Life Philosophy.

[Arcturus Descending]

A life philosophy can be based on multiple aspects of influence.

It certainly can be...

"Do you know I've been sitting here thinking to myself: that if I didn't believe in life, if I lost faith in the woman I love, lost faith in the order of things, were convinced in fact that everything is a disorderly, damnable, and perhaps devil-ridden chaos, if I were struck by every horror of man's disillusionment -- still I should want to live. Having once tasted of the cup, I would not turn away from it till I had drained it! At thirty though, I shall be sure to leave the cup even if I've not emptied it, and turn away -- where I don't know. But till I am thirty I know that my youth will triumph over everything -- every disillusionment, every disgust with life. I've asked myself many times whether there is in the world any despair that could overcome this frantic thirst for life. And I've come to the conclusion that there isn't, that is until I am thirty.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov


IT may not be stretching a point to say that being sent to prison was the best thing that ever happened to Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The alternative, death by firing squad, was certainly less appealing. And most observers have agreed that the years Dostoyevsky spent in Siberian imprisonment and exile from 1850 to 1859 were beneficial to his development as a man, writer and thinker, transforming him from a rather vain and hypersensitive prima donna flushed with overnight literary success (following the publication of his Dickensian novel ''Poor Folk'') into a serious and confident artist. What Dostoyevsky gained in prison - a remarkable breadth of tragic vision and a painful new understanding of the violent, irrepressible human impulse toward self-expression - he later injected into the novels he started writing soon after returning to civilization: ''Crime and Punishment,'' ''The Possessed,'' ''The Idiot'' and ''The Brothers Karamazov.'' Dostoyevsky's experiences in Siberia haunted him for the rest of his life and provided an inexhaustible stock of material that both inspired and terrified him. They also gave him lifetime membership in the distinguished club (still thriving, unfortunately) of Russian writers and intellectuals rewarded for their heretical political, philosophical or esthetic views with an unplanned sabbatical in the Eastern steppe.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/08/31/books ... wanted=all

Great post Arc.

Incidentally, Nietzsche wrote that Dostoyewsky was the only psychologist from whom he could learn.

Merci beaucoup. How could anyone not mention him in this Life Philosophy thread.
Dostoevsky used to be my favorite writer. I loved him. Couldn't get enough of him. lol Somehow i greatly related to him.
I agree with Nietzche there. One of the reasons I also like Nietzsche is because I also find/found him to be or to have such psychological leanings/insights within his writing, aside from his beautiful poetic writings. TSZ for one. I suppose that the poet in me is just so drawn to his beautiful pearls of wisdom.

You great star, what would your happiness be had you not those for whom you shine?


Not referring to myself of course, thoughts like that reach into my very core. That's a wonderful insight.
We tend to forget that we are not 'islands unto ourselves" and that we co-exist and create because of others. After all, can something come from "nothing"?

Of all that is written, I love only what a man has written with his own blood.

I affirm his words above and I think you might agree with this. You are a bit of a narcissist Jakob but I rather think you're brilliant (not the most brilliant of anyone everywhere as you think lol) but you are and you've accomplished with "your own blood".

[Pneumatic-Coma]

Is it possible to clearly define vitalism?

Here's my attempt. Vitalism would be an idea that there is some kind of vital force that permeates everything. A sort of substance monism, I'd say. Or rather, substance monism regarding living beings. Non-living beings appear to be excluded.

I don't know how true this is. So it's someone else's turn to correct me and/or offer better, more accurate, definition.

Vitalism means that the organic life has a special vitality ("vis vitalis“) effecting life phenomenons that depend on that vitality. Vitalism rejects the exclusively mechanical and chemical explanation of life processes. The Neovitalism assumes that there is a teleologically effecting factor called "entelechy“, which is an Aristotelian term.

This is practically the basis for all the understanding of this case study. Perhaps it's that vitality that thrives in all lives (i.e. animals, plants, & organisms). Actual realism is knowing there's a corresponding consciousness parallel to ours. Henry David Thoreau & Ralph Waldo Emerson knew these topics all too well, inside and out. That principle of (Vitalism) or as it does pertain to fundamental functionality that, in us, is in complete accordance to being aware and understanding. Don't mistake the spirit for the living, yet only for one's own true perceptive operations. That I have no idea, whether it has a background consciousness of it's own or if it continues throughout denoting more than just one presence. The mind used to determine these situation's best answers is that substance which causal as it it remains prominent in the control of life itself, partially divine in my opinion. To think about that for a minute, as substance and material is related that substance to have spawned from it's own matter the being living now. Vitalism than proves to be more relatively accepted through-out the inclusively physical state.

[MagsJ]

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana... I have found him to be inspiring over the decades, with his provocative quotes and almost Eastern air about him.



Wiki, on Santayana:

Although schooled in German idealism, Santayana was critical of it and made an effort to distance himself from its epistemology.
Santayana's main philosophical work consists of The Sense of Beauty (1896), his first book-length monograph and perhaps the first major work on aesthetics written in the United States; The Life of Reason five volumes, 1905–6, the high point of his Harvard career; Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923); and The Realms of Being (4 vols., 1927–40). Although Santayana was not a pragmatist in the mold of William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, Josiah Royce, or John Dewey, The Life of Reason arguably is the first extended treatment of pragmatism written.

Like many of the classical pragmatists, and because he was well-versed in evolutionary theory, Santayana was committed to metaphysical naturalism. He believed that human cognition, cultural practices, and social institutions have evolved so as to harmonize with the conditions present in their environment. Their value may then be adjudged by the extent to which they facilitate human happiness. The alternate title to The Life of Reason, "the Phases of Human Progress," is indicative of this metaphysical stance.

Santayana was an early adherent of epiphenomenalism, but also admired the classical materialism of Democritus and Lucretius (of the three authors on whom he wrote in Three Philosophical Poets, Santayana speaks most favorably of Lucretius). He held Spinoza's writings in high regard, calling him his "master and model."[13]

Although an atheist,[14][15] he held a fairly benign view of religion, in contrast to Bertrand Russell who held that religion was harmful. Santayana's views on religion are outlined in his books Reason in Religion, The Idea of Christ in the Gospels, and Interpretations of Poetry and Religion. Santayana described himself as an "aesthetic Catholic." He spent the last decade of his life at the Convent of the Blue Nuns of the Little Company of Mary on the Celian Hill at 6 Via Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome, where he was cared for by the Irish sisters.

[Arminius]

Is it possible to clearly define vitalism?

Here's my attempt. Vitalism would be an idea that there is some kind of vital force that permeates everything. A sort of substance monism, I'd say. Or rather, substance monism regarding living beings. Non-living beings appear to be excluded.

I don't know how true this is. So it's someone else's turn to correct me and/or offer better, more accurate, definition.

Vitalism means that the organic life has a special vitality ("vis vitalis“) effecting life phenomenons that depend on that vitality. Vitalism rejects the exclusively mechanical and chemical explanation of life processes. The Neovitalism assumes that there is a teleologically effecting factor called "entelechy“, which is an Aristotelian term.

This is practically the basis for all the understanding of this case study. Perhaps it's that vitality that thrives in all lives (i.e. animals, plants, & organisms). Actual realism is knowing there's a corresponding consciousness parallel to ours. Henry David Thoreau & Ralph Waldo Emerson knew these topics all too well, inside and out. That principle of (Vitalism) or as it does pertain to fundamental functionality that, in us, is in complete accordance to being aware and understanding. Don't mistake the spirit for the living, yet only for one's own true perceptive operations. That I have no idea, whether it has a background consciousness of it's own or if it continues throughout denoting more than just one presence. The mind used to determine these situation's best answers is that substance which causal as it it remains prominent in the control of life itself, partially divine in my opinion. To think about that for a minute, as substance and material is related that substance to have spawned from it's own matter the being living now. Vitalism than proves to be more relatively accepted through-out the inclusively physical state.

Moreover:

It is not much satisfiable to explain life by accidence, by coincidence. Right?

For comparison only: "The Meaning of Life. Does life make sense?".

[Xenophon]

Nicht ohne Schauder greift des Menschen Hand
In des Geschicks geheimnisvolle Urne.
In meiner Brust war meine Tat noch mein:
Einmal entlassen aus dem sichern Winkel
Des Herzens, ihrem mütterlichen Boden,
Hinausgegeben in des Lebens Fremde,
Gehört sie jenen tück'schen Mächten an,
Die keines Menschen Kunst vertraulich macht.[Wallensteins Tod]

Not without chill does man put forth his hand
To draw the hidden lots of destiny.
Within my breast my deed was still my own;
But once surrendered from the fastness of
The heart, the mother's womb in which it grew,
Cast forth upon the alien seas of life,
It is entrusted to deceitful powers
That no man's art can summon to his call. [Wallenstein's Death]

[Arminius]

According to Schiller there is an ideal human (as something like the last guideline of each human’s will) in each human.

[James S Saint]

According to Schiller there is an ideal human (as something like the last guideline of each human’s will) in each human.

In a sense, there is an ideal Man, but not an ideal human.

[Arminius]

I guess you mean "Mensch" here, thus not "Mann". Is that right? If yes, then I agree.

[James S Saint]

I guess you mean "Mensch" here, thus not "Mann". Is that right? If yes, then I agree.

I meant the order of all mankind, "Man", rather than of any individual hue-of-Man.

[Arminius]

I guess you mean "Mensch" here, thus not "Mann". Is that right? If yes, then I agree.

I meant the order of all mankind, "Man", rather than of any individual hue-of-Man.

It is possible that Schiller meant both an ideal man and an ideal human (both as something like the last guideline of each human’s will) in each human. Accordance of both reason/morality and freedom is the task/purpose.