A Philosophical History

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Due to the unreliable performance of my internet connection (dial-up!), I am forced to start with a summary, which can be fleshed out with subsequent posts.

My philosophical view is informed chiefly by David Hume, Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, and the Logical Positivists (LP’s). There is a direct connection – a line of thinking – running straight through all these thinkers, and it is that line of reasoning that I basically accept. Moreover, there is a set of premises, derived from and/or informing this line of thinking that I also accept.

The result is that I am a materialist, conceived of in a minimal sense (weak materialism, basically); an atheist (also weak); that I possess nothing that can rightly be called an epistemic or ontological view (although I could perhaps be persuaded otherwise); and that I view philosophy not as a path to knowledge, but as a study of language.

Hume established that epistemology and ontology belongs to metaphysics; that causation is not phenomenal or logical, but is psychological; that essentialism applied to human nature is nonsensical; and that induction is not, strictly speaking, logic at all. He also made philosophy safe for atheism and for the primacy of sensory experience. He defeated Descartes, in other words, in a decisive and fecund way.

Nietzsche accepts all this. He assumes Hume. Unlike Hume, Nietzsche makes no argument against God and provides only sporadic salvos against metaphysics in general. Nietzsche seizes upon the idea that knowledge is a psychological phenomenon and not an epistemic one, even that it is a psychological necessity – but only that. Hume dissolved the need for epistemology, and Nietzsche possesses none. Nietzsche’s focus was different – he saw metaphysics as a purely social phenomenon. He understood that Plato was held hostage by language, by words – that language (and not knowledge) was the very subject matter of philosophy.

Hume lived, philosophically, in a godless universe, and Nietzsche explored the ramifications of such a universe. He virtually abandoned deductive logic, and relied on induction only as a way of compiling evidence, and not to prove anything. In Nietzsche, we have a shift to truth as a function of language, of psychology alone. While Hume told us that we are truly alone, Nietzsche turns Descartes’ subjectivity on its head – God id not deceiving us – we are deceiving ourselves, and necessarily so.

Russell, despite a lack of affinity to Nietzsche, studied language. He realized that logic was mathematics (through Frege) and so was a closed system, not connected to empirical world. In doing so, he rescued deductive logic from the rationalists – the very people that Hume and Nietzsche so despised. Specifically in his study of language, he sought to show that logic cannot be directed at knowledge – that logic shows us only what we are saying – that it does not allow us to say that we know anything in an epistemic or phenomenal sense. In doing so, he set the stage for the LP’s – and like Hume and Nietzsche, tried to keep philosophy within the realm of that which can be verified. He helped to “scientificalise” philosophy. Along with the LP’s, he sought to show the relationship between logic, language and the phenomenal world.

This led to an agreement between the LP’s and Nietzsche – that morality is a human convention, with a meaning that is assigned by humans – and only that. Every rationalist, or metaphysical morality can now be seen as a pure invention. This changes the way all philosophy is now viewed – it has almost meant the demise of morality itself, within philosophy. Even a Kantian like John Rawls must noe appeal to social scientists, at least.

I think I have to post this now. Too long for my pathetic connection. It’s really only a sketch.

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Hume was the first philosopher I loved. Nietzsche was the second. I don’t know Russell because after I discovered Tsong Khapa’s recapitulation of Nagarjuna (as fleshed out by Chandrakirti) I lost interest in the western intellectual tradition for a long time. I think the import of Mahayana for modern secular philosophy is its ease in making sense of the connection between empiricism and convention, thus making a moot point out of any claims of fundamental alienation arising from the difference.

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For instance Hume’s and Nietzsche’s personal lives don’t hold any attraction for me, unlike say Socrates’. Lack of integration may reflect fundamental philosophical problems as much as adventitious problems.

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Well Russell, and others, actually think of Perspectivism, of which Nietzsche is the founder, as a sort of metaphysics, due, in part, to his rejection of traditional epistemology, and subsequent “world-building”. I disagree, because that world buliding really exists within language, which, while abstract, is not metaphysical.

I am wondering exactly how you, realun, reconcile two ideas - that philosophy is only about language, and that philosophy can be about metpahysics, which seeks to describe all of reality, and not just a slice of it.

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Meaning what? Is this a take on the various philosophical topics as a line of questioning about the meaning of certain words as opposed to the nature of what they signify? So, for example, if a philosopher begins a discourse with “What is time? Well, let me tell you…”, then what he’s really doing is not explaining what time is (in an ontological sense) but explaining the meaning of the word “time” as we ordinarily use it. Is this what you mean?

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gib - The ordinary meanings of words are usually found in their definitons - that’s a pre-philosophical concern. Philosophy is the study, not of words, but of statements. However, basic vocabulary is a pre-requisite of philosophy.

That is oversimplified - there are some words that in themselves make a statement - “God” being an example. But it is that statement that counts. In other words, philosophy is the study of claims.

There are some special case worthy of note, even in a brief overview. The verb “to be”, for instance, at least in English. The use of this verb is sometimes significant of a statement and sometimes not. Sometimes, to find out, there may be some philosophy to be done. Would that it not be so.

And there is “technical language” - here, we would not be talking about the definition of “time”, for instance, as we ordinarily would use it, for it is, in common usage, both very important and very vague. The philosopher would, in a case like that, do well if he only reached precision. Much wasted verbiage has been spent by so-called philosophers who don’t understand this distinction - between a sense of a word that is useful to philosophy and one that isn’t, because it is too vague.

Separating words that have a verifiable, empirical reference from those that don’t is also the job of the philosopher, but, in practise, we have to see those words within a statement to know if any work needs to be done in this regard. This is as important for the metaphysic as it is for me, but for very different reasons, with very different results.

Those are some examples of the kind of thing philosophers should be doing.

I disagree with realun - we can know much about the world without words. Philosophy is a special kind of analysis of what we experience.

Remember that I am here talking about what philosophy is to me, what its value is to me. There are certainly those with a broader idea in mind.

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What about the person who crafts these statements to begin with? Is he also doing philosophy?

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Sorry, realun. You said “the word”. I though it was a typo, and that you meant to write “the world.”

Gib - he might be, depending upon the statement. In practise, I think the first philosophical statements were statements about other types of statements, but I wasn’t around when the first statements were made. But philosophical statements can be made about ordinary, everyday statements, scientific statements, religious ones. What distinguishes the (good) philosophical statement is that it goes to the first assumptions contained in other statements. Eventually.

(Good) philosophical statements are conceptually minimalistic. Which is why I think Kant is a moron.

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It is a shame I am ignorant about authored philosophers. I suppose if I was a prisoner in a dungeon and there were compilations of philosophers, I would take the time read them. I wonder how many of those tomes I would accept or reject. My influences are biased through Christianic brainwashing…and happily so. Our differences makes the world go around.

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I see. So the philosopher scrutinizes those statements that the folk people take for granted (I know, this over-simplified, but am I in the ball park?)

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Atom for atom, molecule for molecule, each condition, each strand of DNA, each sector of cell-memory, each atomic organization, each element’s geometric shape. The universe is also a language. The universe is also information. Reality is more like a “thought” than an “object”, at its foundation. I believe that’s where reductionism has eventually gone, down to the quantum levels of reality. The mind is not some kind of thing outside of and beyond “objective reality”, and instead is a part of reality, made of the same stuff that reality is made of. That means, ofcourse, that the differences between ideas and objects are minimul, because their foundational substances are so similar. Upon this realization by the few, that the mind, the brain, and the soul, besides the body, are all made of different frequencies of the same primordial ether, lays waste to the transcendant. And in essence, this destroys the previous absolute and isolated ideals of “truth”, that idea then being replaced by the thought that everything is a construct of dependant origination. And so anything can be made “true”, because everything which originates or develops, anything made of something, is a construct, it is made, and so it can be made-true.

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Yeah, gib - that’s oversimplified. Philosophers themselves are known to take many statements for granted. Many words, for that matter. or to simply misunderstand them. One of the ways a perspectivist seeks to understand is to examine statements in different contexts - which complicates things further. But the result is to find minimal meanings - as Nietzsche finds the minimal meaning of statements of the religious in their purely social, or socio-historical contexts.

In other words, examine a statement across different contexts and find the meaning common to all - if there is one. Joseph Campbell, who understands perspectivism like few do, made a career of this.

Dan~ here has made one of his scintillating perspectivist statements. That’s one big difference between Dan~ and me. I can descrobe perspectivism pretty well. Dan~ actually writes perspectivism - as well as anyone ever has, to my knowledge.

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Thanks fausto. <3

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Thanks for providing such a good example. There’s no one better than you.

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Hello Faust:
I have read the entire post but have chosen to pick just this little bit to comment on.

— This led to an agreement between the LP’s and Nietzsche – that morality is a human convention, with a meaning that is assigned by humans – and only that. Every rationalist, or metaphysical morality can now be seen as a pure invention. This changes the way all philosophy is now viewed – it has almost meant the demise of morality itself, within philosophy. Even a Kantian like John Rawls must noe appeal to social scientists, at least.

O- You know that I agree with many of the premises presented by Perspectivism, but sometimes I think that it can go to extremes. I am not saying that you have done that but let me explain. I agree that for example there cannot be a developed, detailed and universal morality that applies to all men at all times and places. But, I do not believe that diverse moralities do not have points on which they coincide. As diverse as human faces go, to use an analogy, we still find common traits, common features that apply, normally, to human faces. I believe that this is so because we have a similar anatomy and this includes similar brains, leading to very similar behaviours that end up informing ideas of virtue. That "Golden Rule, that rule of equity, is very fundamental. The values change but not the structure of values itself.
Human morals are very diverse, as societies themselves, even as religions are also different and diverse, but different societies share traits just as different religions hold common presuppositions, enough, let’s just say to catalogue them under “Religion” and under “Society”. Sure, they have to be qualified as a version of this generality. Something, some phenomenon or perceptible quality must exist in them that facilitates the qualification as and not just the endless creations of names to refer to endless disparity and unique occurrences.
Speaking in strict logic, this is impossible, but then human reason and what we are observing is not apt for strict logic. Say for example we consider Hume’s failed search for a necessary connection for cause and effect. How could he trust his own finding upon finding it? That is, if you cannot know whether A is the cause of B, then at that point you must remain silent in order to be consistent. Instead Hume tries to trace the idea of a necessary causation to a habit created by repetition. But isn’t that to speak of what “causes” the idea of causality in humans? If there is actual cause and effect there is also no hope for a trace into origins.
What Hume demonstrates is that the human mind needs no reason to create the idea of causality, but implies it in the very process of rationalization.

Back to morality, and metaphysical morality in specific. The rationalist is a man in need, but he has the same human mind commonly found-- in what else?-- humans. His intuitions about what is moral coincide with other moralities held in other human communities. They are not one and the same, but do connect on that point or other. What occurs as a happy chance, a lucky coincidence, the metaphysician tries to establish on a stone that will never crumble and will crush everything that could still be possible outside the norm. Also, the lucky coincidences in human moralities exist in a very ambiguous form-- that is why they are so widely applicable. The metaphysician get’s from this common and ambiguous coincidential intuition and elaborates on it. It (the system), even in it’s rationalized to perfection form, does not originate ex-nihilio, absolutely uninformed, uninfluenced by his very human predispositions. This is why indeed we have an eternal return of sorts, because no matter what the century is, the human condition still retains ancient connnections that will not easily dissolve.

Now, I know that some will accuse me of another metaphysical jump, the declaration of a universal “human condition”. Let us get ahead and I’ll admit that Human Condition is ripe for abuse, but without it, in absolute, you leave yourself open to another type of abuse. Reason, I hold the opinion, cannot do anything without the use of a few metaphysical assertions that fall beyond demonstrations. To deny ourselves the use of these and other terms is to deny the possibility for reason. I mean the terms, and other terms like it as provisional, not eternal, but neither in eternal flux. Reason, language and habits themselves rely on the fact that while things do change from moment to moment we fail to garther all of them and to our perspective it is a repetition of, rather than a completely different occurrence. So, tax it as you want, it does not matter.

Morality, then, in theory, might be seen as universal while in practice it proves much less so. There is always a heretic. But the idea of that theoretical universality is also very easy for the human mind and it’s reasoning abilities. It is almost inevitable. The theoretical and universal morality originates in human society, not in the heretic, but in the human, all too human. The Us/Them structure of life on earth allows the possibility to imagine, to theorize, a universal system or code because in the “In-group” in the “Us”, such universality is usually the case. The heretic becomes the “Them” or “Out-group”. A universal system is possible where an outgroup is possible. The only obstacle to the theorist is to explain why human agents need to remain outside the herd of “humans”, or why the lucky coincidence is not absolute necessity. The reason is that the provisional law has not kept up with the changing features of the society. It’s (society) growth and stratification present a new “us/them” distinction and the inevitable revolution does nothing more than to establish with irrational means a rational necessity.
So historically a universal morality is impractical but hinted, but psychologically/philosophically theorized almost by the very nature of reason that creates concepts from what reality only can hint at.