Philosophy Now Forum

fivedeadapples wrote:Four pages in and I have yet to see anyone attempt to answer the title.

I did. Philosophy is a tool, like any discipline. But if the tools are misused, nothing gets accomplished. Toolsmith's fault, not the tool.

Anyways, what was your answer?

"Four pages in and I have yet to see anyone attempt to answer the title."

As I posted up-thread...

Seems to me philosophizing is supposed to be about thinking deeply and honestly about things.

...so put that in your pipe.

fivedeadapples wrote:Four pages in and I have yet to see anyone attempt to answer the title.

Hold on! I thought you'd found who you were looking for and that's the end of you?

the point of philosophy is to become aware and validate our different subjective experiences. To validate and learn about the powers of reason as we go through life. To accept reason as important and a necessary reality. To apply reason to all we experience. To know reality in the subjective experience. To stretch beyond evidential objectivity and see more in reality. And putting our speculations to the tests and rigors of argument and science. Philosophy expands the science mind . Philosophy adds dimensions to all of reality. We live and die upon the assertions we live by. Without philosophy their would be nothing to test. A healthy fascination and faith in the vitality of reason, its importance makes life come alive.

the history of philosophy has a lot of deadness to it. Philosophy is in dire need of new philosophers. Our past philosophers have a lot of futility in them. Add a reasonable faith to philosophy and it could come alive.

Philosophy is a disciplined method of identifying, cataloguing, ordering, and assessing thought/belief and statements thereof. Done right, it is a beautiful thing to behold. There's much too little of that going on anymore, much to my chagrin. However, despite the twits hereabouts who incessantly belittle philosophy based upon their own emaciated understanding of the importance that it has had and still has within humanity itself, I am one - among many - who recognize the vital role that philosophy has in the political and economic landscape of today's modern world...

Here's a truism. If you think philosophy is useless, then you do not understand it.

creativesoul wrote:Philosophy is a disciplined method of identifying, cataloguing, ordering, and assessing thought/belief and statements thereof. Done right, it is a beautiful thing to behold.

It can just as well become a method of challenging, upsetting or falsifying a self-congratulating position taken by some.

There are many examples in history where philosophy (or theology) fulfilled a revolutionary role. And it would be extremely philosophical to also question the cataloguing and ordering itself (e.g. Nietzsche). For example, it could question utilitarianism or any idea on progress, development and meaning itself. Therefore philosophy is the ultimately useless (or "beyond-use-useless") thing as it cannot be either useful or useless to be able to ask the questions. For that reason even "proper" identification and cataloguing is only philosophical in as far this enables a proper, "self-aware" (folded back to itself) exchange. Any resulting catalogue would be historical in nature and merely tools for historians of philosophy. This reasoning could lead to boiling down philosophy to a "spirit" more than a discipline or a science. Some restless, questioning spirit but not a rule book since it could just as easily create rules and laws as dismiss them when the time has come.

Philosophy could perhaps be described as being equal a certain essential aspect of mind itself and not its resulting forms or actions. However, this assessment could never philosophically proven or put inside some tradition or framework. It's more like axiomatic truth: one can start from it or dismiss it as useless tautology or self-indulgence. But even that personal determination, no matter the conclusion, would still be that very restless spirit.

osgart wrote:Philosophy is in dire need of new philosophers.

As it is, there's no way you could keep up with everything published by the philosophers currently publishing.

"The Point Of Philosophy" lacks a substantial question or motive as a title. A more fruitful title is "What Does Philosophy Do For You?" One would hope that those for whom philosophy does nothing at all would would not reply.

Belinda wrote:"The Point Of Philosophy" lacks a substantial question or motive as a title. A more fruitful title is "What Does Philosophy Do For You?" One would hope that those for whom philosophy does nothing at all would would not reply.

The thread inquiry seeks to find the principle, and then apply that principle to specific, relative events. To seek only the anecdotal evidence of personal experience is to limit understanding of how the manifested variety and vagaries of human existence, such as delusion and attachment, affect the principle.

For example, if we say that the point of philosophy is to understand the phenomenal world outside of our skin, then the principle of the point is to apply the philosophy to specific events. By the same token, if we say that the point of philosophy is to understand the world inside of our skin, which it likely is since it deals with ideals, then this philosophical understanding is also applied to specific events.

When the inner becomes the outer you end up with a Trump. So, what separates the two other than skin?

Jacobsladder wrote:

creativesoul wrote:Philosophy is a disciplined method of identifying, cataloguing, ordering, and assessing thought/belief and statements thereof. Done right, it is a beautiful thing to behold.

It can just as well become a method of challenging, upsetting or falsifying a self-congratulating position taken by some.

There are many examples in history where philosophy (or theology) fulfilled a revolutionary role. And it would be extremely philosophical to also question the cataloguing and ordering itself (e.g. Nietzsche). For example, it could question utilitarianism or any idea on progress, development and meaning itself. Therefore philosophy is the ultimately useless (or "beyond-use-useless") thing as it cannot be either useful or useless to be able to ask the questions.

Is not questioning the cataloguing itself a method of cataloguing?

Walker wrote:

Belinda wrote:"The Point Of Philosophy" lacks a substantial question or motive as a title. A more fruitful title is "What Does Philosophy Do For You?" One would hope that those for whom philosophy does nothing at all would would not reply.

The thread inquiry seeks to find the principle, and then apply that principle to specific, relative events. To seek only the anecdotal evidence of personal experience is to limit understanding of how the manifested variety and vagaries of human existence, such as delusion and attachment, affect the principle.

For example, if we say that the point of philosophy is to understand the phenomenal world outside of our skin, then the principle of the point is to apply the philosophy to specific events. By the same token, if we say that the point of philosophy is to understand the world inside of our skin, which it likely is since it deals with ideals, then this philosophical understanding is also applied to specific events.

When the inner becomes the outer you end up with a Trump. So, what separates the two other than skin?

My suggestion is Wittgensteinian to the extent that it gets us no further forward in our common quest for goodness and truth.So I agree with Walker. What "separates the two other than skin" is however ad hoc and that disconcerting fact about the relativity of times and seasons we also need to keep in mind in the interests of truth and goodness.