Philosophy Now Forum

Hello Philosophy Now,

After doing a bit of browsing for my philosophy assignment for my high school class, I stumbled across this forum. After reading a bit around the epistemology I took great interest in what everyone has been discussing. Hope to have some head turning, thought provoking conversations, and gain the ability to think about things that I've never really considered.

Edit: Where would I be able to get a summary about all the facets of Philosophy? Where it's been in recent years? For some time I've considered Philosophy as a very circular subject with mostly the repetition of old school thoughts.

TomPhn wrote:Hello Philosophy Now,

After doing a bit of browsing for my philosophy assignment for my high school class, I stumbled across this forum. After reading a bit around the epistemology I took great interest in what everyone has been discussing. Hope to have some head turning, thought provoking conversations, and gain the ability to think about things that I've never really considered.

Edit: Where would I be able to get a summary about all the facets of Philosophy? Where it's been in recent years? For some time I've considered Philosophy as a very circular subject with mostly the repetition of old school thoughts.

I would imagine that if anyone came up with a new thought they would make the cover of Philosophy Now, for at least two issues!!

Hello Philosophy Now,

After doing a bit of browsing for my philosophy assignment for my high school class, I stumbled across this forum. After reading a bit around the epistemology I took great interest in what everyone has been discussing. Hope to have some head turning, thought provoking conversations, and gain the ability to think about things that I've never really considered.

Hope you manage it, will help in any way I can

Edit: Where would I be able to get a summary about all the facets of Philosophy?

Wikipedia is a good starting point for any research

Where it's been in recent years?

Modernity isn't everything. Progress within philosophy is more illusory than anything.

For some time I've considered Philosophy as a very circular subject with mostly the repetition of old school thoughts.

In terms of academic philosophy this is certainly the case.

Each new set of students and academics is having the same arguments over again as their predecessors but couched in slightly different terms or with more nuance. There are some 'new' areas but my thinking is that these are largely the situating of old problems into 'new' scenarios, scenarios which existed hypothetically in the past just as much as they do as reality today. In philosophy a hypothetical scenario is just as relevant as a real one, but try telling that to most people.

Perennial Philosophy; The truths are there, and whether people bother to look at them or not has varied little.

The important progress in philosophy is not that which is widely accepted, but the progress of your OWN personal understanding.

Wootah wrote:I would imagine that if anyone came up with a new thought they would make the cover of Philosophy Now, for at least two issues!!

Ha, ha! I want to make the cover, I want to make the cover, here's my pathetic attempt!

Can we imagine, and then fully grasp, that none of us invented any of the thoughts that will be shared on this forum? Personal ownership is an illusion.

It's like air, did you invent it, or do you just breathe it?

It's like food, did you invent it, or do you just eat it?

It's like water, did you invent it, or do you just drink it?

Data. Another element of the natural world. We suck it in, we spit it out. We aren't developing knowledge, it is developing us.

We're all just typists.

Oh dear, I am sorry, I do mean to welcome you TomPhn!

I have a question I want to ask you about high school, coming tomorrow...

Sorry Typist, but thats old hat and, besides which, you didn't come up with it, as you yourself say, and so it would be the idea itself and not you that makes the cover.

Damn!! Ok, I might consider doing a nude centerfold if that will keep me in consideration.

And Psychonaut, if this is old hat, we should have mastered it by now, and thus none of us will have any emotional attachment to anything we write here, because all we did is type it up. That's the test of whether this is old hat or not, whether we keep our sense of humor, as somebody rips "our" post to shreds.

Overall, this forum seems to do a good job on that score. Bowing, bowing...

The day anyone masters acting in accordance with an idea they know all too well is certainly a day for front page news.

If we don't act in accordance with an idea, we don't know it all too well.

Ok, your turn.

I agree.

It is perhaps the case that too much of Western philosophy is about collecting together as many ideas as possible into a neat little coral, with too little emphasis on knowing of those individuals well.

There is a distinct difference when two people say "I believe in God" to not only the notion being expressed but the depth of that notion. There is, equally, a difference when two people say "I like buttered scones".

A gourmand can tell you where to find the finest scones, but a true aesthete can find the beauty in those the gourmand would discard.

Psychonaut wrote:It is perhaps the case that too much of Western philosophy is about collecting together as many ideas as possible into a neat little coral,

Yes, like a carefully manicured garden. Tidy, but sometimes lifeless.

Perhaps we should look more to nature as a model, where chaos and beauty seem to coexist quite nicely.

I have long tried to systematise my beliefs.

Their defiance of my efforts had me outraged.

Now I am ashamed for ever having tried to beat them into shape in such a way.

My children, return to me and grow from the fertile land above my corpse!

Wow! Excellent!

Have you ever tried to systematise your beliefs?

It really is a nightmare. You think you know how each part fits with every other, then you put them together and you have annoying situations like A>B B>C C>A

Anyone who thinks their beliefs are wholly consistent either hasn't bothered to check, is very skilled at self-deceit, or is something of a God (still waiting on proof of the latter)

Psychonaut wrote:Have you ever tried to systematise your beliefs?

It would be even more orderly to exterminate them, but that ain't so easy either.

It's just like nature, weeds growing everywhere, way to many to clean it all up.