernist. We absorb this material by osmosis (it's the era) and though other disciplines like social theory. I can't help but hold the view that reality is an act of constructionism - we can't identify absolute truth (which is likely a remnant of Greek philosophy and Christianity) and philosophical positions we might hold appear to be culturally located. This does not feel especially wise or clever to me.
I think we can still create tentative notions of 'the good' based on secular mechanisms (themselves derivatives of older philosophy) - do no harm, prevent suffering, human flourishing, etc. But epistemology and metaphysics seem to go on endlessly, with no bottom in sight, unless you decide upon a foundational position. This can be an act of defiance or faith depending upon your viewpoint.
As a non philosopher I must confess that much of what I've attempted to read in primary texts is dull and I am frequently left with the urge to compose shopping lists rather than continue. I can't be the only modern reader who finds most of the material punishing.
Quoting Wayfarer
Me too. There's no question that there is a thirst for making meaning or contextualizing ourselves - even if this is desire for more theorized forms of nihilism or relativism, such as the IAI's Hilary Lawson's work on Closure (he would probably resent that description).
Philosophy is not an end in itself, it is a tool. In fact, philosophies we dislike have much to teach us, about ourselves, if nothing else. I find a few things genuinely unreadable. But most things, even if they rub me the wrong way, I manage to muddle through. Usually there is something rewarding in there somewhere.
There was no place in the cosmos staked out by Plato or Aristotle. In Plato's
Timaeus there is something he calls the "chora". It is said to be the third kind in addition to the Forms and sensible things. It can be translated as place. Rather than discuss it here I linked to it. For Aristotle there is the fifth or accidental cause. The implication is that the cosmos cannot be understood simply as teleological. The world is not as it is because it acts to fulfill some end. Because there are accidental causes, the world is indeterminate and does not yield a final account If you would like to discuss it I started a thread a while back on Aristotle's Metaphysics In both texts chance plays a role.
Brilliant OP. I would expect nothing less. :clap:
Thanks Tom.
Quoting Tom Storm
Plato begins to look very different once we separate Plato and Platonism. A couple of quick points: in the Phaedo the Forms are identified as hypotheses. This is not a break with, but rather a continuation of what is said about hypothesis in the Republic and Parmenides. In the Timaeus the arche or origin and ordering of the cosmos is a "likely story". Here the Forms are criticized for being stable and unchanging and thus inadequate as a causal explanation.
Also important is the activity of the imagination. The term 'constuctivism' is not used but poiesis meaning to make is.
Quoting Tom Storm
I agree. This is the antidote to nihilism.
That is one view on the spectrum you mention. One that I do not agree with.
Thanks jgill.
The Ancient Greeks of course gave us Plato and Aristotle too equally good then we had the Christians such as St Augustine after the introduction of Monotheistic religion as well as Aquinas.
The most interesting thing about this is that theyre still talked about, Plato remains as popular today as he was back then if not more so even despite huge changes in society.
No matter how technologically advanced we become or even decadent the Greek philosophers will always remain relevant
Indeterminacy is as old as philosophy itself, but it seems as though some today think it is their job to create indeterminacy. As if trying to navigate a ship on stormy seas so as not to run ashore will be benefited by making the landmarks indistinguishable.
Lets name names. Who in particular do you have in mind? Heres a starter list of philosophers, half of whom are actively writing, who I dont associate with your characterization:
Derrida, Eugene Gendlin, Ken Gergen, Shaun Gallagher, Matthew Ratcliffe, Evan Thompson, Foucault, Deleuze, Rorty, Davidson, Joseph Rouse, Dan Zahavi,
Agreed. I'm also not a fan of either dada-like compostmoderns or analysis-for-analysis-sake "specialists".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGyuCt18aPM
A great systematic philosopher working today...making deeper sense of Kant and Hegel...helping us know ourselves as rational beings....clear as rainwater for those with the patience to extend their vocabulary a little bit...
Too many chefs spoil the stew I suppose.
A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk.
? James Joyce
Quoting Fooloso4
There was at least a conception of 'the cosmos'
:up: .
:up:
This does indeed seem to be much of what folks find offensive, a simple recognition of our 'historicity.'
:up:
But in relation to the topic of this thread, it is evidence that philosophy has not at least gone more wrong than usual. "Naturalism" to my understanding is a position that denies the meaning of its name, in the sense that the claim his that everything is natural and there is nothing unnatural or supernatural. This reflects the sad fact that one needs ones' enemies to maintain one's identity.
And hence, every philosopher who wishes to say something, must begin with "where philosophy went wrong". My own position is that the rise of patriarchy was where it all went wrong, about 10,000 years ago. :blush:
He puts responsibility, entitlement, and authority--which is to say our sociality--at the very heart of rationality and meaning. We live and move and have our being in normativity.
Quoting unenlightened
Right. So, shifting to an analogous conceptual context, the (nonironic) declarative sentence becomes the basis. To abuse the messaging system is to only pretend to be in or with the community (or to be in it linguistically but not affectively.) Languagelinked communities have something like a shared mind.
Quoting unenlightened
The enemy as boundary of the self also fascinates me. The concept of the supernatural (excepting obvious cases) strikes me as blurry. I think we all model the world according to personal experience. If something extraordinary happens, we update that model. This makes 'supernatural' seem like a synonym of 'very surprising.' Of course we have Voltaire and Luther in our rearview, there are definition associations with this or that style of reported or expect surprise.
For me a key point here is that discursive normativity is irreducible. The scientific image is a mere part of an encompassing lifeworld of people living into scientific norms for instance. That we evolved from simpler organisms to be able to perform our discursive selves doesn't diminish the dignity or rationality of those selves.
Nice burn ! Even if I like some of 'em.
Interesting choice of example since the sophists were considered among the best teachers of the ancient world. Especially given the tenor of the op, which is generalized and critical, but without providing or offering a balance. Provocative but perhaps sophistical?
Exactly. Criticism is only valid if it is balanced.
Yeah, I like a few of them too.
I agree. The demand is that philosophy be productive, AKA publish or perish. The proliferation of journals and university publishers arose in order for there to be somewhere to store all this unread work product. The pretense of originality results in more and more being said about less and less. Teaching is in many cases no longer the primary reason for the academic profession. It is often regarded as secondary, a burden to be avoided if possible.
Not who but what. The philosophy industry. This includes not only names we might recognize but thousands we may never hear about. Those who write books and articles as well as those who publish books and articles few will read. Readers who name drop and come to sound like those they name.
But with regard to the names you name. Why does Derrida write the way he does? Who is he writing for? What does he mean, for example, when he says:
(Writing and Difference, "Ellipses")
Given the title of the essay something is omitted. A deliberate omission or the fact that something is always left unsaid?
Must it be balanced? What does this mean? Wherein lies the balance? The good with the bad? The positive with the negative? What is the balance that turns my claim that:
Quoting Fooloso4
from something that is not valid into something that is?
Thanks for the link to the article.
I like this phrase:
It is what I was talking about in my response to Ying above.
A few, such as this one:
made me curious about who the authors are. Robert Frodeman was a student of Stanley Rosen. The influence is apparent. In the threads on Heidegger's downfall I quoted Rosen:
Because that generalization clearly doesn't hold for the entire spectrum of philosophical writing. Possibly it is true for the category that troubles you. Because you haven't offered any suggestions for reconciliation or remediation of the issue. Because this unconstructive approach itself is nihilistic, which is how you are characterizing what you are criticizing.
browsing through just the recent titles, how many of these leading philosophical research articles would you be interested in reading even if you could understand their meaning?
It's a great question, one that Susan Haack (surely an exception to the current norm) writes about in several papers.
There are many reasons, including more burdensome bureaucracy in university departments, the publish or perish incentive which often sacrifices originality for prestige, a lamentable tendency to stick to recent philosophers' ideas (Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Quine, Kripke, Derrida, etc.) instead of wrangling with hard questions found in the older tradition and other factors.
One issue - pointed out to me by a distinguished figure - is that modern philosophy is more sophisticated than before.
We have significantly advanced our knowledge in science since the scientific revolution, but (and this is my formulation) we discovered that we understand nature much less than was originally anticipated, so instead of having something like Hume's Treatise or Schopenhauer's World, we now have experts in biology focusing on the neurons of a worm, instead of looking at the whole of nature. Which is not a critique of biology, just a fact of ever more specialization, which leaves out most of the world.
Similarly, instead of devoting a section to language (as Locke did) or even a few pages (as Reid did), we have philosophers writing entire books about reference, and leave out, say, the study of how ideas are involved in language, and other larger concerns.
Even with that caveat, I agree with your OP, and suspect that unless the incentives of university departments change from being oriented towards "prestige" and profit, back to gaining knowledge for its own sake, this current tendency in philosophy will not change.
Yes, there are exceptions. I said as much. I speak from within academia as do the authors of the article @Moliere linked to above.
Quoting Pantagruel
The first step is to acknowledge the problem. I can offer no solutions at the institutional level. On a personal level I attempt to speak and write simply and clearly, and when discussing the writings of philosophers who do not write so simply and clearly try to make their work more accessible. When I was teaching I used primary texts, and by example, how to read these texts. I do something similar here in my discussions of the philosophers.
I think that change is not going to go in the direction we might hope to see. As tenured professors finally leave it is often the case that they are not replaced by tenure track new hires. New instructors are either hired without that assurance or replaced by adjuncts who do not earn a living wage and have no benefits. Or the size of the department and courses offered shrinks. Bottom line administrators see this as a good thing. The cost to maintain the department far outweighs the funds they generate.
You would know, I only briefly engaged with academia, it left a lot to be desired, despite having some nice aspects.
But knowing this, as you do, then how can we expect original work to arise? It's risky to develop a new original system in philosophy that may be a total failure. But there's also a small chance that some of these risks pay off, but this is not encouraged.
Original work comes from original thinkers. They are born not made. I would not be surprised if originality will be found outside the university. As much as I prefer to read philosophy rather than watch and listen, the cost and barriers to posting videos is low, and can reach a much larger audience.
Has this not always been the case? I suppose philosophers may not have always been writing for philosophers. But they have always been writing for a small target audience. Though occasional writings may break through to a larger audience, even that audience tends to be limited to intellectuals.
How would philosophy look different if philosophy had not "went wrong"?
That's exactly right, which is why Bernardo Kastrup now has a decent following, he has many videos on YouTube.
To my mind, the best original philosopher I've read is Raymond Tallis.
Neither are from academia.
But I think that an argument can be made that original thinkers can be spoiled (not to say damaged) by going through the academic process. They get stuck in the current zeitgeist and are unable to get out. Instead of producing original ideas, they become followers of the Churchlands' or Derrida, etc.
I think philosophers have always written for philosophers but not only for philosophers. A significant change occurred when mathematical certainty became the model of reason. Theoria was replaced by theory. Contemplation of the beautiful and the good pushed aside as being of no practical use. The question of how best to live replaced by the problem of how to secure the right to live as one wants.
Quoting Arne
For one there would be no philosophy industry cranking out its product. Less emphasis on the pretense of "originality" and more emphasis on teaching and open-ended thinking that had as its goal the pleasure of thinking.
I agree. I almost added something along the lines of a Hippocratic Oath for thinkers and thinking.
I am not convinced that the above is anything new. Such tensions have always been in philosophy. The actual amount of historical time in which philosophy per se was about "contemplation of the beautiful and the good" is actually quite minimal as are the philosophers who pushed such notions. As worthy as the "contemplation of the beautiful and the good" may be, it was never a philosophical paradigm.
Similarly, there has always been philosophy as industry. The democratization of higher education has simply made the industry larger.
Plato pointed to the attitude that philosophy is useless, but he did not attempt to make it useful.
Modern philosophy certainly is nothing new.
On what basis do you claim that contemplation of the beautiful and the good" is actually quite minimal? Philosophical practice did not always generate or result in writings.
Quoting Arne
Of course not! It is not about the establishment or use of paradigms.
Quoting Arne
Socrates neither produced or sold anything. Plato criticized the sophists for teaching for money. He did not require payment to attend his school. Aristotle's school was also free of change. Descartes inherited wealth but died poor. Spinoza was a lens grinder. In none of these cases was there a demand by an administration to produce.
You are supposed to disagree for us to have a discussion. :shade:
Anyway, good thread, looking forward to see what others think.
You may rest assured I speak only to those philosophical views that resulted in writings. How could I possibly speak to those that did not result in writings? As for those that did result in writings, the philosophy writings in the libraries I visit are not dominated by contemplations of the beautiful and the good in general or in a historical timeline. And as far as I know, aesthetics and ethics are still lively subject matter.
Are you suggesting that philosophy should be more limited in its subject matter or that it would become so if not dominated by the academy and/or industrial forces?
What is philosophy and who are philosophers anyway? Is there an agreed upon understanding of what philosophy is and/or who qualifies as a philosopher? How can any of us even say philosophy went wrong without having some shared understanding of what we mean by philosophy?
What do you mean by philosophy?
This addendum would have made me appreciate the original OP more.
There is no substitute for clarity, either of expression or of perception.
That is the point. You said:
Quoting Arne
But philosophical practice and philosophical writing are not the same. The ancient practice of philosophy was not about writing but a way of living.
Plato had a great deal to say about beauty. It is one of his trinity: the just, the beautiful, and the good.
Quoting Arne
So then, not as minimal as you claimed? Aesthetics as a "subject matter" is to push it aside in that it is treated as something on its own. Ethics is not the same as the good. Both beauty and the good are for the ancients more encompassing terms integral to many different aspects of life.
Quoting Arne
I am suggesting that it has become more limited than it was for the ancients and that this is a loss. The article linked about by Moliere addresses this as well as the good.
Quoting Arne
And yet it is a term you have been using. You even claim:
Quoting Pantagruel
Quoting Pantagruel
This is something that has been under discussion for some days now in the threads on Heidegger. I started this topic based on just this problem.
The opening paragraph of the OP is about this.
But that's as an outsider, and someone interested in what philosophy is or can be outside of the academy.
And how minimal did I claim it to be? I was referring to the historical body of written philosophy which does not indicate that contemplation of the beauty and the good were somehow the central themes of philosophy either before or after Plato. And I am certainly not arguing against either as legitimate subject matter for philosophy.
Quoting Fooloso4
This confuses me. I do not know who you mean by "you." I am not both Arne and Pantagruel. But if you are addressing me, it would be unreasonable to expect me not to use the term "philosophy" when responding to a post about how philosophy "went wrong." In addition, it is not my post so what the poster means by the term strikes me as the appropriate question. I already know what I mean by the term.
And just to be clear, none of us is any more qualified than the other to talk about those philosophical contemplations that were not committed to writing. That is just kind of a non-starter.
I do not disagree that more philosophical contemplations regarding the good and the beautiful may be good. But nobody's permission is required.
I agree. My original undergraduate major was political science with a minor in philosophy. But the residency requirements at the school I was attending required me to remain 2 more semesters even though the actual number of credits needed was satisfied. So I turned my minor into a second major and spent the next 2 semesters studying only philosophy. It was the best academic decision I ever made.
Similarly my exposure to the academic world of philosophy, and really the tools of philosophy proper, was in my undergraduate days.
I'll note here though:
Quoting Arne
Quoting Fooloso4
"The central themes of philosophy" isn't in the academy's jurisdiction. Its mission, though it ought to treat philosophy better -- at least that's where a lot of my motivation is coming from -- isn't the same as philosophy proper.
My mistake. Sorry. You Arne did ask:
Quoting Arne
And did say:
Quoting Arne
Quoting Arne
The point is, you used the term and did not see it as problematic. It is not a term you are not familiar with. We may have difficulty trying to come up with a definition but there really is no need to do that. There is enough of what Wittgenstein calls a "family resemblance" that we can talk about philosophy and discuss our differences.
Quoting Arne
That is not the case. Pierre Hadot has done just that using ancient sources. It is not as if no one back then said anything about contemplative practice.
Quoting Arne
Permission? What does any of this have to do with giving permission?
:up:
Is it possible some philosophers when writing run out of ideas, but continue writing? :chin:
Hard to imagine that they don't, given it happens to so many writers, journalists, politicians, artists, etc. Almost anyone who earns a living by trying to stay relevant, eventually ends up as depleted currency.
I see. Offering that contextualization as part of your OP would have clarified things greatly......
For some, it seems to me, it is as if their words are in search of ideas. If they keep writing sooner or later they will stumble across something to say.
And there are some who just recycle the same idea.
:up: :up:
Philosophy is something that people do. It's cross-cultural. And from my memories of running Socrates Cafe style meetings what I found was that people without technical background frequently had philosophical thoughts, but they didn't have a venue to express them in or a sounding board or exposure or access. We'd form reading groups of texts from people who regularly attended and were interested too, so it wasn't just discussing our own ideas but for people really turned on by philosophy we'd get to go back to some texts.
Whatever was he doing in Syracuse, then? Better to say he never succeeded in making it useful.
Here is a good article on what he was doing there.
It is not that he did not succeed in making it useful, he did not succeed in persuading Dionysius I and Dionysius II to become philosophers.
It is because philosophy is not useful that they were not persuaded to practice philosophy, that is, to live a just life. Of what use is it to a king to be just? This is what is at issue in Thrasymachus' challenge to Socrates in the Republic. "How", he asks, "is justice to my advantage".
Although not useful in an instrumentalist sense, Socrates in the Republic attempts to persuade them that it is to one's advantage to be just. The just soul is a healthy soul, one in which there if a proper balance of appetites, spiritedness, and reason. We do not desire bodily health because it is useful, so too, we should not desire the health of the soul because it is useful.
Whether or not one is persuaded to live a just life depends on the person and not the argument.
:lol: "Compostmoderns" ...the incontinental tradition vs the anals; both have produced a lot of shit and fostered normative correctness in their different ways..."a pox on both your houses" I say.
Philosophy that is of no significance to the person in the street is nought but an elitist hobby; which is fine provided the delusion that it is more than that does not set in. Unfortunately...
:clap: :up:
A stoic (no doubt, an "elitist") might have said "I don't pretend to be a man of the people. But I do try to be a man for the people." :fire:
Quoting Janus
Would you make that argument about quantum physics or molecular biology?
Firstly, I would have thought both of those are of significance to the people.
And secondly, I think philosophy, if it is not about how to live, is just a hobby. That said I'm not opposed to anyone pursuing ideas for their own sake.
Philosophies that are concerned with how to live can be useful even to those who don't have the interest, time, patience or capacity to appreciate the ideas therein in their fullest complexity and nuance.
Granted, they make up for this in other ways.
If it's a way of life, it's not because of some ethical system, but because of the possibility of revelation. I don't think a way of living is entailed by pursuing philosophy, but for many others, it can be.
So be it, different strokes and all...
:up:
To complain about the specialization of philosophy is to insist it be a less serious kind of investigation than it is --- the kind that doesn't get anywhere, doesn't get more complex with time. To me this resentful anti-intellectualism is what takes philosophy to be a mere hobby -- bongtalk about god, refried relativism, infinitely ironic dada poetry, metaphors for mystical whatnot, and so on --and all of this is fine in an informal space like this. This place is ideal for freestyle cultural criticism, piecing togther some edifying discourse for personal existential use. Great ! But trying to impose one's personal lazy limits on professionals is childish. Some people, some of the time, aren't that interested in their star sign or who will save their soul. They want to know how language works, what counts as science and why....dry stuff if you just want a feelgood bedtime story or culture war goo.
:up:
Heres a little secret (dont let it get around). Learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing life for its own sake.
This has always been the case.
For Heidegger the philosopher wears the robe of the prophet. The sacred and holy voice of Being.
Quoting Joshs
Here's a little secret. Learning how to think as a prerequisite for learning how to live is nihilism. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing ideas for their own sake, and often at the expense of living rather than "pursuing life" for its own sake.
:up:
Unless of course the dualism you are presupposing (thought-action, inner-outer, fantasy-reality, rationality-irrationality) in opposing ideas to life is incoherent.
Specialization and seriousness are not the same. Getting more complex is not in itself getting anywhere.
Quoting plaque flag
It is neither resentful nor anti-intellectual. If by hobby you mean something done in one's leisure time, then one is in the good company of Plato and Aristotle.
Quoting plaque flag
Creating a target in order to have something to hit is good for one thing, target practice. There are more than a few "professionals" who are critical of professional philosophy for the reasons given in the OP. My hunch is that it is a growing trend.
And speaking of professionalism, what are your credentials?
Have your already forgotten what you said? It was only an hour ago. Let me remind you:
Quoting Joshs
I know this isn't aimed at me at all, and that I'm butting in here, but I wanted a bit of clarification on this comment:
I don't quite follow the reasoning of how pursuing ideas for the sake of the pursuit leads to sacrificing pursuing life for its own sake.
I mean, anything we do at any moment, whether it be reading books to gain ideas, or going to the beach is going to sacrifice something else we could be doing.
I don't think of it as butting in.
Is pursuing ideas for their own sake pursuing life for its own sake? I don't think so. If the ideas pursued are about ideas themselves then unless those ideas relate to life they become increasingly removed from the concerns of one's life and the life of others.
The claim that learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live needs to be looked at in context. The context is certain trends contemporary philosophy. Is reading Heidegger a prerequisite of pursing life?
That's tricky. Let's use real life examples, Newton and Einstein.
Newton got his idea of gravity or was motivated to explore the idea, by seeing an apple fall from a tree.
He then went on to pursue this thought and apply it to the moon and the planets.
Einstein was spurred to his ideas on relativity by imagining a person falling off a building, calling it "the happiest thought of my life", then went on to develop his relativity theories by thinking about how light travels and how time is affected by differing speeds.
(Emphasis added)
Maybe there are ideas that are more useless than these, as ideas, but most ideas don't go anywhere. But some could, and it can be fulfilling for those people. These ideas are quite removed from ordinary daily concerns.
Quoting Fooloso4
Ah, OK, this is different than the previous comment taken without this added context. No, I don't think reading Heidegger (or anybody) is a pre-requisite to live life. It's in fact impossible to do so.
What one can say, is that for those interested in Heidegger (or Kant, Einstein, Plato, choose your philosopher or scientist), life may be greatly enriched by encountering such ideas.
Is there a special compartment in the brain dedicated to something called thinking or ideation? Do we manage to bypass this neurological process by living in certain ways? Or is even the simplest act of sensory perception already a form of ideation tapping into a functionally integrated background of previous experience, wisdom, feeling , attitude and intention?
Thanks for the reference. Sidebar, though relevant--ever read May Renault's The Mask of Apollo? I think her Alexander-worship is excessive, and she treat's Aristotle too harshly (in other works) but she's one of the best writers of historical fiction I've ever read.
Very good topic. :up:
I fully agree with the main points.
I had myself posted a topic on the subject about one year ago ("Is there a progress in philosophy?"), based on the almost obvious fact that philosophy has reached a kind of a "stalemate".
However, a great new "wave" has been spreading fast since a few years ago --although it has started since the 70s-- and expands in a very interesting and create wave. It is a scientific view of philosophy, involving esp. quantum physics/mechanics. Among many prominent philosophers-scientists in this area are Bernardo Kastrup, Menas Kafatos, Deepak Chopra, Rupert Spira, Rupert Sheldrake, etc. and of course, Fritjof Capra (one of the pioneers, with his well-known "The Tao of Physics").
So, I believe that we have to give philosophy a new opportunity for its "evolution". It is also worthwhile since it opens a wide horizon of subjects to talk about.
Even I, who is not much knowledgeable in "Physics", have started to read stuff about QM and I have already included this field in my list of subjects to explore.
You have moved away from and intentionally created distance from the thread topic.
That we think and have ideas is a truism. That our thinking and ideas develops within history and culture is nothing new, not something discovered by academic philosophers in the last hundred years.
What is at issue is not thinking but a thinking that is insular and self-referential. A thinking that calls itself philosophy.
I read The Nature of Alexander. I think I read some of her historical fiction but can't recall.
I am not among those who have declared the death of philosophy. I think interdisciplinary work in both a path forward and a path back in the sense that disciplinary boundaries are crossed and not regarded as a divide.
I agree. I was talking about conventional or pure philosophy. Although I'm not sure if these terms make actual sense.
Anyway, I'm certainly not among those who have declared the death of philosophy, either!
I would be spiritually and intellectually dead myself, too!
I mentioned it because it deals with Plato's friendship with Dion and the events in Syracuse.
That idea was Marxism and although in itself a criticism of the aristocracy and capitalism in general went on to become an ideology hijacked by tyrants which resulted in human history taking a detour once again through the dark ages for the states that wished to practice it.
Philosophy in its simplest form is an inquiry into truth, morality and to a degree aesthetics (this latter part again being dangerous in the practice of eugenics)
On the other hand if philosophy has no practical application then it is useless, but if used incorrectly it is dangerous for the human being is not merely corrupted by ideas but by enforcing them loses his human touch and turns once more into an ape.
Quoting Fooloso4
Im still waiting for you to name names. Who are these mysterious philosophers whose work disappoints you so? Actually, you did name one: Derrida. So were you suggesting that perhaps his thinking is a bit insular and self-referential? You left me with a quote but it would require a new thread to even begin to do it justice.
What I said is that philosophy has become self-referential.
Quoting Joshs
So you choose to say nothing? This actually points to the problem. If you cannot even begin to articulate what he means then there is something amiss.
Perhaps this explains why you are unable to recognize that there is a problem.
I agree it can be more than that, but I don't think it's inevitable, or even common.
Quoting Joshs
Thinking about how to live is a prerequisite for learning how to live. Much of philosophy, and particularly academic philosophy, has little to do with that. So, I don't think the tidy little idea that pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing life for its own sake necessarily holds true.
Really?
There is a fine line between talking about QM in a serious manner, and using the same terminology for obscure and often meaningless babble.
And although most of us aren't physicists, we should, nevertheless, not encourage people to follow others who can only lead to severe misunderstanding of important topics.
I never suggested following any of the persons I mentioned. I don't like or agree with some of them myself. I just gave some names to show that there are new philosophical views on the table. This was my main point, not to promote people of these new trends. The view of whom, besides differ a lot between them.
As for Deepak Chopra especially, he is a very respected bestselling author and medical scientist, known worldwide (8 million results in Google). He participates in a lot of scientific-philosophical panels, together with other prominent personalities.
You cannot discard a person's contributions to the world by pointing out his lack of solid scientic description and use of QM theory. This is a very narrow viewpoint. And I don't consider you such a person.
He goes on with these scientists in conversations or debates because he sells a lot of books. But most scientists, with the exception of Hoffman and one philosopher, Kastrup, go to argue with him that his conclusions don't follow from his premises, in so far as one can even make sense of them.
I can't of course, judge a person who doesn't know QM well enough, I would have to include myself in the conversation, I read a bit about it, but know almost nothing. What I don't sympathize with is pretending to have profound knowledge when it is not. I think that's devious.
Philosophy should be open to all who want to participate, but it should have minimum standards of quality, otherwise the discipline will lose even more meaning as coherent field, in my opinion.
What are these standards of quality?
And who is to judge if a certain philosophy satisfies such (supposedly existing) standards of quality?
I'd say intellectual honesty and coherence at a basic level.
Who judges? The community of people engaged in philosophy, especially those who make contributions to the tradition.
But it sounds as if you would be willing to allow everything in. I was trying to find an analogy to Chopra, maybe Jordan Peterson or someone like that, but I can't.
If you allow everything in, you aren't going to get minimum quality discussions. This is why journals and publishers have editors. This is why this place has mods. Imagine if these places lacked these things, they'd be a disaster.
Here's one that has yet to have been adequately addressed and/or corrected in academia...
Philosophy went wrong, and still goes wrong whenever taking account of thought and belief, both human and non-human.
And yet that's 'what's right' with it! :up:
"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." ~Beckett
:up:
Yes. There is a wrong way and a right way to go wrong.
This is just a personal and offhand description. So, there are no standards.
Quoting Manuel
Where is that community? Who and how many of them are there? What and where can one find what does the majority of such community say about Chopra?
Does this majority also discard Kastrup, Kafatos and other sientists-philosophers who are engaged in philosophy of the mind, and consciousness in particular?
All these questions are of course rhetorical. I just want to show that one cannot put boundaries to any philosophy that talks about these subjects. If that were the case, 80% of the known philosophers would be considered outside boundaries.
Quoting Manuel
I don't remember having ever not allowed anything to come in philosophy as long as it is pertinent with philosophy. Doing such a thing, would be too arrogant and stupid.
When I was much younger, there was a very nice, old man in our neighborhood who was doing errands for people in the area. He was walking on the street almost faster than me. So, once I asked hem what he does that keeps him so healthy and strong. He replied to me "Love yousrself". I was astonished to hear such a answer from a semi-literate person. An answer that came from a honest and purely personal experience. It had inspired me more than a lot of philosophical ideas I had read at the time.
Experience: something that not only all scientists but also most philosophers lack.
Note:
1) I'm not defending Chopra or his work. Maybe I shouldn't include him among the "representatives" of the new "wave", current or trend in philosophy. I don't know. And, honestly, I don't much care.
2) No one among the persons I mentioned represents me. I only wanted to mention that there's a new current in philosophy represented by prominent personalities.
That's a bit too far. The word and field lose meaning. Is Charles Manson philosophy? It could be, but it's problematic.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
I don't disagree with the gist of your thought. I have nothing against "ordinary people" saying and thinking philosophically, in fact, it is very useful.
But you should care if someone like Chopra is taken seriously. It degrades the quality of ones thought.
Other than that, it's matter of emphasis more than substance.
I don't see the relevance.
Quoting Manuel
Taken seriously by whom? OK, certainly not by scientists. But certainly yes, by his colleagues. And also by thousands of people, who have benefitted from his talks, books and medicine.
Why should I care or be against him? Only those who are jealous of and hate successful people can be. And people whose ego is inflated. And people who are prisonners of their own beliefs and cannot accept something different.
100% agree. I saw a call for papers recently on "The Limits of Philosophy." The prompt itself was filled with technical jargon that even I, a pretty avid reader of contemporary philosophy, found somewhat hard to parse. I considered sending in a paper about one of the limits being "getting people to read philosophy," or "having philosophy written in the last 50 years on the shelf in Barnes and Noble."
This isn't for lack of appetite for things philosophical. Eckhart Tolle sells plenty of books with a brand of semi-philosophical mysticism. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar seems to be selling plenty of books in the West. America's churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues still draw more people on any given week of the year than watch the NBA Playoffs or World Series combined, and while religion is distinct from philosophy, this is certainly in part due to people seeking out the philosophical aspects of religion.
Plenty of "popular science," books deal with philosophical issues; oftentimes they make up the main subject matter of the book. In popular science we get plenty of appeals for other scientists to take philosophy more seriously, scientists discussing contemporary philosophers, etc. (David Deutsch did his big Born Rule derivation with a philosopher).
Yet, it does not seem like philosophy departments have jumped on this opening, perhaps because philosophy of science is somewhat niche as people interested in it gets degrees in the sciences instead. But you could see a world where all science majors get an introductory epistemology/ontology course on the sciences, and maybe on specialized course in the philosophy of their field (e.g. philosophy of biology). Certainly this would help prevent a lot of bad science and further students' understanding of their subject.
However, I generally don't see courses with that sort of focus outside of graduate programs. Philosophy as most people are exposed to it is the study of "the great thinkers," a sort of historical humanities project. Basically, you're going to read Kant and Plato, not anything from the Springer Frontiers Collection.
This seems to me like the discipline doing a bad job branding itself. In the same way English programs have switched to focusing more on critical thinking, persuasive writing, technical writing, etc., there is certainly room for philosophy to put more emphasis on how philosophy has practical implications for the sciences, how philosophy helps with interdisciplinary programs, the ethics of contemporary public policy, etc.
More disturbingly, divisive, racist, sexist garbage like Bronze Age Mindset and the various works of the "Manosphere" can become best sellers because there is a total void in contemporary areligious philosophy written for young men. It's lamentable that there isn't a Will Durant for our day to walk budding "Western chauvinists," through the actual evolution of Western thought. At the very least, it would head of online questions to the effect of: "this Aristotle guy is boring and seems like a lib, where are the great Spartan philosophers?"
I was re-reading Walter Stace's "Man Against the Darkness," the other day and was astounded by quite how much he takes for granted about the nature of reality, much of which is grounded in 19th century science-informed philosophy. For the most part, "the world is purposeless, a brute fact, and all things are determined by and reducible to little billiard balls bouncing around in space and this necessarily reduces ethics, aesthetics, and even logic to illusions," is still the dominant viewpoint taught in schools. I certainly never got a whiff of Platonism or the inherit beauty of mathematics in school. Math was, at worst, an arbitrary system for completing tests questions, at best a useful skill for predicting events in our billiard ball world, which could let me make money so that I could purchase ultimately meaningless positive sensations.
My argument isn't even that the above line has been definitively refuted in all respects, but there are good refutations worth teaching. Particularly, reductionism and the impossibility of free will (and thus meaningful ethics) due to the fact that "everything happens for some (natural) reason," seem to be particularly weak areas of the prevailing view. After all, Leibnitz came up with the Principal of Sufficient Reason as a prerequisite for free will, not an argument against it, and reduction has not fared well as a program as of late. But the only philosophy I got before college came through English class, and it was all "we can take the meaninglessness of life as a self-evident given," existentialism.
The science that supposedly tells us the world is inherently valueless itself presupposes that the world, or at least key aspects of it, is rational and that we can understand this rationality. Hence, physical laws, explanations and models in place of a shrug and grumble about our arbitrary world. But if this is the case, then attempts to ground values in the inherit rationality of social structures doesn't seem doomed even if we accept core premises of the "valueless" view. Certainly, solid attempts at this exist, even if they are imperfect, e.g. Hegel's "Philosophy of Right," or Honneth's "Freedom's Right."
At the very least, people understanding the difference between:
- Hobbesian freedom as freedom from external impediments, i.e., negative freedom, legal "rights from," and
-reflexive freedom, rational control over the authentic self (see in Saint Paul, Hegel, Frankfurt, etc.), the ability to make choices one understands and not be merely subject to manipulation or unfathomed drives and instincts, including the ability to take on constraining duties,
...would be good for political discourse. Particularly the acknowledgement that reflexive freedom requires development and education, but that it no way ensures that such a free individual will make choices that allow others to be similarly free, thus setting up the need for a sort of overarching social freedom that grounds freedom "as a good."
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree that sciences that claim a valueless world are themselves grounded in a value system called empirical objectivity. But settling for objective rationalism is what ultimately leads to skepticism and nihilism. The problem with valueless science isnt the absence of value but the privileging of one value-scheme over others. It shares this weakness with rationality-based models of social structure.
The positing of the world without value or meaning is a consequence of the Galilean division between the 'primary qualities' as being the sole criteria for what is considered to be real, and the relegation of the remainder to the subjective, 'secondary' domain. In other words, the implicit division of the subjective and objective domain, an inevitable consequence of the philosophy of liberal individualism and the ascendent individual ego. Read Bertrand Russell's 'A Free Man's Worship', one of his early philosophical polemics and still a canonical statement of that outlook. The reason Eastern or eastern-inspired philosophies have a following is because they put back into the world what the Enlightenment abstracted away from it.
Could well be the case. But this doesn't address whether or not there actually is transcendent meaning or value. It might just tell us that people have a psychological need for and perhaps demand 'fairytales' and otherworldly narratives. Perhaps a way of managing the fear of life and death. What if Russell is right and what if the push back towards idealism, New Age and Eastern thought are just a reflection that people can't handle the truth? :wink:
And how to arbitrate that, hmmm? Peer-reviewed double-blind lab studies? Questionnaires and surveys?
This suggests that the issue is also political. Personal philosophical freedom results in pluralism, and it's maybe harder to believe in transcendence alone (or as a tiny minority.)
Like many issues in philosophy, undecidable.
Indeed. And the problem is transcendence and Idealism rear their ugly heads not only when we posit an otherworldly realm as transcendent to this world, but when, with Russell, we deem the objectivity of objective truth as transcendent to contingent contexts of use.
Political and aesthetic.
Quoting Wayfarer
I guess there is no Philosophy to make any such promises, only particular philosophies.
that says a lot.
Quoting Wayfarer
I suspect that Joshs was using terminology like this in quotations.
How about aesthetic because political ? I don't mean that one chooses because of one's politics. I mean that, because one has the choice (is not burnt for thoughtcrime), people choose differently. So we get lots of religions and atheisms, making it harder to believe in the transcendent, in the One True Religion.
We've been lost in the pluralitistic rubble since the infallible popes ? I was reading in C S Peirce though that the Catholic philosophers had enough wiggle room to disagree intensely on various details. Intellectuals had to be given some fun.
And of course, the contrapuntal argument is that in the Islamic world and (many other places) notions of transcendent certainty continue rule politics and culture like it's 1300 CE. Humans almost seem to have a certainty death wish.
Quoting Wayfarer
Ive been on a Deleuze jag lately.
Was Yesterday always simpler, at least in retrospect, as we face a future that looks stranger and is always threatening to leave the ways of our youth completely behind ? I still remember phones with cords.
I don't think Marx is at all the last word, and he could be one of the earlier nostalgic sentimentalists even. (?)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007
The bourgeoisie...has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his natural superiors, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.
It has been the first to show what mans activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades.
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. ...Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
:up:
Well put !
None of those continentals - Deleuze, Badiou, Derrida, Lacan - have ever been part of my curriculum, and at this stage in life it's probably too late to begin. (I have discovered, however, a couple of secular critiques of naturalism from within English-speaking analytic philosophy, I'm going to make an effort to absorb them. Oh, and I am persisting with Evan Thompson's books.)
Definitely one possible reading, or Make Yesterday Today Again!
Yesterday being a kind of romantic Panglossian reconstruction. The notion of Golden Eras we have lost seems to haunt multiple subcultures these days, from mawkish Youtube comments on Elvis, to speculative historicisms by certain academics.
You may be interested in John Protevis attempt to bridge Thompsons work with Deleuze.
DELEUZE, JONAS, AND THOMPSON TOWARD A NEW TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC AND A NEW QUESTION OF PANPSYCHISM
ABSTRACT
The essay examines the idea of biological space and time found in Evan Thompsons Mind in Life and Gilles Deleuzes Difference and Repetition. Tracking down this new Transcendental Aesthetic intersects new work done on panpsychism. Both Deleuze and Thompson can be fairly said to be biological panpsychists. Thats what Mind in Life means: mind and life are co-extensive; life is a sufficient condition for mind. Deleuze is not just a biological panpsychist, however, so well have to confront full-fledged panpsychism. At the end of the essay well be able to pose the question whether or not we can supplement Thompsons Mind in Life position with a Mind in Process position and if so, what that supplement means both for his work and for panpsychism
http://www.protevi.com/john/NewTA.pdf
I agree. It's that garden we were never actually in. Freedom and nihilism are two sides of one coin.
I find that most but few atheistic mindsets often lean towards a nihilistic way of life. Nothing matters, morality itself being man made can even equal that of scripture in its basic tenets however the higher forms of expression are alien to the atheist such as the creation of art or meaningful literature.
Even passion is found wanting to the atheist with only its lower facet in the form of lust being sought which often leads to nihilisms opposite, hedonism.
At every opportunity they deny facts or do not wish to acknowledge them and forego the truth in doing so.
I see Hegel (and maybe edifying philosophy in general?) as right on the edge of Christianity and humanism.
God in his truth is therefore no bare ideal generated by imagination; on the contrary, he puts himself into the very heart of the finitude and external contingency of existence, and yet knows himself there as a divine subject who remains infinite in himself and makes this infinity explicit to himself.
What this means to me is that we are God, completely incarnate, down here in finitude and mortality, but transcending this [ partially ] through language and a triumph over petty narcissism. Spirit (Geist) is timebinding software, a flame that burns brighter and brighter as it leaps from melting candle to melting candle.
I agree with that. We are indeed god made flesh (wet-hardware) driven by spirit, or software as you call it.
Our comprehension ability of God depends on our willingness to understand its nature and everything that is manifest in this green earth.
Our emotions, our ability to feel and to express this emotion, this raw experience is what makes me human. Us wanting to make sense of it somehow leads only to a questioning mind which only ceases when we realise that some of our questions cannot by answered by reason alone or even science which aims to probe the very fabric of reality itself, always falling short in its noble endeavour by the simple fact that our comprehension can never transcend it even for want of trying.
Wet hardware. That sounds good ! We could also say wetware or fleshware. I also like softwhere, because it's hard to localize spirit (which is 'just' mostly temporal patterns in nature, confusing our static prejudices, our demand that gods be statues, that gods be distant and other....)
Exactly. God is indeed everywhere! Just as consciousness becomes delocalised by the movement of the wetware so does the spirits interaction with its environment, always being presented with a changing landscape giving vision its reason for existence.
To me there are no answers but those which are reasonable --- and even those are tentative. We can always stop at a myth that feels good, but I consider that an abandonment of the philosophical project. To me it's a retreat back into theology, which does tolerate and even embrace Revelation without justification.
Philosophy of course arising from the biggest myth creators to ever exist. The Greeks, for want of rational explanation ditched the Gods in favour of truth.
:up:
I'd just add that for me consciousness is best understood as the being of the world for various discursive selves. I try to avoid dualism.
I agree that philosophy begins as myth. Popper and Kojeve both see it as a secondorder tradition of criticizing and synthesizing myths. Mythmaking becomes dynamic, accumulative, timebinding. Reality and our understanding of it and of ourselves becomes more and more complex. I see no upper boundary. We have to play things out and see what happens.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-2P3MSZrBM
In the head (so obvious I couldn't resist) :wink:
My last comment regarding taking seriously cases like Chopra, might sound as a criticism towards you.
This was not my intention at all, Manuel.
I understand your concern and it is honest. Only that I am against trying to "warn" people about the views and actions of any person, if these don't actually harm people, and esp. if they benefit them.
As for the scientists who are against people like Kastrup, Chopra, etc., spreading around criticism against them, and trying to ridicule them, when they could just ignore them, are themselves blameworthy for their harcore materialism, when they mislead people, e.g. when they assert that even mind and consciousness are material things --without being able to prove it--, that people are just bodies and so on. This does actually much more harm to humanity than the unconventional theories and practices of persons whose purpose is trying to find truths about things that conventional science can't, independently of whether they succeed or not. These people are at least in the right path, contrarily to conventional Science, which actually has no path at all to follow regarding these subjects.
I'm sure you see my point, even if you disagree. :smile:
The atheists I've encountered are often insufferable moralists, hectoring people about what is right and wrong, based on secular values, such as Sam Harris' 'wellness of conscious creatures' stick from The Moral Landscape. I have yet to meet an atheist who can commit to nihilism or will deny moral behaviour in practice. They are generally way too bound up in encultured values and beliefs. The only true nihilists I've known are dead. Suicide.
Quoting invicta
I think this is fair.
If "everywhere", then nowhere. Btw, which "god" are you talking about?
:up:
I didn't take it as a personal criticism. And you are right that some of these mainstream scientists, though in my opinion quite more serious than Chopra, have aspects that could be critiqued, like Dawkins, for instance, who insists that evolution explains everything.
If people get benefit from this, it's good for them. It's not trivial to argue who probably shouldn't be taken seriously. But quality matters too. So, it's dicey.
:up: