Unlike science we all have our own subjective interpretations of philosophical issues, reality, mind, quale etc.
Is this valid though? We say colour is subjective, yet our brains do calibrate it in such a way that unless there is dysfunction or cultural/environmental factors changing that, we DO all see the same colours.
There are right and wrong ways of understanding things, there is the right or wrong way of performing tasks, and there are correct behaviours and moral basis as compared to lesser values.
Answer the questions! stop veering off all the time. at least do both, rather than just the latter.
So there, stop thinking your own thoughts!
…you cant think your own thoughts anyway, you can only think the right or wrong way about things. Your subjective experience is expected, if there becomes an area where it is not, then you are insane or are otherwise simply not thinking correctly.
All that aside, don’t you think philosophy is too messy? Always has been.
Philosophy is a piece of cake compared to actually living our lives. Of course we can make that less messy too by insisting that everyone should behave only in accordance with what is right and what is wrong.
Yes. And this isn’t to say that philosophy isn’t messy. It is. But it’s only a part of life, perhaps an ultimately insignificant part–for some, if not most. And following Nietzsche I can’t help but reject the philosophy that doesn’t enliven, that doesn’t force air into my lungs. And yet, it’s still a mess. That’s okay, though–it’s all a mess, all an entanglement, a web of beliefs, of anxiety, of paralysis and disappointment and success and exuberance and bad music taste, overcooked steak, awkward introductions and the calculated slaughter of so many animals, an inescapable lava-lamp of love interest and the way rocks alter the course of rivers, a pure meaningless flux into which we’ve always-already delved, a hopeless oscillation between contradictory impulses, the unreasonable reconciliation of an abyssal emptiness with all the artistic potential of the blank canvas. It’s all this and infinitely more. If philosophy is messy, it’s because we can’t stand over and above the world in order to make sense of it: we are in and of the world, in and of its stench, its viscosity, its motion. If philosophy is messy, it’s because the world is, and us with it.
Hear hear. Um we cant? I thought that’s what philosophy was, standing back and observing from the back seat.
My only complaint is where one cant say anything without it becoming relative, subjective, that we don’t see some of the same things, that reality gets lost in ambiguity.
…and nobody answers questions directly.
Must be my aspergers, I have to think methodically or my brain stops mapping.
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Sure, but that gesture presupposes an originary involvement in the world, a fundamental situatedness toward which deference is always made, even if only silently and unknowingly.
Yes, and the mess some philosophers make often revolves around the [sometimes] heated discussions that can revolve in turn around what words mean in a particular order.
Then having determined what the meaning and the order must be they set about hammering the complexity of actual human interaction into that.
At least until they bump into someone who insist the meaning and the order is really something else.
Actual conflicts [even wars] can then commense to, uh, resolve it.
What is there to understand? To understand anything we have to use the same instrument that is used to understand this mechanical computer that is there before me. Its workings can be understood through repeatedly trying to learn or operate it. You try again and again. If it doesn’t work, there is someone who can tell you how to operate it, take it apart and put it together. You yourself will learn through a repetitive process—how to change this, improve this, modify this and so on and so forth.
This instrument, thought, which we have been using to understand has not helped us to understand anything except that every time we are using it we are sharpening it. What is Philosophy? How does it help in day-to-day existence? It doesn’t help you in any way except that it sharpens the intellect. It doesn’t in any way help you to understand life. If that thought is not the instrument and if there is no other instrument then is there anything to understand?
‘Intuitive perception’ or ‘intuitive understanding’ is only a product of the same instrument. The understanding that there is nothing to understand, nothing to get, dawned on me. I was seriously wanting to understand. Otherwise I would not have wasted time. But when once this understanding that there is nothing to understand somehow dawned on me, the very demand to be free from anything was not there any more. But how this happened to me I really wouldn’t know. So there is no way it can be shared because it is not in the area of experiencing things. It’s like it’s finished.
I do think there is an originating involvement in the world, such is a fundamental relationship between mind/body/world.
I think that’s exactly what it does! We gain an increasingly high resolution of understanding and perception of the real world out there. it’s a truly magnificent ‘machine’, but coupled with what is utilising that, it is not a machine ~ it’s a perfect relationship such that a mind can understand its worldly environment in increasing clarity.
If I had technology like that I’d be awed by it! …and I do think we will arrive at tech that will further our immersion and comprehension of reality.
It is never finished, that’s what’s so awesome about it, its what gives us philosophy ~ otherwise we’d just have data, pure and simple, then reality wouldn’t be the magnificent spectacle that it remains to be.
There is everything to understand, then once, if, you arrive at an understanding of a thing, go back and start again, you’ll find a different answer.
Perhaps one of the things that makes philosophy messy is that we usually don’t bother to understand the instrument before we start using it. Kind of like a kid who finds a chain saw in the garage and thinks, why bother to read the manual, I wanna cut stuff up!
This seems an eminently sensible question worthy of it’s own thread.
This is very interesting, thanks. Maybe by sharing you can aim us in the general direction you are referring, and then we can do our own walking.
I think philosophy helps us in many areas of life, the problem is that perhaps we are a bit snobby about philosophy concerning mundane issues in relationships of all kinds.
But its there if one wishes to find it.
It also helps us understand reality, just because we don’t have all the answers doesn’t mean it is not helping us toward them.
Because as you just inferred; philosophy needs to pick up after itself. It is not ok to say we cant know anything, that colour is subjective, that reality is a matrix etc.
altruistic/pure; why do those things go together? Pure could equally be selfish, or to the matter - to nature [neitzchean style]. Other than that ‘infected by ulterior concerns’ is most profound, it seems to be all we do, but not what we should be doing.
There should be teleology in intent. Otherwise there is meaninglessness, everything gets lost in ambiguity.
Well I was talking about evidence, philosophy differs from science in that proof is not an absolute requirement. If philosophy starts picking up after itself, it merely become science. Sure I agree it should not be vague, it should have rigid logical foundation, but evidence is not an absolute requirement. Philosophy is messy because it doesn’t have to be proven, and that mess is not an issue. It actually means that philosophy can discuss a wide range of subjects or the same subject with multiple answers, without having to rank one over the other definitively. It’s messiness is in fact its strength. Science can’t pick several answers it has to pick the one that is more proven and that is although debatable closest to the facts. Ok it’s not hard and fast, but philosophy’s power is that it does not have to have a ranking system as science does. hence the messier it is the more powerful it is, well up to a point, too messy and it becomes religion.
I agree up to a point, if one makes a point one should show its validity in some way. That doesn’t have to be purely logical, because logic itself relies on assumptions as basis. My argument is aimed towards ideas concerning notions of absolute subjectivity. such things take away any basis to work from, hell we could work off of science, but some philosophers wont agree that we all see the same thing where we in fact do. You see its this meaninglessness I abhor [even if its fun].
Keep it ‘messy’ but don’t leave it nowhere, as nothing, as purely ambiguous.
Well you have taken the whole thing to a generalistic and a worldly level, naturally one cannot be specific concerning the general!
Does teleology necessarily infer a goal or final goal in such generalistic terms? I see no reason why philosophy cannot describe the specific, or meta-particular.
There’s an apples and oranges aspect to this claim. Philosophy can, for example, show where scientific procedures, conclusions, models are messy. And in ways that other scientists are less likely to look at.
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There should be teleology in intent. Otherwise there is meaninglessness, everything gets lost in ambiguity.