Philosophy; a layman's perspective

Hi friends,

The discussion in the thread ‘The serious discussion sub forum’ inspired me to write this post.

This post is not something that came last night in my mind but the summery or recollection of thoughts those roamed around me since last couple of years. Thus, it bound to be a bit lengthy than normal ones. I expect the members to bear with me.

I do not have any hesitation in accepting that I am a layman regarding philosophy and unfortunately one of those ignorant millions, who use to live in this very world, where philosophers also use to spend their precious time. In last two years, since when I started visiting philosophy forums, some basic questions constantly haunted me.

What is philosophy?
What is its purpose or duty?
What it has for a layman like me?

I have master degree in economics so I can consider myself literate at least, if not intellectual. Furthermore, I am a curious person and very fond of reading as well. But unfortunately, till the age of 46, I was not aware of even one of those great philophers, who are being discussed intensely on philosophy forums. So, I asked myself; why I am so ignorant? I came to know about Einstein and Newton at the age of 15-16 so why it took me 30 more years to know about Kant?

I started to read him and other prominent philosophers and found that they are not less worth knowable than prominent scientists. I raised this inquiry at the forums and the answer I got indirectly is that the onus of knowing is on folks as modern philosophers are more elevated than to pay attention at these petty issues. This response surprised me because, as a layman, I had the impression in my mind that they are doing all this for folks, just like the other streams of knowledge use to do. This fact enlightened me with the true wisdom of contemporary philosophy that they are engaged in something so discrete and extraordinary, that is even not meant for humans.

When I look at me and my life, it is very much evident to me that the credit of the most part of it goes to the scientific development that occurred in last two centuries. But, when I look at the philosophy, the picture is not all that glossy. I did not find any single thread on the forums dedicated to any modern philosopher (successors of Kant and Hume); the only bright spot is Wittgenstein. Even at philosophy forums, Newton and Einstein are perhaps more discussed than the philosophers of last two centuries. Why it is so?

This onus is on the philosophy, given by the society. The society offers all basic input to the philosophy and that serve as the raw material for it. So philosophy and philosophers are morally bound to return the favor by addressing all the issues, which use to pop up time and again around it. It should not turn its face when a common man asks for help. The issues of day to day life are more important than addressing the ultimate truth. If the philosophy treats these issues as below par, then who will do it? No other stream of knowledge owns as much thinking and analyzing capacity as philosophy has, because it starts from thinking, goes through thinking and even ends at thinking.

The duty of the philosophy is to examine all proposals, either new or old. The jurisdiction of the philosophy ends here. Its duty is to show the society its different cogitations.

Having said this, by no means, I am proposing that complex issues like truth or ultimate reality should be avoided. On the contrary, they are helpful in discussing general issues as they tend to sharpen the teeth of philosophy.

We all know about the sport of motor racing. It is perhaps the costliest sport in the world. Motor companies like Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren spend millions in research and making formula-1 cars. These are very costly but their engines and tyres last only few hundred miles. All these spent millions become useless within 1-2 hours yet, companies do it happily. The reason is simple that they test and improve their technology in f-1 racing, which returns them much more millions when they use this earned technology in normal cars.

This should be the approach of philosophy. It has to attract the best talent by discussing the complex and difficult issues; sharpen their minds there, and then use them to address all issues in the society along with difficult ones.It is not the duty of philosophy to hide its cogitations from the society. It should not concern about the fact that the society will follow those or not. If philosophy founds that any notion is right then it should say that this is right, and the same process should be applied to the wrong one also; without the hesitation. Philosophy should remain neutral while examining other streams of knowledge.

Every pack of cigarette comes with a statutory warning; smoking is injurious to health.
This is precisely the duty of philosophy; labeling of notions impartially.

And then left to the society to decide and act upon. Here, we must remember that, one who wants to smoke, will smoke for sure; even noticing the warning. And one, who does not want to smoke, will never smoke; even if there is no warning.

In real world, no one wants to hear about philosophy. The general perception of philosophy is that it is nothing but words, words and words and moreover, the difficult ones.

I fail to understand why modern philosophers are so obsessed with them. One reason that I am able to understand is that; they feel that philosophy is such an extraordinary phenomenon, which bestows upon to some chosen ones like prophets. They simply consider themselves a far superior than an average person. The fear of identity loss or superiority complex refrain them to mix up with general community. Perceptions could and should be narrated in simple language. I do not see any problem in that. There is absolutely no need of any highly intellectual rhetoric, which has become almost a trademark of philosophy. In my opinion, this the main reason of its loss of credibility in today’s world. Philosophy is not literature so it should not be try to be one.

Philosophers should learn from Stephen Hawkins in this regard. I have read ‘the history of time’. He, very wisely, refrained himself from including any mathematics to it, to make his thoughts apprehensible to folks. This is the proper way to address the society. If a physicist can do this successfully then, why philosophers cannot do it?

A common man says that if you are not interested in me, then why I should be interested in you. It is as simple as that. This is the reason why a common man is more interested in science; simply because science listens to him and also tries to provide solutions for his problems or add values to his life. What modern philosophy has to offer to the society?

Philosophy should come out from its castle of books, where it decided to live after Kant and Hume, in a self imposed exile. When it will do so, it will be surprised to found that everyone is philosopher out there, more or less. A scientist, an advocate, a doctor or a businessman, everyone is philosopher in one sense or other.

I do not think that Steve Jobs was less intelligent than any other philosopher of the last century. He simply proved this notion wrong that the necessity is the mother of invention, on his own. Moreover, he did not put forward any reasoning for it but proved it empirically.

Even a housewife is a philosopher. If her husband goes to his work in the morning, with the angry stare of mind, she understands and visualizes him, thus, prepares dinner of his choice, wears her sexiest dress in the evening and gives her husband a warm, long and passionate kiss, even standing at the door. She remains there for a while, in the embrace of him, caressing his back gently. Then she looks in his eyes with her wet ones and the husband founds himself unable to do anything but to drop his guard and surrenders. No words exchanged but the job is done perfectly.

This is philosophy in real terms. In objective analysis, she has all three ingredients of a philosopher; experience or visualization, objective thinking and expression. Firstly, she has a perfect visualization of her husband’s mind, then she thought about it perfectly and sorts out a right remedy for the situation and act accordingly. It does not matter, whether she realizes it or not.

She needs not to learn in from Kant or from any other philosopher, yet, she is able to think in second person perfectly and that is exactly the same, which philosophers do. She learned it from the experience, which is earned by her, during his interaction with her husband. There is no other way for knowing it.

This is what I mean by living in the castle of books. If we look around us, we will find that philosophy is happening everywhere. The real world offers much more than the books. But we tend to ignore it and especially, the experiencing or the visualization part, which is foundation of philosophy, as it creates understanding in real terms. Then comes thinking or analyzing and the last is expression. I feel that philosophy is doing just opposite what the doctor had prescribed. The basic flaw I see in today’s philosophy is that it got its priorities wrong; both in methodology and duty. More often than not, we tend take a start from expression, then try to think, and almost ignore the most important part of experiencing or visualizing. This is the only reason, why the expression lacks clarity and authenticity.

The same is in the case of spirituality and religions. Even they have nothing to offer to the society in real terms, instead of such rhetoric, which sometimes looks even more complicated that philosophical one. The people, who call themselves philosophers, must not forget that they live in this very world, which is dominated by folks, hence, they should listen and talk to them also. The world is not meant for philosophy, but, on the contrary, philosophy is meant for world; the real world, where the folks like me and millions others, use to live. It would be better if philosophy realizes this sooner than later.

The self indulgence of modern philosophers is doing no good for philosophy. This isolation from the common man is the very reason why philosophy is no more capable of attracting best talent available. Science has left philosophy far behind in this contest. Those days were gone long ago when philosophers were considered the most respected and elite class of the society. I have read somewhere very recently that now we have the maximum number of professionally trained philosophers ever in the human history. If it is true, then in which world they use to live?

Philosophers like Descartes, Hume and Kant are legends and will be alive forever in our remembrance but, if we exclude Wittgenstein, how many other philosophers of the last century, will be remembered like the aforesaid three, even after couple of more centuries?

In my opinion, the philosophy forums like ILP are doing far better job than those professionally trained philosophers. It does not matter at all if posters are amateur and looked bit naive. These internet forums are reinforcing the bridge between society and philosophy, which has seen too much damage in the past. Forums are reintroducing the society with that stream of knowledge, which is the mother of all wisdom, as all others are manifested from it. These forums are offering a crash course of philosophy to the common man.

Philosophy carried science for centuries in its womb. Even after giving it berth, philosophy tried to nourish it but science proved to be a selfish daughter. It uses all the methodology of her mother but, at the same time, wants to disown her. The whole of modern theoretical physics is nothing but philosophy, whether people like Hawkins accepts it or not.

I have serious objection with the term of ‘professionally trained’. I do not think that anyone can be ‘trained’ to be a philosopher. It is a skill or an art so we cannot force it. Eternity has not made all alike so we all are blessed with different skills. Furthermore, there cannot be any ‘training’ possible for philosophers. Philosophy is an event that happens in the mind of philosophers.

One cannot be Kant merely by reading him. To understand Kant, one has to read about his life first, step by step along with his cogitations. During this, one has to visualize his mindset in order to imbue with his true ideology as mere words can confuse, if read verbatim. It is a long process and requires a lot of patience. If one is serious in his efforts, then sometimes (not always) all of a sudden something flashes in the mind regarding the subject. This is what I would like to call the event of philosophy. Without this, philosophy is just academics, nothing more.

Thus, there are more chances of ‘happening the event of philosophy’ in the forums rather than the alien world of professionally trained philosophers as time runs slowly here, in the company of common people, because we are not in any kind of hurry. We are here not in the expectation of any incentive, but to enjoy it sip by sip like champagne and that is the true essence of philosophy; love of wisdom. As soon as it becomes professional, the soul dies. Philosophy has been gone in the state of coma after Wittgenstein as it stopped listening and talking to society. These professional philosophical organizations are keeping in on the ventilator.

I hope and pray that the forums like ILP will grow and flourish with time and will be able to carry the flag of philosophy high and the day will come when it would be able regain its lost status in the society.

The only thing forums requires is a bit of introspection by posters in order to refrain themselves from personal and indecent remarks. Mods also have to play an important role in this regard. They have to make sure that forum and threads follow the right direction. I had been on many forums besides ILP; both as member and silent viewer as well. The standard of moderation at ILP is far better than many others. The only lacking quality is perhaps more strictness on using vulgar words. A philosophical forum must look a bit more civilized than social one. Everything else is fine.

The idea of creating a ‘serious discussion sub forum’ has more cons than pros. The only benefit is that the quality of content will improve to some extent. I accept this but, by doing this, we shall commit the same mistake, that modern philosophy did as it will again create a elite class within the members and those, who will left out, would feel downgraded. The ultimate result will be that they withdraw from the forum. Thus, the main cause of the forums, which is the mediation between philosophy and society, will be cheated. This is not good even from financial point of view as audience will be reduced also.

The methodology of ‘The Academy’ is fine but we should not categorize the members and posting should be allowed for everyone. Mods always have the discretion to decide whether any post is eligible or not and that is enough to get the job done perfectly.

Thanks for being patient with me.

with love,
sanjay

I don’t believe philosophy has a set definition, and is to some extent subjective.

As a rule of thumb though (mixed with my own subjective conception) it is about questioning the nature and structure of existence, and essentially asking “why?” Many branches of philosophy comprise this. Ethics (the study of morality) attempts to see what is right or wrong, and why actions can or should be deemed as such. Politics (the study of governance) attempts to seek out how humans should be governed, and what structures (if any) are required to accomplish this.

I would further add that many of the common stereotypes of philosophy are understandable, in that it’s overly/highly intellectual, or that it discusses things with no end product. Well, why shouldn’t it be intellectual? How is questioning things not intellectual? Moreover, I personally see philosophy as a process with no real end point. There will always be questions regarding our existence. Many of the major tenets of modern existence also had their root in philosophy, such as science, medicine, etc. A great deal of our political and social values stem from the Enlightenment, which was a philosophical movement of the 17th/18th century. This is apparent in the concepts of political rights, liberal democracy, social equality, etc. that we have today.

An excellent post, sanjay. Thank you!

I agree that we can’t train philosophers like we can train factory workers, or dogs. But there are skills and values that philosophers, as a community, value, and by demonstrating them, exemplifying them and holding others to a standard, we train each other as craftsmen. Or maybe the appropriate phrase is more a body of standards, or a tradition.

If a process has no endpoint, how can it form a workable conception …… how can there be a result of thought?

Is there a perfection of means only to no end?

Hi ilikenamitha,

Sorry for being late in reply.

You said- I don’t believe philosophy has a set definition, and is to some extent subjective.
As a rule of thumb though (mixed with my own subjective conception) it is about questioning the nature and structure of existence, and essentially asking “why?” Many branches of philosophy comprise this. Ethics (the study of morality) attempts to see what is right or wrong, and why actions can or should be deemed as such. Politics (the study of governance) attempts to seek out how humans should be governed, and what structures (if any) are required to accomplish this.

We cannot find a proper definition of philosophy accepted to all, though i feel that the prescribed one from our ancestors is quite agreeable for all; love of wisdom, as it covers almost the entire spread.

You said- I would further add that many of the common stereotypes of philosophy are understandable, in that it’s overly/highly intellectual, or that it discusses things with no end product. Well, why shouldn’t it be intellectual? How is questioning things not intellectual? Moreover, I personally see philosophy as a process with no real end point. There will always be questions regarding our existence…

Philosophy will survive as long as humans will be there. Philosophy does not have any separate existence as it resides in human thinking. It runs parallel with humankind thus, it uses to change its face according to its only companion. It is a usual phenomenon.

PHLOSOPHY MAY BE A CONTINUEOUS JOTNEY BUT IT SHOULD BOT BE WITHOUT ANY PURPOSE.

There is nothing wrong in being intellectual. Philosophy should be one but what is the use of that intellectuality, if it is just to show that it is intellectual; without common sense and without any purpose?

People use to do many bizarre things to get their name in Gunnies Book of records. The effort is surely there from their part, but is it has any use? Can their effort or derived knowledge and experience help anyone else? This is precisely my objection.

You said-Many of the major tenets of modern existence also had their root in philosophy, such as science, medicine, etc. A great deal of our political and social values stem from the Enlightenment, which was a philosophical movement of the 17th/18th century. This is apparent in the concepts of political rights, liberal democracy, social equality, etc. that we have today

That is true. But i do not see science and scientists are ready to accept this notion. They use to treat philosophy as their subordinate and the blame should be credited in the accounts of those ‘professionally trained’ philosophers and such organizations.

with love,
sanjay

Excellent post.

Hi Only_Humean,

You said- An excellent post, sanjay. Thank you!

On the contrary, i must appreciate you as even being busy as a mod, you still found time and patience to go through for such a long post. I have seen so many times in forums that long posts do not attract viewers, irrespective of their content and quality as we simply do not have time for that. It is applicable not to forums only but all aspects of our life.

You said- I agree that we can’t train philosophers like we can train factory workers, or dogs. But there are skills and values that philosophers, as a community, value, and by demonstrating them, exemplifying them and holding others to a standard, we train each other as craftsmen. Or maybe the appropriate phrase is more a body of standards, or a tradition.

I am in agreement with you that philosophers must have values and put an example for others to follow. But OH, is that happening right now? On the contrary, they are showing that if one is intelligent than others then, instead of sharing your intelligence and derived knowledge with society, one should remain isolated within his so called aristocracy.

Furthermore, unlike many of the sciences for which there has come to be a healthy industry of books, magazines, and television shows meant to popularize science and communicate the technical results of a scientific field to the general populace, works by professional philosophers directed at an audience outside the profession remains rare.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_philosophy
The above quote from wiki shows that i am not alone who thinks so.

In addition, philosophy in the twentieth century became increasingly technical and harder to read by the layman.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th-century_philosophy

I fail to understand the reasoning behind this practice, other than showing intellectuality. What is the use of philosophy if one makes it almost inapprehensible for society? Is writing some set of difficult words the ultimate purpose of philosophy? If a normal man cannot even understand it, then how he will be benefited?

OH, look at the science. It also goes through such a procedure which is not understandable by folks but its findings and developments benefit society directly. The same should be in the case of philosophy. The final product of the philosophy is its cogitations. If its cogitations are either incomprehensible or useless then there must be something wrong. It simply means that either it is lacking in methodology or direction.

Logical positivists typically considered philosophy as having a very limited function. For them, philosophy concerned the clarification of thoughts, rather than having a distinct subject matter of its own. The positivists adopted the verification principle, according to which every meaningful statement is either analytic or is capable of being verified by experience. This caused the logical positivists to reject many traditional problems of philosophy, especially those of metaphysics or ontology, as meaningless.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy

This is totally unacceptable. It is nothing but a cold blooded murder of philosophy.

OH, I cannot help but to say that either I am insane or they are. It looks to me that the concept of deduction has been taken over their whole intellect that they have started deducting philosophy instead of thought.

If modern theoretical physics can use metaphysics then why philosophy should refrain itself from using it?

Philosophy is a bit like driving. It is the journey. Thoughts have to travel millions of miles to convert into cogitation. Just like physical roads, the journey of thought also goes through different conditions; uphill, downhill, plains. Thus, we have to drive our thinking to the cogitation.

Let us take the example of a car. It has some controlling features like steering, clutch, gears, break and accelerator. We do not use all features at once but according to the requirement of the journey. We need to drive in 1st or 2nd gear when we go uphill. In the plains, top gear is required and no need of breaks if the road is empty. While going downhill, we remove foot from the accelerator and put permanently on the break. Why? Of course, we can cover downhill in top gear too but we do not do that because we know that it could cause an accident.

The same is the case of thinking. We need all types of controls for that too; assumption, logic, reasoning, scepticism etc. Over dependence on any particular mean is not good for journey otherwise it could cause accident. It requires simple common sense only and it founds a place in philosophy in the name of Occam’s razor.

Cogitation is just like a cooked food. It requires a prefect mix of characteristics; sweet, sour, bitter, oiliness, crispiness, glaze and presentation too. Lose any particular ingredient, the meal will be spoiled.

OH, i feel that this is the very mistake that modern philosophy (particularly analytical) has committed.

with love,
sanjay

I think there are a lot of philosophers who do so, but also a lot who are concerned about practical daily life and communicating with the public. Peter Singer, Alistair MacIntyre, Simon Blackburn all spring to mind. I think it’s like science or mathematics; some people sit in the upper reaches of abstract thought, some people bring it all back down into the world. We need both, I think. As you say, a car needs a first gear for mountains and a fifth gear for the open road.

Not all philosophy has to be for laymen.Some philosophy addresses philosophical confusions or arguments that only other philosophers can understand, in order to clarify things that they can be presented to the layman. And when the laymen comes back with an awkward question, it can then be answered.

Of course, some philosophy is just obscurantist pseudo-poetry. That has no more or less value than any other sort of ‘difficult’ poetry - you get something from it, or you don’t, but it’s personal. And some works, like Nietzsche’s ASZ or Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, work on many levels - giving messages that laymen can take away, and large-scale philosophical structures that can be studied in depth.

Well, I’m no Logical Positivist But it helps to look at the context of what they were trying to do and the culture in which they were working to see why they did what they did - they were mostly intelligent people, trying to achieve something. As are we all. And even if all we learn is what not to do, well, that helps. They were trying, as we all are, and we can learn from their mistakes.

It may otherwise be that they should both refrain from it, of course.

Balance in all things, indeed. Aristotle was way ahead of us there.

sanjay, are you saying that modern philosophy should be more like modern, popular, social psychology?–that it should ‘teach’ a ‘way’ to live that’s both moral and ethical without being Religious?

Hi OH,

Prior to reply you, I am trying to have a look a bit at those three names you mentioned. Give me a day.

with love,
sanjay

Hi Lizberthrose,

Not precisely, but something like that.

Philosophy is morally bound to address all contemporary issues which it is not doing right now.

Look around us. In last decade or so, the humanity is facing two very important issues; economic issues and fanaticism. Philosophy has been more or less silent about these two issues.

Are these issues less important than linguistic analysis? Why don’t they apply reductionism in it and try to find the root cause of it? If reductionism is so perfect then why it cannot find the solution of fanaticism by breaking it into small parts? Let us see whether it has some merit in real terms or made just for intellectual arm wrestling.

This is my objection. I am not saying that they should offer any instant type of solution but at least they can discuss it. I do not see any point in chasing mere words up to the eternity while general populace is suffering.

LT, folks may be not as intelligent as philosophers, but they are not fools for sure. The general perception among the society is that philosophy and philosophers are good for nothing because they act like that and that is precisely the reason for their mitigation and elevation of scientists.

Philosophy may discuss subtle issues. There is nothing wrong in it but, derived wisdom and cogitations must be applicable and applied to the society.

With love,
sanjay

Excellent post – I second.

Hi rebbeca,

Thanks for endorsing my point of view two times.

with love,
sanjay

.

Let me stand as advocate for the defense of philosophers here for a moment.

Pretty much true.

Imagine that you have some serious injury and go to a hospital. The doctor examines you, perhaps gives you something immediately for the pain, but then disappears. Some time later another doctor examines you, asks a few questions and then disappears. A day goes by before yet another doctors shows up, examines, asks questions, then disappears also. A few days go by. Your problem is still there and the pain meds are beginning to not work.

At that point, you are tempted to proclaim that doctors are not doing anything, things are getting worse, they are not upholding their duty, and you are ready to go elsewhere.

Now what you couldn’t see is where they were going to when they disappeared. In fact, they were in the background consulting and pondering the details of your problem. But knowing that you have no education in the field, and some of what they say as they speak might lead you to dangerously false conclusions, they don’t feel compelled to openly discuss it with you.

None of that would be happening if it was a simple problem to fix. But that doesn’t occur to you so you perhaps go seek help elsewhere. Their delay inspired you to give up faith in their intentions and/or abilities. When you find another place perhaps it is one that offers an immediate “quick fix”. Things seem fine for a short while but then the problem comes back and seems even more complicated now. You go to yet another place for help. Again, after some pondering, you again get another fairly quick fix and again, after a short while the problem comes back but is now seemingly more confused with other problems. Things are just getting worse.

So you decide that perhaps these quick fixes were not such a good idea and you return to the first hospital. They examine you again and proclaim, “oh dear” just before they do the examine and disappear series again. Eventually, you proclaim that they must tell you what is going on or you will start breaking things.

So a group of doctors enters your room and begin trying to explain some of the complexities of your situation. It becomes apparent that you have no idea what the hell they are talking about. But out of it all you get the impression that you have an ailment that was compounded significantly because of those quick fixes and it was seriously complex to begin with. When you first arrived, they were trying to ensure that they didn’t make things worse by not being certain before affecting you in any way. They were deliberating your case and it happened to be a very tricky one. And now it is far more tricky and requires even more carefulness before taking action.

You and other laymen have no idea why it is such an issue. It seems obvious that you have a problem. They are paid to fix the problem and claim to be the experts. Why aren’t they doing anything, you and your friends ask. And of course, in the absence of the actual experts, a whole gathering of amateurs step up to the microphone to give their input. Eventually it all seems a bit like a circus wherein no one really knows anything about what they are saying.

Of course during such a time, it is promoted that doctors don’t really know anything anyway and never have. It has always just been a scam to get your money.

Eventually, quite some time later, the doctors figure out that the most significant source of your problem seems to be a communicable disease, one that has now been spread. The problem has not only not been solved by the experts, but it is getting bigger and also what little help the doctors could give is being denied because of the rumor that they are just scamming. The problem multiplies.

And all of that perhaps could have been avoided if you had been a little more patient in the beginning. Perhaps they never would have figured out how to help you individually, but at least the entire community wouldn’t now have the same problem mixed with dozens of added problems making it all far worse than the initial problem.

That is the state of philosophy.

“They aren’t answering my questions, so I will seek answers elsewhere.”
You get some quick fix answers only to shortly find that they pose new questions on top of the original making any answer to the original question more questionable itself. And it spreads throughout society. Eventually it seems that philosophers do nothing but banter about silly questions, leaving the real issues behind.

Was it the philosophers who perplexed society into such a state or was it those who demanded answers of very complex questions requiring study and patience yet had none themselves?

What you are calling the more serious issues are merely the consequence of earlier impatience. But now the problem is compounded with dependent issues intertwined even more serious issues that were not a problem before but forbid any quick fix for any of it. So now it takes far more time to work out what to do especially since no one has any faith in anything said by anyone anyway.

“The real Devil is in the Details.”
You do not see the complex connection between how your words and their use when spread throughout society can affect the economics of that society. JP Morgan Jr created America’s first depression merely by stating that he was going to take his money out of the market. One simple statement made and an entire nation suffered. Then due to the threat of such a thing, it was used as extortion to force America into wars that it had no business being in. Since then, such extortion has been the mainstay of social control through money. What was merely a problem of one person has now become a problem for the entire Western world. It was a case of terrorism, fear used to control and extort a country and now the entire world. And all because one man lost faith.

So what you are now complaining about involves how to restore trust and faith into a society that has become totally dominated by extortionists and “fanatics” (merely a part of the extortion game). In order to maintain the control, it must be ensured that confusion in the masses is maintained. So now you lose faith in philosophers because they seem to be discussing nothing but confusion and irrelevant details.

If I were to tell you exactly how to fix it all and in the quickest fashion, would you actually believe me? You would have too many questions, as would anyone else. Questions and doubt that didn’t exist years ago. And yet, I have never heard a philosophical question that I couldn’t answer. But getting you or anyone to believe the answer is another story. So today the issue isn’t what needs to be done. The issue is merely when it can be done. Until that time, the real philosophers bide their time because they have the patience that you and others didn’t have.

The following pictorial uses the word “religion” and the term “Right Religion”, but you can exchange those words for “philosophy” and “Right Philosophy”. Every religion is merely another philosophy.

The A, B, and C refer to older religions/philosophies.
What can be done, is being done.
If you can’t follow the logic of the RR for whatever reason, you are a part of the problem that requires all that extra time and patience.

Sanjay, thanks for expressing so eloquently what many of us feel. rebecca

Hi OH,

sorry for being late.

You said- I think there are a lot of philosophers who do so, but also a lot who are concerned about practical daily life and communicating with the public. Peter Singer, Alistair MacIntyre, Simon Blackburn all spring to mind.

OH, thanks for mentioning those names. I am more relieved than glad that at least a few of them have got it right. I tried to have a brief look at them and found something interesting.

[u][i]Probably his most widely read work, After Virtue was written when MacIntyre was already in his fifties. Up until that time MacIntyre had been a relatively influential analytic philosopher of a Marxist bent whose inquiries into moral philosophy had been conducted in a “piecemeal way, focusing first on this problem and then on that, in a mode characteristic of much analytic philosophy.”[7] However, after reading the works of Thomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos on philosophy of science and epistemology MacIntyre was inspired to change the entire direction of his thought, tearing up the manuscript he had been working on and deciding to view the problems of modern moral and political philosophy “not from the standpoint of liberal modernity, but instead from the standpoint of … Aristotelian moral and political practice.”[8]

In general terms the task of After Virtue is to account both for the dysfunctional quality of moral discourse within modern society and rehabilitate what MacIntyre takes to be a forgotten alternative in the teleological rationality of Aristotelian virtue ethics[/i][/u].

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alasdair_MacIntyre

You see OH that sometimes even a layman can be right. I can well empathise how he felt at that moment. This is the most likely feeling that comes to mind when one tries so see modern philosophy and society as a third person.

You said- I think it’s like science or mathematics; some people sit in the upper reaches of abstract thought, some people bring it all back down into the world. We need both, I think. As you say, a car needs a first gear for mountains and a fifth gear for the open road.

Not all philosophy has to be for laymen. Some philosophy addresses philosophical confusions or arguments that only other philosophers can understand, in order to clarify things that they can be presented to the layman. And when the laymen comes back with an awkward question, it can then be answered.

As a layman I do not mind that. I can well understand that like science, it is not possible to make the procedure apprehensible for layman, but that cannot be said for the finding; cogitations. There must be some mechanism placed for that. It is more important that it looks.

Let us look at the scientists. As soon as they found Higgs Boson, they immediately tried to show that world that they discovered God particle. I am not sure but i have a gut feeling that they intentionally and very smartly chose that name to show their authority and supremacy to the society.

OH, we live in the era of marketing. If you cannot market your product, nobody will buy it, no matter how useful it is. I use read news paper daily and sit before TV at least 3-4 hours but i never saw anything regarding philosophy. Leave alone Hawkins, who regularly uses to appear in various channels, even chefs make TV appearances. Are philosophers more gone case than even them?

you said- Of course, some philosophy is just obscurantist pseudo-poetry. That has no more or less value than any other sort of ‘difficult’ poetry - you get something from it, or you don’t, but it’s personal. And some works, like Nietzsche’s ASZ or Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, work on many levels - giving messages that laymen can take away, and large-scale philosophical structures that can be studied in depth.

Well, that is more or less acceptable. If society can enjoy literature, then why not philosophy? You rightly said that it is personal choice. But, having said that, an extraordinary complex language should not be considered as thumb rule. It may be acceptable for inter-dialogue, but not while addressing general populace. Philosophers do not make this distinction.

you said- Well, I’m no Logical Positivist But it helps to look at the context of what they were trying to do and the culture in which they were working to see why they did what they did - they were mostly intelligent people, trying to achieve something. As are we all. And even if all we learn is what not to do, well, that helps. They were trying, as we all are, and we can learn from their mistakes.

Yes, and i feel that internet philosophy is less intruded regarding this.

OH, the fact of the matter is that these internet forums represent the real aspirations of society from philosophy. You can see here at ILP that people are concerned and want to discuss various issues; from religions to economic issues and of course and some hardcore philosophical ones also.

OH, there is one more dimension of this issue, without that this thread would remain incomplete.

Modern philosophy is and dominated by west, right now; particularly by English speaking countries. Europe represents about 11% of the total world population and if we add USA, which is roughly 4.5% and add some more for developed countries like Australia, South Korea, Japan, South Africa etc, even then the sum will not cross over 20%. This simply means that what we are seeing even on the net, is not the complete picture as rest 80% of the population does not have proper access to the net. But, it is changing and very rapidly too.

The net will see a huge flood of participants from those 80% in a decade or so. The hits on the net are going to increase dramatically and each new hit will bring something new to the table. There is a huge difference in the approach towards philosophy between east and west. In the east, most of the philosophers come from religious backgrounds while it is just opposite in the case of west. So, next some years will be extremely interesting and important for western philosophy as it would have to accommodate with its step sister.

I also see the approach of philosophy towards society also changing from what it has been in the last 50 years or so. I do not think that even those philosophers, who consider their knowledge beyond the understanding of general populace, would be able to resist the power of internet. They will not have any option but to come down to the earth. If they tried otherwise, the net will found new philosophers for itself and the society will follow.

OH, this phenomenon has been happened in almost all other fields. Thus, it is bound to happen in philosophy too.

You said-It may otherwise be that they should both refrain from it, of course.

Sorry OH. I do not agree with this at all. Metaphysics is not only the essence of philosophy but science also. We have reached such a stage, where further progress is almost impossible without metaphysics; particularly in modern physics.

You said- Balance in all things, indeed. Aristotle was way ahead of us there.

Yes. Balance approach is a must ingredient not only for all streams of knowledge but life also. I feel that our ancestors understood basics more clearly than us.

Aristotle gave answer to analytical philosophy centuries before its birth.

The whole is always more than the sum of its parts.

And he was dead right.

with love,
sanjay

The problem with philosophy is the sheeple and group thikers who keeps it alive, who whorship all the outdated nonsens and babble, who doesn’t possess the necessary mental aptitude to comprehend very basic mattters.

They’r lazy and won’t read up on scitientific concepts, but will ask over and over year in, year out the same silly questions like: “what is time?”. It would take less than 30 min to read up on what time is, I’ve even quoted the simple answer, yet no one heeded it as it wasn’t rethorically beautiful.

For people to evolve you have to stuff wisdom and knowledge down their throats, elese they remain in their medival bubble forever. Though the one who does it with diplomacy and beautiful rethorics, will succeed where i always fail with my lack of diplomacy and bad rethorics.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=180168

Well forgive my curiosity, but what was your answer to the famous question asked by a physicist (who after some 20,000 replies, declared that humanity has no hope) of “what is time”?

I answered that question and had to go to a hell of a lot of trouble getting an anti-philosopher to understand the truth of it.

I have seen that science fanatical supporters have no more idea of what Science has really said than anyone else. They too are the lazy “sheeple”. They merely wave a different flag and want to fight for their team even though they have no idea of what their team really intends to do with them if they win.

People have not change one bit from the medieval era. The only thing that has changed is who they are devoted to. And that is merely an issue of who has the most effective means at the moment to trick them into faithful worship.

Hi James,

Welcome to the thread.

I will reply by tomorrow.

woth love,
sanjay

Hi Drusus,

First of all, welcome to the thread.

My friend, did you not look at the title of the thread; Philosophy; a layman’s perspective.

So, you see that i hava already accepted that i am a layman. Thus, the onus is on you to enrich me with your wisdom. I am ready to grab it with both hands. Please proceed.

I always thank those, who endorse me, from my heart and also thank those, who refute me, from my mind.

At least you accepted that i am good at rethoric. I would take that as a complement because it is not less than an art. Everybody cannot do it as you wisely mentioned.

Drusus, i am not joking. English is my second language and i do not feel comfortable with it at all and seriously doubt my writing ability.

Thanks for that.

with love,
sanjay