Advice on discussing philosophy with others?
Hello everyone!
I am new to the forum and relatively new to philosophy in general. Although I love reading philosophy, my main issue is I find it hard to take part in discussions, not just here on the forum, but also in discussions with others. I feel like I never really have anything to say on a given topic, or I feel that I do not know enough about a given subject to say anything meaningful. My goal is to become more engaged when I'm reading, as well as discussing philosophy.
So I wanted to ask if you guys had any advice for me. How do you engage with philosophy, whether when you're reading or discussing/debating with others? When do you feel like you learn the most? Thanks a bunch!
I am new to the forum and relatively new to philosophy in general. Although I love reading philosophy, my main issue is I find it hard to take part in discussions, not just here on the forum, but also in discussions with others. I feel like I never really have anything to say on a given topic, or I feel that I do not know enough about a given subject to say anything meaningful. My goal is to become more engaged when I'm reading, as well as discussing philosophy.
So I wanted to ask if you guys had any advice for me. How do you engage with philosophy, whether when you're reading or discussing/debating with others? When do you feel like you learn the most? Thanks a bunch!
Comments (58)
My advice would be simple: be transparent and honest. Don't pretend to know what you don't know, and don't be afraid of saying something that may turn out to be wrong. That way people will know what you are thinking and they will be able to engage with it. A thread I wrote is related: Argument as Transparency.
I would say that you need to pick a topic you are interested the most and focus on it. Go to the related subforum and read through the names of threads to see if you like a subject. Then read through the thread you are interested in. If you don't understand something then simply google it or ask within the thread (the mention command Ctrl+m is your friend). People here are knowledgeable and kind. Hopefully, you will be able to contribute to a discussion you are interested in soon.
Quoting Jafar
Who're you speaking with?
I appreciate the patience and respect from the people because they could ignore me, but they decided to get me among them instead. This is the general attitude in TPF. I barely had negative experiences in philosophical threads. My only advice would be to stay away from political discussions. It is a pain in the neck!
Why not start a discussion in an area where you are comfortable. Write a good OP (original post) and be ready to answer questions and stand up for your ideas. Keep it simple and non-controversial until you feel more comfortable. Warning - consciousness, metaphysics, free will and some other topics tend to be quagmires. Look over the past couple of weeks and make sure you aren't repeating something done recently. Try not to focus on too narrow a subject to start or you might not get many responses, which can be discouraging.
From what I can see in your OP, you write clearly and well.
I think this puts you at a distinct advantage. All too often giving an opinion is mistaken for doing philosophy. Rather then telling others what you think inquire into what others say on topics that interest you.
Inquiry is a mode of thinking. It is active rather than passive. It is critical and evaluative. It is dialogical in a double sense - both a dialogue with others and a dialogue with oneself. Dialogue with one's self is deeply personal, but dialogue with others should be impersonal. The former is about you, the latter should not be about you, it should be about the ideas at issue.
Much, however. depends on your priorities. Whether you regard philosophy as a way of finding answers or a way of asking questions. You might consider: what do you want and expect from philosophy?
@Jafar
To be clear, many of us here disagree with @Fooloso4s opinion. You shouldnt let it stop you from putting your thoughts into words. Introspection is a valid method for obtaining knowledge. You should appreciate the irony of him giving his personal preference without justification in this instance.
So yeah, focus more on how to ask good questions instead of having things to say, would be my advice.
It's a good idea. I guess I'm still looking for something to say in that regard. I mostly read philosophy but I haven't made too much of an effort when it comes to DOING it, I guess? I do want to make a post at some point. Just as a challenge for myself.
What do you think is a good question? I really liked what you said. When you're reading or engaging with someone else, what do you find to be a good question?
I do agree to an extent because I value introspection a lot. In my case, I think it's also important to be able to formulate an idea and also be challenged on it. I really value philosophy as a means of introspection and a way to practice it, but I also get the impression that there is a lot to learn from others through discussion.
Again, thank you all for your posts. Very, very insightful.
I should've asked before too, sorry, what do you want to get out of the discussions too?
But thanks for clarifying. I think fellow students and strangers are two different collections of contexts with different rules of thumb. I tried to write this from the perspective of someone who'd sat 16 y/o me down and told him how the hell to talk with people about abstract nonsense and the bizarrely emotive.
tl;dr - if you try to practice active listening and keep your dialogue exploratory, you'll get something from it. But you might not get out of it what you want.
With fellow students:
S1 ) Ask questions and ask to confirm you understood the answers - rephrase and say stuff back. Try to do that before responding, especially if critically.
S2 ) Do your best to keep discussions on topic, if you don't understand where a connection's come from ask in the manner of 1.
S3 ) If the discussion is textual, make sure you reference the text to support points.
With strangers IRL:
O1) They probably don't really want to be talked with philosophically, it's at best tiring, at worst a series of terrible faux pas.
O2) People do get something out of you behaving like the point S1 though, but generally only if they bring it up and you riff on it.
O3) You can smuggle in philosophical topics by sharing anecdotes that have the same theme.
O4) You can't expect randomers to enjoy playing with ideas like a philosophy enthusiast would, pay special attention with regard to ethical and political discussions!
While rapport's important in both contexts, rapport's all that can be expected when in philosophical discussions with random strangers. Randomers probably will not have studied philosophy at all.
On the forum - S1,S2,S3 are good. You can get away with being a bit more combative and blunt on here than you would IRL, since we're an old style forum.
On social media - good god I don't know, just don't.
One thing I can recommend is that you try to understand exactly what your interlocuters are saying and try to represent their arguments the way they would like - "steel-manning", or whatever. I don't always do it, and I've noticed that not doing so has a tendency to degrade threads over the course of their lifetimes, as clarifications need to be made, people get burned out arguing semantics when it isn't super relevant to the OP, etc.
I would also say just be as authentic as you are comfortable being with this motley collection of strangers. Also: don't insult @Hanover's absurdist fiction.
Jafar said:
Quoting Jafar
Telling him to put his thoughts into words is to ignore the thoughts he has put into words.
Articulating your thoughts is an essential part of philosophy, but there is, in my opinion, more to philosophy. It involves a critical examination and evaluation of those thoughts and opinions, whether they are your thoughts and opinions or someone else's.
Quoting Jafar
We are in agreement:
Quoting Fooloso4
The points you [clarification: T Clark] seem to be missing is that: 1) giving an opinion is not having a discussion, and 2) there is value in being a silent participant is a discussion.
Thanks for your post. My aim is to learn from a discussion. I would like to be able to walk away with a slightly better understanding of the subject we discussed. S1,S2, and S3 are great. I'll keep them in mind. You make a great point about talking with strangers. I forgot that not everyone wants to talk about philosophy all the time. makes a similar point. In the sense, that it's important to actively choose the right people to talk to, to get the most out of a discussion.
Good thing I stay away from social media hahaha
I'm curious about the introspection part. How do you critically evaluate your own thoughts? (This goes to everyone on the thread) It seems like a rather abstract thing to describe since everyone will favor different approaches, but I'm very interested in how other people ask "good" questions.
I found the following from my response to you to be very helpful:
Quoting Fooloso4
The Daodejing says:
(Chapter 16)
Tenuousness is an openness, a lack of insistence. It is to allow things to show themselves as they are rather than imposing some conceptual scheme or structure on them. There is freedom in the play of ideas unfettered by being too attached to your opinions.
Quoting Jafar
Good question! It involves a sense of detachment from whatever your opinion is. Of being willing and able to be wrong. To be able to change your mind. It involves an acknowledgement of ignorance.
There is an ancient practice of defending a position that is at odds with the one you currently hold. The benefits include - developing a greater flexibility of thought, looking at the issue without having a stake in it, seeing things from another perspective, and even being able to give a stronger account of your own position after examining the alternatives.
Quoting Jafar
I would say you are well on your way!
Many people here don't see introspection and intuition as valid ways of knowing, while to me, they are the strongest intellectual tools we have to work with. How can I have confidence in what I think if I am not aware of how I think. Although it's not the standard definition, that's what philosophy is to me - an exercise in learning to be more self-aware. Even an understanding based on reason must come from, be motivated by, something intuitive. And to be useful, an intuitive understanding often must be justified using reason.
When I hear someone else's ideas, someone here on the forum or Immanuel Kant, I have to check them against my own understanding of how the world works to see if they resonate. If they don't, sometimes I'll reject the ideas and sometimes I'll expand my understanding to make room for them. The final arbiter is your own judgment. Parroting philosophers is not philosophy. Eventually you have to take responsibility for your own beliefs.
Agreed, but the purpose behind that examination and evaluation is to figure out how other's thoughts fit into your own understanding of how the world works. If they don't fit, then you can either reject them, change your own understanding, or do a little of both.
Your tell Jafar:
Quoting T Clark
as if anything I said was intended to:
Quoting T Clark
Your claim that "the purpose behind the examination and evaluation is to figure out how other's thoughts fit into your own understanding of how the world works." is not a point of disagreement with what I said:
Quoting Fooloso4
Quoting T Clark
The only irony here is that once you get passed your misreading of what I said, it turns out that you support what I said. As for the others you presume to speak for I see no evidence of their alleged disagreement.
The most important, widely-applicable question is "why do you think that?" Also, "what do you mean?" lol. Some people get really upset by those questions but, imo, true philosophers love being asked those questions about their ideas and beliefs.
Good question. Can it even be done? Or do we just move from one set of emotionally based presuppositions to another?
Quoting Jafar
Yes, I think philosophy, being difficult and abstruse and inconclusive, only appeals to a small number. I've only met one or two people in 40 years who have an interest in the subject. Well, that's not really true, some people will tell you they like philosophy, but it turns out that the only thing they've read is Atlas Shrugged or 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Quoting Jafar
So are you saying that you lack confidence in discussing what you have read and what you believe, or is it that you lack certainty? I'm a bit unclear how you view your barrier to participation.
Hi there, welcome home!
You ask good questions already, and you have some good answers. There is a good old Catholic and defence lawyer method advocatus diaboli whereby one tries to make the argument for a position one does not hold or that is unpopular. The benefit of this is that one does not mind losing too much, and more importantly, it gets one used to the sensation of changing one's mind, something that needs doing daily at least.
(And don't go taking no advice from no parrots.)
Quoting Tom Storm
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to bring out one of my favorite quotes. I try to use it at least once every couple of weeks here on the forum. It's from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Wald Emerson.
Quoting Emerson - Self-Reliance
When Emerson says "genius" he doesn't mean like Einstein. It's more like our true nature, what Taoists call "Te" - our intrinsic virtuosity. It takes self-awareness and discipline to follow Emerson's path. You need to pay attention.
Congrats on starting your successful OP. You are doing well "managing" it by continuing to do what you are doing. Philosophy can be as intellectualized or as down to earth as you may view and want it. This forum caters for the academic to the everyman approach to philosophic discourse. Decide where on that spectrum you are comfortable now and learn to be comfortable everywhere on the spectrum by asking questions and reading, reading and reading. There are usually plenty of references quoted in the academic multilogues.( or is it polylogues).Plus, most of the" professionals".here will provide references if politely asked.
This is just a suggested opening approach. i.e. an opinion.
good luck smile
That's a good question, thanks. I feel like it's the former; I think it has a lot to do with lack of confidence in philosophy and because of it that I feel that I "put off" and discussion. When talking about a specific text, I just naturally assume my interpretation is missing something and I adopt the interpretation of other people instead. I think it coincides with feeling like I don't have a "philosophical voice."
I question the extent to which we are capable of examining our own beliefs - our cognitive biases and our unconscious processes might well be unassailable. I do think that people can change, but this process may well be separate from whatever introspection they might imagine they are pursuing.
Happy to change my mind on this, if I hear a good argument.
You chose a great quote. Emerson is fantastic. At least to me, I think he signifies the importance of one's own authenticity in thinking and at least for me this is a huge part of why I enjoy philosophy and like learning about it. Because of this I really want to take responsibility for my own thinking and be more comfortable with sharing what I think. Thanks you!
What in particular do you find unassailable in introspection? In what ways do you think introspection fails when an individual attempts it?
As for forums, they are a test of patience, sometimes a nuisance, and sometimes engaging. Either way you get to practice refining your thoughts more concisely as it is decent writing practice.
If you know you are ignorant then you are ready to become more ignorant. That is what any real amount of studying into any topic necessarily does.
I didn't find anything unassailable.
I said this -
Quoting Tom Storm
I wonder if we can get past these factors? I'm framing it as a question, not as a claim.
Youre doing great so far, by the way.
I'm hesitant to reduce philosophy to psychology -- whether or not our psychology allows us to examine our own beliefs, it's still a part of philosophy to attempt to do so. The image of philosopher here is of Love as described in Symposium
Where, as I read it at least, the philosopher is explicitly one who doesn't overcome their folly, but is somewhere between the state of the Gods who know wisdom and the self-satisfied fools.
I don't know how to tell exactly when that's the case, though. Symposium is a mythic dialogue, and the section I'm quoting is explicit myth-making where the philosopher is compared to Love, a god birthed.
On the whole, though, it seems that others' are more inclined to pick apart my beliefs than I am, so the idea of an individual overcoming their biases isn't even necessary because the individual doesn't do that alone.
:up:
Which seems to bring us back to psychology. :wink:
I think the best we can do is be aware of them. Even when we examine our beliefs we cannot do so by stepping outside of them. Philosophical dialogue can help, but we often tend to defend our beliefs because they are our own rather then test them to allow them to stand or fall based on the strength of the argument. Easier said than done.
I too am suspicious of the idea of the Transcendentalist's "genius". It easily becomes pernicious self-flattery.
Thanks, I'm enjoying it a lot.
What do you understand under the term Transcendentalist "genius?"
Not to be flip, but that's what philosophy is for. For me, philosophy is about self-awareness - paying attention to how we think. If we are not capable of examining our beliefs, biases, and mental processes, then philosophy is useless, pointless.
I agree. For me, philosophy is there to help us listen to and recognize the voice inside.
Thank you. Nice to read I'm not the only one with this view.
Quoting Moliere
Agree, but it only works if you have access to others with whom you are in dialogue. I suspect most people's beliefs go unchallenged, probably because we tend to stay in our tribes.
The term 'genius' as used by the Transcendentalist Emerson. As expressed in the passage from Emerson quoted by T Clark:
It seems to me to be an odd mix of individualism and universalism. An overestimation of the reliability of intuition.
:up:
The most important thing I realized is that when you are reading, pay attention to what jumps out for you and make notes about your thoughts to yourself, the questions you have, because, although you have to work to get past your first impressions (no real philosophy is immediately understood because the idea is to change you), what you are interested in is the starting point. That, and dont dismiss anything because there is a part that you dont agree with or that is wrong. And never read summaries. Good luck.
I know this isn't meant for me, but is there is a kind of bourgeois conceit that education (literature, good music, philosophy) will improve you? It's this notion that lies at the heart of most 'change yourself' or 'understand yourself' rhetoric. If the change wasn't improvement, why would we bother? Certainly not to change ourselves for the worse. The problem is, it seems pretty hard to tell if we have indeed been improved by an idea. Can we trust our feelings on this? All those lost little boys that have found Jordan Peterson consider themselves improved, if not saved. So do most people who are radicalised by some fresh notion they've picked up, whether it is derived through philosophy, religion or politics. How do we tell if philosophy is any good or not?
Find a statement on a recent thread that happens to be of interest. For example:
Find a philosopher who agrees and explain in a few or many words their reasons.
Find a philosopher who disagrees and explain in a few or many words their reasons.
Finish by giving your reasoned opinion as to which philosopher is correct and which is incorrect in a few or many words.
What improvement might look like wasn't in scope in my comment. I was simply making the point that improvement in some way seems to be what 'change yourself' amounts to. My question is the same as yours - what does such an improvement really amount to? How do we tell if 'improvement' is good?
Basically, any change that instills you to question your opinions, beliefs and perspective more is positive growth. It is certainly unpleasant though at some point during the process; in my experience.
Quoting Jafar
A lot of people take philosophy as a set of problems to be answered. Originally, Socrates was asking questions to make us better people, and unfortunately he equated virtue only with a certain kind of knowledge, and ever since we have been thinking of philosophy as deciding what to think (theories and conclusions) rather than changing how we think (rigorous, empathetic, without presumption). As a bit of both, for example, in understanding Kant, you might see how the subjective-objective framework is still deeply ingrained in modern culture and how people consider judgment.
Quoting Jafar
If the goal is to better ourselves, change how we think, then tackling the actual texts is the mechanism. A lot of the summaries are over-simplifications that will not only block you from having to work through your own thoughts first, but dont draw out the implications, and many of them are just wrong.
Not necessarily. You can change your opinion for the worse. It happens a lot. The radicalized terrorist is an obvious example. But also the person who converts from a moderate position to a dogmatic or zealous one, be it religious or political. Or the person who suddenly questions everything they once thought and now follows a narrow doctrine.
This is pretty obvious though ... or so I thought.
It seems obvious to me that change can mean going backwards.
Don't do this. Be honest, forthright and be ready to be wrong, or be shown to be irrational or unreasonable, These are pejoratives, despite how much vitriol some who use them would have you believe.