Philosophy

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Certainly, reflecting on experience is essential in the philosophical tradition, and conversation is a very important part of it. But, this is carried out on an abstract level. One doesn't philosophize from one single experience. Philosophy is about knowledge, yes. And knowledge is had, according to most philosophers, in the abstract. Certainly, this is the case with Plato. As for Kant, he's rather obscure, and I make no claim to understand him from what I have read of his writings. I would hazard a guess, based on his concern for a priori propositions (and his incomprehensible language!), that he would also see philosophy as an abstract reasoning process.

As regards "truth", the introduction of the term bare and naked is unhelpful. What do you mean by "truth"? The "truth" that most philosophers have sought is one which is found through abstract reasoning.

The conversation doesn't need to be abstract, nor should it be. Abstract thinking will only get you this far. Unless it is applied to the life you live it remains only that, abstract, an idea, with little purpose than that you can think about it but what good is that when you don't submit it to practice.

Plato used the abstract, but if he did Plato (and his Socrates) always ended up taking the abstract to the concrete, to actual situations where the ideas were applicable. As a guide for this he made a difference between true knowledge and false knowledge, the latter being an oxymoron as there is no such thing as false knowledge: It isn't knowledge if it is false.

If you are confused about the concept of truth Gwaimir read Gorgias, a good introduction to the concept of truth in philosophy.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

The way I read Plato, the concrete leads to the abstract, not vice versa. The contemplation of the Ideas, which are the abstract par excellence, is the goal of philosophy, and of pretty much all rightly ordered. This is very clear in the symposium, where beautiful things are clearly intended to lead one to a love of the Idea of Beauty.

For Plato, the conversation might employ concrete elements, but they are always ordered towards the abstract understanding. The concrete is never seen as an end towards which the abstract understanding is ordered. This is most painfully clear in Plato, where the ultimate goal of the philosophical life is to transcend the world of particulars, and spend the rest of eternity contemplating the Ideas.

True, philosophy was understood to be a way of life, not just abstract reasoning, but the reasoning was the essential characteristic of it. There was not a real divide in the ancient mind between what you think and what you do (a divide so essential to our self-understanding today). So, for them, it was obvious that a real philosopher would live philosophically.

Are you thinking of his tendency towards negative understanding, where he prefers to go around refuting people, rather than to propose his own theory? The torpedo fish notion?

I would take another look at Gorgias, but unfortunately, my Plato seems to be packed away somewhere in one of twelve boxes, so I have no idea where to find it. Could you summarize the precise idea of truth that you are talking about? Unless it's just the idea of knowledge vs. false opinion, which I'm already sufficiently familiar with.

[Jonathan]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

If you are confused about the concept of truth Gwaimir read Gorgias, a good introduction to the concept of truth in philosophy.

Ah, how lazy of you
A question so direct as Gwai's "What do you mean by truth", is something I'd expected you to reply to yourself rather than just referring elsewhere

I did a quick read-up online about Gorgias. It seems rather hard to read him since his work that deals with "truth", On Nature or the Non-Existent, (in striking accordance with its name) doesn't exist! Well, it actually did exist but is long lost.

But I guess you're trying to point to his argument that:
1. Nothing exists
2. Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it
3. Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.

I'm confused though. If you share Gorgias' idea that truth is rather fictious, then why use the word and even write it in bold letters in this post (previous page)?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I would guess that CH is referring to Plato's dialogue entitled Gorgias, in which Socrates, in standard Platonic fashion, lays the smack-down on the eponymous sophist. Presumably, it is this argument, or one very like, which Socrates makes into his bitch in the dialogue.

[Jonathan]

In that case I'm pretty off

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Unless it's just the idea of knowledge vs. false opinion, which I'm already sufficiently familiar with.

In short this is what I'm referring to yes.

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Ah, how lazy of you

I'm sorry I just don't have the time to elaborate in great detail on truth nor Plato since I'm smack in the middle of my exam period. But Gwaimir's rendition of the Socratic dialogue in Gorgias is pretty much on the spot.

Now, there's no denying that the abstract is an important, if not the instrument of philosophy. The point I was trying to make is that unless you, yourself, engage your ideas into your own life, you can pretty much continue on in the abstract until the moon falls down. There's too little focus on the practical when philosophy is discussed, and that's a point that has mostly gotten lost in the two millenia that have passed since the Athenians and their contemporaries wandered around.

[Aikanáro]

Unless it is applied to understanding truth (usually about yourself) you can have as many abstract inclinations as you want... won't get you in front of the pack, and it won't give you a more wholesome life to live (which should be the aim right, or why bother hitting for new "levels"?)

Depends. A Maslow Level 5 might well value abstract knowledge for it's own sake. (In the theme of classifications and all... )

Originally Posted by Jonathan

But I guess you're trying to point to his argument that:
1. Nothing exists
2. Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it
3. Even if something can be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.

I'd love to see somebody make sense out of that in practical terms.

In my opinion there's a big distinction between philosophical and factual truth - the former being the deep, abstract questions, and the latter being statements like 'Paris is the capital of France.' Philosophical truth is, by its very nature, subjective. It's belief-based rather than empirical. That doesn't mean we can't call it true, only that 'truth' has a rather narrower meaning, specific to the individual.

This is my truth, tell me yours.

There's a reason why the Delphic oracle proclaimed know thyself and not know the truth. Self-knowledge is imperative to understanding, to empathy, and to personal growth, and indeed the better you know yourself the better you can know others. Where a lot of theorists go wrong, however, is in saying that their own personal truth applies to all humanity, regardless of socio-cultural or other factors (I'd put Freud in this category, for one )

If you'd say that subjective truth isn't knowledge but 'false opinion' then I'd suggest that there can be no knowledge about philosophic matters, only belief (a little like the question of deities which can't be proved or disproved to exist)

[Gwaimir Windgem]

The Delphic Oracle was high. *inhale* Know thyself, dude.

[inked]

Socrates defines truth in words of one syllable:

'If you say of what is, that "It is", or of what is not, that "It is not", then you have told the truth; but if you say of what is, that "It is not", or of what is not, that "It is," then you have not told the truth.

And for those who find this monosyllabic reality treatment too much, there is the possibility of deeper study here:
http://homepages.wmich.edu/~cspeaks/LogicNotesIV.html

ENJOY!

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by Bombadillo

Anybody familiar with Piaget here? Awesome. But he should be a household name. Here's his "Stage Theory" in a nutshell.
Stage 1 - Sensorimotor Period - In infancy, we experience the world primarily through feeling things, staring at things, listening and smelling things, and putting things in our mouths.
Stage 2 - Preoperational Period - Toddlers begin to understand the world around them, but barely. Watching them talk to one another is listening to two separate yet face-to-face conversations at once.
Stage 3 - Operational Period - When we develop a better handle on our universe. We can be taught math, and can eyeball liquid volume in variously shaped containers. We become less cute.
Stage 4 - Abstract Operations - We graduate to the philosopher class.

The surveys have been repeated and repeated for decades on large and small scales. The results are in: Only one third of humanity ever reaches Stage 4. I call these people "Stage Fours," and I believe that's the kind of people that societies should actively try to create. Independent and deep thought should be the goal of every student. Generation after generation the educational and family systems should be tweaked to that end, and eventually, when Stage Fours have assumed the majority... That is our only realistic hope for an end to all war and a decrease in injustice IMHO.

What do you think?

On my other computer I've got a bunch of citations if that need arises.

Was just reading "The Robot's Rebellion" by Keith Stanovich, a cognitive psychologist, and he was pointing out much the same thing, though more from a evolutionary perspective (subtitle "Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin").

Much more of our behaviour than we are aware of is driven by the inherited structures of our brain, even when it defies reason.

(An example: swallow the saliva in your mouth. OK, no problem.

Now,spit into a glass. Drink it. EEUUWWW!!

No difference, but our ancestral processes kick in and say: outside stuff- may be bad!)

It's not that most people are stupid; it's that people do stupid things for unexamined reasons. Tversky and Kahnemann won the Nobel Prize in Economics for showing over and over again that people are pretty bad at abstract reasoning; it's not something we needed much out on the savannah.

As it turns out, though, it's something we need quite a bit in our modern technical world- investments, retirement, medical plans, government bureaucracy- and there are a lot of people making a living exploiting that deficiency.

"Economists work on the belief that human beings are rational actors; ad men and politicians on the belief that they aren't." Who you gonna put your money on?

[GrayMouser]

The problem in saying "Philosophy is..." or "Philosophers ought to..." is that philosophy covers a lot of ground, and some of that ground has changed over the last two-and-a-half millenia (though Whitehead famously said "all subsequent philosophy is a series of footnotes on Plato.")

Huge chunks of philosophy have been hived off to the natural and social sciences, a process that is still going on- a lot of what was once perfectly philosophical epistemology is being absorbed into the new science of cognitive studies.

And of course within philosophy there are all kinds of subject areas of varying degrees of applicability. Would you dismiis a physcist who was working on brane or string theory on the grounds that it had no application to our daily life?

Logic is often indistinguishable from mathematics at one end or linguistics at the other.

I remember reading an anecdote from a newly qualified assistant professor who proudly announced to her relatives at Thanksgiving that she was about to publish a book. They were duly impressed until she described the subject- a 200-page tome on the permutations of the word "or".

[Bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I think the implied elitism is rather appalling. It's a very short road from here, to thinking of most people as in some sense "subhuman"...

Actually, I can see how it seems that way. I guess it is elitist, maybe even megalomaniacal, but hey having a good head on your shoulders is something to be proud of. What's more important is to use that head to further humanity, not oneself. That's the implication I see in it.

Psychology can save the world. I don't think I can say that about any of the other sciences so confidently. See, if only we understood our own human natures well enough, we wouldn't let so many little things cloud our rationality. Little things like race, politics, education, culture, and language we'd recognize as trivial in the grand scheme of things. We'd see there's really no cause for war or genocide after all, and eventually maybe we'll disintigrate all social boundaries. One step at a time of course. Since Stage Fours have such vastly greater powers for introspection, that means to me that step one is: raise a society of Stage Fours. ie Emphasize critical and independent thinking above memorization to developing children.

Originally Posted by Eärniel

I am amused by the fact that the three first stages get more explanation where they fit in the mental development, but that the fourth one lacks that. Graduate to the philosopher class? How exactly does this help you further in life? To me this list says that you need to go through the first three, but the fourth stage is just an add-on. So what is abstract thinking good for, actually?

Shucks. The first three are all that you need, but the fourth stage lets you be a better person, wise to your full potential. For Stage Fours, "Jesus loves me / This I know / Because the Bible tells me so" simply will not do. They can't help but wonder why--then how does the Bible know? Who wrote the Bible? Did they mean every word literally? What's the context that the authors were writing from? Are there any similarities to other religious beliefs? Etc. etc. etc. I don't mean to suggest answers to these questions here in this thread but they're questions that really lend themselves to my needs for an example. They're questions that should be asked. Now I digress.

Piaget's Stage Theory is a model of how people experience and understand the world. Formal Operations, Stage Four, is the only one in which people actively question all new information. Stage Threes are content to learn things according to a formula, where A+C-D=T. Every bit of new information, they assimilate into the mess of info they already have memorized. And if two pieces of info conflict, they'll either do some crazy mental acrobatics to rationalize it, or they'll declare one or the other flat wrong. All the while, they might be unaware of variables B, E, F, and G, things that are relevant to the info they're handling. And it won't matter to them once they've solidified their formula into a principle to live by. That's how you get people with "black-and-white" attitudes so naïvely, pompously sure there are no shades of grey and no information that's beyond their comprehension. Stage Fours see in grayscale. I believe that's important. For example, so we're not fooled by politicians slinging cliches and buzzwords at us. Otherwise, propaganda can run wild, unchecked... and disaster!

Originally Posted by Aikanáro

I'd love to see somebody make sense out of that in practical terms.

There's some practical application there, at least in points # 2 and 3. To say "nothing exists" is just playing devil's advocate if you ask me but to say that nothing can be truly known about it leaves the whole world open to endless study and questioning, even after "facts" about it have been formed and well-established. (The Earth was flat once until someone said "but how can we know?) Whatever. No. 3's a doozie. I have experienced things, learned things, felt things, but if I was to try to communicate these things to you, it's inevitable that something will be lost in the translation between the two different microcosms of mind, yours and mine, each with its own background. You'll get the gist of it, but prejudice (prejudgment) is inherent in all communication. Practical application: Diplomats must keep this in mind and work on their empathy.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Bombadillo

Actually, I can see how it seems that way. I guess it is elitist, maybe even megalomaniacal, but hey having a good head on your shoulders is something to be proud of.

There's a difference between being proud of your own intelligence, and looking down on others for a lack in that department. This seems to me to be solidly in the "lookind down on others" zone, or at least teetering dangerously on the edge.

What's more important is to use that head to further humanity, not oneself. That's the implication I see in it.

It's all too easy to conceive humanity in narrow terms with a viewpoint like that. What you're talking about here savours of Nietzche's ubermensch, a concept which proved to be isolationary and destructive.

Psychology can save the world. I don't think I can say that about any of the other sciences so confidently. See, if only we understood our own human natures well enough, we wouldn't let so many little things cloud our rationality.

As far as I'm concerned, such metanarratives of progress, rationality, and Enlightenment ideals have been thoroughly debunked by the 20th century.

Little things like race, politics, education, culture, and language we'd recognize as trivial in the grand scheme of things.

We are in the process of recognizing this about race and culture. It's got nothing to do with an expanding mental capacity. It simply derives from a greater exposure to diversity; the more people see these differences, and the more closely they see them, the more they are realizing that they don't matter, in the final analysis, and further, that different backgrounds and perspectives all have their own value, which any given other background or perspective can learn from.

As regards politics, education, and language, I'm dubious about the triviality of the first, and I absolutely deny the triviality of the latter two. Education is what forms a mind, and enables to function in a very real way in society. Language is the only way we can communicate, so it is far from irrelevant. Further, different languages often provide a grounding for different perspectives and wordviews, the value of which I've noted above.

We'd see there's really no cause for war or genocide after all, and eventually maybe we'll disintigrate all social boundaries.

Again, this is naive. The 20th century should, by all standards, have been the most enlightened era of human history. Instead, it was the bloodiest. Wars proliferated, the gap between the rich and the poor has exploded, nationalism is rife, acts of genocide are to this day being perpetrated in some parts of the world, and in Western society, past acts bordering on genocide are still justified. It is utter malarkey to say that the more advanced we are culturally or intellectually, the more enlightened and humane we will become. It just doesn't hold up. The facts disprove these rationalist metanarratives.

One step at a time of course. Since Stage Fours have such vastly greater powers for introspection, that means to me that step one is: raise a society of Stage Fours. ie Emphasize critical and independent thinking above memorization to developing children.

It's half a block from here to advocating a systemization of separating out the Stage Fours from the lessers, and giving preferential treatment to them. It's about another half block down the road to getting rid of those who show inferior potential. You realize you are headed down a very, very dangerous road, right?

Shucks. The first three are all that you need, but the fourth stage lets you be a better person, wise to your full potential.

Once more, the equation of intelligence with morality is bull. See my comments on the 20th century above.

For Stage Fours, "Jesus loves me / This I know / Because the Bible tells me so" simply will not do. They can't help but wonder why--then how does the Bible know? Who wrote the Bible? Did they mean every word literally? What's the context that the authors were writing from? Are there any similarities to other religious beliefs? Etc. etc. etc. I don't mean to suggest answers to these questions here in this thread but they're questions that really lend themselves to my needs for an example. They're questions that should be asked. Now I digress.

This is just not true. Many excellent abstract thinkers have failed to critically ask many of these questions, and have persisted in a lack of understanding of context. Further, many people who are not sharp abstract thinkers have been asking these same questions. Since we're on the topic of the Bible, I'll use that as an example. Jerome was not a great thinker, not a great theologian, not a great philosopher. He was, however, one of the most learned men of his time, and particularly in questions of the context of biblical authors, etc. He was one of the first people to hold that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses. Such an insight in his day and age is mind-boggling, and demonstrates an understanding into these matters far beyond that of Augustine, Aquinas, or others who excelled in abstract reasoning.

I would argue that skilled abstract reasoning can make it difficult for one to contextualize. By its very nature, it separates a concept from its context. "Abstract" means "drawn away". It is a fact acknowledged from antiquity that philosophers often have their heads in the clouds, and are usually not really good at dealing with particularities, because their modus operandi is to conceive the world in universals, in abstract terms. That being so, it seems highly unlikely that a philosophically differentiated mind will be good at contextualizing. Look at Plato; he wanted to get away from all contexts. The absolutely abstract Forms are stripped of any sort of "thisness" or particularity, which thisnesses, as a conglomerate, are precisely what makes up a context.

That's how you get people with "black-and-white" attitudes so naïvely, pompously sure there are no shades of grey and no information that's beyond their comprehension.

You do realize the pictures you're painting about psychology, introspection, and rationality are black and white? Faith in such ideas in our modern context comes off as not only naively and pompously, but arrogantly and blindly certain.

For example, so we're not fooled by politicians slinging cliches and buzzwords at us. Otherwise, propaganda can run wild, unchecked... and disaster!

Intelligent and rational people still regularly buy into sound bites, because its easier than a serious in-depth understanding of the issues.

(The Earth was flat once until someone said "but how can we know?)

No googling: when did "someone" say this?

[Bombadillo]

What are you saying Gwai, I'm the deranged villain in a dystopia? I know I'm fallible and there's plenty of 'loopholes' in my ideas that can easily get twisted and go out of control. But while making my case for an idea I can't help but sound arrogant about it. I'm arguing its strengths.

The world we're living in now is a dystopia, as I see it, and it's so fast-paced what with airplanes and A-bombs and WMDs and internet and newsbriefs with more news running across the bottom of the TV screen, and all international politics being so interrelated, and just as many special interests as in ages past... we gotta do something ASAP before we get carried away. It's too easy to get carried away in a world structured like ours. Trying to close the cognitive gap is my suggestion for a way to unify humanity in its diversity. Differences in educational levels, language, and political ideologies are what I was referring to as trivial in the light that we are all, after all, human beings. People are people! Recognize and appreciate. This isn't brainwashing, eugenics, or drugging, no, it could work and actually not be horrible!

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

No googling: when did "someone" say this?

I made it up.


There's plenty more of your points I want to respond to, man, but right now I have to go out and have a Friday Night.

Damn if I don't sound like some heartless, godless, crazy bastard.

[inked]

Hmmm, epistemology would seem to be important, after all.

[katya]

Ok, I have a problem, and I wondered if any of you could help me. I have, of course, asked Google for help too. Anyway, I have this book I've been working through called "Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre", which is a compilation of essays and excerpts. There's this one essay by Jaspers in it (three actually but one in particular) that I think is just called "The Encompassing". I read it all the way through, but I barely understood a word of it. Is anyone familiar with that particular essay or enough of Jaspers to be able to explain it to me? I still don't get what is "the Encompassing", the "Transcendent", and especially "Being" and "Existenz".

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Oh, dear Katya! I don't think anyone really understands existentialism. It's an attempt to convey the sphere of existence, rather than the sphere of thought. As such, one cannot hope to ever truly explain it, but rather, to evoke it. If you are familiar with Kierkegaard, this is what he refers to as indirect communication.

That said, from my limited understanding of Jaspers', it is my understanding that "Existenz" refers to the experience of unlimited, unshackled, authentic possibility in one's life. Which I'm sure clears things up so much.

[katya]

So like.... I can just read it, and whatever I kind of feel like it's about, that's what it's about? Because even in that case I still didn't really get it. So many difficult sentences.

[Earniel]

Isn't philosophy all about making the most difficult sentences imaginable? It always seemed that to me, which is probably why I can't be bothered with it.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by katya

Ok, I have a problem, and I wondered if any of you could help me. I have, of course, asked Google for help too. Anyway, I have this book I've been working through called "Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre", which is a compilation of essays and excerpts. There's this one essay by Jaspers in it (three actually but one in particular) that I think is just called "The Encompassing". I read it all the way through, but I barely understood a word of it. Is anyone familiar with that particular essay or enough of Jaspers to be able to explain it to me? I still don't get what is "the Encompassing", the "Transcendent", and especially "Being" and "Existenz".

Was it Bertrand Russell who said that the problem with German philosophy is that all nouns are capitalized in German, so that they think that they are talking about something when they talk about Nothing?

I haven't read that book for.... thirty-five years , but I was a big fan of Kaufmann back in the day. I'll stop by my library- I'm pretty sure they've got it, and I know I have some photocopied stuff of Jasper's buried deep in a pile someplace- I'll see if I can dig it out.