i think that for me, it’s questioning things like existence and morals
Okay, thank you for your clarification. They come only on the very rarest of occasions, and it is very refreshing when they do.
For anyone interested, to me, the ‘philosophy’ word means or refers to having the love of wisdom, where ‘wisdom’ is obtained through learning, understanding, and knowing.
So, to me, not just the questioning of things like existence and morals but also the uncovering of the answers to those questions is a part of philosophy or having the love-of-wisdom.
Therefore, why I engage in the questioning and answering of all of what are sometimes called ‘philosophical or meaningful issues, in Life,’ is because of an internal love and desire of continually wanting to learn, understand, and know more.
so you would agree that you engage in philosophy for a reason out of your control.
I want to follow this internal nature of being. But, if I choose not to I certainly could.
By the way, you wrote a statement but put a question mark at the end of it.
In my opinion, the attractive part of philosophy is that it is an enjoyable activity which stimulates the mind. Curiosity is a natural tendency of humans. Once the basic needs (food, housing, security etc) are satisfied, a person feels the urge to search for activities that trigger its curiosity. Philosophy sets questions which can take decades until you obtain personally sarisfactory answers (or you cannot obtain them, so you keep investigating).
yes but the reason behind it isn’t in your control. and you certainly could choose not to but you won’t because you want to keep engaging in philosophy.
If all or a part of ‘philosophy’ is a love of enquiry or the questioning and answering of the nature of things, for example, then what is ‘mind’ thing, exactly, which you speak of and mention here?
I agree absolutely.
One of the main reasons WHY human beings have been able to create and achieve absolutely everything they have, which all of, were once perceived to be absolute impossibilities, is due to the very nature of being a human being and their natural internal curiosity to always want to learn and discover more and anew.
When you say ‘housing’, do you mean like, caves, sticks and branches, and/or standing under a tree?
Also, what do you mean by ‘security’, exactly?
To me, four things are ‘needed’ in Life, and/or a necessity for living in regards to human beings anyway. Everything else is just ‘a want’, with ‘every want’ of a thing not ‘needed’ is greed, itself.
Every human being from birth has a deep-ingrained curiosity to learn things.
But, if as proposed by the opening post author here ‘philosophy’ IS questioning things like existence and morals, then ‘philosophy’, itself, would not and does not ‘set’ anything at all.
Human beings are the only things that ask questions, and therefore are also the only thing that ‘set questions’.
Will you please present some what are called philosophical or meaningful questions, which you think or believe have not yet been satisfactorily answered, and then ‘we’ can see if they have been answered satisfactorily or not?
Pick questions from the philosophy section of this forum. From the nature of reality, the morality, the truth, objectivity vs subjectivity, determinism vs non-determinism/free will, consciousness, and other. These topics have been repeatedly presented in different threads. If they had already sarisfactory answers, then there was no need to be repeated.
Prehistorically yes, cave was the housing. Also security was with regard to other animals.
In modern times, housing is more elaborate and security is with regard to theft, murder etc. You need to feel safe before you start exploring your curiosity. If I threaten you with a gun, your priority is survival.
Because ‘the reason’ behind the internal natural curiosity was set before individual human beings were created then clearly what was ‘set’ to be within you before you came to be is not in your control.
What you refer to as ‘engaging in philosophy’, I refer to as ‘having the love of learning’,
So, to me, either one has a desire to learn more and just does it, or they do not have this desire.
To me, EVERY human being is born with ‘this desire’, and as such are True “philosophers”, and, ALL young children have ‘this desire’ as well. It is older human beings who lack this desire, again for the reasons I have already explained many times over, (not that you were expected to have seen them yet), and so, as you say, they certainly do not ‘engage in philosophy’.
It could be said that because the desire to learn more and anew is still existing within this body, then yes i do not choose to not ‘engage in philosophy’ because i want to keep ‘engaging in philosophy’.
But, please remember that they are ‘your words’ and not mine.
Once again, when asked for something, absolutely nothing is provided.
Also, to me, those things that you listed have already been very satisfactorily answered. But, obviously, not to all people.
Of course, in what you, laughably, call “modern times”, housing is so-called “more elaborate”, but the so-called “more elaborate housing” is certainly NOT ‘needed’ at all.
And, being secure from theft is also certainly NOT ‘needed’ at all, as well.
These things are absolutely certainly NOT ‘basic needs’ AT ALL.
What was just displayed here was another prime example of just how much adult human beings, in the ‘olden days’ when this was being written, would ‘try’ their very hardest to ‘justify’ their greedy and selfish Wrong behavior. And, thus another example of WHY it took ‘those people’ so long to catch up.
So, it appears, this one has lived in a country and/or ‘cult/ure’ where ‘fear’ is a big thing that has been indoctrinated into them, and where they have completely forgotten that the moment a baby is born they are what “ghatzige” calls ‘exploring its curiosity’.
From birth, human beings have already started exploring, led by the internal desire to learn, or, in other words, by ‘curiosity’, itself.
What is it like to live in a country and ‘cult/ure’ where just about everything comes down to guns or weapons, and/or the fear of such things?
But, then again, if one has not lived in any other country and/or ‘cult/ure’, then they would not know any better, and thus would not be able to answer this question properly and Correctly.
By the way, if i was in a situation where a human being ‘tried to’ threaten me with a gun, there still exists the desire to want to learn more and anew.
Have you forgotten ‘surviving’, for human beings anyway, relies on ‘learning’, itself.
After all, human beings in just about every way are the physically weakest animal on the planet.
The only real thing that keeps human beings alive and existing is the ability to learn, understand, and reason that is within them, and which, by the way, is the very thing that separates ‘them’ from every other animal on planet earth.
The very nature of being a human being is having the ability to learn, understand, and reason any and every thing, along with an insatiable curiosity, which drives them to want to learn, understand, know more and more things.
That is, of course, until presumptions and beliefs get in the way.
The “to me” at least shows that you admit your opinion is subjective. But, as usual, you do not admit, I just do not understand you, plus all the other excuses you usually mention in cases like this.
Yes, “to you”, these issues have been addressed, for many many others, they have not.
Be my guest, start living in the streets, or the forests, or the mountains. Abandon all modern civilization, including internet access, and then your argument will be more convincing.
Your curiosity will start AFTER you resolve the threat.
I do not forget anything, you are the one who lacks proper history lessons.
Yes, learning helps you survive, but philosophy is not about survival, it is something else. The first philosophers in human history were not slaves, they were free men who had solved their economic problems and had plenty of time to investigate non-survival issues and ask questions about scope of life, operation of cosmos, source of morality etc.
For a slight moment I thought I could have a relatively mature discussion with you. Clearly, this still remains an impossibility. Time to return to stop-feeding-the-troll status.
What opinion are you referring to here, exactly?
Also, and by the way, those things have already been answered in ‘a way’ that everyone could agree with and accept, or satisfactorily, as you put it.
The reason they have not been, to people like you, is because of the Wrong way you ‘look at’ and ‘see’ things, in Life.
What are you even on about here?
Again, I just asked you to provide something. you obviously did not. Can you admit this? Will you admit this?
‘These people’ keep attempting anything to ‘try to’ ‘justify’ their very greedy and selfish behaviour.
LOL Curiosity BEGAN at birth, or BEFORE.
Another example of the “dunning-kruger effect”.
Okay, what is that ‘something else’, exactly?
Okay, so ‘we’ have completely opposing views of who the so-called " first philosophers " are.
Okay. So, are you saying that you will not respond to my posts?
I engage with it because I have no choice. The only choice I have is if it is rationally derived and integrated or a hodgepodge of Radom, conflicting ideas inherited from others and unexamined.
why don’t you have a choice?
You ask as if i had a choice in the matter.
Philosophy is just the act of realizing
You either do or you dont
In a way, nobody has a choice because, whether they know it or not, every single living human has integrated and works constantly with the product of the work of philosophers.
They just wouldn’t notice it.
1 Like
Because every person needs a philosophy. It is not optional. The only choice we have is if it is rational or a mess of inherited and unchecked premises.
And most people just have a mishmash of philosophical positions often mixing contradictory ones. Listen to most people speak and they’ll shuffle from statements that imply free will to ones that imply determinism, back and forth without noticing the tension. Bits of consequentialism with bits of deontology with bits of virtue ethics. Shifting ideas of identity and causation. And so on. And even people well-versed in philosophy tend to be collections.
Exactly. No integration. I did something very few people do. When I was 25, a book shattered my beliefs. So I started at the very beginning and built my worldview from the bottom up, checking every premise. What I found was a mass of contradictions and unchecked premises. I had absorbed these beliefs, not thought about them. It was like the big balls of fishing line, lures, and hooks I used to spend hours untangling from my grandfather’s fishing gear. The more knots and loops you pull out and free up, the easier it is to see how to get the next one. And then there are times when you pull one loop and a whole lot of knots are freed up. Until you eventually get them all.
When you do this to your mind, you’ve removed all contradictions; you instantly see them in other people.
I am not well versed in philosophy. I didn’t learn philosophy from reading a little hume, some Kant, some Schopenhauer. I learned it from looking at reality and integrating.
It’s because our education system starts us in midstream. It ignores things like the axioms, causality, the validity of the senses, the primacy of existence, the law of identity, etc., which would go perfectly in kindergarten. The kids are allowed to play, and then their lessons would be the fundamentals of philosophy, which they can experience while playing. Teach them this for a few years and then move on to epistemology. What is a concept? How are they formed? What is the relationship between a concept and reality, etc. Teach them logic, and they’ll understand it perfectly because they started with the axioms and the law of identity. They already know that that block is different from those blocks, and blocks fall over when the stack gets too tall.
Teach them the essentials and how to think, and by the time they are 18, they will be armed and ready and philosophically bulletproof.