the end of philosophy?

[Peter Kropotkin]

if we can't find the essence of something philosophical,
then what exactly can philosophy do?

I might suggest that what matters is the relationship
between ideas, people and feelings..... a fair amount of philosophy
is to work out the relationships between idea's.... ''truth'' stand
to people as what relationship is/has the truth to people....
what is the philosophical notion of angst, what is the relationship
of angst of Kierkegaard, to the notion of angst in Sartre? Philosophy does
that pretty well...and I am a big fan of sticking to one's strength,
either in sports or work or in philosophy......that is one of the reasons,
I avoid answering or engaging with people in regard to my philosophy...
I am not good in that sort of engagement...that is not my strength,
I stick to my strength which is thinking about or in creating idea's....
I don't do well mucking about in the mud..... I am better served
floating like a butterfly above the fray... I do best with a birds eye
view of philosophy...

anyway, we need to engage in philosophy in working out the various
relationships that occur in philosophy...one guy might be borrowing from
Plato and another borrowing from Descartes and another from Spinoza....
we can explore and understand philosophy from that standpoint...
of working out the relationships between various philosophers and
their philosophies....

a very valuable aspect of philosophy is charting out the relationships
between philosophers...and wondering why that borrowing and not another?

so, philosophy is also working out the relationships between philosophers
and their philosophies....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

if as I have suggested that we cannot ever hope to get
the ''essence'' of reality.. that we can't find the truth of reality,
if that search is vain and pointless, why bother then?
if under no circumstances, we cannot find the truth, the essence
of reality, why should we then engage in the search for the truth,
the essence of reality? we bother trying to find something
that doesn't exists? what if, what if such things as the essence
of justice doesn't exists? there is no truth that lies within justice...
now what?

we see justice for what it is, random, arbitrary, with luck having as
much impact on justice as the law or the constitution...
We see this in the various trials of IQ45... delay after delay
after delay and one just stopped... the very serious one that
for anyone else on planet earth, would already be in jail for....
but not IQ45.... which say to us, that justice doesn't exists in
this country..... if something is random, arbitrary, full of chance,
it has no essence, there is no truth to be found there.....
may as well empty out the prisons... for there is no longer
a judiciary system if, if IQ45 escapes even going to trial,
we don't have a judiciary system... for if one person escapes justice,
it no longer exists... justice delayed is justice denied...
for justice to work, as it's supposed to work, it cannot be dependent
on luck or randomness or who you know...and IQ45 trials to date,
has been dependent on luck, randomness and who you know....

there are real life consequences if we have no essence or truth to
seek in concepts or ideas.... if science has randomness within it,
if as evolution suggests that probability is a major factor in
evolution, then how can we depend on such science as evolution?
if chance or luck plays a part in science, that concept negates
the very idea of science.... which is using rationality and reason
to explain the universe.... and how does luck and randomness
within reason or rationality work, exactly, how does that work?

if within science and within the legal system, where luck and chance
play a role within them, how can we depend on those systems as
being nothing more than just chance or randomness at work?
if the essence of science or the law is nothing more than chance,
then our entire system of reality that we have so laboriously built,
is tottering on quicksand...at best.....the bigger the role of chance
or luck plays into the existence of something, then we have to
accept that luck or chance can destroy that system,
just as equally and effectively...

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

one of the ongoing, perennial questions of philosophy
is the reality vs appearances question...

it was the focus of early Greek philosophy and one of the
biggest parts of Plato philosophy.....over my 30 plus years
on the internet arguing this question... on both sides
of the question... but I have over the last few years gone
on one side of the argument.... and have argued for it over
the years......

Plato has argued that we have appearances... but we have
behind those appearances, reality..... for Plato called that
reality... Eternal forms...He specifically brings up the perfect circle...
that a circle or a triangle is a perfect form... and is reality....
not an appearance... the question of reality vs appearance comes
from the apparent multiplicity of realty... what is permanent in existence
and what is apparent change... for Plato, what matters is not the
apparent change that appears to happen, no, for Plato, what
matters is the permanent form that exists outside of those appearances,
the changes... for ''True'' reality never changes... it is an eternal form
and doesn't change into something else...the Christian didn't change
this formula... they saw the reality behind the changes and appearances...
but to their way of thinking, it was god that is the reality behind
all those apparent changes, the multiplicity of reality doesn't exist,
for behind all those apparent changes lies god.... and he is the reality..
for he is the one and only reality in existence....the Christian prayer..

"there is but one reality and that reality is god''

but the Christian alone does not make that prayer... The Muslim too
makes that prayer...multiple names for the one god of reality....
and 2000 years after Plato, we have Spinoza make the exact same claim...

''that there is but one substance and that substance is god''

and all appearances just hide the one face of god... all change
mask the presence of god.... the one reality behind all change....

but there is a second school of thought... that the appearances
are reality... and there is nothing behind those appearances....
not even god.... if one unwraps an onion, what do we find at the
center? some special agency that is the answer to everything?
to the religious, unwrapping anything will lead one to god,
for the is the primal and only substance in the universe....
but peal back the layers of an onion and what does one find?
Nothing.... nothing at all......the appearance of the onion is
the reality of the onion.... there is nothing in the center of
an onion.... the appearance is the reality.... but the Christian
or the Muslim won't accept that.... there must be something inside of
that reality... and that reality is god....

for a Christian, the wine is not just wine, but it is the blood of Jesus...
and the bread is the body of Christ.... and to receive this ''gift''
one must be free of a ''grave'' sin.... and to repent, to perform
penance is required before one can get past the appearance of
wine and bread... to get to the reality of wine and bread.....

but as been noted, a cigar is still just a cigar....there is no
reality behind the cigar... nor is there any reality behind the
drinking of the wine or the eating of the bread......
and this drive to get to the center of everything, to
find in the center, a permanent, fixed reality...
which according to both the Christian and the Muslim,
is god..... is a false story, a false narrative...
and prevents us from understanding and seeing the
appearances that is reality..... the modern prayer:

"Help me see reality as it is, not as I want it to be''

and reality is the appearances, not whatever we think is inside
of appearances.. in this question of reality vs appearances...
I will take appearances every single time....and twice on Sundays....

but what does this mean for philosophy? to take appearances before
reality? it takes out a whole lot of philosophy that has been done
over the last 2500 years... it ends much of philosophy as we know it...
and it rewrites the future of philosophy... if we no longer search for
the reality of an event, a situation, or a person, what do we have left,
philosophically, to do?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and what happens if we take seeking reality over appearances?

we do something that religion has done for centuries... we devalue,
dehumanize human beings and the present moment....
does watching the sunset matter if, if we see it as only being
a reality? With god being behind the sunset, we devalue
the moment of the sunset.... in seeking the reality behind the
appearances, we devalue our own worth, our bodies, our
values and our faith.......Christianity is notorious for its
devaluation of the human body.... only the spirit counts, the body
has no value for Christians... the Christian devalues the moment
for an eternity to come....and hence the value or point of one
sacrifice to god or to country..... to the supposed higher value
of reality... which is god and/or country..... not the body and not to
the moment.... and not to appearances... but the reality is that
appearances are all we have......the body and the moment
are all we have... to have the present moment is worth far more
than some possible future, maybe future... and only if we are good in
the future...or said another way...

a bird in the hand is worth two in the bushes...

but does this change, from a possible future, to working out
the moment, the end of philosophy or, or is it really the
beginning of philosophy? I am willing to bet that changing our
perspective from gaining a future to valuing the present, will
renew and revive philosophy... as we know it today.....

Kropotkin

[Systematic]

so, what exactly does philosophy stand for, if not about
representations?
Kropotkin

Successful philosophy is about success itself.