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Is Philosophy an Art?

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Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#101

Post by vinceguidry »

qsort wrote: post #27
camjohnson26 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add some nuance, the boundary between science and philosophy is always changing as we get more information about how the world works. Philosophical truths help us make better decisions about the future. DNA and quantum mechanics are 2 areas where the boundary between philosophy and science has shifted over time. All the modern talk about multiverses, universe simulations, and AGI seem philosophical, but might beco…

At the cost of being extremely annoying for the second time today, what does "a truth we can't empirically prove" look like? > All the modern talk about multiverses, universe simulations, and AGI None of the things you mention are "philosophical truths". The first is one of many interpretations of QM, the second is a meme, the third is a vague, unclear teleological goal of computer science. I'm not objecting to the f…

Much of mathematics isn’t empirically provable, except in a very fuzzy sort of way. You prove math... with math. Not by conjuring up physical experiments. That’s called, well, physics.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#102

Post by bshepard »

"Everyone has to stand before a picture as before a prince, waiting to see whether it will speak and what it will say to him; and, as with the prince, so he himself must not address it, for then he would hear only himself. It follows from all this that all wisdom is certainly contained in the works of the pictorial or graphic arts, yet only virtually or implicitly. Philosophy, on the other hand, endeavors to furnish the same wisdom actuality, to make it explicit: in this sense, philosophy is related to the arts as wine is to grapes" (Schopenhauer)

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#104

Post by max_ »

I studied art as an option back in high school, and in College I studied it in a more "scientific" context like gestalt theory, color science, principles (proportions, perspective).

My opinion of art is that it is simply a computational resource that human beings use to store emotions.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#105

Post by newswasboring »

max_ wrote: post #104

I studied art as an option back in high school, and in College I studied it in a more "scientific" context like gestalt theory, color science, principles (proportions, perspective). My opinion of art is that it is simply a computational resource that human beings use to store emotions.

> My opinion of art is that it is simply a computational resource that human beings use to store emotions.

With NFTs this is now more true than ever, on multiple levels

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#106

Post by watwut »

routerl wrote: post #5
ANarrativeApe wrote: post #2

Working on some inforgraphics tackling gender bias a while back, I was'accused' of producing data visualization art. I defended the intellectual rigor of my work, yet lost the argument - my 'accuser' turned out to be the curator of data visualization art at the Tate Modern. He won the argument by pointing out that the work, though based on hard data, was designed to evoke an emotional rather than an intellectual resp…

There's something to be said for the notion that, in the modern world, anyone who is a "professional philosopher" is just incapable of doing the kind of "here's how you should live" work that dominates early Western and Asian philosophy. Among modern professions, the only ones that can bear the legal liability of such a line of inquiry are in the health sciences. In this sense, philosophy professors cannot be doing w…

Socrates got executed. Socrates was framed as teacher anyway.

You can give advice on how to live, many people do. There are whole booshelves of self-help advice which is literally giving advice on how to live.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#108

Post by namero999 »

neonological wrote: post #78
namero999 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random speculations? Certain philosophies at least survived the test of time (we are talking about millennia) while we still have to see a scientific theory survive a handful of centuries... Of course I'm pushing back with my statement, but really claiming philosophy is "random speculations" sounds really uninformed and naive.

That's the problem with philosophy. It's archaic. It doesn't self improve. Christianity and Muslims have been around almost as long as philosophy. It doesn't make their opposing views automatically valid nor does it eliminate the randomness of some arbitrary beliefs in each respective religion (why is jesus named jesus, for example).

Feel free to consciously ignore the developments of the last few thousands year, and to hold the immature view that religious myths have to be taken literally. This sounds like something my teenage nephew would say, so I have lost interest in arguing with you on these topics.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#109

Post by MaxBarraclough »

idoubtit wrote: post #3

I think of philosophy of the art of words and ideas, just like literature is generally the art of words and stories. But, for historical reasons, many people and most philosophers claim philosophy is much more than this. Spinoza was convinced he was "engaged in the pursuit of truth", as the article writes, and he probably thought he had built a logical proof of the existence of god. But his concepts are fuzzy, so his…

> No one would claim to be an expert of a philosopher without reading and studying his book and articles. But, if the substance was more important than the form, it should not matter. One can master Gauss' mathematics or Einstein's physics without reading the original works.

I don't think that's fair. I'd generally expect an expert (a professor, say) to be familiar with the original work regardless of whether it's philosophy or physics.

You don't need to be fluent in Ancient Greek to get a philosophy degree. It's not as if there's an unwavering insistence on reading the original work in its original form.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#110

Post by GoblinSlayer »

idoubtit wrote: post #3

I think of philosophy of the art of words and ideas, just like literature is generally the art of words and stories. But, for historical reasons, many people and most philosophers claim philosophy is much more than this. Spinoza was convinced he was "engaged in the pursuit of truth", as the article writes, and he probably thought he had built a logical proof of the existence of god. But his concepts are fuzzy, so his…

Spinoza's logical proof of the existence of god is that "man can't invent ideas, therefore all ideas are true including the idea of god"?
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