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Is Philosophy an Art?

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Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#81

Post by ogurechny »

zozbot234 wrote: post #4

Relevant: http://paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

What a dull essay by someone who studied lots of things about philosophy, but never practiced any. Which is, by the way, simply thinking about thinking. Complex terms and systems are strictly secondary, thinking is the thing. Questioning positions, wondering whether they are right or wrong for real — not because it's some logical exercise, what is true and what is false in principle, how do thoughts form and interact with each other, and so on. From this grow all big questions about the truth itself, and the world as a whole. And most often the ideas to doubt are your own, but self-criticism is all but absent from the essay.

Even according to his own standard of “practical utility” (ugh), philosophy would help a lot. It would probably prevent relying on textbook stereotypes, like the one about “Dark Ages”, and looking condescendingly on all those “stupid ancient people”, help believe less in common propaganda, and generally hint that 19th century militant scientism is a bit dated position (in addition to being not that smart from the start). Of course, cork hats and cranium measurements fell out of fashion, but the rest looks quite familiar in people who are so loudly happy about “SCIENCE!!!”. Obviously, the description of “science” presented is as far from real science as this description of philosophy is far from real philosophy.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#82

Post by neonological »

dschuessler wrote: post #80
neonological wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(which I did not contend) By contending nothing (YOU) imply anything. You need to type class your variable, otherwise it's assumed to be of type Any. >That is indeed my point when claiming that you contradict yourself. I believe your criticism would benefit from nuance. The nuance is just missed by you. I did address this. Multiple times. My initial post did mention that science and logic arose out of philosophy (an…

> By contending nothing (YOU) imply anything. I did not say that I contend nothing but that I did not contend that X could be „anything on the face of the universe“. But even if I did contend nothing I certainly wouldn’t imply anything. How does contending nothing imply something? What kind of reasoning is this? > The nuance is just missed by you. I did address this. Multiple times. My initial post did mention that s…

>I did not say that I contend nothing but that I did not contend that X could be

You don't have to say that you contended nothing in order to contend nothing. Simply by not contending anything and creating some random variable X and not even hinting at would X could be is equivalent to contending nothing.

>Now you insist that you meant science and logic to be by implication a part of philosophy

Just because "logic" is part of "religionology" doesn't mean it lends any form of credibility to it. "Religionology" is still crap as a whole even though someone decided to conveniently include "logic" as a part of it. It's the same with philosophy. The whole thing is illegitimate as a whole and "logic" conveniently being part of it doesn't change that the fact that overall philosophy is akin to psuedo science.

You can't even say Scientology is completely wrong. There has got to be moral tenants even in Scientology that are correct. But none of these things allows Scientology to be even remotely legitimate.

>by popular convention

That's your type class? So Philosophy is the study of anything that is "popular." That's weak. So anything we humans find as popular is now philosophy.

The relevance of my argument is that Scientology has popularity. Creationism has popularity. Anime has popularity. There is no legitimate academic field on earth that just picks and chooses what to think about based purely on popularity. And this is precisely where the problem lies.

Because all the fields of study in philosophy are chosen by "popularity" or aka "arbitrarily" you get these strange lumps of studies that have nothing to do with each other. How does logic have anything to do with aesthetics? Why call both of these things "philosophy"

Popular convention is essentially the same as anything goes. So Philosophy is essentially a mishmash of deep thoughts of whatever people deem popular. This is the conclusion given by your own rationale.

>Do you have the same demands on your own area of expertise? Would you mind formalizing it non-arbitrarily? I guess that would help me understand your expectations.

Yes. There is a much more narrow set of demands within any field of expertise. If I'm an aerospace engineer it means building machines related to flight, not building machines related to what's popular convention.

What other field on earth is basically the study of the meaning of X where X anything that is "popular convention"? Literally that's like the broadest definition ever. Comes close to the study of "everything" which is essentially the most pointless field of study.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#83

Post by ngcc_hk »

Very hard to definite art as qm constructuinis quit an art. That is why I love the Popper Criteria can it be refuted. And may I add is that the theory is trying its best to be refuted. If it is, science. If it is not, arts.

And any good effort is an art. Unless some has to add an element of empathy, demonstrating something extra.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#84

Post by goatlover »

karaterobot wrote: post #11
ironSkillet wrote: post #9

I'm reminded of a story from "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman" where he asks a bunch of philosophy graduate students on what the definition of a certain phrase was, and everyone actually had a different idea. This ambiguity of language is why in my opinion philosophy is most certainly an art and not a science.

"Ahh," he said, steepling his fingers, "but what, after all, is Art?"

So, does that make the philosophy of art metaphilosophy?

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#85

Post by goatlover »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #63

Classically, philosophy is not about establishing truth. It is about better living.

Philosophers asked metaphysical and epistemological questions in ancient Greece, India and China as well as questions about how to live a good life. Philosophy has always been plenty diverse.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#86

Post by ralusek »

This is sort of like the thing where

Biology is applied Chemistry

Chemistry is applied Physics

Physics is applied Mathematics

Not a perfect train of thought, but correct enough. If that is the hierarchy of the scientific world, I would argue that Philosophy is the "Mathematics" of art world. Every other art form is "applied Philosophy."

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#87

Post by ThomPete »

neonological wrote: post #31
ThomPete wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Philosophy when done right, teaches you how to think and that gives you and advantage that other fields don't.

Sure but teaching you how to think doesn’t address the category error I’m describing here. A lot of religious people ascribe to a religion because some aspect of that religion helped the in some way. Does this make all aspects of the religion the absolute truth? People following this flawed wisdom end up supporting creationism as the one and only truth. Are people doing the same thing with philosophy? Sure you can le…

its not trying to explain what they are its trying to ask the right questions.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#88

Post by a9h74j »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #73
bobthechef wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Language vs. meta-language. I do not understand what this is supposed to mean or demonstrate. > because concepts expressed in natural language are so massively overloaded, it's very hard to make precise statements. That's why philosophers clarify meanings and ask for clarification for terms when they think are vague. That something is "overloaded" (amphiboly) doesn't mean you can't determine which meaning is used o…

The problem isn't that it's possible to un-overload natural language - it's that the overloading is unconscious. In reality there are different meta-languages of relationships and assumptions built into natural language at every level of use and sophistication. Formalisation will not fix this. It's just as likely to bake the unconscious assumptions into a formal language as to remove them. Philosophy done well can un…

FWIW, I once read a claim that someone had found ca 30 different meanings of 'paradigm' in Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both works might represent good practice of philosophy.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#89

Post by JenniferRM »

Philosophy is the (surprisingly fertile) dowager empress of the sciences.

Physics may be the king, and Math the queen, but they always seem to be grinding their teeth and wishing that old biddy Philosophy would just finally die one day, and hand over the last her her powers, and she never really does.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#90

Post by routerl »

JenniferRM wrote: post #89

Philosophy is the (surprisingly fertile) dowager empress of the sciences. Physics may be the king, and Math the queen, but they always seem to be grinding their teeth and wishing that old biddy Philosophy would just finally die one day, and hand over the last her her powers, and she never really does.

This is wonderful and I will steal it. Thank you :)
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