Is it not Socrates was the famous philosopher? And he claims he knows nothing? Does not Pythagoras claims philosophy is wisdom? Does not today people say philosophy teaches you to think , while others doubt that you can find a descent job?
I see philosophy teachers today say money is not important, and they are seeking something, whether it is fame or wisdom, however, not admitting money is important, they became teachers? Does this not make them a false philosophers for they do not admit money is important?
Like buddhism they admit they do not believe anything yet believe in their beliefs, to disbelieve . they admit too I believe you attain nothing in enlightenment, nor learn anything. Or I could be wrong.
Well from my point of view, buddhists examine believes, or concepts with emotional hookups attached to them (or they call it attachment, carving or clinging) and question why it has such a strong impact on human behaviour. Because when you are stuck on beliefs, you are simply holding into your past i.e. your memories, you, in a sense, “distort” the present by comparing it to an fixed reference (of memory). An belief is, a pattern of thinking (plus an emotional investment, wich is an value, or an “ougth” or “should”), and thinking has its root in memory, wich is remebered experiencing. What buddhists question is therefore why memory must have such a strong impact on our lives. If you think of it, its fairly obvious that beliefs are inheirited memory from experience. Somebody has told you something, and throught that, you start to cling or attach to that experience. I withhold that language is thinking, and the drive behind thinking is security. Thinking evolved because by thinking, by memoriesing experinece, we could get knowledge and learn from our misstakes, and by learning from our misstakes we could get a ground for our decitionmaking process, and by that, survive longer. Thinking is therefore operating as a tool for our survival. And by that thinking is one of our tool for survival, it, in an indirect way sets up how thinking functions, wich is that it strives to create inner coherence in its net/systems of thoughts into casual chains. When people get very upset because their world-of-beliefs-and-concepts get challenged, its because it threathens thier psychological security. Think of it. To know is to be secure. If another person tells you what you think is incorret, you are no longer secure in the world. You no longer understand how to relate to experiences to survive. Another interesting aspect of thinking is when we have that relationship to thinking when we strive at to much of security, life gets obvious, boring and repetitive. Just because we, in all experiences of life, compare it to our past memories (i.e. past experiences).
What philosophers tend to to, is that they dont understand that thinking is, in its core, just a practical tool for survival. Some philosophers tend to get lost in the world of concepts and abstractations. In my humble opinion, the whole of western philosophy, in its search for secure knowledge, doesn´t understand why it eaven search for secure knowledge. The western tradition, is in my personal view, just to rational in a sense. We dont understand that rationality often operates to keep our “irrational” or “not so rational” strife for survival. The history of western philosophy has created its own abstractions, and then as time passes on, we tend to forget about that the abstration is our human creation, and gets confused why these abstractions doesn´t makes sense to us. We tend to overrationalize things. But we don´t seem to understand that the whole quest for secure knowledge, is just an expression for how thinking, in its strife for coherence for the service of survival, works.
And another thing you said is that buddhist strive at enlighenment, and that attaining enlightenment is learning nothing, now the point of attaining enlightenment is of course not to understand something, because after all, what understanding in its core is, is correct orientation of our experiences/memories/thoughts/concepts/perceptions - how they relates to each other, without being contraditory (in our strife of establishing logical coherent causality). Attaning enlightment isin´t about knowing something specific, but to get a sense of loosening distnance to your previous experiences. When you attain enlighenment, you, in a way, touches the base of pure consciousness - that wich is the base container of all experiences. You in a sense understand the whole basis, the ground of wich holds up your experiences. And in that moment of contact, you realize that experiences (like perceptions, sounds, etc), are just objects in your awereness/consciousness, and that its futile to try clinging to past experiences and believes because you realize that they are not the ground basis of your existence. A belif are after all a specific something that we think is a fundamental and correct property how something in the world should be (according to what you leart), our belifes is our (memory) frame of reference, that we, when we in our process of thinking, compares with the current ongoing experience we percieve, to test the current experiences validity i relationship to our past. But when we realize enlighenment, we understand that it is not our experiences that is the ground for out existence, but it is simply consciousness (that is the ground). But consciousness is in its essence nothing, because if it would be a something, we would experience it, and it would distract our experiening of other things. It just like the eye, when the eye funtions propertly, we dont see it i.e. we have a clear picture. By reaching enlighetenment, we in a sense presence our consciousness, acually we never experience it, but when all other forms of experiencing of perception are “shut down” by the active action of meditation, we, can in a sense, presence what our consciouessness is, thru negating everything else . Buddhist claim they attain nothing, and that is of course true, they dont attain any specific experience or perception, but they still experiences the presence, or ground, of consciouessness.
Hope that cleared things up. (I´m pretty sure some of my uttrences sureley apper confusing to some of you, and in that case, just ask for clarifications)
B.t.w, i´m sorry if my english isn´t so good, but this is my first post ever on an englishspeaking forum, i usually only post in swedish philosophy forums.
Do you actually know any philosophy teachers that say this, or are you assuming they say this? Currently, both major (philosophy) teacher unions in the United Kingdom are on strike over low pay.
Since you replace philosophy with people. To my opinion, when people think about this, they say people hope to achieve a dream, but it is only a dream. And if people don’t think, they wil say nothing useful.
I find this sad. There is more to life than a lot of money. I would take a low paying job as a professional philosopher over a high paying job as anything else any day of the week. I don’t know what a man needs other than a roof over his head, good to eat, a few books to study, and a pad of paper to write down thoughts. Everything else is just extra, in my mind.
In my view, philosophy is two things. At least… it has two main purposes… better said, all philosophy stems from two “needs”…
to seek an answer… and to… disintegrate/decompose/dismantle.
The latter I believe applies to Socrates. He thrived of the feeling which some people get from dismantling everything about everything. It is a deep catalyst in the soul of most good philosophers. I know not were it comes from but it is a thriving need that needs to be fulfilled at all cost (in the case of Socrates at the cost of his death).
So what do they try to accomplish? To fulfill these needs for their own sake. Yes…For their own sake… and nothing more. If a person has motives beyond this, I would say that they are not philosophers.
In my view a phylosopher is one that has no motivation beyond these two needs and uses the methodology of reason both to seek and to dismantle.
So in this regard, it is interesting to note that phylosphers, who should use reason as their methodology are in fact very much like crack addicts trying to satisfy needs… needs to which they are subject to. It is an interesting observation but not a strange one, after all, they are human.
