Is philosophy a big joke men of old played on themselves? When philosophy is met without application it’s useless. So, what is its purpose?
Is philosophy not simply the thought process of man reflected on himself?
What use is thinking if we sit on our butts in front of a computer screen and type silly quotes read from ancient philosophical texts and make witty thoughts and phrases concerning them? What use is repeatedly going over ideas that have been brought up for centuries when they aren’t being processed within terms of a real life situation? I guess my question is, what does philosophy have to do with your everyday life other than consume your time in front of a computer or inside a book?
Could you possibly be over-analyzing the world and not actually doing anything worthwhile?
Philosophers used to be inventors and masterminds. What happened?
Well first philosophy has no goal. It has no ends. It doesn’t have to come up with a solution to problems, that is the job of science and engineering or psychology etc.
Philosophy has no constraints as opposed to other disciplines. You can invent anything you want, assign any truth, question the reality of anything, from your thoughts to the physical world. You can also search for LESS KNOWLEDGE for example, you can decide to decrease your knowledge, you can aim at creating problems instead of solving them. You can aim at trying not to think or inverting thought.
Silent you got it right! Philosophy is a self-fulfillment kind of thing. It’s a completely subjective and very personal topic.
But philosophy never really had masterminds and inventors. It just so happened that a few old and ugly looking people sat down and wrote something that hasn’t been written before.
Unfortunately in our generation most everything has been written, and after existentialism made its way into the public, anything else that is written afterwards is known to be what we say ‘blatant-philosophy’. In other words when people look at new ideas they do not see masterminds. They see just listen and think “Oh it’s just another philosophy”.
We are in the age of science my friend. Philosophy is dying by the day. As James once stated, “Philosophy is dead. Psychology is born.”
You must remember these inventors and masterminds only receieved big names because science wasn’t as powerful back then.
True, over the years it’s become extinct and divided into categories. And philosophers used to be Religious Writers, Mathematicians, Physicists, Astronomers etc. Usually they had big brains. They wrote alright, had nice vocabularies. They applied philosophy to those categories, but people today will just come up with problems to logically solve for something totally hypothetical or that’s already been written. It’s not being applied anymore. Don’t you see that as a problem? I think philosophy could be used for alot more than words. It’s fun, I love philosophy, but my outlook has definitely changed. It seems like the real philosophers packed their bags and left for the new age.
Philosophy is a secular belief and a subset of history which has the means to create history in it’s wake. Everything that has developed including everything that hasn’t had a chance to develop is based on a ‘general’ acceptance of ideas or ‘societal memes’. There is no inherent right or wrong that can be imputed to these ideas. It is only by their developement that they can be gauged.
For example note the differences between Eastern and Western philosophies and the subsequent histories of their respective civilizations.
This is the ‘historical’ view. For the existential view the ‘perennial philosophy’ is you’re on your own; there is no guidance except what you extract from your own existence; truth that’s ‘customized’ to yourself as a temporary being.
When you think about it, you don’t need more than that.
Philosophy is a secular belief and a subset of history which has the means to create history in it’s wake. Everything that has developed including everything that hasn’t had a chance to develop is based on a ‘general’ acceptance of ideas or ‘societal memes’. There is no inherent right or wrong that can be imputed to these ideas. It is only by their developement that they can be gauged.
For example note the differences between Eastern and Western philosophies and the subsequent histories of their respective civilizations.
This is the ‘historical’ view. For the existential view the ‘perennial philosophy’ is you’re on your own; there is no guidance except what you extract from your own existence by whatever means including philosophy itself; truth, in short, that’s ‘customized’ to yourself as a temporary being.
When you think about it, no one needs more than that or ever have the means to use more!
Do you enjoy reading philosophy and ‘reflecting on yourself’? If so, then by all means do so. I’d say there’s not much point to anything, and there’s worse things you can be doing, so I say do it if you enjoy it.
Me, personally, I enjoy reading philosophy and pondering on philosophical questions. I’ve always had a thirst for knowledge , and I enjoy doing philosophy and applying it to my life (I think, in a sense, that is why I like existentialism (my version of existentialism - ‘existential egoism’ - daft name, I know, but a good description) so much; it’s applicable to everyday and, for me, is life affirming).
Yes, I know, I know. Philosophy is a hobby I enjoy. Although, there are philosophical assessments often made that could be put to better use than just lying idle in your head or typed out on a forum. Know what I mean? Gotta see the potential or else it’s not gonna go anywhere. Ideas need fueled!! That’s what they’re for. What I saw back then was philosophers making a name for themselves because of their works which were either and/or both in published writings, inventions, and countless theories which weren’t just theories but proven outworkings of their lives. They made it to the public because they put some elbow grease into it. They weren’t just philosophers, they were truly great men of their time because of what they did and not just what they said.
What you say doesn’t make you a philosopher, it’s what you do that counts. Where you take your ideas. Even if all it takes is a published book, it’s still what’s done.
According to Nietzsche, “the greatest deeds are thoughts”. But, you might say, if Nietzsche had never published his writings, how could his thoughts ever have had the great effect that they have? - To this, Nietzsche also has an answer:
“[T]he “higher nature†of the great man lies in being different, in incommunicability, in distance of rank, not in an effect of any kind - even if he made the whole globe tremble.”
[The Will to Power, section 876.]
But Nietzsche still “thought”. Why think ? why do we assume that thinking will bring us to something better ? Philosophy starts out with the assumption that THOUGHT is the starting point to understand - know - or discover something better or more “true” or more valid.
BUT THIS IS FALSE. THOUGHT ITSELF COULD BE DETRIMENTAL, COULD ACTUALLY BRING US FURTHER AND FURTHER AWAY FROM THE GOAL.
Then why have any goal ? Why anything ? maybe we actually always go backwards, we never progress towards anything but just go backwards. And even if this is true why is it bad ? Then anything goes , forward , backwards, invent anything you want.
The difference between a thinker like Nietzsche, of which there have been very few, and everyone else involved in philosophy is that Nietzsche used his thoughts to formulate a goal, and others don’t.
The thing about making statements like ‘this = that’, where both this and that are knowns, is that the statement doesn’t change anything - the thought isn’t an event, just an arrangement of words. That’s why I’m saying thinking occurs beyond language - after one has had a thought, one need to find an order of words to represent it. This is crucially different from finding words and then pondering how to rearrange them to keep your mind buisy.
Nietzche thought up some unknown ‘that’s’ to put on the right side of the =. He could do that because he actually had a goal. If you don’t have plans, you can’t be a philosopher.
And in fact now we are approaching real philosophy. Because the philosopher does not assume anything and questions everything.
So why have a goal ? no answer.
What is wrong with just rearranging words ? no answer.
Why have plans ? no answer.
Even if the above had answers like A, B and C then you can always ask and why is A, B and C good or bad or desirable ? Why is it more valuable ? So in the end we come to understand that everything is totally arbitrary, all values assigned are a quirk, you can assign and invent anything with any value and it is still valid. But why should it be valid ? And why is this understanding good ? It is an infinite recursion where everything disappears and the universe becomes infinite or meaningless or heaven or hell.
But all the above is false, who cares if it is right or wrong, everything goes…
Philosophy is self-defeating, it eliminates itself.
The philosopher does make assumptions. Part of what makes him, or her, a philosopher is being keenly aware of what those assumptions are.
Philosophy eliminates bad ideas. What makes them bad is their lack of utility towards the philosopher’s goals. Philosophy does not begin with philosophy. Values aren’t valid - one is left to wonder what you actually mean here.
Don’t have a goal, if you wish. Philosophers do have goals. Take your pick.
You seem to have missed my point that ‘why’ is not necessarily interesting. (“There is no why, there is only because!” - Andres Lohle)
Your questions are all why’s. Why’s are usually irrelevant to life. Life is, and the philosopher creates values. Why he does so is simple; because his will drives him to it. Why? There is no answer to that.
The philosopher certainly assumes, that is even his core buisiness. Look at Plato. Do you think he actually experienced the ideal world before he makde it into a Truth? It was an assumption.
If you want to rigorously question your own assumptions, question your need to question. Why do you assume it is important to constantly ask ‘why’? It’s not necessary at all, and there are not even any answers
You confuse philosophy with speculating.
Much philosophy is not aimed at solving problems but with formulating problems which have not yet been understood as problems.