What purpose philosophy?

marabhfuil

what good does the philosopher? i hear no academic, nor do i of any other sort, philosophical objections being vociferously propounded as regards anything remotely helpfull in tackling the quandries of our existence...

i've only a moment to post this so i'll keep it curt.

how can we justify the behaviour of our species attitude to its own fellow kind?

Ignorance, fear etc.. of course. Though don't leave out corporate greed and plain old superiority complexes.... oh and the moral sponge that is capitalism...

Joe1919

Philosophy has always had an impact on how society is constructed and this tradition goes back thousands of years e.g. Plato republic & Aristotles politics & confucius analects all 400 B.C. approx. The american constitution & British parliment was influenced by John Locke and his rejection of the divine rights of Kings etc. ..........Rousseau & French revolution?
Christianity ideology and its close relationships to Kings and goverments also had a huge effect.
Then you could trace the whole German idealism movement via Helel & Marx to Lenin & Stalin......

Finally it could be argued that greed is just a fact of nature and capitalism is just an attempt to harness this natural energy. The greed and desire for sucess of entrepenaurs can be positive. ( Alans De Tosquer...enlightened egoism or Adam Smiths invisible hand idea.)

mysterious

Philosphy is the curious part of the universe.

It's you trying to understand simply YOU. You are the universe a small fraction of course.

Philosphy is you wanting to know who is in the mirror. Everything around you was once you in the beginning. In the present we are trying to know what we once knew all along.

DadaKopf

Philosophy is an activity of humans. Its meaning or purpose has changed over centuries.

Today, I think, philosophy does not answer questions. Neither does it ask questions. It asks how to ask questions.

mysterious

DadaKopf wrote: »

Philosophy is an activity of humans. Its meaning or purpose has changed over centuries.

Today, I think, philosophy does not answer questions. Neither does it ask questions. It asks how to ask questions.

ROFL................

shakes head:D Where did you get this notion from seriously. It does not ask how to ask questions only. That is the greatest load of s^^&e i've ever heard.

DadaKopf

mysterious wrote: »

ROFL................

shakes head:D Where did you get this notion from seriously. It does not ask how to ask questions only. That is the greatest load of s^^&e i've ever heard.

You're the philosopher. Explain why.

marabhfuil

Joe1919 wrote: »

Philosophy has always had an impact on how society is constructed and this tradition goes back thousands of years e.g. Plato republic & Aristotles politics & confucius analects all 400 B.C. approx. The american constitution & British parliment was influenced by John Locke and his rejection of the divine rights of Kings etc. ..........Rousseau & French revolution?
Christianity ideology and its close relationships to Kings and goverments also had a huge effect.
Then you could trace the whole German idealism movement via Helel & Marx to Lenin & Stalin......

Finally it could be argued that greed is just a fact of nature and capitalism is just an attempt to harness this natural energy. The greed and desire for sucess of entrepenaurs can be positive. ( Alans De Tosquer...enlightened egoism or Adam Smiths invisible hand idea.)

Your point is so; that philosophy has had an influence upon the development of society. This is clearly the case. As has the lack of a philosophy.

Though what i was getting at is, where today, are the philosophers? Why do they shirk the street? Are they afraid of ridicule? And they would be ridiculed, especially in Ireland, for having such "high falootin'" notions as to speak out loud in public in condemnation of our social weaknesses. "Jaysis, yerman thinks he's aristocrates or somtin'!". Perhaps would it be that that stops them from doing so? Why do they reserve there philosophy for the classroom and papers? Is it not supposed to be addressing everyday life? are the good lay public perhaps incapable of comprehending such high thought? Philosophy seems to be becoming a proffession moreso than a cause. Philosophy is for the people, or should and used to be, not for the elite.

What good academic philosophy if it remains on campus scratching its beard and quoting the past, and condemning the present from the vantage point offered by an ivory tower. You might as well sit at a bar getting pissed and spouting, this and that should be so and such, for all the good is being done by the philosopher cut from this and the previous generations cloth. Philosophy is revolution is philosophy. To revolt against ignorance is philosophy. To enlighten is to philosophize. To reserve ones knowledge to a privelleged few is not philosophical it is eliteist.

Finally,(allowing man, for the purpose, outside of nature) greed does not exist in nature. Self preservation does. Excessive hoarding and extra-hyper-surplus material accumulation does not exist in nature. Animals store enough to pass a winter, knowing that the next year brings all they will need, fresh from the soil. I think you loan to much comprehension of being to the capitalist class to say that it may have been an attempt on its behalf to harness anything other than complete control over the means of production and thus the profit derived for its own insatiable thirst for wealth. If the capitalists could tax sunlight they would. As for the entrepreneurial capacity of man. Indeed it can be positive though equally can it be not. That depends upon the persons philosophy.

marabhfuil

mysterious wrote: »

Philosphy is the curious part of the universe.

It's you trying to understand simply YOU. You are the universe a small fraction of course.

Philosphy is you wanting to know who is in the mirror. Everything around you was once you in the beginning. In the present we are trying to know what we once knew all along.

Really!!! And how have you come to posses such profound knowledge???

marabhfuil

DadaKopf wrote: »

Philosophy is an activity of humans. Its meaning or purpose has changed over centuries.

Today, I think, philosophy does not answer questions. Neither does it ask questions. It asks how to ask questions.

Your taking the p**s arent ye!!!

Joe1919

marabhfuil wrote: »

Though what i was getting at is, where today, are the philosophers? Why do they shirk the street? ................

Finally,(allowing man, for the purpose, outside of nature) greed does not exist in nature. Self preservation does. Excessive hoarding and extra-hyper-surplus material accumulation does not exist in nature. ..............

To answer your first question, philosophy really means 'love of wisdom' and the traditional subject matter of philosophy has really been distributed among the different academic groups, leaving philosophy very little to uniquely call its own. For example, much of what philosophers discussed in the past is now the subject matter of psychology, science, english literal theory (especially postmodernism,), cultural studies, sociology, historical studies,linguistics,anthropology, politics, economics, maths (logic) etc.........
Having said all that, philosophy deals with things in its own way and has its own areas that science cant deal with e.g. 'possible worlds, normative ethics, etc

To answer your second question, it could well be argued that greed exists in nature. Animals are very competitive and its certainly common to see litters of hungary baby animals fight and even kill one another over their mothers milk. Male animals are also greedy in terms of trying to monopolise the females.
My own dog, when I sometimes bring a bag of butcher scraps and bones to him will only eat about half of them and spends the rest of the day trying to guard the other half from the cat but he eventually becomes exausted and the cat always wins in the end.
Even plants are often described by gardners as greedy in terms of monopolising available light etc. and killing adjoining plants.
Its a greedy, ruthless, competitive world out there.

marabhfuil

You have managed to answer your own imaginary question whilst avoiding that which i asked...

Where and how does, in what manner, academic philosophy touch, advise, direct, attempt to persuade or otherwise object to be applied to the lives of those whom it proffesses to envelope within its embrace of "loving sapience"?

plus, i dont ask you for a definition of the words meaning... why do you say that i do?

As for what you have taken to be my "second question".(Where do you see the question marks?) Revise what i wrote. i compare human super excessive accumulation of matter to that of the behaviour of an hibernating animals storing of what it requires to pass a winter. Example me one spieces of life apart from mankind which behaves in such an excessive manner.

It is mans paranoia, mass global paranoia at that, harboured by ignorance and fear of that with which we are not familiar, along with plain old, as i say in the thread topic, capitalistic amorality that has and is making a paradise into a pit...

Do you condone capitalism, as a manner of principle?

Joe1919

What I'm saying is, philosophy is not something that is apart from everyday living. Philosophy is about trying to use wisdom and reason and as such, everyone could be said to be a philosopher in their own way. Perhaps you expect too much of philosophers or expect philosophers to answer questions. Many philosophers are happy to take the sceptical view that many questions cant be answered and indeed there wisdom is in knowing the limits of their own knowledge.

As regards my discussion on greed, all I'm saying is that greed is a fact of life, its part of the human and animal condition and and I dont see what can be done to change this. Its part of our 'survival of the fittest' mentality. I am not condoning this. I am simply saying that it exists. Many cultures and religions (e.g. Christianity) have tried to reduce or repress greed but greed seems to keep poping up any chance it gets.
The capatilist system to some extent uses the natural greed that people have to accumilate wealth. This is, what Weber would call the 'spirit of capatilism'.
All animals are different, The cat is different to the mouse. The human is probably the most rational and future (goal) directed of all animals and is top of the food chain and has surpassed the squirrel in his ability to hoard and store up future wealth.
Finally, I am not paticularly condoning capatilism. But I am not a fool. Everything I own, everything I use has been produced by someone else. I cant see how Ireland could survive without some political system in place. We would not survive in a state of nature. We are totally dependant on a very organised and technical food production system to keep the huge earth population alive and this needs some political system of power and incentives to keep it going. Any system is better than no system at all. (social contract argument )

Húrin

Some people use philosophy to find truth, others salvation, and others simply happiness.

DadaKopf

marabhfuil wrote: »

Your taking the p**s arent ye!!!

No. Think about it.

Valmont

I had high hopes for my long overdue foray into the philosophy forum and with this as the first thread I looked at, I am definitely disappointed. haha:D

Phototoxin

What job can you get with a philosophy degree?

Offalycool

marabhfuil wrote: »

what good does the philosopher?

A good place to start is Socrates. He is credited with developing the Socratic method. He believed every person could question the assumptions which underlie their beliefs, and not only this but it is a persons duty to do so. Society should be wary of common sense and carefully deduce as true an understanding of core concepts as possible via dialectic (logical dialogue). The Socratic method is considered the forerunner of the scientific method.

As for job prospects.. this is down to the individual. A Philosophy degree (esp an MA) equips one with analytical skills, transferable skills and communication skills (and some others as well). It is wise to equip oneself with other specialised skills also, but the skills mentioned above are highly valued in the business world and are frequently promoted at graduate fairs and by government policy. If one wishes to persue an academic career, a Phd is required.

Phototoxin

Interesting. I have a BSc but have found philosophy interesting.

Valmont

OP are you trying to sound clever with your unique writing style? It's absolutely terrible and makes it hard to understand the questions you have half composed. What sort of argument are you trying to make? What is the basis for your argument? In English please. The reason I asked is that I tried to make sense of your posts and just ended up going around in circles.

Valmont

marabhfuil wrote: »

I compare human super excessive accumulation of matter to that of the behaviour of an hibernating animals storing of what it requires to pass a winter.

marabhfuil wrote: »

Example me one spieces of life apart from mankind which behaves in such an excessive manner.

Wolves will eat caribou until they are woefully fat. So too will any animal given enough resources.

RealEstateKing

because philosophy's role has changed so much over the centuries.

Originally a philosopher was simply someone who "loved knowledge" and wanted to know more about the way the world worked. Over the years as our methods became more sophisticated the "love of knowledge" has branched off into different disciplines: Science was born, with all its sub-branches, sociology, economics, political science, even psychology, would all once have come under the heading of Philosophy, but are now disciplines in their own right.

So for example, Berkeley was able to devote part of his work New Theory of Vision on a discussion of why the moon looks so much bigger at certain times. This would have been a philosophical question at the time, whereas now, because we know far more about the way the world works and how to measure it, this would be a scientific question.

As things have progressed, philosophy's role has undoubtedly become diminished. Its a little bit like the way painting became replaced by photography for things such as portraits and landscapes, and painting retreated into the abstract as a result.

Modern philosophy, like much modern painting, has been forced in the same direction by the advance of observation-based science. Now, Philosophy mostly discusses things that are of no interest whatsoever to non-philosophers. It has simply retained its association with the "meaning of life" because of it's history.

For the most part, what the popular imagaination consider philosophical questions - "What is the meaning of life?" , "How can I be happy?" , "What is a good society?" and so on, are probably far better answered in a different discipline, be it psychology, political science, economics or the natural sciences.

Offalycool

It is true Philosophy has to some degree spurred the various disciplines you have mentioned. It can be argued that this is nothing new. From the earliest days, philosophical schools have fragmented and branched off in different directions. In many respects all educational organisations are and have always been philosophical by their very nature, and different schools of Philosophy have always disputed the worthiness of others from the very beginning.

Sadly, traditional philosophy, the kind concerned with such questions as "Is there a good life?", or "What is the self?" has diminished somewhat in the public conciousness. Distinct disciplines such as psychology, political science, economics have their role, but often fail to tap into a more holistic examination of the structure of what constitutes a human 'life'.

For example, whilst psychology can and does help people suffering from psychological illness, many people who are treated by psychologist's do not have such an illness. Some people just have deep assumptions about what their lives should be like without ever examining if these assumptions stand up to scrutiny. Faced with such a case, a psychologist is likely to reinforce in the individual a sense of commonly acceptable values, to achieve, to be self confident etc. The said individual is never encouraged to develop their own beliefs about their existence because it is assumed from the outset that there is a proper way to be. Perhaps the individual would be better served if they examined what other thinkers have considered about the human condition.

Philosophy and Science have a very interesting relationship. My lecturer once said "Science tries to explain everything as simply as possible, Philosophy on the other hand tries to show where things are more complicated than it first appears."

Lothaar

Valmont wrote: »

I had high hopes for my long overdue foray into the philosophy forum and with this as the first thread I looked at, I am definitely disappointed. haha:D

Man, I was thinking exactly the same thing when I got to the end of page 1.

Húrin

RealEstateKing wrote: »

Its a little bit like the way painting became replaced by photography for things such as portraits and landscapes, and painting retreated into the abstract as a result.

Or advanced into abstraction?