There are no books on philosophy that I am aware of. There are books on the history of foundations.
Philosophical books - which must, as a minimum requirement, be a collation of basic philosophico-grammatical mistakes that plague all sciences and efforts of man, simply haven’t been printed.
will respond to all posts shortly
How long have you been asleep? Unread?
Why? Would a dictionary not fit that bill?
Are you boiling “philosophy” down to linguistic confusion? Didn’t your boy Wittgy already make that mistake?
So you’re asking us to print a blooper real of science, history, and philosophy? Isn’t that history?
That would be the most awkward, tragic, useless, and boring blooper reel ever constructed. Of course, the creation of said blooper reel would need to be documented in itself.
…What a bunch of snotty, shallow, rude, careless replies to JohnJones’ original post. Well done (sarcastic). --Act like you understand the original intent, and then reply as if it was stupid—all the while demonstrating only that you’ve completely missed the point.
Let me see if I can say what JohnJones was saying without his subtlety and art—so that Irrelus, statiktech, (and whoever else who happens to be numb) might “get it”.
You always begin philosophizing in something like Plato’s Cave—that is, enshrouded in shadows, illusions, falsehoods, errors. It’s always your starting point—unless you’re a naive realist (–in which case you wouldn’t be studying philosophy). It doesn’t matter what you call it. The veil of maya, like Schopenhauer or the Buddhists. The phenomenal realm, like Kant. THe world of sensory experience, like Descartes. Ideas, like Berkeley. Errors, like Nietzsche.
That’s where you start.
So, how are you going to get any nearer the truth except by removing errors?
How are you going to get any nearer the truth except by removing mistakes?
And how would you go about any of this except through language (i.e., words)?
Thus, as JohnJones says, “Philosophical books must be a collation of basic philosophico-grammatical mistakes that plague all sciences and efforts of man”.
…For anyone who fell off the stupid tree and hit every branch, this was JohnJones’ original point… which I thought was quite profound.
Jean-Luc Nancy’s L’Expérience de la liberté is a philosophical book. For it contains a collation of basic philosophico-grammatical mistakes that plague all the sciences and efforts of man. It discusses every error of science and mistaken effort of man, and their linguistic manifestations.
Excellent. JohnJones may disagree. But at least you get it.
This looks like a most excellent book. I will look into this immediately.
An excellent summary. But as to “there are no books on philosophy” - if as you say that is what philosophy is, well, what about all the philosophy books?
I would expect JohnJones to ask you; “What philosophy books??”. And then try to claim that your selections are books about what he calls “history of foundations”—whatever that means. If I were defending the claim, I’d weaken it a bit. But then again, I also admire JJ’s boldness.
Was your reply supposed to be different than Irrellus’?
…I mean, were you just assuming the claim had to be false, and declaring the opposite in the form of a question?
–Why not name a book, and see what JJ thinks? Like fuse did. That seems to be the point of this thread…
Monooq,
Are you JJ’s personal translator and intellectual bodyguard, now? I wasn’t informed. Anyway, I got the point of the OP. My argument is that book full of errors is useless without addressing they ought to, or might, be corrected. That is exactly what “philosophy” books are, and why they don’t stop at a simple list of grammatical mistakes. Exposing and removing errors is great, but if you aren’t given alternatives you are left with a list of what/how not to think. OK, well, then what?
In all reality, philosophers have always done this. A majority just know well enough not to attempt an account of the entire history of man. Books have subjects, thinkers have particular interests, and certain points [errors] get addressed. Addressing all, and correcting all, is an impossible feat. It doesn’t take a philosopher, or whatever the hell Monooq thinks he is, to realize that.
It wasn’t supposed to be the same, in any case. I didn’t take him on board at all in my suppositions.
No, it wasn’t a mere assumption.
The obvious places to start would be later Wittgenstein (On Certainty, Zettel, PI) and Ryle/Austen/other plain language guys. If that’s the point of the thread.
statiktech,
Worse than useless. Why bother collecting a book full of false information?
We cannot analyze information without some sort of filter. You can’t learn anything without knowing something. Now, which level of abstraction ought to be applied? That’s for philosophy to decide.
What would philosophy be if philosophy books were collections of errors? I guess philosophy would be a collection of errors. From a philosohical perspective, that position must be erroneous. In fact, if you assume philosophy is a collection of errors than anything viewed philosophically must be erroneous. Well isn’t that fantastic?
Yeah, that’s ridiculous. The idea that all mistakes are actually just mistakes of the mode of communication? Nahhhh.
Go ahead and put this into your collection of errors book.
Oh I got it! I got it!
Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”
This is a book which explains how mistakes ultimately coagulate into revolutions in thought. According to Kuhn, a book presenting the foundations of philosophy would simply be practicing normal philosophy, by which I mean the philosophical version of Kuhn’s “normal science,” a very important concept in this text. In normal science you are working with paradigms accepted by the “scientific community” (an important entity for Kuhn). The way paradigm-shifting discoveries happen is that someone or a lot of different people make mistakes (by mistakes here, I mean they have outcomes that are anomalous under the current accepted paradigm - that is the definition of a “mistake”)
When you arrive at outcomes which present themselves as mistakes, you either discard them and start over, or you begin gathering anomalies with the self-confidence that these anomalies will eventually pile up enough to overturn the dominant paradigm. While this is happening you experience ostracism from your peers and extreme psychic pain, not to mention a special kind of loneliness. The world registers your work as a series of mistakes! Eventually if you amass a powerful enough body of evidence, you are able to transform normal science, and the cycle begins anew.
Since Kuhn’s is a book about the way mistakes work, thus I contend it fits your description of a “Philosophical Book.” Also I would like to say, “Wittgenstein got everything right.” I don’t so much absolutely believe that as intend to draw out the posters in this thread who think they can just offhandedly make reference to “Wittgy’s blunder.” Talking about Wittgenstein in this thread is entirely on topic as the initial post is clearly a Wittgensteinian baiting of any opponent.
I think it’s a spelling book - you got me. I’m dismissive because, as your modifications to JJs post suggest, you’re both describing philosophy books as we know them. I’m rude because I don’t care for your hubris.
Not just saying why it’s an error, but also how the error ought to be corrected. Again, seems like philosophy books to me.
That’s the last nail in the coffin. You’re describing what we’ve got.
Too easy. The statement speaks for itself.
Sorry, sir or madame, grammatical mistakes are an error of a different type than are philosophical suppositions. Rorty describes this well in his “Mirror of Nature.” The age of linguistic analysis as justifying or substantianting philosophical arguments is over and done.
Witgestein (SIC) and others bring in the problem of the ground, which such speculations are unable to fathom. It’s apparent that J.J. has got no futher in philosophy than Russell-Whitehead!