What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers • Hacker News Board

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#11

Post by im3w1l » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 4:26 AM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #4

As a philosophy major with multiple degrees, this is a very strange thing to read. I was raised by a highly religious family, and was always confused by why we believed what we believed. This led me to studying philosophy. I think most people don't have the deep suspicion that everything they may know might be wrong, somehow, and that the phenomena they experience may be explainable in a parallel way that better desc…

I stopped being interested because I reached a point where I felt there were strong diminishing returns. Additional study didn't lead me to make different choices or looking at everyday things differently any more. And it didn't take that long to get to that point.

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#12

Post by galaxyLogic » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

I think the problem of philosophy and its goal should be to study meaning or lack thereof in human language concerning everything from the basic principles. In other words what is the meaning pf our statements, if any. and what gives rise to "meaning".

If we take this view then interestingly the study of philosophy must also include the study of what is the meaning of the word "meaning". It must study what its own definition means. Talk about snake eating its tail

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#13

Post by posterboy » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:28 AM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #4

As a philosophy major with multiple degrees, this is a very strange thing to read. I was raised by a highly religious family, and was always confused by why we believed what we believed. This led me to studying philosophy. I think most people don't have the deep suspicion that everything they may know might be wrong, somehow, and that the phenomena they experience may be explainable in a parallel way that better desc…

> Caring about and understanding the structure of

> knowledge is philosophy.

I disagree. At least, I expected the sentence to continue differently, because the study of philosophy is to a significant degree concerned with a survey of the historic development of certain traditions of thought, and ideas.

But beyond that, it's only rarely about the structure of knowledge. That's predominantly done in information science, informatics, what English call computer science for short. Of cohrse, caring about can be done in both disciplines, but also in any other field, pretty much by the definition of "study".

Except, philosophy eventually will do it with blanket terms to the point of being meaningless. Point in case: your comment.

Really though, it depends entirely on the philosophy under study.

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#14

Post by deckiedan » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:34 AM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #5

vincentmarle wrote: post #2

I find this to be a better explanation on the purpose of philosophy: http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10113.pdf

It's kind of funny how philosophy is the only topic that gets this kind of analysis. What is the purpose of music? Perhaps most famously (after philosophy): what is the purpose of astronomy?

Funny and kind of expected, right? Like how much time we programmers spend programming our environments?

Of course philosophy wants to argue it's purpose. Musicians could write a symphony to explain music, if they felt the need, and astronomers could draw a detailed map of astronomy and explain how fast the different sub fields were diverging based on their red shift and parallax calculations?

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#15

Post by whatever1 » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 5:39 AM UTC

Plato in Phaedo defined philosophy as the investigation of the phenomenon of death.

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#16

Post by keiferski » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

A nice one that I read just this morning:

"To philosophize is to throw off apathy, to become revived."

- Novalis

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#17

Post by 082349872349872 » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:35 AM UTC

rhizome wrote: post #5

vincentmarle wrote: post #2

I find this to be a better explanation on the purpose of philosophy: http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s10113.pdf

It's kind of funny how philosophy is the only topic that gets this kind of analysis. What is the purpose of music? Perhaps most famously (after philosophy): what is the purpose of astronomy?

    “Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
    Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
    Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
    Man got to tell himself he understand.”

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#18

Post by alexashka » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

I like the simplest answer of all: philosophy is what philosophers do :)

Philosophy is ideas people come to that can't be discussed with other people who aren't also doing philosophy.

If it's taught in a university, it's dead philosophy. Alive philosophy can't be done in a classroom setting with strangers, it's highly personal and if you're lucky to find someone to do philosophy with, my, what a gift, consider yourself extremely lucky.

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#19

Post by fmoralesc » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 6:55 AM UTC

posterboy wrote: post #13

scoofy wrote: post #4

As a philosophy major with multiple degrees, this is a very strange thing to read. I was raised by a highly religious family, and was always confused by why we believed what we believed. This led me to studying philosophy. I think most people don't have the deep suspicion that everything they may know might be wrong, somehow, and that the phenomena they experience may be explainable in a parallel way that better desc…

> Caring about and understanding the structure of > knowledge is philosophy. I disagree. At least, I expected the sentence to continue differently, because the study of philosophy is to a significant degree concerned with a survey of the historic development of certain traditions of thought, and ideas. But beyond that, it's only rarely about the structure of knowledge. That's predominantly done in information science…

> the study of philosophy is to a significant degree concerned with a survey of the historic development of certain traditions of thought, and ideas.

Have you actually been exposed to any high-level contemporary philosophical research? While it is true that many philosophers do care about the history of ideas, this is quite often done in order to treat various philosophical questions systematically (for many philosophers, it's all about the questions, not about any 'philosophy' that needs to be studied). Besides, for many philosophers there is also some interest to integrate their work with the work of researchers in many other disciplines. If you work in philosophy of language, it would be ridiculous not to try to acquire some working knowledge of linguistics and cognitive science. If you work in epistemology (aka the theory of knowledge), you have to have some knowledge of cognitive science, game theory, computer science, psychology, evolutionary theory, and so on, just to know what other philosophers might be discussing.

GP's claim could be parsed in many different ways (what is 'understanding'? what is 'the structure of knowledge'?), and the suggestion that whatever that is is 'predominantly done' in computer science betrays some ignorance (or perhaps some willing obtuseness) about the alternatives. That you think that their claim was meaningless says more about you than about the claim. Why, instead of disagreeing with GP immediately, don't you ask them what they mean? You know, engage with a philosophical thought?

Re: What Is Philosophy? A survey of some answers

#20

Post by blackbear_ » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 7:08 AM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #11

scoofy wrote: post #4

As a philosophy major with multiple degrees, this is a very strange thing to read. I was raised by a highly religious family, and was always confused by why we believed what we believed. This led me to studying philosophy. I think most people don't have the deep suspicion that everything they may know might be wrong, somehow, and that the phenomena they experience may be explainable in a parallel way that better desc…

I stopped being interested because I reached a point where I felt there were strong diminishing returns. Additional study didn't lead me to make different choices or looking at everyday things differently any more. And it didn't take that long to get to that point.

Indeed. The only conclusion I reached was "well, if I cannot be sure of almost anything, what's the point?"

And that's usually the point you reach when you talk about politics with reasonable people whom you disagree with. You both conclude you can't really know much at all and leave the conversation with the same beliefs you both had before.