/philosophy/ - Philosophy

>>781
>How to do philosophy

You treat thought critically, then turn inward into your arrived conclusions and treat them self-critically.

> Attention to questions, answers, topics, and theses is guaranteed to wreck the philosophical effort.

I have no idea what you're on about in that, but it's certainly NOT philosophical to ignore any of those aspects in inquiry.

>A lot of the best philosophy is bad philosophy, so to speak.

No philosophy is bad. That, of course, presupposes that philosophy is done at all. You may find some philosophy of no interest and relevance (theology to an atheist; ethics to a nihilist), but that doesn't make a philosophy bad so long as it is a philosophy at all, i.e. a sustained critical and methodological approach to our beliefs and the meta-beliefs we conceptualize.

>If its your aim to distinguish between approaches, then you simply arent doing philosophy.

You're not doing philosophy if your goal isn't to carve the niches further. The whole philosophical enterprise rests on the foundation of new questions, refining of old concepts, logical hair splitting analysis, etc. The WHOLE point is to attempt to get down the hole of meaning as far as it goes, which involves the distinguishing of everything as far as possible in order to be exact and precise at all because meaning lies in difference, not abstract blob-like sameness or some amorphous truth.

>>785

>No philosophy is bad.

Some philosophy is awful. But my point was that some good philosophy is full of mistakes ('some of the best is bad'). But that aside, a lot of philosophy, if not most, truly is awful and without merit even without its mistakes.

I think Saul Kripke once said something like 'You dont become a famous philosopher by pointing out the mistakes of others'. His point was that mistakes are actually common, and they dont preclude you from doing good philosophy.

>theology

Theology isnt philosophy.

>You're not doing philosophy if your goal isn't to carve the niches further.

Is it so hard to understand me? Can you tell me the difference between the following statements?

0 Ethical laws are not only binding but obligate those who are bound by them to specific actions, and not mere principles.

1 emotivist fail to understand that the enlightenment era moral theorists were essentially meta-ethicists, who werent calculating moral beliefs, but describing them.

One of them is philosophy, the other isnt. One is philosophy because its talking about philosophic things, the other isnt because its talking about philosophers and history. If distinguishing things, 'splitting hairs' and analyzing is all it takes to be a philosopher, how arent biological taxonomy, lexicography, or physiology philosophy?

You make it sound like philosophy is just the writing of a phone book of famous philosophers.

>>787

> Read Hegel

Never.

>is necessarily always meta

Its never meta.

>You're just historically wrong in that regard

Philosophy is never such because it was a vogue among philosophers in a certain period (a demographic, and philosophy should never come down to demographics).

>>788
You're still unclear about what exactly you're arguing. If you want to continue discussion please do the following: provide a positive criterion of what is philosophy, not what is not. Til then, I'm just writing you off as ignorant.

>>789

>Til then, I'm just writing you off as ignorant.

Sounds good to me.

So, I'm no.780 from the last thread. I didn't have time when I said I did, but thanks for making this thread anyway.

However, I'm not entirely sure how to address your posts, since you make statements rather than arguments. But I do compliment you for the choice of title, it seems very apt and promises fruitful debate.

>>781
Since you do not think philosophy needs to yield answers, we're on the same page so far. But your next statement
>>781
>Attention to questions, answers, topics, and theses is guaranteed to wreck the philosophical effort.
raises two further questions; Firstly, what do you mean by "philosophical effort"? You were mentioning something about "philosophic success" in the last thread, and I thought you meant the ability to arrive at true results. This doesn't seem to be the case. I would appreciate if you could define what exactly it means to do philosophy, what it needs to succeed and what can "wreck" it, so to speak.
Secondly I really fail to see how fixations on questions can be anything detrimental to philosophy. If by "fixation" you mean an obsession, or a reductionistic and hasty categorisation, then that's one thing. But not only is that not inherent in focusing on a question (or a school, topic or even proposition), philosophy also thrives upon critique, reevaluation, support, differentiation and so on, all of which rely on a certain focus on subjects or questions. Even if you take a fully pragmatic and independent ("non-academic" perhaps) view on philosophy, you'd still be poorly served by not focusing on questions. Unless I misunderstand you here, my question would be; what should philosophy pay attention to?

>A lot of the best philosophy is bad philosophy, so to speak
I could not agree more. Mistakes are the best teachers, even mistakes of others. And the bigger they are, the better. That's why I like Kant so much.

>>781
>If its your aim to distinguish between approaches, then you simply arent doing philosophy
It is not my "aim" to distinguish approaches. The approaches are distinct enough as it is, at least most of the time. People don't hasten to come up with new categorisations, the categorisations pretty much beg to be made (and often simplified).
I don't mean to say that plonking a label onto a thought is "philosophy" but it is a despcription of philosophy, and as such can be used as a useful tool in the thought process, the act of philosophy, itself.

>Its amazing how difficult philosophy is, simply because the historical and scholarly periphery are so distracting
Okay, I think I get what you mean by "philosophy" a bit better from this. You are a pragmatist then? And I agree that it can be all too easy, perhaps even damaging, to rest on Isms or to believe ones own thought match perfectly with an Ism. But Isms aren't like political parties or historic alliances. Isms tend to be a lot better defined, and mostly end up with a handfull of sub-isms in a perhaps vain effort to categorise different aproaches. The worst offenders are obviously philosopher-specific Isms like "Kantianism" or "Hegelianism" and I agree that unless you fully understand whichever philosopher you refer to this way, one should stay away from labels such as these. But not all Isms are like this at all.

In essence, there is nothing wrong with associating ones beliefs and argumentative approach with Isms, because most of the time, the Isms are used to describe the thoughts. They are used AFTER the fact. At least they should be.
At the same time, it may help a few people who share a few intuitions with, say, trancendental idealism, to go right out and adopt the entire Ism, as long as they do not cease to try and understand the parts they have not yet thought through. Worst case scenario is that they drop the label again, "best" case scenario might be that they establish a more refined variant of said Ism.

>Claiming such a technique would be worthwhile
I never made a claim about the technique, I made a claim about Isms themselves. I do not support intellectual lazyness, but I do not condemn the practical use of Isms because of it.

>>786
>a lot of philosophy, if not most, truly is awful and without merit even without its mistakes.
I'm curious to know what "merit" you expect or would like to see. Personally, I do not gain much from the content of Aquinas (scholastic, not strictly theologic - I agree the latter isn't really philosophy), for example. Yet, a formal analysis of his arguments can still yield interesting insight, or even just practice. That's merit enough for me.

>One is philosophy because its talking about philosophic things
This is terribly vague, but I guess I can accept that. But it's not so much "philosophy" as a bold assertion. For me to call it actual practiced philsophy, I'd need to see the premise justified.

>the other isnt because its talking about philosophers and history
It is also talking about what philosophers thought, or what a group of philosophers think. Those aren't "philosophic things" because there is no real argumentative backing or critique of them, because the sentence masks as factual statement. But this sentence could easily, much like the first one, lead into a philosophical inquiry of ethics. Philosophy is arguing and critiquing. It is neither pure assertion (0) nor statement (1).

I hope this time I succeeded in bringing my points across. I think I understand where you're coming from, but I fear that your definition of philosophy is either too wide or too pragmantic for my taste. But seeing as I can only infer, I'd appreciate if you could tell me whether I read you correctly, and if I didn't, explicate your stance a little better. If you felt I explained isufficiently myself, I will gladly do so too.

>>791

>if you could define what exactly it means to do philosophy

Well I dont want to commit myself to anything too precise. I think generally the aim of philosophy is to eliminate confusion. That could mean a lot of things, so Ill mention two approaches I think are pretty good:

0 Hubert Dreyfus once described the academic philosopher as an 'explainer'. I think this is particularly accurate with regards to how philosophers interface with the general public. The professional explainer is a kind of specialist who helps the confused through the motions. If the intellect is analogous to the coordination of muscles, a philosopher is an athlete doctor who remedies the natural however unhealthy motions of the body that lead to muscular disorder. In this analogy, if the question and answer correspond to positions or forces of body, they are precisely what is disorderly to whom suffers philosophic problems.

In this sense, the philosopher must say whatever needs to be said to help the 'patient'. Philosophic rigor is not a primary virtue if rigorous philosophic language confuses the general public.

1 In contrast to the 'academic' philosopher, who interfaces with the public. There is also the solitary philosopher, who through extreme repetition practices reasoning. I think this role is basically analogous to some asian martial arts monk, who spends all his time refining esoteric bodily motions, but never really puts them to their obvious use (violence). Here too questions and answers are a distraction, because it is only the 'reasoning' that needs to be exercised. Where the reasoning starts or ends is arbitrary. Answers can prematurely terminate a good 'exercise of reasoning'.

Here attaining rigor is the essence of the task. If the rigor is pointless, or irrelevant, it makes no difference.

Regarding 0 and 1, I think Wittgenstein is really the epitome of virtue. He once said something to the effect of 'a philosopher who does not debate with the public is like a boxer who never enters the ring'. His academic career contained entirely on-the-spot confrontations. Meanwhile Wittgenstein would spend several periods through out his life alone in the country of Northern Europe. He effectively alternated between roles 0 and 1.

>it is a despcription of philosophy, and as such can be used as a useful tool in the thought process

I am not sure I agree. One must know what it is they are doing to do it, but a description of the labor is not a substitute for the labor itself. For many, I think the description of the labor is their way of shirking the labor, or excusing themselves from it.

> there is nothing wrong with associating ones beliefs and argumentative approach with Isms, because most of the time, the Isms are used to describe the thoughts

A description of a thought is no substitute for the thought itself. Dont you ever read something you love, and only realize long after the fact that you disagree? Arent you ever totally oblivious to where you stand? In that sense are you an Xist, or an antiXist? If the label cant identify (or identify anything meaningful) why have it? You pardon yourself from the fruit of philosophy when you have to sort out what you are going to name yourself.

Can you ever say you are the best witness of your own Ism? Why testify to your own identity if you are so unreliable?

>It is neither pure assertion (0) nor statement (1)

Well both 0 and 1 were statements (dont statements assert too? I dont understand the assertion-statement difference you made). The relevant difference was their subject matter. True, a simple assertion an no process is not good philosophy, my statement 0 however, was an example of philosophical content, not good philosophical content.

>>794
Thanks for the reply.

First;
I quite like the notion of the philosopher as an "explainer". It doesn't strike me as unintuitive while at the same time being somwhat novel to me. I appreciate that.
However, I don't think I fully understand what kind of explainer a philosopher would be. I mentioned a few times that you strike me as having a rather pragmatic approach, and it shows here, too. You say what a philosopher needs to do (explain, focus on problems and adjust language to the competence of the recipients/the public) but you do not expand on the context of that explication. What are "philosophic problems"? And how can they be addressed with any finality? Also,
>the philosopher must say whatever needs to be said to help the 'patient'
This sounds like the works of psychologists, but worse it sounds dangerously sophistic. How to determine what needs to be said? And what kind of competence does a philosopher need to have in order to confidently dish out this advice?

Second;
I'm actually on board with your definition of the "solitary philosopher" which seems like the analytic or practitioner of logic. Here, content is secondary. But that does not exclude having answers, as long as the mind knows they are only as strong as their supporting structure. So any such philosopher who holds a stance of any kind does so knowing that it is as valid as any other sound position on different premises (there tend to be many of these) AND that it is weaker than any different conclusion from the same premises that uses superior reasoning. As long as the philosopher does not dogmatically and stubbornly hold his will, I see no problem in this.
Though I give you that answers are a "distraction" in a sense, they are not a detriment per se. And asking philosophers to have no conviction at all is reducing philosophers to machines, which they may, but mostly will not be.
And further;
>Here too questions and answers are a distraction
I agreed that they can be viewed as a distraction here. But the "too" implies that you've argued the same for the "explainer" which you did not do (to my undersanding). You merely argued that the explainer needs to say what is necessary/helpful to say. Surely that can be either a answer or a question? I hasten to add, as I did last thread, that an "answer" does NOT mean an objective truth. It does not even have to claim to be an objective truth.

>the country of Northern Europe
I can't resist pointing this out. There are many countries in Northern Europe.

>>794
>a description of the labor is not a substitute for the labor itself
Precicely. It is the very thing I argued for.
>For many, I think the description of the labor is their way of shirking the labor, or excusing themselves from it
This, however, I do not agree with. If anything, it is a hasty generalisation, even if you happen to be mostly right (which I don't think either). Instead of considering them lazy, consider them convenient shortcuts both in explication and in practice. I personally vastly prefer when philosophical texts go the extra mile and define what they mean even if they use the conventional meanings, but it does not seem unreasonable to use terms that specifically describe certain modes of thought in order to shortcut through an argument or an explication. It is obviously presupposed that there is a consensus, as well as that the philosopher is aware of that consensus. But I think that's a fair assessment to make, at the very least just as fair as accusing them of intellectual lazyness.

—

>A description of a thought is no substitute for the thought itself.
Again, I agree. I don't think I ever claimed that it was.

>If the label cant identify (or identify anything meaningful) why have it?
But here's the thing; it CAN identify something, even something meaningful. I grant you that it's probably reductionistic or incomplete, but it can express a certain inclination or even a specific affinity for a certain inclination. As such it can be useful both to express ones general stance briefly, as well as to orient oneself through the jungle of philosophical literature.
You seem to think that having a label of any kind threatens the person having it to immediately cease critical thought. This is not true. If I were to call myself and Idealist, for example, I would know what that implies about my position. I can be completely fine with that, even it it's not 100% accurate or complete. But I could also call myself a specific variant, like "secular Idealist" in order to define my stance a little better. Or I could just try and define my position in my own words without the use of single term "shortcuts" which would indeed be best, but not the most practical. That is why I referred to Isms as being "useful".

Overall though, I get your critical stance on labels and I think I share it to a significant degree. But most people are fully aware of the reductionistic nature of such labels and do not use them in the binding absolutist manner you seem to suggest. And most people will express sympathies with many different approaches and Isms, though they might stress a particular one that they feel best describes their stance. I doubt many people would make such a statement hastily. And if they do, whothout sufficient knowledge of their position, you could corner them very easily.

—

>I dont understand the assertion-statement difference you made
Sorry, I essentially meant assertion to be normative and statement to be descriptive. That was a confusing way to express that, and I should've been more clear. Point is, neither are philosophical merely by merit of their subject matter. The statement
>This log is brown
is no less philosophical than
>This moral code is bad
What makes EITHER one of them philosophical is how the statement is explicated and justified. I'm sure you agree with this, if I understand your view of philosophy correctly, so this is probably just a misunderstanding between us.

>>798

Im sorry. I cant answer your questions. I dont really think there are answers to them, and whatever answers there could be, wont help you.

>how can they be addressed with any finality?

What does this mean? All explanations come to an end. Philosophy is given with finality: people stop talking. If you are asking prospectively, as in 'how can I reach philosophic satisfaction?' I think the answer is a definitive, 'I dont know'. But this shouldnt worry anyone. Firstly, because the answer 'I dont know' is quite normal regarding labor. Most working people cannot count on the success of their task, nor how the task willgo. But secondly it shouldnt worry anyone, because philosophic satisfaction is common place. Its not a heavenly ideal we havent yet realized.

>what kind of competence does a philosopher need to have in order to confidently dish out this advice?

Some incompetent people are quite confident, so I dont know what you are asking. I suspect you were asking something else tho.

> personally vastly prefer when philosophical texts go the extra mile and define what they mean even if they use the conventional meanings

You didnt understand me. 'Description of the labor' is not a fancy way of saying 'elaboration of the labor'. Defining a term, should the term be philosophical, would be the labor.

You talk about shortcuts. I dont know what you mean. I dont believe in any shortcuts. Philosophers should never use citations. I dont really think its possible to build off prior philosophical work. The one exception I can see is if you are criticizing a prior work.

>There are many countries in Northern Europe.

Here in the USA, 'country' has a second meaning: empty rural land. Wittgentein spent several periods in de-populated wilderness AKA the country.

>>802
> I dont really think its possible to build off prior philosophical work.

Well, reality disagrees completely. That is as false a belief as one could hold.

>>802
Well, I suppose that's that then. I think I have a rough notion of your perception of philosophy, but if you can't explicate further I don't think I can fully comprehend. It would be useful if you could present an example for "philosophic problems", "philosophic explanation", or "philosophic success" since you very clearly have an idea what each of those things mean, while I do not.
Saying that the answers wouldn't help me is a bit dismissive, but I think you mistake my questions to be of grander scale than they are.

>how can I reach philosophic satisfaction?
That is exactly what I meant. "How can a 'philosophic problem' (whatever that may be) be successfully addressed?" and "successfully" in this case means "to the satisfaction of the person with the problem". If you, as you say, don't know how to achieve that, then I have to ask again what kind of explication or advice a philosopher is supposed to give. There doesn't seem to be a right answer, and there doesn't seem to be a final one either. So what is left?

>the answer 'I dont know' is quite normal regarding labor
This is true. The explainer could make stabs into the dark with the expectation to help but with no guarantee. But I still don't get what kind of stabs we are talking about.

>philosophic satisfaction is common place
Explain to me, then, what "philosophic satisfaction" actually is. As somewhat of a fatalist (there I am using an Ism to spare a lenghy explication of my general position), I'm pretty sure my view on what is satisfactory differs significantly from yours.

>Some incompetent people are quite confident, so I dont know what you are asking
If you trip over the word "confidently" then it would be great if you addressed the general question and just asked what I meant by that one word, not dismiss the question entirely. Because the question, i.e. "what competence do philosophers need to have in order to function as good or sufficiently good advisors" is still lacking a response. If the question is generally a silly one to ask, then an explication as to why this is the case would be appreciated also.

>>802
>'Description of the labor' is not a fancy way of saying 'elaboration of the labor'.
I agree. I mentioned the labour of defining terms as something that some people do not do, becaus they rely on the clarity of the terms they use, or they rely on the knowledge of a certain hostoric context of the terms meaning. That is taking a "shortcut" even though I would prefer they wouldn't do it. And when people refer to Isms, they do essentially the same.

>I dont know what you mean [by shortcuts]
Using your words, a shortcut is using a label, like an ism (this is "description"), in order to spare the necessity for explication. This is possible because every Ism contains within itself the thing it describes, including all elaboration and justification. This, of course, only in a conventional way, but if the writer doesn't mean to introduce anything novel, then that is sufficient and a lot easier both to write and to read than explicating fully what a given stance contains. Hence the word "shortcut".

I realise that you dislike this notion, presumably because you think that a shortcut means you haven't thought through the arguments yourself. Please consider that this is not the case. If we were forced to explicate everything beginning with a blank slate, with no "shortcuts" whatsoever, language and communication would look vastly different. Perhaps more clear, but certainly different.

>should the term be philosophical
There you go again. What is a "philosophical term"? What makes a term philosophical? Can one and the same term be both philosophical and not?
I direct you to my example in >>799, where I make the bold claim that "this log is brown" and "this moral code is bad" are both equally non-philosophical, but can both (via argumentation) become equally philosophical. You, on the other hand, seem to think that some things are inherently philosophical, so I'm surprised you let that statement of mine pass uncommented on.

>I dont believe in any shortcuts
This, just for the record, is irrelevant. I tried to explain what I mean when I say "shortcut" and you are free to disagree with my definition or my claim that they are useful. You can also say that my explication was confusing or insufficient. But the thing I describe does, in fact, exist. That was never the issue here. So you probably mean "you don't believe in the usefulness of shortcuts", in which case I have simply failed to convince you. Which is fine, albeit a shame (for me, that is).

(Sorry I write so much, I have real difficulty keeping my thoughts compact)

>>802
>Philosophers should never use citations
This is a matter of preference, but I can get behind it. Paraphrase is always better. Unless you imply that "Philosophers should never use other philosophers" which is where your next sentece is heading towards, in which case I vastly disagree.

>I dont really think its possible to build off prior philosophical work.
Considering the history of philosophy, this is a bold statemtent to make, and I would appreciate explication if you are so inclined. I think I see that you have a very personal or personallised understanding of philosophy, in which case leaning on others is a dviation from the course, yet this doesn not exclude agreement with other philosophers, in which case building upon or modifying their work in order to express ones own is not only possible, but also highly useful.

>'country' has a second meaning
Oh. Forgive me then, I am not from the US as I'm sure was obvious. Thanks for the clarification.