The futility of philosophy

I wonder if others have noticed the tendency we have when talking philosophy on a certain level… It becomes almost as a game… like chess… You move about words and bring about definitions… and create arguments that seem inpenetrable… and then the other re-defines your terms… attacks your arguments and moves his own words into place…

It’s such a futile endeavor to attempt communication in the midts of war… Why bother calling this nonsense philosophy anymore?

A love of wisdom does not to make you argue your point the best… or quote what you already know… it does make you learn and listen and ask… and when requested to… instruct and enlighten.

Certainly it’s important to be able to use words accuratly… communicate as unambiguously as possible… But the practice of mastering a language is not meant for use as a weapon…

When did we stop being humble in our own ignorance? Why are we speaking of ontology and cosmology as if we knew all the answers? our understanding is not progressing… because these days… whenever someone says something… the reaction, it seems, is to show why it is not true… instead of investigating why it might be true…

It is futile… and it is a waste of time… nothing new will come of it…

How do we go about correcting this problem… Is it even a problem?

Charitable interpretation. That’s what I say we need.

to be a good philosopher,… it would require you have some sort of integrety. I think that schools try to teach some side effects of having good integrety. But really all is lost for all of man made things. It’s all born to die by man’s own design.

it isn’t a problem.

-Imp

I compleatly agree with you… I think this is the solution to the problem… how on earth do we enforce it?

:laughing:

I actually see this as part of the problem… One should not cling to anything overly much in the realm of philosophy… there should be no question of integrity about anything other than a persons dedication to truth, understanding and honesty…

The past few centuries have stagnated philosophy in eclipse of contemporary science.

Boards such as this meander in theory and bogus supposition with combinations of the new and undisciplined with the old and disinterested. Remember all the developments of world war two? How the world was driven to innovate! (despite the dubious reasons). A lot of work is done to shoot down statements that trivialize serious matters, or to expose meaninglessness in trivial statements. Because all of it is in prelogical language, subject to interpretation, hardly anything is certainly said. If I could relearn philosophy from scratch, I would incorporate calculus as best I could, and consolidate new statistics and experiments in hopes that it would provide integrity.

Machines will grow stronger in cycling data and filtering bugs as their own critics, brainstormers, pioneers. Perhaps the internet data for the next century will be the hallmark of human thinking making way for its own refinement. It will seem meaningless, but will make an impression after thorough analysis. I say write and enjoy, but don’t quit your day job.

I am Sisyphus… and my life and journey in philosophy is the absurd.
I take great joy in it. It is a game in a way. To me, it is the most serious game.
And yet, the only way one can lose this game… is if they don’t play!

Man created God… born to die by man’s own design. :sunglasses:

Because even though there can be a sentient being walking the planet with whom one thinks one could never have, in any way possible, even an infinintesimal chance of agreement, he eventually writes this.

And one agrees.

Unless and until we all mind meld (and, of course, unless I get to direct it), conflict will be a product of exploration of ideas. Best one can do is not get too rude, try to temper it with tolerance and kindness. A little is okay, though, because it sometimes gets dry and boring. And philosopher types tend to be smarter than average and smarter-than-average people can be creative and entertaining in their rudeness.
:laughing:

Philosophy is only valuable when it relates the mind back to the perception and offers it a model to be used to construct effective strategies of Becoming.

In fact all philosophizing is a competition, a survival of the fittest of ideas, that can explain commonly perceived phenomena.

We call an idea wise or ‘truth’ when it manages to incorporate more perceived details in its evaluations and accounts for their appearance.

Whenever a person proposes the impracticality or ineffectiveness of thinknig I know that I am faced with a mind that is unable to compete in this area or is unable to find useful perceptions within it.
It is a common occurrence in boards such as this.

It is those that cannot formulate a concise opinion that try to degrade and =defamer the process or the ability as being futile or ineffective.
It’s the usual strategy of the weak.

The very positing of the question is a plea for aid in determining how all this thinknig relates back to practical life.
This tells me, in turn, that this mind has not fully grasped the ideas expressed in the exchange of thoughts and is asking for assistance in ascertaining the ‘bottom line’.

Not all minds are meant for thinknig beyond a certain point and so they should never venture beyond it.
How Philosophy has become a Democratic competition between opinions where all judgments are considered equal or worthy of consideration is a matter of cultural influences.

The idea that mere accessibility to information is enough to create a thoughtful mind is ludicrous and based on the modern notion of equality and similar potentials.
It is no wonder that in our current environment, where all have access to information and to the expression of personal viewpoints that quality is lost in quantity leaving many to wonder what all this thinknig is goof for.
In such environments knowledge is usually misconstrued for wisdom as breadth is misinterpreted for depth.

Very pragmatic of you… I happen to agree…

Again… I agree…

Ahh but here is the thing… since none here has all the answers… nor any claim to perfection… Why not work together to aproach perfection of thought and ideas? Why this me vs you nonsense… it serves no purpose other than to bolster a persons ego via representing an idea (often not even his own)… or blind him/her from other perceptions… potentially more effective or enlightened. All students are humbled by their teacher… and we are all eachother’s teachers as much as we are eachothers students.

Some just want to be teachers all the time… meaning they were never students… This seems to encompas more and more of us with each passing day. As if we had heard and learned all there was… and now it was time to teach it.

I hesitate to call what happens in the “exchange of thoughts” an “exchange” when the case is that neither person is grasping the other’s idea… being too busy proving why it is wrong merely because it is not their own.

Incidentally… it seems you failed to grasp the idea behind this thread and now you’ve fallen victim to your own agressive assertions about how this is a sign of weakness.

Fair to say

I’m not normally a cynic… but I find myself oddly agreeing with you on this.

I agree, completely.

Philosophy is nothing more than the absurdity of using over blown vocabulary and syntactic slight of hand to secure yourself from being overthrown from an untenable position of linguistic hyperbole of individual versions of non-existent “truth”.

It’s no different than watching a pack of monkeys trying to hump a greased football.

Certainly it can be entertainment, but to whom is it edifying?

Summarily, no one.

So can this love of wisdom not be practiced without asserting truthes to which our very identety will subsequently be tied? Can we not leave the man’s ego at the doorstep when entering the arena of philosophy? Can there be no battle of ideas without it becoming a battle between men? Men who will cheat and lie and writhe to save themselves from losing their vested pride in their own personal truthes?

I had thought it possible… yet it eludes me how exactly to adress it.

If we knew the answers, philosophy wouldn’t exist.

Philosophy is a special study of language - its subject matter is language - it’s about language.

You don’t study philosophy so that you can say what it is that you know - you study philosophy so that you can know what it is that you are saying.

Those who have no grasp of this regularly piss and moan about how nobody truly has a grasp of this. Some posts here are good enough examples of that.

Philosophy is valuable if you’re smart enough to figure out what it’s valuable for - to you. No one can help you with that. You have to figure it out. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass if those of you who don’t know what it’s good for ever figure it out. If you, any of you, care, then keep at it. If you don’t, then it is only you who are wasting your own time.

I hope that this sounds like the friendly advice it is meant as. No lie.

Philosophy is not about language, grammer or semantics… it’s a sad day when you can say that faust and make it sound convincing… and it did… sound convincing… I’m almost afreid that, that is what it has become…

Philosophy USED to be about wisdom! the most benaficial and effective aplication of knowledge… the beliefs on which to act… the morality and ethics to which one should adhere… these most basic of questions that children ask… and grown-ups take for granted…

If all philosophy has become is a tool for expressing what you take for granted without ever questioning it… then it is useless… I began to speak when I was 12 months old… I perfected it when i was 6… I could express my basic desires and beliefs as easily then as I can now… sure they have changed… but my ability to express them stays the same… I do not need philosophy as you describe it… Such a study is useless and a waste of time…

In truth however my mind was broadened by philosophy… I learned to see things differently… to question what I had taken for granted… to act on different notions… to value different things…

The thoughts and ideas of others made me understand the limits of my own and expand myself… It was not the meaningless study of language that you portray it as… it was the study of thoughts… reason… WISDOM…

And philosophy was the father of science!

Embrace absurdity, and the grievance will be redressed of its own accord.

You’re jumping to some conclusions about my claim, my friend. That’s pretty unphilosophical. What we take for granted without ever questioning it? Where did I say that?

What you learned was that some statements make no sense to you, and that some do.

Wisdom - okay - but philosophy requires technique. That’s a little-known fact herabouts.

Perhaps I did misunderstand your claim… You said:

I was basically attempting to alter this to: You study philosophy to question what it is you are saying.

and more importantly add that you study it so that you can understand what it is OTHER people are saying…

and even more importantly… mention that is it not just about what you are saying… it’s about what you are acting on.

You might have meant it in a different sense… feel free to correct me…