the end of philosophy?

[Peter Kropotkin]

in thinking about Rorty and philosophy and what it means
to be human... clearly, Rorty has some impact on this but
where I think he failed was not taking his project of representations
to its limit....he didn't push it to its logical conclusion....

We human beings think in terms of representations.....
a representation is something that stands for something else....

Representation: the action or speaking on behalf of someone
or the state of being so represented. ex... ''Asylum-seekers
should be guaranteed good legal advice and representation''

think of all the ways in modern society/state that we use this
idea of representations... our government is a ''representative
democracy'' is quite common in western society.... that we have
representatives that stand for us in government...
and we hire lawyers who represent us in the courts...

but think about this act of representation.... we use this idea
of presentation in language, in math, in philosophy, in history...
virtually every aspect of our lives has some aspect of representation
in it..... something that stands for something else.....
it is literally how we think.... we say dog, but it isn't actually
a dog, it is a thought, a representation of a dog....
and that is how thought is for all of us... we use words to
represent or stands for something else.......

but think about the act of representation.... it is secondhand thought....
we, especially in philosophy, talk about objective and subjective...
objective is literally outside of us... it is an thought or object
that is outside of us..... objectively, there is a god....
this sentence is outside of us.... at no point can we hear or see
or touch or smell or taste any part of this sentence, ''there is a god''
it stands for a representation..... god represents a thought or a belief
outside of us....

so, language is simply a way we represent thoughts or beliefs or actions
or beings outside of us...... he was a jerk..... that statement is
a representation.... and we have to, within ourselves, supply every
aspect of that sentence.... he... who is ''he?'' he stand for a representation
of someone else.... a ''jerk'' is another representation... but here
is the thing... representations are not exact replicas....

what I think is a ''jerk'' maybe and probably is very different than
what you think or represent as a ''jerk''....
representations are not exact replicas... they are inexact, vague...
''He was smart''.... as being smart can have many different dimensions,
and we can't ever have the exact same representation of ''smart''
it is an approximation... at best... smart compared to? Bill gates
smart, or IQ45 smart? words are not exact replicas of an object....
a representation is not an exact replica......words are vague
approximation of something...I say, DOG... and a hundred
people can have a hundred different thoughts or understanding
of a dog...to say dog isn't actually even a real life dog... it represents
a dog.. but not necessarily a dog that actually exists...

dog... a 4 legged animal that barks and chases cars...

but not all dogs bark and not all dogs chase cars....

and here is the point... that we use language as representations,
we are being, at best, vague and imprecise as to what we mean
when we refer to something like a dog or a birthday or justice....

representations by their very nature, are vague and imprecise...
thus our understanding of the world, the universe and ourselves,
because it is driven by representations, our understanding is
vague and imprecise.... and this is why, philosophy for example,
hasn't gotten anywhere in over 2000 years... it is talk about second
hand understanding of people, places, idea's and beliefs....

take the idea of Justice.... a primary philosophical idea since Plato....
and we still haven't gotten anywhere with the idea of Justice... and why?
think of the word ''justice'' and what exactly does that mean?
who knows? that word is a representation of, something.... it is,
by its very nature, vague and imprecise... it can mean, literally
anything because it isn't real.... the word ''justice'' is just a second hand
perception or understanding of something....

now, how can we achieve an ''real'' understanding of reality, of the ''truth''
if all our words are just secondhand representations of something.....
the very word, ''JUSTICE'' is vague and imprecise... for the word
''JUSTICE'' represents something... a second-hand imprecise word,
at best.... there is no ''TRUTH'' or reality to be found in the word,
''JUSTICE'' because it is, a secondhand representation of a word...
a vague and imprecise idea, that has no physical object to
relate to that word... ''JUSTICE''... it can mean anything, because
it, the word, the representation ''JUSTICE'' has no physical presence
in the word.....

and I suspect that is why we are so confused.... we have representations
of words, that don't stand for anything, because any representation is
a second hand, vague and imprecise notion... at best.....

now the second part of this lies within the very title
of Rorty's book, ''Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature"

and that word is Mirror..... we think that our words mirror
or is an exact replica of reality.... the ''TRUTH'' but even
a Mirror is not an exact replica.... Mirrors by their very
nature distorts objects....think of funhouse mirrors or
car mirrors... each of them is a mirror but they distort
what is being shown... they are second hand representations
of what is being seen.....a mirror is a representation....
it is not a direct view of reality or the truth.... it distorts
and changes what is being seen... because it is a reflection...
nothing more....

the reality is, the truth within our human existence is that we do not
see reality or the truth, because we see reality/the truth, through
Mirrors and representations.....
now think of the word, the representation of ''dog''
now look, if you have one nearby, at a dog...
you are not looking at a representation of a dog, or an idea
of a dog... you are actually looking at a dog.......
it is not vague or imprecise... that dog makes a specific noise,
or smells like a dog or jumps on you, just like a dog.... it is not
an imagination or a representation of a dog.... vague or imprecise...
it is a dog..... we don't have to imagine or believe a dog is there...
there it is....

and that is what is wrong with our thinking today...... we imagine
the word ''dog'' to be the reality or truth of a dog.... we mistake
our words for the ''TRUTH'' or reality.....

and within philosophy itself, we mistake the words, like
objective and subjective to mean something, when in fact,
it doesn't mean a thing.... the word, objective... it has no
reality in our existence.... it is, at best, a vague, imprecise
representation of something else.... just as the word, subjective, is also
a vague, imprecise representation of something....

philosophy gets so tied up into this thinking of ''objective''
and ''subjective'' when neither word has any reality in it....
the word, ''objective'' is a vague, imprecise representation
of something not real.....

this understanding leads us to realize why philosophy hasn't gotten
anywhere.... it is too hung-up on vague, imprecise second hand
representations that have no basis in reality...

the question now becomes, what is left of philosophy if we take
away representations that is, today anyway, the very heart of
philosophy?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so, let us think this through...

if we take away representations from philosophy, where does that leave us?

for example, in language theorists, Wittenstein, for example,
as all language is a representation of something, the very idea
of language is a second hand, vague and imprecise thoughts...
and how can second hand, vague and imprecise thoughts
lead us to some sort of truth or reality?

there is no truth or reality to be found in language theories
because all language is, is representations....and
representations are, at best, vague and imprecise....and those who
pursue language as a philosophical endeavor, will, at some point,
discover the errors of their ways.... there is no truth or reality
to be found in language...... just representations.....

think of all the philosophers and philosophies ever created,
has anyone ever gone outside of representations in discussing
philosophy?

the best example of going outside of representations in philosophy,
lies in existentialism..... for what matters is not the words, but
the understanding of the experience of being human....
existentialists use words, such as angst, authentic, being.....
and those words are, let make no mistake, those words
are representations of something.... but those words point
to something past the word themselves.... think about the word,
objective... that word has nothing past itself.... to be objective
is to be objective.... but a word, like Angst... it points to something
past itself... to be human, is to feel angst... now try that sentence with
the word, ''objective''... to be human is to feel objective.....
not quite the same ring to it, is it?

part of the human condition is angst, but the human condition
is not part of being objective...for being objective is something outside
of ourselves, to be objective is part of a goal for us, but not something
inherent within us, not something we are born with,
but being/feeling angst, that is part of us.... we are born to feel angst....
it is part of the human condition........ much of what we study in
philosophy is not born within us.... logic, reason, representations,
objective/subjective, math, or even language.... we have to learn
all of those things... but we don't have to learn how to feel...
in fact, the opposite is true... we have to learn to control those
feelings... I naturally feel anger, hate, love, despair, and yes, angst....
and I may spend a lifetime learning to control my hate or anger or even
love.... philosophy is the study of things that are not naturally within us....
think about it.... we have to go to school to learn logic, or to reason,
or study language, objective/subjective, math or philosophy,
history, economics, social sciences..... all things that are all about
representations..... we have to learn how to represent things in our lives...


let us pause on this...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

which still doesn't answer the question about philosophy....

if we take away representations from philosophy, what is left?

the big questions, ''what does it mean to be human?"
'' What does this question of the human condition, mean to us?
''How do we create meaning and purpose in a universe that seems
to lack, either meaning or purpose?"
''In a no-god universe, what does it mean to be moral/ethical?"

(recall that children are not born with the notion of god, it has to
be taught into them.. the concept of god is not born into us,
it is not inherent within children, unlike emotions or feelings,
which means children are not born with ethics or morals, that
too has to be taught to them)

as I have pointed out, philosophy is the study of things not inherent
within us, we have to study morals and ethics, but we don't
have to study anger or hate or love....those are inborn within us....
and not inherently philosophical.... unless we make it so....

so, what exactly does philosophy stand for, if not about
representations? philosophy can stand for the possibilities
that we can become..... what is possible for me?
we can use philosophy to gauge or understand what
is possible for me to reach for or to achieve
as a human being.......

possibilities are inherent within me, but which possibilities
am I to reach for? that is philosophy..... to work out what is
possible for me to reach for.... I want to be noted as one
of the greatest philosophers of all time.... it is possible,
but I can't, at this point in time, know or even guess that I will
reach that goal.... and frankly, I doubt I will reach that goal,
but, I will not stop trying to get there... it is, in part, what drives
me as a philosopher.... to be the best...... no different than when
I ran cross-country and track.... I was trying to be the best, and when I
realized, pretty quickly, that I will never be the best runner of all time,
I decided to become the best runner I could be... to become what was
possible for me... and this understanding of philosophy is no different
than being an athlete... to become the best at what I can be....

so, becoming is a part of philosophy.... to make a choice of what
I am going to do... within reason and logic....

so, if I have taken away some possibilities from philosophy, I have
to work with what is left.... and becoming is still a part of philosophy....
what else?

to achieve what is possible for me, or to see the goal or purpose
of my being.... what is my own goal or purpose in existence?
that is/can be philosophy.....

what else?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

now given the history of philosophy, which is to make
philosophy as scientific as possible, to make philosophy into science,
is that really what we need given that science is all about representations.....
a description of a heart is not a heart... it is a description... and that
description can be a close one, the ''TRUTH'' or it can be really far away...
as representations often are..... and science often mistakes its
representations, descriptions, as reality... the ''TRUTH''
the earth is 93 million miles from the sun.... that is the representation,
but the reality is that the Earth orbit is an ellipse, and so the earth actually
orbits the sun, as an average, 92.96 million miles from the sun....
sometimes closer, sometimes farther away... just as the earth is
represented to be 93 million miles from the sun.... just isn't really true,
it is not reality or the ''TRUTH'' it is a representation....
and as philosophy is just a representation of reality, the truth....
as not the object itself, but a close representation of the truth.....

the reality is that philosophy and science have the same problem...
they are not the ''TRUTH'', they are representations of the truth...
not the object, but something that resembles the object in question...
close but not quite.....science and philosophy are second hand, vague
and imprecise descriptions of something... which we often think of
as ''reality'' or the ''TRUTH'' but it isn't....so if philosophy isn't supposed
to follow science, then what ''role model'' should philosophy follow?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

there is no such thing as the ''objective truth'', there is only
representational truth... close, but not quite...
representational truth is a mirror that in some fashion,
distorts reality or the ''TRUTH'''..... and how do we find ''reality''
or the ''TRUTH'' without some sort of distortion, which is the heart
of representations that is science and philosophy and math and history and.......

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

or to say this whole thing in a very different way....

can we, a priori, in advance of experience, know who a hero is,
or who is right or wrong? That part of the modern experience is the
''knowledge'' that such thing as an ''Anti-hero's'' exists and breathe....

Is Don Quixote a hero? and do we have epistemological evidence for
this? do we have knowledge that Don Quixote is a hero? Even Cervantes
had his doubts as to whether Don Quixote is a hero... or just a madman....

but think of the Hero's listed before Don Quixote.... are they known
hero's? think of Oedipus... hero, anti-hero, or neither? the fact is that
fate takes away any possibility of being a hero... because fate removes
from us, choice.... and hero's need choice to become a hero...
no choice, no being a hero........and what does this have to do with
representations? the word hero represents something....
an approximation of a hero...... not a real hero, but a vague,
second hand, imprecise hero......

now thinking of about anti-hero's such as Robin Hood or Batman,
give us a representation of a hero?
can we have an ''a priori'' representation of a hero, knowing
about anti-heroes like Batman?

now think of an anti-hero like Batman, in epistemological terms....
what knowledge do we have that confirms or denies Batman in terms
of being a hero?
as far as I can tell, epistemology is not much help in our determination
of Batman being a hero, anti-hero or something else.....
Batman chases those who break the laws and yet, Batman himself
breaks the laws all the time.... and in doing so, Batman reveals himself
to be a situational ethics kind of guy......the situation determines the ethics...
even a ''Superhero'' like Superman, breaks the laws all the time...

and as a representation, how does one work this out? someone who stands
for something, but not really..... a good guy who routinely breaks the laws...
is that good or bad, or something in between? and how do we represent that?

so, given the history of hero's, is the concept of good, really something
that we can work out representationally? or must we give actual examples
to fulfill the picture? and if we are giving actual examples, is that
representational anymore?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

so given the last post, whereas we can think of hero's as
being one who obeys the law, and the villain is one who
breaks the law, and anti-hero's are one who breaks the law
while doing good? but that leaves us with a problem....

the law..... is the law the criteria we use to judge hero's and anti-heroes?
I must point out that much of the evil done in the world has been legal....
slavery for example, was legal in America... as it has been legal since
the days from the bible...... and by all accounts, slavery is evil....
so, we are left with the problem of attacking slavery is, by definition,
breaking the law.... and lawbreakers are, again by definition, evil....
or what about the Holocaust... it was legal under the laws of Germany...
and to attack the Holocaust was to attack a legal institution... to break
people free from concentration camps was illegal... how exactly does
this understanding of the law helps or hinders our understanding of hero's
and evil and good?

right and wrong has no relationship to laws... that much is clear.....
a hero is still a hero regardless of the law, right? Hitler simply followed
the law, thus he is a hero...... and those who fought Hitler were evil
because they were breaking the law....

Ok, how about this?... the judicial system dictates if people
are good or evil? if one is convicted in a court of law, then you are,
by definition, evil.......so, with that in mind, we can't say if Batman or
Don Quixote were good or evil because they weren't in a court of law.....
they weren't convicted of anything..... but then, Nixon wasn't convicted either...
he was, until IQ45, the most corrupt president in American history...
who still hasn't been convicted... but being convicted of something is still
not conclusive proof of anything... I point out ''The Dreyfus Affair''
where Dreyfus was convicted and sent to prison, and later was exonerated...
for example, Jesus was convicted as was Socrates of crimes against the state....
are they now bad, evil people? Galileo was also convicted and sentence to
house imprisonment.....such an evil, evil person.....
for being convicted of a crime, clearly means one is extremely evil....

and how are we to talk about this, to represent this....
either legally, historically or philosophically...

I think the act of representation fails in being able to explain this...
that being convicted of a crime may or may not mean that one is evil..
we have historical acts that suggests that committing a crime, attacking slavery
is the right thing to do, and following the law and engaging in slavery or
the Holocaust is the evil thing....and can we explain this epistemologically???
with knowledge? with facts? for much of what we call evil and good is not
factual but is a moral question... facts cannot tell us that the conviction of
Jesus or Socrates or even Dreyfus is moral or immoral...

and Rorty himself seems to suggest that we must turn away from
epistemology if we are to get to some ''TRUTHS''... BUT epistemology is
the base camp, the foundational basis of philosophy today.....and it has
been since Descartes.... and the revolution of philosophers like Nietzsche or
Kierkegaard, is to turn away from epistemology as a base camp, as a foundational
aspect of philosophy... as Rorty himself says in ''Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature''

so, are we seeing the end of philosophy or are we simply seeing the end of
philosophy as it has been since Descartes? if epistemology is not to be the
base camp, the foundational aspect of philosophy, then what is to be the new
base camp, the new foundation of philosophy?

Rorty seems to suggest, but only to suggest that perhaps Heuristics is
the next foundation of philosophy...

Heuristic: enabling someone to discover or learn something for themselves
computing: proceeding to a solution by trial and error or by rules that
are only loosely defined....

philosophically Heuristics means to discover method of discovery,
serving to guide reveal is any approach to problem solving that employs
a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or
rationalized but is nevertheless ''good enough''

finding the ''TRUTH'' not by rules or method, but by using whatever
method will get us to the '''TRUTH'' which seems to suggest that the
''TRUTH'' is not universal, but individual....relativistic....
for a universal truth would suggests that there is only one way to reach
that ''TRUTH'' and no other method can get there...
a universal ''TRUTH'' requires only a universal way to search for the ''TRUTH''

to find god, one must seek that ''TRUTH'' via Jesus.. there is no other way to
god but through Jesus.... a universal ''TRUTH'' with a universal method of reaching
that truth.... that is the universal path...

to seek out the Buddhist ''TRUTH'', we must end being reincarnated....
that is the only true path to the Buddhist ''TRUTH''
a universal ''TRUTH'' requires us to engage with a universal method
of reaching that ''TRUTH''...

but as I have suggested, over and over again, there is no such thing as
a universal ''TRUTH'' one that is applicable to everyone, at all times,
in all places....

and how do we create a foundational or base camp with the ''truth''
being individual or very narrow or limited.... even the truth being
incomplete....... and not universal.... and how do we represent that
with idea's or models, little less with words?

the deeper we go into this, the worse it seems to get.... we can do as
most people do, and just pretend that we have done a deep search into
this idea when in fact, as it got deep, we ran, as far and as fast as we could.....

how can we find an answer when we can't even tell what the question is?

Kropotkin

[Veritas Aequitas]

............

the question now becomes, what is left of philosophy if we take
away representations that is, today anyway, the very heart of
philosophy?

Kropotkin

The term 'philosophy' is a very loose term and had been bastardized with academic philosophy.
It is also stated there are as many definition of philosophy as the number of people who attempted to define it.

I believe we should revert to the original meaning of 'what is philosophy' i.e. the love of wisdom is intuited from an evolved and inherent function within all humans as embedded in the DNA.
This function of philosophy is to facilitate the well being and flourishing of the individuals and therefrom the human species.
It is like the function of a CEO who manage the overall mental functions of the human system to sustain its biological and human goals.

In this case, philosophy [as defined] will never come to an end unless the human species is extinct.

[Peter Kropotkin]

In thinking about philosophy and its use of representations,
as a means of communicating, which is to say, we communicate about
things second hand.....

I say, ''oh, what about dogs?'' .....

there is actually much to this one sentence..... am I talking about one
specific dog, am I talking about dogs, as a universal concept....
if we are talking about dogs, as a universal concept.... not any one
specific dog... we are referring to dogs, as a second hand, imprecise,
concept.... as a representation.... it is more of a theoretical conversation,
and one can say in response to my question about dogs, ''I like dogs"
again, not about any one specific dog... it is about my feelings toward
universal dogs.... ''I like them''... now this talk about a representational dog
could also be about cats, monkeys, donkeys, mice, or other human beings......
it being a representational conversation, means it could be about anything....
that is the thing about representations... it could mean anything....

add 1 + 1 = 2..... the one represents a thing, one thing... and that one thing
could be anything... dogs, cats, houses, arms, moons, planets, stars....
math is representational..... it even admits that when we go into algebra
and we discuss the concept of X.... as X could stand for anything....
and we return to representational speech when we talk about science....
science is all about representational speech.... the earth is 93 million
miles from the sun.... it takes sunlight 8 minutes to reach the earth from
the sun.... Dinosaurs lived 65 million years ago......all of that is representational
speech... second hand, imprecise, abstract... not about something specific or
present, but about something that is not there.. but discussed second hand or even
third hand..... he was interested in the age of Dinosaurs...
that is representational speech that is third hand, imprecise, abstract...
and that is what we call science and math and philosophy and history
and economics and language....

but when is language not representational? when it is about something that
is specific and present..... would you like to pet my dog named Troubles....
Troubles, don't jump on our guest.... Troubles is a specific, present,
furry, with bad breath, and messing up my clothes, dog...
I don't need to represent Troubles... I can just point to and touch Troubles...
it is not a universal dog, and it doesn't represent any other dog outside of
Troubles.....when we speak of or write about a specific object that
we can touch, see, hear, taste... yech, or smell... that isn't representational....
that is reality.... that is the truth..... when we do this, engage with something
present and we can engage it with our senses, we are no longer engaged
with it representationally.... and that is where philosophy needs to head to....
to reengage with a reality/truth we can know with our senses....
and how do we do this?

by using philosophy as ''a way of life''.. not as a representation....
but within its use of life...... bring philosophy back down to earth
and mine its possibilities for what it means to be human... to use
philosophy to find out our possibilities of being....

I return to the Kantian questions all the time...
''What am I to do?" ''What can I know'' "'What can I hope for/believe in?"

and there is no better discipline to discover the answers to those questions
than philosophy....we have lost the original point of, the original meaning of
philosophy..... which is to use as a ''way of life''... that is what Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle all thought of Philosophy.... a means to discover
our ''way of life''...... recall that when pushed, the original philosophers
thought the meaning or point of life was to sit in contemplation of existence....
that was the ideal meaning of existence... to contemplate the universe.....
and that contemplation of existence was an excellent use of our life
and our eternity existence.... and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would
all have agreed with this... philosophy as ''a way of life'' was the point
of philosophy....

and this understanding was also about the role of religion as a way of life
in the Ancient world.... and think about how we understand heaven...
as simply a place to spend eternity contemplating god....

Jesus thought of religion as '''a way of life''.... it wasn't about
thinking as we do, that religion is about representing god or
heaven, but religion as ''a way of life''... exactly as the ancient Greeks
thought about Philosophy as ''a way of life''
nothing more, nothing less.......

and we have gotten far, very far away from this ancient notion of
philosophy/or religion as ''a way of life''

and by doing philosophy/religion as a way of life, we
are no longer engaging second hand, imprecise, abstract,
representational philosophy or religion...... we return
philosophy and religion, to its original mission.....
which is to provide us with a clear guidance about
''What we are to do?" ''What can we know?'' ""What can we
hope for/believe in?"

Philosophy as a way of life, religion as a way of life can help us understand
what we are to do, what we can know, what we can hope for.....

modern, representational philosophy/religion, takes us away from what should
be the point of philosophy/religion..... not to think about something but to
act in something's name....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in further thinking about philosophy/religion being a ''way of life''
what else could also fall into this category? let us take
a look at political philosophy...... politics.....

there are several different types of political systems...
monarchy, democracy, representative republic (like ours)
dictatorship, oligarchies, socialism, Authoritarianism,
hunter-gatherer... to name a few political systems....

but we also have economic systems... communism, capitalism,
mercantilism, hunter-gatherer, mixed systems....
they have broken down economic systems into set pieces.....
traditional, command, market and mixes systems....

Traditional is clearly any system that has been in use in countries
as a basic system.... slavery as an economic system belonging to a
traditional system... it is primarily agricultural and rural...
with not much in the way of creating surpluses.... which is vital in
our modern day economics....

command economic systems... which is basically a government, centralized
system....it is also called a planned system...

Market systems, in theory has very little governmental interference....
the market determines the supply and demand....

and a mixed system which uses both a market and a command system....
this is most of the industrialized countries... all of Europe and
the America's, Japan, and the industrialized countries of Asia and
the commonwealth countries.....

so, having laid out the various possibilities, let us work out one
such possibility.... that of democracy......politically,
and capitalism, economically.......

what do those two systems have in common?
that, in theory anyway, that all citizens can be participants
in democracy and in capitalism.... another way to think of
capitalism and democracy is to think of them as systems,
both economically and politically, as a ''way of life''....

democracy, as a political system, can be thought of
as a ''way of life'' system......we cannot think of dictatorships
as a ''way of life'' system....and why? because choices, that which
make us human, are not available in a dictatorship.... we have no
choices in a dictatorship..... the Soviet Union showed us that aspect
of living in a dictatorship.... choices that define us are taken away from us
and we are told what to wear, how to think, what education we are to have
and who to vote for...... the values that make us human are taken away from
us..... we may as well be animals in a dictatorship..... as we are treated
as animals in one.....

as we have choices in a democracy, I believe in democracies....
but here is where it gets tricky..... market systems economically,
are supposed to be about choices, but our modern day market
system has very little choices in it...... our jobs are based on a
profit based system which means our wages is stolen in terms
of profits to the corporation....we make less money than we create
in productivity.... and that is clearly theft.....and we have no choice
in this matter as all, ALL corporations are engaged in the creation of
profits...thus giving us no choice in having jobs outside of capitalism..
which is the system of the creation of profits.....as its only mission
in capitalism is to create profits.... read every single mission statement
of a corporation... somewhere in it, is some statement that the corporation
is about profits... and in the creation of profits, we have no choice....

and what about the market products itself.... for example, we can walked
down an isle of cereal in a supermarket and see hundreds of cereals...
but the fact is that 95% of all cereal is made by 6 corporations.....
as 7 companies own 95% of all the media companies in America...
as 7 companies makes 95% of all cars.... the Market place pretends to have
choice as its primary point, but that is a lie.... we have very little choice
in our supermarkets, in our buying cars, in our buying houses....the
marketplace, in theory, is an excellent means to a ''way of life''
but the reality is quite different.... and without choice, we
can't use something as a '''way of life''

so, given our current economic realities, that of very little choice,
we can't use our current economics as a ''way of life''
so, that leaves us a political meaning of ''a way of life''
and even that has left us without choices.... given
that corporations and wealthy individuals have bought
and sold our representatives in congress... we really can't depend
on democracy as being ''a way of life'' as it has been corrupted
almost beyond saving.... but that should be our goal...
to create and keep political and economic systems as
a way of life.....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in reading some of Rorty's essays, I come to an interesting
point.....The essay in question is ''Truth without correspondence
to reality''.... and one of Rorty's comments about Dewey,
is that ''philosophy is knowledge''......

a comment that struck me..... and therein lies one of the problems
with philosophy....and one of the problems with the word ''knowledge''
is the static nature of knowledge....Knowledge doesn't change...
Abe Lincoln was, is and always will be the 16th president of the United States....
Knowledge can be ''reformed'' with new information, but rarely if ever
discontinued... and example of this is our information about light....
the nature of light has changed with the changing knowledge about
what light is...... but light itself, still exists... what we think about it
has changed... the nature of it has changed... that light is thought
of as a wave and a particle... would have surprised Newton....
that is knowledge... but scientific knowledge, not philosophical
knowledge....

so, for me anyway, philosophy isn't about knowledge, it is about existence
and how we go about in this existence.....the Kantian questions,
''What am I to do?" ''What can I know?" "What can I hope for/believe in?"

but philosophy has something that knowledge doesn't... a history....
philosophy has a past, present and a future that knowledge doesn't
have...for example, what future does our knowledge about light being
both a wave and a particle have? philosophy can lay out what we should
be doing in a way that science, knowledge cannot....knowledge is
static.. unmoving, with no future.... it can tell us about the future...
the sun will explode in 5 billion years, give or take a few years,
but philosophy can take us to what changes can or should we make
to become better human beings? what is possible for us, philosophically,
in the future.... whereas knowledge cannot do that.....we can understand
ideas like morality and ethics, as possibilities in the future, whereas
we cannot do that with knowledge, like light for example.... what can
light do in the future? nothing as far as I know.... knowledge is static
like that.....but we can examine, explore the possibilities within philosophy
like in morality or ethics or metaphysics, as future possibilities....
we can't do that with the knowledge of Lincoln being the 16th
president of the United States or light is both a wave and a particle....

the real strength of philosophy is not in its epistemology, but
in its ''softer'' areas of morality and Aesthetics and its questions of being.....
where we can ask, we have X morals today, what morals will it take for
us to become ''better people" in the future.... that is not an knowledge question,
but an ethical, moral question about what is possible for us in the future....
something that questions of knowledge, Lincoln being the 16th president
cannot answer for us...

philosophy is not knowledge... but what to do with that knowledge...
and where might that knowledge take us in the future....

changing the nature of what philosophy as not the search for knowledge, but
the search in becoming... that question changes everything....
what we were and what we are and finally, what we can be....
that is philosophical, not knowledge....and where we should be
taking philosophy..... into the future....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

in this post, we are going to explore this idea of history,
of movement in time.... and our two examples are
Darwin and Hegel.....

read any type of history of science and one can not fail to
see that science until Darwin was relatively static....
there was very little movement in science.... what was, is,
and always will be.....so, if one were to describe say,
the geology of America, it would be fairly static... with
not much happening within America, geological speaking....
but think of the sciences and Arts and history and philosophy.....
they were all fairly static affairs... very little movement happened
in any of these area's.....even in politics.... the French Revolution
happened, and that was an active event, not a static one...things
happened.... there was a past, present and future to the French
Revolution...... but think of Europe after Waterloo... it became
a very static place... science progressed, but it was a steady climb,
not anything revolutionary... slow and steady was the basic description
of Europe after Napolean...Revolutions broke out every 15 years or so....
1830, 1849, but both of these were crushed out of existence....
but within the disciplines, history, geology, philosophy, economics, science,
politics..... progress was the watch word, but slow, measured progress...
nothing radical or revolutionary.....

and what changed? Hegel in philosophy brought about something new...
and that was history... there was, suddenly, a past, present and future
in philosophy...In philosophy, there was movement and change...
read Kant... there is no movement, no change in Kant...there is no
history in Kant....it is a static philosophy with no change within it.....

and the second person who brought history into the world..
was Darwin.... read science before Darwin... it is quite static,
non-moving, what was, is and always will be.... Human beings
were created by god and that act means human beings don't change,
or evolve... there is no movement in who human beings are....

In Darwin, science suddenly became aware of history...
that the past was different than the present, which means
the future could be, very different than the past or today......
the idea that movement, what little there was, was generated
by god.....and god, as we know, has no history, no movement,
no change...and this was true of his creations... human and otherwise...
but Darwin changed all that..... with Darwin came change, and how little
change was in the hands of god..... change, the idea of change removed
god from the equation of existence....how I became a good person or
a bad person was no longer in the hands of god.... I had control... I could
become who I was.... As Nietzsche expressed it...with no room for god,
in history, in philosophy, in economics, in science, geology, or in our
understanding of what it means to be human...... the sovereignty of
existence transferred from god to human beings...or to the land, animals,
agriculture, or whatever topic was at hand....

the movement of time, from past, present to future.. removes god
from the equation of being..... and that is what we learned from both
Hegel to Darwin... the movement of existence.... that we weren't
static being who never changed... we were now beings in time,
with a past, present and with luck, a future..... Darwin and Hegel,
brought us into thinking about the future.... what will the future bring?
that is a modern question.... The Greeks don't deal with that,
the only concern the Medieval human being thought about it, was
in terms of going to heaven....that was the only future that Medieval man
cared about... Read Renaissance writers.... there was no sense of
past or present... and no sense of the future either....

where did any sense of history, of past, present or future began?
I would say the ''Enlightenment''.... think of when history books,
were began anew... it was during the ''Enlightenment'' that writing
history books came back... Voltaire and Gibbon were ''Enlightenment''
writers... and both wrote histories... that are still being read today....
Neither one was concerned with the future... that came about with
Hegel and Darwin.....

that the movement of history, of going from past, to present
and then onto the future, is a modern development......
and needs to be understood that way......

read or listen to modern day conservatives, and one doesn't get a sense
of history......there is very little in the way of future in modern conservatives...
past and present, yes, but no sense of where we are and where we
want to be......going from past to the future....of movement....
that in fact could be a working definition of being a conservative...
there is no sense of moving through time in a conservative...

(and knowledge, has for the most part, no movement from
past, present to future.. that is the curse of knowledge,
there is no sense of moving through time in knowledge)

and that is why philosophy has more importance than
knowledge... because knowledge is static, and philosophy
entire point of existence is change, movement through time...
but that is because of Hegel.... much of philosophy, especially
in Nietzche, time, movement through time was vital in N.
for N. that human beings need to overcome themselves
is movement through time... that man is a being moving
from past, apes, to today, human beings, (we hope)
to some future... virtually ever philosophical idea of Nietzsche is,
in some fashion, tied to time... the movement of one in time....
think about his idea of Eternal reoccurrence... his worst idea.. BTW...
that is still about movement through time... until time itself returns
to this exact same spot... and recreates everything we can see, the open
door, to the spider's web, to the books on the shelves, the exact same books,
time and time and time again....

which leads us to a point or two... that much of science is about
things which are static.. unmoving in time... the speed of light,
should in theory, be unchangeable in time....
that light is a wave and a particle, should in theory, never change...
that idea should remain the same forever... in theory......

but philosophically, the idea of movement, is basic within philosophy....
that we move through time and are affected by time, is now anyway,
philosophy 101...... that we must change with the movement of idea's
in time is Marx..... that is Marx belief... that we live in and through
history.... through time.....we can either deny in our historical destiny
and be crushed by time or we can simply accept the coming history of
the classless society that will, without a doubt, take over the world....
or so Marx thought....it is still a possibility... but not a likely one....
if we were to mark out a change in our thinking, that we
are now historical beings, that think about our movement in time..
whereas before the French Revolution/the Enlightenment, and
no one thought that way before.....both us and history,
were static, unmoving, not changing, before the Enlightenment.....

The French Revolution was not possible before the Enlightenment is clear...
that the Enlightenment gave us a new understanding that we are being in time
and that we can change and affect time.... this was a necessary thought
that allowed the French Revolution to happen.... because why make a
drastic change like the French Revolution if we can't change history?
If we are static in history, with no movement, then we can't make
any changes... the very idea of the French Revolution loses its point....
if we can't change history.....

this idea is both a social, societal idea as well as an important
individual idea....if we can't change things, why bother changing
our lives or losing weight or stopping bad habits?

that we can impact our future is an important idea and
a very modern idea..... brought about by both Hegel and Darwin.....
and the Enlightenment....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

let us reflect on philosophical thoughts before Hegel....

the ancient Greek ideas of subject and object
and the more modern idea of Descartes of body and mind...
both are dualisms that have impacted philosophy, both
ancient, Medieval and Modern philosophy....

but give both ideas a thought... subject, objective
and mind/body.... are not idea's that move within history....
the subjective, objective battle that has been going on for
over 2000 years has not changed... subjective and objective
still mean the same thing... even after all this time
and the body/mind problem of Descartes hasn't changed
one iota since Descartes...

the nature of what is thought of to be the subjective/objective problem
and the mind/body problem have changed, for example, Kant tried
to change the nature of the objective/subjective problem...
but the question/problem of the objective/subjective are still the same....
historically, they are still the same....
what is thought about them has changed, but the problem itself, no change.....

until we get to Pragmatism, and the primary practitioners of Pragmatism,
tried to change the nature of the problem or at the very least, ignored
the problem into something else.....John Dewey for example, never
gave much credence to the objective/subjective problem....
and Richard Rorty didn't do so either.....
but think about it... can the mind/body problem or the
objective/subjective problem really lead us anywhere, in any case?
They are fun philosophical problems, but have no bearing on
our lives, either way..... how exactly does the objective/subjective
problem going to change your life? or how does the mind/body problem
change how you think about your life? I think of it like one of those
one or two move chess problems... mate in two move problems,
just something to engage with at the moment, but nothing that
will change or affect your life.... a dime store romance novel
that is of interest for about 5 minutes... and then, moving on...
and I hope that philosophical problems are a bit deeper than
two move checkmate problems....

so, moving on, part of what we must engage with is this,
what problems are actual philosophical problems that we
should engage with? That have some value in attempting,
even if we don't come up with a solution...and I, personally,
don't think part of that answer is mind/body or objective/subjective
problems..... so, what philosophical problems are problems
we should engage with? both individually and, AND collectively?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

much of the discourse today, centers around the subjective/objective
and the mind/body problem....

the US vs THEM... that is so much of our modern political discourse...
and where does one draw the line in this creation of ''US vs THEM?

In politics for example, he is a democrat... US vs THEM....
he is a conservative.... he is '''WOKE''...She thinks that
IQ45 can walk on water... but that there are other criteria that
can be used to create an US vs THEM mentality...
Race, creed, color of the skin, religious, sexual orientation,
immigrant, native, tribe... should we discriminate, devalue one
because they hold different beliefs than we do...

I hold that anyone who values, believes, roots for the baseball team, The Los Angles
Dodgers should be put in prison.... but one might, and correctly I add, that
holding that believe of US vs THEM in regard to the Dodgers is insane...
but how is holding that belief any different from holding the belief
that blacks are inferior to white? that immigrants are destroying America?
that Gays or people who are ''WOKE" belong in Prison?
On what criteria can we hold one differently than the other belief?
what knowledge tells us that one belief, that fans of the Dodgers should
go to jail and that blacks are automatically inferior are any different than
a belief in Santa Claus or god?

How are we to separate out those various beliefs? what criteria will
we use, to differentiate those beliefs as useful beliefs and dangerous
beliefs?

This is a common philosophical problem... which beliefs are valid and
useful and which beliefs are dangerous and invalid.....and how are
we to judge this matter?

Now some, many will wrap themselves up like a pretzel to answer
or solve the question of what values and beliefs are valid
and why some are not valid?

The Liberal answer is to allow everyone to have/hold to their own
opinions as long as it doesn't interfere with the state or society at large..
the conservative answer is to limit as much as possible any differing opinions
to the majority, or even the minority.....the conservative will happily
judge anyone based on values that are different than the values the conservative
himself/herself holds.... gays are wrong because they violate certain values...
and how do we know this? We can't but that never stopped the conservative
wrapping themselves into a pretzel trying to condemn values that are different
from what the conservative holds...

our society/state today has some serious internal problems but I hold
they stem from us holding onto the US vs THEM problem....
you want to end social discord and internal problems, end the
US vs THEM question... much of what ails America stems from
the US vs THEM discourse...our soul sickness stems from the
US vs THEM problem...

until we see/recognize that we are one and the same, not US vs THEM,
that we will end much of the social, political and legal problems
that plague us today, once we make that recognition that we are
in trouble because of our insistence to see people as US vs THEM....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

much of what Philosophy, religion, science, history,
language, economics is to get down the ''essence'',
the truth of something...As Rorty correctly points out,
what is the ''essence'' of the number 17? go ahead try,
I'll wait....

if we can't find the essence of the number 17, then what can we
find the essence of? for example, can we find the essence of ''Justice""
or what it means to be ''human?" what is the essence of being human?

I would be hard pressed to find the essence of human beings....
I don't even know where to look to find the essence of human beings....
essence is just another word for ''truth'' and that has been the mission
of philosophy since Socrates... to find the ''truth''... essence of something...
be it human or justice or god or reality.... what is the ''truth'' the essence
of reality... if that hasn't been the mission statement of philosophy
since Socrates, I don't what philosophy has been doing for over 2500 years....

and I suspect that is part of the reason why philosophy hasn't really ''gotten''
anywhere...there is no more of an essence in human beings as there is
in the number 17..... or in reality or in justice or god.......we
seek something that isn't there.... hence we reach failure....
what is that classic definition of insanity? something about doing something
the same thing, over and over again, and expecting different results?

yah, that definition.....

so, instead of finding out the essence of something, like being human,
we change up the game and seek out what is possible in being human?
which has nothing to do with finding our essence, but in finding out
what we can possibly do as human beings....It is possible for me,
possible, for me to become the greatest philosophy to have ever lived,
that has nothing to do with finding my essence or in finding various philosophies
essence... the game has changed which means to goal has changed...
it doesn't matter if I find the essence of being human, where instead I get to
''What am I to do?" problem.... it doesn't matter one iota what the essence of
reality is, what matters is, what am I to do in that reality?
that is what counts.... and that is what philosophy ought to be doing....

seeing what is possible for us to do?

Kropotkin