What is the purpose of philosophy?
Other than masturbatory?
I don't want to demean humanities since I don't think it's not real work. But at least the arts are beautiful. Philosophers seem so authoritative.
I don't trust how much they believe in themselves, even when they are saying you can't believe in anything.
Is it that philosophy as a field is sort of broad? Like, philosophy of science, political philosophy?
Edit: I don't mean to demean it. I actually enjoy what little I've read.
Last edited by lemontrees; 12-12-2018 at 02:33 AM.
What is purpose? Ask philosophy!
Maybe this won't be as popular as my "Why are Intjs so hot??" thread.
The purpose of philosophy - or natural philosophy as it was called - was originally to understand reality at the deepest levels. Originally people (the Greeks etc.) tried to figure out the answers just by thinking about things. Then people (such as Ibn al-Haytham) realized a lot of those questions (such as how old the universe is, what things are made of, etc.) can also be answered just by observing and/or manipulating the universe - however, with varying degrees of certainty. This is what we now call "(empirical) science", and we typically consider the two fields separate even though science necessarily incorporates a certain philosophical (aka, empirically non-verifiable) view of the world - a worldview which may or may not be true!
So, philosophy ended up being stuck with the most difficult, least empirically-accessible questions (many of which also have answers in, say, religious traditions), and largely hasn't answered or made significant progress on any of them using the "just think about it" method. What philosophers do nowadays is mostly going over the same old questions without much in the way of original ideas.
However, there is an emerging "fourth way" that relies on a certain kind of mathematics to answer these questions. Socionics is a crucial part of this area due to its generality and bearing on human consciousness.
The purpose of philosophy is to sort of take a step back and take a look at what you're doing.
For example, you might be running in a certain direction, but you don't know why. So you ask yourself, "Why am I running in this direction?". After a bit of thinking, you might come up with a satisfactory answer and say, "Ah, that's why I'm running in this direction...". But if you're not satisfied with the answer, then you'd say, "Wait a minute, this is really stupid. I'd better change my direction, or better yet, I'd rather take a walk than run. Or perhaps call a cab".
So I think philosophy is kind of like that. It allows you to go outside of the framework that you're working on, and change the direction.
Moral and political philosophy matters a lot. Think about the purpose of justice, depending on whether society concludes:
a - the purpose of justice is to enact retribution against someone's past actions (good in itself)
b - the purpose of justice is to rehabilitate the criminal and integrate them into society
c - the purpose of justice is to deter further crimes from occurring
d - the purpose of justice is to demonstrate society's opposition to such acts
It will ultimately have some impact on how laws are written, how sentencing is done, even if it's subtle.
To know how to appropriately be aware and respond and decide. Helps optimize potential experience.
It's part of consciousness reality finding out more about itself by exploring the multiverse.
Philosophy means "love of wisdom" in Greek.
Last edited by vesstheastralsilky; 12-13-2018 at 06:04 PM.
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
Think it was either Wittgenstein or Bertrand Russell (refresh my memory) who kind of killed 20th century philosophy (except maybe postmodernism) in the philosophy of language when he declared nothing rational and intelligent could really be said about anything. They threw away notions of truth values God definitions semantics etc and those who could've come after found a legacy of ashes to work with. Later came Dr. Seuss books. ; )Originally Posted by thehotelambush
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
Hi yes, I'd like to order a drink of simulacra on ice, shaken not stirred please
limh
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
good question.IMO it's similar to asking ''why do we need a head center and can't just do with a heart center''?
Last edited by Kalinoche buenanoche; 12-15-2018 at 06:03 PM.
I like Dr. Seuss books better than philosophy books.
Really?!
Oh yeah I think Theodore was ESI. Must revisit pix.
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
They both shot themselves in the foot when they created something called "Logical Positivism", which states that any statements not verifiable by observation are worthless and meaningless. But then Logical Positivism itself is a theory that is not verifiable by observation, so it declared itself to be meaningless.
Wittgenstein realized the logical implication of this, and claimed that all philosophy is meaningless and everyone should stay silent about all philosophical matters (he didn't do so himself). And somehow, Wittgenstein is supposed to be some sort of a philosophical genius, according to some people...
So the quality of philosophy really dwindled, and postmodernism is just another one of the nonsense.
THANK YOU! It had been too many years (like 20) since reading the details. You brought it all back.
~* astralsilky
Each essence is a separate glass,
Through which Sun of Being’s Light is passed,
Each tinted fragment sparkles with the Sun,
A thousand colors, but the Light is One.
Jami, 15th c. Persian Poet
Post types & fully individuated before 2012 ...
The more creative civilization will always out-innovate a less creative civilization.
So the question is, what makes creativity possible, and what makes creativity impossible?
Why have humans hardly innovated in the last hundreds of thousands of years... (well, they innovated more than the Neanderthals, at least), but then suddenly in the last few centuries, humans exploded in innovations?
The answer isn't that they lacked the ability. The answer is that either they didn't know how to make use of that ability, or they were searching for it in the wrong direction.
The search for what makes creativity possible and impossible, is the same as the search for what makes the growth of knowledge possible and impossible. And that is a matter of philosophy. Which is called epistemology, the theory of knowledge.
And since creativity and the growth of knowledge is what makes any progress possible, including moral progress, then it must mean that whatever that obstructs creativity and the growth of knowledge is evil. Whatever that grows it, is good.
You sound like a sith.
Waiting for Gödel.
You could argue that as soon as philosophy is useful, it is no longer philosophy, and then have a useless debate about what the purpose of philosophy is. If you could define what you mean by philosophy, you would know what the purpose of it is.
You haven't realized yet you have brought out the philosopher in yourself by asking this question?
“I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.” --- Pippi Longstocking
If you have no philosophy, you have nothing to guide your actions.
Edit: Maybe "guiding your actions" isn't right since that makes it sound like the philosophy is controlling you or something. The thing is, everyone has a philosophy, most people are what Ayn Rand called "second handers" they follow a philosophy they inherit from family, school, society, the media, entertainment etc but they aeren't aware of it. The point of studying philosophy, at least to me, is to learn what ideas people have inherited and if we can replace them with something better. I don't claim to be a philosopher myself, nor am I interested in academia, but everyone needs philosophy and most people are just blindly influenced by the ideas of others.
Philosophy is the most practical study there is.
I think when it's about opening up your mind to the complexity of existence, it's pretty cool. But when it becomes about providing answers and ideologies it gets pretty masturbatory.
what is the reason of potato
To get high.
I think basically gathering understanding of life. Philo + sophy. Life and knowledge, right?
Philosophy is useful. Philosophy is an archaic term for knowledge in general, but people go to college and think "philosophy" is some sort of separate thing. College also tends to teach people to chug liquor from red solo cups, stay up all night, do the easiest task possible so you don't have to work, and take up terrible Marxist politics. Usually when people say philosophy, they mean ethics, or weird ancient cosmologies like "the world is made of fire." Technically, all the sciences are still natural philosophy even though really no one calls them that, and what philosophy of science a scientist uses can actually get different results from the same data. Ethics and aesthetics are still important even if you can't often get a job writing books about the proper ethics and aesthetics of things. A lot of philosophy is basically religion, and many philosophers are trying to do magic, especially the ones who don't dare call it that (e.g. "Abracadabra! Gender has vanished! It was a social construction all along!") Philosophy is extremely important even if not many people get paid to just sit at a desk and philosophize. Philosophy is really more important than engineering or even science since technically engineering and science are part of philosophy and even the way they exist they couldn't exist without philosophy, a fact which makes many "STEM" people insecure, though I would hate to live in a world without engineering or science and luckily I don't have to. (It seems like many "STEM" people, especially physicists and neurologists, think that once they study their branch of science, they know everything because they think everything is physical or everything is in the brain, and then they realize there's philosophy and their chosen discipline doesn't make them all-knowing and rather than learning more they get resentful.)
The purpose of philosophy is whatever the philosopher says it is, and whatever other people say it is, and also what the philosopher and other people don't say it is, because even if no one's saying it now, someone can say that the purpose is not what other people are saying.
To know and figure out the real, factual, and objective truth in this world. However, a lot of people assume that this world actually exists, but does it really? Is society's perception of reality and the world true? Do we actually exist? We clearly don't know. There are no specific answers for these types of questions.
Last edited by SkyNova20; 08-05-2020 at 08:03 PM.
Mostly useless but always interesting mental masturbation.
Philosophy is the quest for meaning, and a quest for answers about our existence. Who are we? Why are we here? What is existence? What is inherent in existence? What is truth? What is knowledge? What is belief? WHY is the question. Philosophy and science used to be the same thing, but philosophy still has its purpose. It can evaluate systems of thought (it can create systems of thought), perspectives, and do so in a way that considers all pathways of understanding. It doesn't turn away ideas because they are unsavory. Ideas must survive debate. Their viability depends on their allegiance to reality basically. it is open-minded. It is the realm of thought experiments and no moral judgment can prevent that thought experiment because if we will not explore, we will never see.
Philosophy tags itself to every discipline. The philosophy of science, the philosophy of some religion, the ethics (how do we define what is ethical). It is a necessary consciousness over the world, to question what we think, what we believe, what we know, and why. It's also highly centered on critical thinking. Something that isn't thought through well enough will not continue until it is.
Last edited by marooned; 08-07-2020 at 03:09 AM.
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