I’m a little bored with the repetition of regurgitated old philosophy.
Not that the “truth” might not have already been discovered.
But does anyone have an example, no matter how incremental, of an interesting example of a new idea?
Cheers.
I was pleasantly surprised by feminist epistemology.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/femin … stemology/
Not overly in love with it, mind you, but I was expecting something truly terrible.
That and biosemiotics, which was relatively new to me:
ento.vt.edu/~sharov/biosem/geninfo.html
I think the idea of the situated knower from the first ties in well with the entire concept of the second.
Nietzsche!!!
Kierkegaard, without a doubt. Four hundred years of philosophy combined does not produce the maieutic strength and expertise of Kierkegaard. He was, and still is, in a sense, from the future. It is difficult to see him work. He is often too fast, and what you see is a blur. One cannot set out to understand Kierkegaard. You have to “fall into his reverie”, and then, if you are lucky, you’ll shout “Aha!”
Wittgenstein called him the greatest philosopher to ever live. Heidegger and Sartre could barely grasp him. Fortunately Nietzsche didn’t know of Kierkegaard. I say “fortunately” because had he read Kierkegaard, he would’ve went insane that much sooner.
[laughing]
edit: I would also advise to new readers not to use Wikipedia as an informational source (you can for other philosophers…what they say doesn’t matter). His page has been edited several times. I would suggest Stanford Encyclopedia or D. Anthony Storm.
Hell, just read the original texts online. I got through most of Fear and Trembling in two ferry rides from Stornoway to Ullapool (northern Scotland for you yanks who don’t know how to use a map).
in fear and trembling while you were a stowaway on the ullapool ferry?
shades of charon…
-Imp
Semiotics and theoretical physics are where its at currently. String theory and the multiverse unifying theory of everything crap is all the rage as well, it seems
That, and there is still a lot of constructivism versus structuralism versus post-structuralism in the social sciences. ie, Whose influencing whom in the individual v society v social contructs / institutions mess. All about choice and power, really.
I’m all about NI or “New Institutional Theories” in political science, bit I’m on a bit of a lapse at the moment.
I am not sure how well the term “new” applies to philosophy, really. Not sure if that is good or bad, really.
Everything is new to me.
I gotta say, I’m a little dismayed at how most new philosophy seems to really be science.
This said, I am enjoying the resurgence of ethics, what with all the new scientific frontiers we’re exploring. Ethics is good, and relevant now more than ever.
Me, I enjoy postmodern philosophers. Baudrillard has passed. He and Foucault were about the most present-day relevant and interesting philosophers to me. Everything since has looked like science posturing as philosophy…
Baudrillard died only 9 days ago!
And only a couple years ago for Foucault. Both incredibly interesting, challenging and astute thinkers, IMHO
Probably the most extraordinary and insulting philosophy to make its appearance is called the “Philosophy of Humility.” It has rarely been tried which is what makes it so new and the benefits of getting out of ones own way largely unknown.
Some say Nietzsche marks the culmination and end of Western philosophy - complete suspicion. This has given rise to untrusting approaches to many aspects of philosophy and culture, e.g. postmodernism. Moreoever the problem of scepticism preoccupies all epistemological inquiries.
Fresh approaches after this were attempted by Heidegger - a unique undertaking of ontological inquiry, and Wittgenstein - the claim that philosophy may be nothing more than another type of sophisticated language game, which isn’t a device able to attain or convey truth or even the intended meaning, I think!
Derrida died not so long ago too. He kicked Foucault’s ass.
Something like that. It is a long ferry ride, in truth, and the ship did more than enough trembling for the pair of us.
Science depends on philosophy. The idea of “substance” followed from the idea of the “subject”. It was only after Nietzsche had repudiated the latter that science underwent a revolution with Einstein and quantum mechanics. Which is not to say there is a causal relationship between that repudiation and said revolution; it is rather a case of synchronicity, to speak with Jung…
After that revolution, Heidegger expounded on Nietzsche’s repudiation, attempting to form a new concept of Being. Instead of the subject/object (or subject/content) dichotomy, he introduced the concepts of Dasein (“being-there”) and “being-in-the-world”. Whereas the former dichotomy could be separated into its parts - contemplating such things as “pure consciousness” and “things-in-themselves” -, Heidegger argued that being-in-the-world could not “be broken up into contents which may be pieced together” (Being and Time, page 78). I think we need such a revised concept of Being in order to understand “subatomic particles” and the like.
Not even hardly.
Modern science was born from the collective utilization and application of mathematical enties to measure, quantify, and predict empirical conditions, and force tools to operate with expected precision. This method is purely non-philosophical. Man was calculating his environment long before he develop the capacity to use advanced language, which is the cause, or should I say curse, of philosophy. The first philosophy originated when “numbers” were argued to be either “natural” or “platonic,” which is essentially a metaphysical argument: do numbers represent real quantities, or “ideas” of quantities. Enter the mind/body dilemma. Enter Hermetics. Enter psychologism. Enter ontology.
It was not until man discovered the existence of the “anomaly” that he began to question the conventional axioms of mathematics. The lack of predictable certainty for future events, accompanied by changing empirical conditions, is what gave rise to man’s suspicion against his own systems of mathematics and logic. But despite his experience of unpredictable and unaccountable events by conventional mathematics, the practice of mathematical application in economies remained. Never did man question the certainity of his basic maths, the certainity that a day was measured as X amount of units of time, that a woman remained pregnant for approximately X amount of units of time, that X amount of labor resulted in X amount of yielded product, that metal alloy X lasted X amount of units of time under conditions X, that man could live X amount of time by consuming X amount of food, etc., etc.
These repetitious and predictable events and conditions remained unchalleged for thousands if not millions of years. But the moment man developed the capacity for complex languages, he changed. He no longer spoke about and communicated his scientific knowledge; he began to create metaphors, analogies, evaluations, morals, prejudices, opinions, beliefs, and anything which could not be verified by mathematics and scientific data.
No, “philosophy” didn’t exist for extremely long periods of time. Only when a new, non-ordinary language evolved, and was used by a new class in a new form of civilization (despotism), did man begin to speculate on the unknown. And this “unknown” was, and is, a negation of what is experienced. It is language games. Religion and theology was the first form of metaphysical “jargon” that evolved in the priest caste and the clergy. The original “philosophy” was the first elevated class among workers and military personel, which consisted of one type of man, this man performing both tasks.
The use of “philosophy” occured when man, after he experienced a steady decline in the possibility of predictable empirical conditions, and therefore the use of mathematics and logic, exploited that lack of clarity to imagine that there existed “another world” which held the essences of things in platonic forms and ideas. The explanations for this were afforded by metaphysical speculation: “God has decided that we were wrong this time about our prediction of harvest time,” or “God has decided to make this woman give birth after seven months instead of eight.” So on and so forth.
No. The tactile experience of substance followed from the impression of sensory data. There was no language at this time, and therefore no conceptual terms with which to describe it with.
The original “idea” came from the first form of human consciousness that had the capacity to think, pre-reflectively, in the medium of language/words, but despite what “terms” were invented, the impressionable experience came first and remains after.
Actually, Hegel originated this kind of phenomenology. Husserl and Brentano expanded it. Heidegger and Sartre expanded it more. But it is definitely not original in Heidegger, and most “academic” philosophers think Heidegger is a clown.
Heidegger may wish to converge Being with Consciousness and assume that this dissolves any dichotomy between the “object” and the “subject,” but this amounts to language games.
The fundamental structures of consciousness and experience depend upon the necessary dichotomy of consciousness and the object. The subject and object lie not so much in “language games” but in having experience. This means that despite what you want to call, in language, the terms which you believe are communicating the experiences you have, what remains is the distinction between the object you experience and the “experience-of” the object. This is the extent of phenomenology. Consciousness is intentional, and therefore not an object itself, but a subject emerging from the discourse in language of “thinking with words.”
If you form a statement about a subject and an object without being present to it, you will convince me. Until then, the transcendent remains and Sartre marks the end of philosophy.
Now let us create better science.
What I mean is the soul superstition, which follows from regarding similar impressions as “the same”. I call this philosophical, though it certainly predates the human mind.
Whose impression?
That means a lot coming from a clown.
given only that I exist, “Philosophy of Humility”,is the perfect tool for complete self deception,and allows for the fully constructive philosophy,it’s nature being deconstructive, its kind of like running Nietzsche over with a car,looking him in the eye and spitting on his face
then i go grab a bite to eat
and throw his body in a river,in a christmas box
and burn his portrait on easter,with coffee scented incense,that i use to light my plastic menorah,as I enjoy those wonderful wafers I procured for my priest a women- who me
no Nietzsche, stupid
do you have the money for church honey,
of course I put it in the bank
and I still love you anyways
happy birthday
heres some money
I don’t celebrate my birthday
I just go to church
with a smile
Hi Membrain,
After my despicable response in the post entitled “Is it right to speak of animal DNA and plant DNA?†I have been so embarrassed that I have tried to avoid posting in any of your frequently intriguing topics.
I would suggest that Wilfrid Hodges’ work on Model Theory (part of which is incorporated into the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy) would be an example. Additionally I feel that some of the work on Formal Languages is new and very interesting.
Furthermore, being a contrarian by nature, I would suggest that Philosophy is virtually an untouched fertile field.