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Is Philosophy an Art?

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Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#91

Post by neonological »

ThomPete wrote: post #87
neonological wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Asking the right questions doesn't negate the fact that there's a category error here. Either way, "asking questions" is not what people classically think of when they talk about philosophy.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#92

Post by faeriechangling »

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…

Wouldn't this imply that doctors, perticularly those working in mental health, are practicing philosophy on their patients while not being experts in it?

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#93

Post by [deleted] »

routerl wrote: post #13
staticman2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand where you got the idea that people who tell others how to live have legal liability: if that were the case your local preacher would be in serious trouble.

There's a thin line between cult and religion, and a lot of it has to do with institutional age. Although, yeah, there are a lot of christian, and buddhist for that matter, cults. Often these do end up breaching legal boundaries, as I've described, but more often they merely offend common morality or decency, which also reveals the problem of trying to tell people how to live, outside of accepted avenues (i.e. health…

[deleted]

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#94

Post by dr_dshiv »

bobthechef wrote: post #69
dr_dshiv wrote: post #63

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

Not true. Classically, philosophy was most certainly about the truth. How could you know what better living is without knowing the truth? What "better" or "living" really are? Ethics, which is about what a good life is, depends on an understanding of human nature. What do you think Socrates was doing when he attacked the sophists of Athens? Living better? I guess, if you like taking hemlock.

That is precisely why Socrates did what he did. And the truth is certainly important for living better—but there is knowledge in philosophy that goes beyond verbal truths.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#95

Post by ilaksh »

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…

Because philosophy is the precursor to science. The idea that one needed hypotheses which were then verified with rigorous experiments was not yet popular. It's the paradigm that came before science.

They were trying to do the same thing as scientists but did not have as strong of an approach.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#96

Post by jamesrcole »

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…

> 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.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#97

Post by redisman »

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.

It's like a layer between the sciences and the people these days. You almost certainly will always need something like that. Science can make discoveries but it doesn't amount to much until they get transposed to the human realm.

Re: Is Philosophy an Art?

#98

Post by smhost »

faeriechangling wrote: post #92
routerl wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wouldn't this imply that doctors, perticularly those working in mental health, are practicing philosophy on their patients while not being experts in it?

the wording of your parent comment is ambiguous (maybe on purpose), but the early (western) philosophers weren't so concerned with telling people how to live than they were with raising the question of what it means to lead a good life, which are two different things.

mental health professionals today are more concerned with the former than they are with the latter. the ones who do practice the latter are very marginalized in the united states (i heard it's less the case in europe), but they do really interesting political work that might or might not start a flame war if i talk about it here so i won't.

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