That is also part of philosophy. “How would you know?” — The only way we can possibly know anything is through our minds (and I mean that in the broadest sense possible). If there is a “higher reason” beyond our capacities (meaning that we cannot with any amount of reason or rationality discern it), that is what “faith” is. Even if we don’t know that there is any “God/gods”, without knowing the entirety of what exists we have faith that our actions will guide us in the right direction… and I don’t even mean that in a religious sense, it is what atheists do all the time when they make a decision whose future consequences remain as yet unseen.
The only way such a higher reason could truly matter is if it was manifest in some way, or in some way accessible to us, so in reality, philosophy is the closest we can come to knowing that “higher reason” because it is using our minds (our knowing capacity) to examine the world and ideas, formulate concepts and conclusions.
I think that I truly understand what you meant by what you said, but…
Someone, such as myself, can propose that “there is a way around all of the confusion” that will actually in fact resolve all of those ancient issues. But why would you believe it?
1) Try to reason it all out yourself with what extremely distorted information you have been given 2) Have faith in someone who merely seems to have it more together than you.
Either way is an extreme risk and improbability. Propaganda is entirely about trying to persuade you in the midst of your excessive yet justified doubt.
What if philosophy actually had a very real end point/destination and was actually all about discovering that you had no more need for it at all once you learned that one thing - why to trust what you believe?
I do not deny a possibility of an end point, even of an “ultimate truth” (though I may think it is either highly unlikely or may think it doesn’t exist — the “denial” being a written or verbal imperative to “believe as I do”). What I am saying is even if “philosophy actually had a very real end point/destination and was actually all about discovering that you had no more need for it at all once you learned that one thing”, the only way we could either grasp that “end point” is through our reason or through our minds.
Let’s just say for the sake of illustration that end point was manifest as a human (a god) standing before us, it would still be through our capacities to know that we could even be aware of the god and think there was thin air.
“why to trust what you believe?” — this “problem” is why I recommend the continuing tradition of philosophy, because we always believe something tentatively (I believe for example I will make it to the washroom the next time I really need to go). Philosophy is just a way of keeping our minds aware that we may be in error. In other words I may $#!+ my pants, and who knows, if I live long enough I probably will.
If you mean how can someone know if their mind is not always in error, or that they are incapable of grasping reason, I don’t think they can know, otherwise they would presumably be able to grasp reason.
It is just another philosophical question, it might be phrased: What course of action we do we take when we are discussing with someone who doesn’t want to accept, for example, that stepping over the edge of a steep precipice with jagged rocks at the bottom of a lengthy fall doesn’t believe that the step will cause them to fall?
Is there a correct answer? Maybe. Maybe we restrain them, or maybe we let them take the step and find out the truth… Generally where opposition arises is because that “step” is not something that affects them alone, usually it is when the step puts our personal idea of “the good” in danger.
But because we live in a society among individuals with conflicting goods (as well as groups and institutions) our actions are not “free”, so unless you mean accepting the “zeitgeist” of our political community and learning to conduct ourselves within it, then the conflict will be inevitable. Also, even knowing how to conduct ourselves within the “zeitgeist” is not clear cut.
Until you as an individual can resolve the issues for yourself, how can you justify worrying about what others are doing?
Seriously? If you do not know the ultimate end game, how can you prescribe a course of action for anyone else? You can’t say if their conflict is good or bad. You can’t say anything is wise or unwise. You can’t recommend anything at all until you know to where you are steering others, thus must resolve such things for yourself first. And that means seek HOW TO RESOLVE before you bother with trying to do it.
I am talking about myself as an individual, I am talking about living among individuals not prescribing for them. I am saying that we act with conflicting goods and we come into contact with one another and it influences our own actions. Philosophy is still present to figure out how to live.
Well, of course it does, but what about it?
I am talking about the continuing of philosophical questioning void of resolutions.
And how to get to an end goal.
But it will always be void of resolutions because even our own lives are full of conundrums. We live socially, understand meaning socially, what we want to do is often social unless we become a hermit, and as time moves the situation changes and so even examples of the past aren’t compatible, so we must continue to think and pose philosophical questions to ourselves.
And I have expressed openness to you bringing forth what you have in mind, but as it strikes me there will always be such problems in our lives needing resolution. And as I said, even if you have “the answer” it must still go through the reasoning capacity before it can be accepted, and often that happens by putting it through the philosophical process.
My question is, in the formula “Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic Harmony”, what constitutes harmony?
Momentum void of conflict.
A symphony.
A waltz.
The dance of living moment to moment without end or remorse, non stop hoping on tomorrow and attending to today.
In detail;
increase your ability to be aware (clarify)
increase your ability to analyze (harmonize)
increase your ability to influence (instill)
…endlessly loop
The thing is, I think we have the exact same thing in mind, we just haven’t reconciled our terminology.
When I was initiating the discussion of law above, I did not say, “let us lay down laws”, I said, “let us speak of law” (philosophy). When I am engaging in discussion I am doing just what you suggest, I am bringing up “hopes and threats” for the sake of reasoning through and finding where the ground lies. The main difference, I think, is where you call that the end of philosophy, I call that philosophy, which is why I say philosophy must not end.
But this is also why I say it is a social process, others do matter in this sense, because the waltz is played among many, in a society, and every encounter is an exchange. This is exactly why I think philosophy can never end, because we need to grow from infants with no knowledge of the world, and it is philosophy which is the waltz we have together.
I asked (2) because that has a specific answer, yet for thousands of years, is still a question. Merely continuing philosophy causes people to have to suffer until they learn that they had no need to suffer. If the end point (the answer to the questions) is not the pursuit, neither ewe nor they will ever gain ground.