the meaning of grunts…
is it the thing in itself? never…
is it an arbitrary representation? yep…
arbitrary… grunt grunt grunt… the understanding of grunts…
could you translate that please?
which language of grunt? …
-Imp
Hmm, I thinkest that I have peggedth thou wrongly and am pleased in the discovery. Please allow me to beseach your continuted explination.
the statement “Knowledge is impossible” is false if it is true and true if it is false. It a statement of the same sort as the satement “Everything I say is a lie”.
Close. The statement your thinking of is “This statement is a lie.”
“Everything I say is a lie,” can be false with no problem, explicity when the speaker has made a least one true statement that is obviously not this one. However, it cannot be true for fairly obvious reasons.
The same goes for “Knowledge is impossible.” If its true, it seems to break down language and cause an impossibility in the truth of any statement, but if it is false rather then there is no problem. We can for instance know what the statement means. In fact, if we beleive that we know what the stament says, thats reason enough to beleive it false.
The quest for the vision of the world’s unity in totality.
-paraphrasing William James
A singular vision of the world, the complete world, the whole world, and everything in the world.
As opposed to more specialized fields of inquiry. Most fields of science are interesting only with their little part of the world. Social sciences only focus on social matters. Historians concern themselves with history. etc.
The philosopher looks at the entire world and seeks to find its unity.
xanderman,
Are you sure that we’re looking for unity? Is it possible that we’re looking for a way to explain human diversity? Give me an example of this unity we are looking for.
JT
Someone quoted Whitgenstein (speling?)…I’ve added some comments in squared brackets.
4.111 Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences. (The word ‘philosophy’ must mean something whose place is above or below the natural sciences, not beside them.)
[I don’t think this statement as actually said anything. He uses metaphors. This (above or below, not beside) could mean anything! ]
4.112 Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.
[Fair enough. But this emphasises method only. A means toward what? How can you even know if a method is appropriate if you’re not clear about what your goals are?]
Philosophy does not result in ‘philosophical propositions’, but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.
[Again, a means to an end - but what end? What’s the difference between a proposition and a clear proposition? Isn’t the expression ‘a clear proposition’ meaningless? Either way a proposition could still be nonsense. And I think the idea of ‘clear nonsense’ is the same as ‘vague nonsense’. It’s still all nonsense. And nonsense by its very nature is ‘vague’, and not thought out properly. I think the idea of ‘truth’ is trying to be avoided, but I think it’s inescapable. Avoiding it doesn’t make it go away.]
I honestly feel this is one of the clearest definitions of what philosophy is that I’ve ever seen.
Philosophy is about questioning beliefs, including your own.
I keep returning to this question, without an answer. I am unsure. Maybe philosophy does not look for unity. I don’t know.
French?