philosophy - hobby, integral part of life, or something else

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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NOTE: thread renamed to shift focus as we seem to be having a not bad discussion here

Lets talk about whether philosophy should be in terms of importance in ones life?

Should we abide by society and have philosophy be a “interesting hobby”, or should philosophy be our prime focus and have our lives be more of a commentary on society? Or some other option?

p.s.
Ive noticed that theres roughly about 20,000,000 new members that joined today, september 7th.

Are you guys a philosophy class that caught wind of ILP?
welcome to ILP.

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I believe that it is all about the way you want to live your life. If all you want in life is to become enlightened than maybe you should forget about society? Yet if you are interested in more material things such as money, video games, clothes. Maybe you should only keep Philosophy around as a hobby. No matter what path pertaining to anything in life you choose, something will be sacrificed. If you want to want to be a perfect Christian you have to give up carnal pleasures, at the same time if you want carnal pleasures you can’t be the perfect Christian. Maybe when we find the balance of it all we’ll truely be enlightened?

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how you apply philosophy to your everyday life is a matter of your personal philosophy itself. if one fo the facets of your personal philosophy is to be yeilding and to go with the ebb and flow of things, then it would make sense to live as society has dictated and to hold philosophy as a hobby. however, if your philosophy entails breaking away from society’s expectations and impositions, then it would follow that (if applied) one would not hold thier philosophy simply as a hobby, but as the main focus point of their life.

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Philosophy is first and foremost a linguistic tool used to organize the human species and its propagation within an environment. This is evidenced in the origination of language- its function is to coordinate human efforts for genetic replication and advancement. Philosophy is nothing more than a specialized form of communicating information that is conducive to this propagation.

Philosophy is inferior to science- science is action whereas philosophy is internal contemplation. Philosophy is a rational activity and without empirical application it is useless. However, language can inspire effects, which translate into science when the language organizes cooperation between people, at which time it becomes applicable to a material environment.

The greatest mistake in philosophy was the emphasis on the rational and not the empirical; when value was taken to mean ‘subjective opinion’ and not ‘objective material circumstances.’ From this point the entire post-structural and deconstructural movement was spawned from this mistake as a consequence of language and its outrageous complexity. Language turned on itself, and is currently destroying human potential. Rather than being the species’ most formidable tool for organizing an enduring effort to maximize life and quality, it has become a device for moderating the strength of science- it is a revenge of the weak: The philosopher is a degenerate scientist, a disease, a waste of space, a third leg, a terrible calamity.

Philosophy today is nothing more than an occupation for those who cannot produce material commodities- those who are weak in body but clever in mind, and as a hobby for consumers.

Language and philosophy ‘floats between the spaces’ of scientific advancement, where progress is truely made. It works as a distraction, a ‘meanwhile,’ an exhaustion.

Furthermore, as the species weakens, a new form of power takes shape- that of the Word. Most, if not all, philosophical debates and discussions display nothing more than a competition between wits and sleight of thought for those who cannot produce manually any effort to actualize progress for humanity. Philosophy is the ‘last man’s’ promise to himself that he is worth something…that he is intelligent…that he has a large vocabulary, and that it matters.

The scientist and the worker laugh as they watch these words dissappear into thin air.

I blame this monstrosity, the ‘philosopher,’ on an over-developed silvian fissure coupled with a loss of physical prowess. Aside from the exceptional “Aristotlean” philosopher, one of a balanced mind and body, the majority of philosophers today are side-effects of industrialization- the process of making living easier generates weaker individuals.

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While philosophy itself does not have written standards, we all have kind of agreed that rigorous philosophy and philosophizing exhibits certain characteristics such as logic and clarity.

When we present ideas, we must show that our arguments follow, that they are consistent, and we must communicate these ideas as clearly as possible.

Both of you (choy, blademaster) have stated in a way that we should follow our personal philosophy or “what I want to do” (which i think is congruent). So in a way we have a “personal philosophy” which can have a subsection that is “philosophizing”.

Then it seems to me that philosophy is central to living, regardless of whether one seriously engages in philosophizing. However, there is a distinction, if these personal philosophies are not the subject of your “serious philosophizing” then they will lack rigor (logic, clarity).

Hence - serious philosophy should be a major tenet of human life for the exact reason that in serious philosophy we examine philosophy with rigor, including our own personal philosophies which guide the way we live. You wouldnt want to be living by a haphazard, uncritical personal philosophy would you?

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that is such a cliche social commentary, i cant begin to fathom how many times ive heard it. firstly, i dont know one person who is depraved enough to sit around their house with no other activity besides thinking and philosophical analysis. philosophy is a way of making decisions with epherical reprocussions, based on your view of existence and the nature of things. an instruction manual has no physical purpose in relation to a television. it dosent help it run in any way and the television works fine without it even existing. however, the person using the television (or computer, i guess thats a better analogy) would be at a loss without it. thusly, to get the most use out of the appliance, one must make intangeble use of something that has no tangeble value in relation to the appliance (though it would make a nifty coaster). when a person has makes no use or application of their philosophical musings, then yes, i will agree with you in relation to that particular instance. but there are more holistic philosophers out there (i personally bench press over 290 lbs and am in great cardiovascular shape at fifteen and spend much of my time in philosophical thought) that apply their analyzations and ideas in their everyday life. science is indicative of humanity’s usefullness in direct application. philosophy is indicitave humanity’s capacity, and in order to continue to move forward in application, we must move forward in capacity as well.

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detrop,

I can see your point of view, I think I may have misled you with my initial post.

I did mean to imply that we should all flock to the profession of philosopher. You are correct, in terms of creating material good and services, philosophers are a poor lot. They are in their thinking stance standing on the shoulders of the rest of the world. Philosophy has not done anything directly to cure diseases, build bridges, or bring food to starving Africans. If everyone decided to be a philosopher, we’d probably all starve.

Philosophy requires we think about and consider assumptions that are beyond the realm of science. We consider the merits of science, we consider society, we consider ethics. We examine even the most elusive of assumptions and question them.

Does this produce goods and services? no. But what it does do is question and possibly break the powers and forces in our society. I know marx was a fan of the superstructure of society that enforces the power of the ruling class. How does one combat superstructure? By examining its merits and questioning its power. Have you considered the Science is a superstructure of our times, would you be against philosophizing about science? Would be against people whose professions are in Philosophy of Science, and though they may not produce goods and services, they may produce influential ideas that change our perspective on the superstructures of today.

Philosophy is about the creation and exploration of ideas, and though its effects are often subtle and immaterial, they are very powerful in the long term. For example, my favorite professor was a Marxist, I know one can argue that it is the collapse of the fuedal economic system that brought us out of the Dark Ages, and maybe that was the catylyst, but one cannot ignore the ideas of the Renaissance that slowly molded and shaped the world with its ideas.

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I think we all have to do some amount of philosophy, at least those of us they use language, make moral judgements, ect. The only question is how much time you want to spend on being a good philospher. That’s kinda a judgement call (perhaps a philosophical question all to itself.) As far as professional philosophy- I think it has a value. I doubt science would exist without the likes of Mill and Hume. More recently folks like Popper have had huge effect on how science is done. Also, political philosophers are responsible to a large degree for the spread of philosophy. In a sense, philosophy affects things so deeply its effect is all but invisable.

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To the extent that we make any effort to make sense of the universe, there is philosophy. To suggest that doing philosophy provides logic and clarity may appeal to some forms of structure, but to suggest that logic is the only way to approach clarity is an opinion, and might have troubles in some forms of making sense of the world.

Most western philosophy does indeed attempt to use logic to provide clarity of structure. It is yet to be proven that even the tightest of logical explanation can carry meaning beyond its narrow definitions. The distinction between philosophy and philosophizing is uniquely western. That distinction isn’t recognized by about 3/5 the world population…

JT