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Philosophy Needs a New Definition

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Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#11

Post by evanwise »

jdtang13 wrote: post #8

From the headline, I thought that the article would be some materialist Sam Harris fanboy talking about how analytic philosophy is the only real philosophy and how science can tell us objective truths about morality. Count me surprised! This writer has great taste. Philosophy and poetry are closely related. Transmission of knowledge is very difficult. People don't learn well through textbooks and diagrams; they learn…

For most people, yes, I'd agree. For me personally, not really. I grasp abstractions and formal stuff almost instantly, but it takes a lot of grappling with the text for me to come to terms with continental philosophy. Like, I had zero trouble with Kant's Critique, but I had to read Discipline and Punish 3 times before I felt like I "got it".

NOTE: This doesn't mean I disparage continental philosophy, just noting that the discursive/narrative mode is not intuitive for everyone.

Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#13

Post by jdtang13 »

empath75 wrote: post #6
jseliger wrote: post #2

To quote AL Daily: Philosophy now comes to us in one form: the peer-reviewed article, published (preferably in English) in an academic journal. No wonder philosophy has become so irrelevant.

The incentives in academic philosophy aren't really around finding truth, but rather getting published so you can keep your tenure. There are a lot of academic philosophers that have crawled so far up their own asses they don't even know the way out any more. But they don't represent all of philosophy, even if they get a lot of attention. Philosophy broadly defined is as vital and important as ever, though. I can't i…

Makes sense. The ugly and skeptical philosophy of Socrates was very controversial compared to the beautiful words of the Sophists, but now we all consider the disciples of Socrates to be the best philosophers. Maybe we should start having more respect for the controversial outcasts.

Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#14

Post by freedomben »

AElsinore77 wrote: post #7
empath75 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives in academic philosophy aren't really around finding truth, but rather getting published so you can keep your tenure. There are a lot of academic philosophers that have crawled so far up their own asses they don't even know the way out any more. But they don't represent all of philosophy, even if they get a lot of attention. Philosophy broadly defined is as vital and important as ever, though. I can't i…

What strikes me most about philosophy is in how core it is to everything we do — and this is something I didn’t realize for the longest time. The foundations of the economic, social, and political systems we live in are based upon philosophy; on theories of the nature of man laid down by thinkers such as Rousseau, Kant, and Smith. It turns out that “self evident truths” might actually be philosophical assertions. Phi…

This has been exactly my experience as well. I've been truly blown away at seeing the Genesis of many of the science and economics that so fascinates me as being born of philosophy.

Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#15

Post by uuuu91113e »

jdtang13 wrote: post #13
empath75 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives in academic philosophy aren't really around finding truth, but rather getting published so you can keep your tenure. There are a lot of academic philosophers that have crawled so far up their own asses they don't even know the way out any more. But they don't represent all of philosophy, even if they get a lot of attention. Philosophy broadly defined is as vital and important as ever, though. I can't i…

Makes sense. The ugly and skeptical philosophy of Socrates was very controversial compared to the beautiful words of the Sophists, but now we all consider the disciples of Socrates to be the best philosophers. Maybe we should start having more respect for the controversial outcasts.

I'm not so sure. Sometimes people are misunderstood geniuses. And sometimes people are outcasts because they really are kooks.

Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#16

Post by aaimnr »

Profound philosophy needs to take into account messiness, but cannot be messy itself in its use of concepts, reasoning etc.

By being strict one can realise the limits of the very cognitive tools we use. Godel and Quine come to mind. The concepts are limiting, but that's all we have in philosophy.

The article mentions some exceptions, but it's a completely different playground. Rumi, Lao Tzu and Buddha were using their teachings as a practical instructions, rather than theories aiming to prove anything about the world.

For instance Rumi composed all his verses in a specific rhythms (obviously lost in translation) that, when sang and danced to, were meant to induce a specific states of mind.

Buddha explicitly said that metaphysical questions are orthogonal to the problem of suffering that he was solving (or just meaningless).

To make things even more complex, there are some similarities between teachings of the Buddha and western pragmatists.

The main problem (or the most fun part) in such discussions, is that there's no common ground to make such inter-paradigm comparisons. We always have to pick one of these viewpoints as a base and compare it to another one from that perspective.

Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#17

Post by freedomben »

jdtang13 wrote: post #13
empath75 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives in academic philosophy aren't really around finding truth, but rather getting published so you can keep your tenure. There are a lot of academic philosophers that have crawled so far up their own asses they don't even know the way out any more. But they don't represent all of philosophy, even if they get a lot of attention. Philosophy broadly defined is as vital and important as ever, though. I can't i…

Makes sense. The ugly and skeptical philosophy of Socrates was very controversial compared to the beautiful words of the Sophists, but now we all consider the disciples of Socrates to be the best philosophers. Maybe we should start having more respect for the controversial outcasts.

Maybe so indeed. Ideally I think the work should be judged on its merits rather than the acceptability of the source. That's obviously easy to say, less easy to do.

Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#18

Post by 0x4d464d48 »

AElsinore77 wrote: post #7
empath75 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives in academic philosophy aren't really around finding truth, but rather getting published so you can keep your tenure. There are a lot of academic philosophers that have crawled so far up their own asses they don't even know the way out any more. But they don't represent all of philosophy, even if they get a lot of attention. Philosophy broadly defined is as vital and important as ever, though. I can't i…

What strikes me most about philosophy is in how core it is to everything we do — and this is something I didn’t realize for the longest time. The foundations of the economic, social, and political systems we live in are based upon philosophy; on theories of the nature of man laid down by thinkers such as Rousseau, Kant, and Smith. It turns out that “self evident truths” might actually be philosophical assertions. Phi…

"What strikes me most about philosophy is in how core it is to everything we do — and this is something I didn’t realize for the longest time."

Same. I used to take strong exception to the idea that philosophy was worth any amount of time to study... but then I realized any argument to reject it or degrade its utility is necessarily philosophical and changed my tune.

Re: Philosophy Needs a New Definition

#19

Post by slazaro »

evanwise wrote: post #11
jdtang13 wrote: post #8

From the headline, I thought that the article would be some materialist Sam Harris fanboy talking about how analytic philosophy is the only real philosophy and how science can tell us objective truths about morality. Count me surprised! This writer has great taste. Philosophy and poetry are closely related. Transmission of knowledge is very difficult. People don't learn well through textbooks and diagrams; they learn…

For most people, yes, I'd agree. For me personally, not really. I grasp abstractions and formal stuff almost instantly, but it takes a lot of grappling with the text for me to come to terms with continental philosophy. Like, I had zero trouble with Kant's Critique, but I had to read Discipline and Punish 3 times before I felt like I "got it". NOTE: This doesn't mean I disparage continental philosophy, just noting tha…

I've noticed I have a similar problem myself. What other authors have you found interesting and accessible?
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