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Is Philosophy an Art?

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Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#141
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt there are many professors of mathematics who have read the original Gauss! Certainly in my field of mathematics, nobody ever talked about reading older work in its original. It feels like something only of interest for historians. Mathematical notation has improved immensely and the important ideas have been clarified and refined.

Interesting, so even mathematics isn't immune from 'translations' from the original work, as in philosophy.

Broadly speaking, math is made up of theorems. The goal is to prove the theorem by establishing a proof, or disprove the theorem using a counterexample.

In math textbooks and courses I’ve had, there tends to be footnotes on who produced some foundational result (statement of the theorem, proof, or counterexample). So you study or learn about the original work, but you’re not doing so from the primary source (original work).

This could be because the proof of original work was: - in a different language, - required advanced knowledge the learner doesn’t have, - a more simplified proof was found, - a more enlightening proof was found, - an informal proof suffices, - the statement of the theorem is all that’s needed, - the proof is left as an exercise to the reader, - the proof is a special case of a more general proof, - or any number of other reasons

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is a personal attack which is against the rules here. I think you took my words as an attack because you’ve been personally invested in philosophy for so long defending it like a cultist who refuses to take reality at face value. Greek mythology and Chinese mythology and most mythology were invented in the past as literal explanations of reality. The penchant today to not take things literally is an excuse. Our…

Peace brother. One day you'll understand. (Also what you write is factually false).

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a personal attack which is against the rules here. I think you took my words as an attack because you’ve been personally invested in philosophy for so long defending it like a cultist who refuses to take reality at face value. Greek mythology and Chinese mythology and most mythology were invented in the past as literal explanations of reality. The penchant today to not take things literally is an excuse. Our…

Peace brother. One day you'll understand. (Also what you write is factually false).

Such empty words. Calling my views immature and using other insults and saying I'll never understand are methods used to ignite war. You lost, and youre lashing out.

You had a simple option. Explain your point, but you failed to do that. You resorted to insults and now you suddenly want peace? Contradictory and emotional reactions are a sign of impending loss.

What I write is inexplicably true and you are scared. Because what I write is tearing down beliefs you've invested years in and you can't face the truth. Your insult is a defensive wall to protect that belief.

If logic was available to defend your beliefs you would've used it. Here's your final chance.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#144

Anything mediated by a mind is an artifice: art. It may be art from an artisan or craft used in a trade. It may be intellectual such as a mathematical proof. It may arguably be non-human art or bad art--but it is art.

Agreed, 'art' as something distinct from any other creative activity is a fairly recent western invention. If you take art at face value from it's basic definition it just means something like 'technique' and that meaning is good enough to make sense of it all imho.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#145
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…

> there is no way to refute or evaluate philosophy. That is not true at all. Much philosophy throughout history has been shown to be incorrect by later science, for example.

Is there a way to contact you? Do you have a blog?

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peace brother. One day you'll understand. (Also what you write is factually false).

Such empty words. Calling my views immature and using other insults and saying I'll never understand are methods used to ignite war. You lost, and youre lashing out. You had a simple option. Explain your point, but you failed to do that. You resorted to insults and now you suddenly want peace? Contradictory and emotional reactions are a sign of impending loss. What I write is inexplicably true and you are scared. Bec…

I never claimed you will never understand. I said the exact opposite (read again), and again you are twisting my words to play a pointless game that you so much want to win, it seems so important to you because you keep on using these childish words win/lose... shrug.

I am definitely attacking your arguments, which I find ignorant. Not you. I don't care, I don't know you.

It's factually wrong to claim that religious myths are to be taken literally or that they were ever meant to do so. Or that philosophy is random speculations. You are missing the concept of "plausibility" as opposed to truth, which would help you navigate these topics. I can suggest the book Perennial Philosophy by Huxley to start getting a cursory understanding of what we are talking about here, which ultimately boils down to the inability of language to capture transcendental experiences which every society, all over the planet for the whole of recorded history had and thought about capturing in stories that survived to these days. To call that "random speculations" is so ridicule that can hardly be commented against.

What you write is not tearing anything down, is making me laugh, actually: it sounds exactly like me 20 years ago.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such empty words. Calling my views immature and using other insults and saying I'll never understand are methods used to ignite war. You lost, and youre lashing out. You had a simple option. Explain your point, but you failed to do that. You resorted to insults and now you suddenly want peace? Contradictory and emotional reactions are a sign of impending loss. What I write is inexplicably true and you are scared. Bec…

I never claimed you will never understand. I said the exact opposite (read again), and again you are twisting my words to play a pointless game that you so much want to win, it seems so important to you because you keep on using these childish words win/lose... shrug. I am definitely attacking your arguments, which I find ignorant. Not you. I don't care, I don't know you. It's factually wrong to claim that religious…

>I am definitely attacking your arguments, which I find ignorant. Not you. I don't care, I don't know you.

You think people are so stupid that some technicality like this isn't a personal attack? Arguments can't know things therefore arguments can't be ignorant. Only people can be ignorant. You are insulting me 100 percent by calling me ignorant.

Your post is seething with personal attack.

>which ultimately boils down to the inability of language to capture transcendental experiences which every society, all over the planet for the whole of recorded history had and thought about capturing in stories that survived to these days.

Many people on HN trust material logic and science and hold my viewpoint of atheism. Talk about transcendence is not logical to them. To them and me the inability to describe trancendence indicates that it doesn't really even exist. It's just an emotion that that is the result of chemical reactions in your brain no different then what happens when someone gets a transcendental experience doing heroin or lsd. This is the opinion held by many on this site and many consider it to be far more "plausible" then your view point. They would argue that it is ridiculous to think that all religious documents are not written literally as if scholars were unable to comprehend the concept of a literal message. If you want someone to understand something you use literal messages not symbolic stories why would religious scholars not do the same? It is in fact ludicrous to believe that all religions are just some form of symbolic message as if the literal manuals we use in modern society to explain things are only a recent phenomenon.

This topic is a worthwhile debate but Your attitude is slander against the many who hold an opposing opinion.

The transgression here is that you called me and this idea held by many members of hn ignorant and you insulted your nephew and me and laughed in my face.

When you debate someone logically you must remain completely impartial. If you have to retort to personal insults I suggest you try that kind of thing in real life, see how far you can get.

I also suggest you read the rules of HN, don't presume the mods are so stupid as to not be able to see your intention. Your words are akin to: "I'm not calling you an idiot, it's just everything you do and say is idiotic and I'm laughing at it."

I believe that if you were completely confident about your views you wouldn't resort to these tactics. Some part of you knows that your beliefs stand on shaky grounds and you are again lashing out in a desperate attempt to hold on to these views.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no way to refute or evaluate philosophy. That is not true at all. Much philosophy throughout history has been shown to be incorrect by later science, for example.

Is there a way to contact you? Do you have a blog?

Sure. james followed by a full stop, then cole. At Gmail.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such empty words. Calling my views immature and using other insults and saying I'll never understand are methods used to ignite war. You lost, and youre lashing out. You had a simple option. Explain your point, but you failed to do that. You resorted to insults and now you suddenly want peace? Contradictory and emotional reactions are a sign of impending loss. What I write is inexplicably true and you are scared. Bec…

I never claimed you will never understand. I said the exact opposite (read again), and again you are twisting my words to play a pointless game that you so much want to win, it seems so important to you because you keep on using these childish words win/lose... shrug. I am definitely attacking your arguments, which I find ignorant. Not you. I don't care, I don't know you. It's factually wrong to claim that religious…

You broke the site guidelines badly in this thread, repeatedly crossing into personal attack. Please don't post in the flamewar style here. It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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