It’s a game. You sing the virtues of ‘thinking for yourself’ so that you’ve go a handy way to badger a group you don’t like that you can paint as stereotypically doing so. There isn’t any philosophy to be found on the threads that ANGRY created, not really. It’s just a series of tactical word placements to gain social advantage on an opposed group. I mean seriously - can you honestly say any thread he’s created (and I mean those few that we’ve debated on for so long, plus the new one) have contained any non-biographical information? They’re just complex ways of saying “I hate this” or “I’m great because this”.
If only you say the same thing ONE MORE TIME, in a slightly different configuration, his eyes will be opened, or he’ll be forced to admit the game he’s playing, and you’ll get that tantalizing return on your investment in this thread that always seems just out of reach.
It’s tempting, isn’t it?
We have to disavow ourselves of the notion that people disagree with us because they don’t understand, or that they want to understand.
Such people like certain ILP members can be successful, and the main reason why they can be successful is (a) that they merely have to repeat their texts again and again, (b) that they get attention (!).
Probably you remember the follwing conversation:
During my study at the university I have met many types of students who were back then exactly like the said certain ILP members are now. It is their ideological conceitedness that makes them so cocksure and ignorant, so that they do not only appear like stupid people but really are stupid people. You do not really have to care whether their incapacity is based on genetic defects or on ideological defects, because the effect is the same old stupidity as ever.
So we have two options of reacting to them legally:
- Applying their methods too, especially by repeating our texts again and again.
- Divesting them our attention by ignoring them (consequently, of course!).
There’s an option 3, which I think is actually the most common option:
3.) Find a reason to interact with them that doesn’t turn on convincing them of anything, or their admitting that somebody else made a good point. I think this is where a lot of trolling on the internet comes from- it is decided that it is pointless to treat a person, or a class of people, or perhaps all people on the internet as rational agents, and so the troll speaks to them for their own amusement instead.
The offer of my two legal options is based on the supposition that the common option - thus: your legal “option 3” - could perhaps be the legal “option 0”, because it is what we have been doing here for so long, although perhaps just not consequently and thus not effectively enough. … But, okay, let’s see.
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phyllo,
Well, for one thing at least, take ilp for instance. There are people here, “minds” who are self-restrained and disciplined when it comes to knowing how to respond in threads, no matter what is thrown at them. They have learned how to regulate their own behavior as opposed to the behavior of another, by remaining on focus and rejecting the insults by staying on subject. Their minds are open to the other even if they do not agree with the other. They will draw them out, question them but even if their perspective is different there will be no insults coming from.
That is to me being knowledgeable and well practiced in the discipline of discussing philosophy and it’s quite observable. I admire that in these people. Perhaps it is in part because they are not phased by the insults and the underhanded ways people have to try to win an argument or if they are, they become like ducks shaking off the water. Many of those kinds of ducks which were here have flown away to other philsophy forums unfortunately. It is only about the philosophy to them.
Yeah, a place like ILP leads one to believe that philosophy requires no specialized knowledge or ability. Maybe it’s true for philosophy in general. I’m not sure at this point. There seem to be just as many examples of philosophy being useful as examples of philosophy being useless.
You might end up seeing clearly or you might end up in a fog.
Do not think for yourself, do not question authority. Assume that these “specialized” philosophers, with knowledge and skill that you do not possess, whomever they might be, just simply have it right. Obey, listen, nod your head, and hush. Conform to their words. Whichever regime, people, philosophers that you think holds the keys to this specialized knowledge and skill surely has done it all, the right way, the only way. Think like others, don’t question authority.
That tends to happen in fields in which the consequences for being wrong are not immediately apparent. If you try to be a soldier or a firefighter without any specialized knowledge or ability, you just die or get somebody killed and that’s that. If you’re running any kind of business without specialized knowledge or ability, then you don’t make any money- there are explicit, mathematical ways in which your failure can be measured and shown to you.
In philosophy, if you enter into it with no specialized knowledge or ability, the consequences are social; all that can really happen to you is other philosophers roll their eyes, laugh, or refuse to engage you. Nobody obligates you to actually live by the crazy ideas you espouse, so other people’s reactions to you when you espouse them is really the only evaluation to be had.
One would expect, then, that bad philosophers would have as a cornerstone of their approach a justification for why the opinions of others don’t matter. It is a way of dispersing the only consequences for being bad at what they do.
There seem to be two possibilities :
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you live the philosophy … in which case there are real consequences.
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you talk about the philosophy … in which case the only consequences are some talk in response, which produces even more talk in response.
In academic philosophy, lectures, courses - thinking and judging philosophy for yourself is promoted. Academia is actually more concerned with nurturing independent new thought on a level not seen in any other schooling. I have yet to see a philosophy teacher downright lecture class on the level that presented complex philosophies as right and wrong, from Plato to Russell. There is no science on the millions of pages of philosophies, books, academic or not, that is something to be taken as fact. That just doesn’t happen in philosophy - but it can be wrong, it can be logically invalid. Even if it is logically invalid as a whole, there might be aspects of it that can be put to use.
Professors do present their opinion on things of course, but they don’t present their opinion as fact, as science does. They ask for their students to explain things, to know what certain philosophers meant by what they stated, to argue for or against them, most of the time it doesn’t matter if its for or against. Philosophy is greatly about cogent arguments, thesis and logical possibilities. Yes it studies things that are essentially not scientifically rigorous - in so much that it deals a lot with the mind, how we perceive things, how we think about things. People think very differently from one person to the next. Also, a lot of philosophy is value based, in so much if you don’t find value in a certain philosophy, you don’t have to agree with it.
And even then, living your philosophy can only test a certain narrow range of ideas, and which ideas pass the test is going to be in some part determined by what kind of society you live in. I.E., if your Government really wants a certain bad philosophy to be the state ideology, they can protect people from the natural consequences of that bad philosophy, and create artificial consequences to others.
No, no. Based on past exchanges, I am not prepared to accept that you have any idea what goes on in a philosophy classroom.
Well, sure you have a very rigid mind I would say and a lot of that is based on assumptions. It seems you like to go with whatever you feel is probable then it becomes your gold standard. But what you feel or think is probable seems to be very much so based on rigidity and assumptions as well. Seems some black and white thinking might be systemic. You seemed to have gotten the wrong impression of philosophic academia somehow. I couldn’t point the finger at academia here, but it seems to be how you think, why you think the way you think which is more inherent in you, not academia. If you took or graduated from college, it might depend on your major and field of study. Liberal arts? I wouldn’t think so. Something more rigid perhaps. Maybe nothing. Maybe, video games are more important to you.
"In psychology, rigidity refers to an obstinate inability to yield or a refusal to appreciate another person’s viewpoint or emotions characterized by a lack of empathy. It can also refer to the tendency to perseverate, which is the inability to change habits and the inability to modify concepts and attitudes once developed. A specific example of rigidity is functional fixedness, which is a difficulty conceiving new uses for familiar objects. Systematic research on rigidity can be found tracing back to Gestalt psychologists, going as far back as the late 19th to early 20th century. With more than 100 years of research on the matter there is some established and clear data. Nonetheless, there is still much controversy surrounding several of the fundamental aspects of rigidity. In the early stages of approaching the idea of rigidity, it is treated as “a unidimensional continuum ranging from rigid at one end to flexible at the other”. This idea dates back to the 1800s and was later articulated by Charles Spearman who described it as mental inertia. Prior to 1960 many definitions for the term rigidity were afloat. One example includes Kurt Goldstein’s, which he stated, “adherence to a present performance in an inadequate way”, another being Milton Rokeach saying the definition was, “[the] inability to change one’s set when the objective conditions demand it”.
Mental set
Mental sets represent a form of rigidity in which an individual behaves or believes in a certain way due to prior experience. In the field of psychology, mental sets are typically examined in the process of problem solving, with an emphasis on the process of breaking away from particular mental sets into formulation of insight. Breaking mental sets in order to successfully resolve problems fall under three typical stages: a) tendency to solve a problem in a fixed way, b) unsuccessfully solving a problem using methods suggested by prior experience, and c) realizing that the solution requires different methods. Components of high executive functioning, such as the interplay between working memory and inhibition, are essential to effective switching between mental sets for different situations.[6] Individual differences in mental sets vary, with one study producing a variety of cautious and risky strategies in individual responses to a reaction time test."
No, you have misunderstood. When WWW makes an assertion, he is doubting. So if he says he took philosophy courses he is doubting that he took philosophy courses. Here he is asserting that thinking and judging philosophy for yourself is promoted there. This means he doubts that that is what happens there.
You have to see all his assertions as acts of doubting.
When I said that he was not using the term correctly to describe what he was doing here when he made assertions, he was incredulous. How could I know what is going on in his mind when he makes assertions. When I assured him that he might not be certain his assertions are true, he was still doing something significant other than doubting when he makes assertions here, dismisses objections and remakes those same assertions, he said this was not correct. He is doubting, period. He does not believe his assertions, he does not think they are true. He is doubting.
He doesn’t think they are true. He isn’t making a case.
He is sharing his doubts.
Stop talking about yourself that way Pandora…
When you reduce authority in its entirety is has no real justification to exist.
It’s all reduced to power which beyond ideals or elaborate covers enforces its very existence through power alone.
The real delusion of those with power in authority is the belief that they’ll someday tame or domesticate this universal existential chaos we find ourselves in. It’s a massive delusion that has covered all of the history of civilization.
The problem with most human beings that hold allegiances with authority is that they don’t understand just how futile this experiment we call civilization really is and overtime our world has become very fragile which is why natural chaos will prevail in the end no matter what segments of humanity desire otherwise.
Human social order or otherwise will never be imposed on this world and the whole universe. There might be successes temporarily but in the end the universe shows us the vanity of our own ideals or pursuits which is why they never last very long.
That’s the wrong terminology - sharing possibilities. Sharing knowledge.
It seems you have a very specific example of “authority” in mind in your response here. Who or what is that authority?