What causes philosophical questioning to stop?

Forums: Philosophy, Social Philosophy
Email this Topic • Print this Page

If philosophers are overly analyzing a situation,
Ex. You catch a friend stealing money from you.
They might say "well how could I even be mad at him/her- people don't even have free will and so everything was predetermined. ect. (I know this was just one example of many and it probably doesn't make much sense)
But it seems that philosophical thought always takes people away from what is actually happening, so tell me if I'm not making any sense but I feel that philosophy makes everything too objective.
And so it seems to me when people are (and in order for them to be) "truly" living, they have forgotten about all the philosophical thoughts they had before.

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 5,535 • Replies: 35

No top replies

@Render,

Render;164472 wrote:

If philosophers are overly analyzing a situation,
Ex. You catch a friend stealing money from you.
They might say "well how could I even be mad at him/her- people don't even have free will and so everything was predetermined. ect. (I know this was just one example of many and it probably doesn't make much sense)
But it seems that philosophical thought always takes people away from what is actually happening, so tell me if I'm not making any sense but I feel that philosophy makes everything too objective.
And so it seems to me when people are (and in order for them to be) "truly" living, they have forgotten about all the philosophical thoughts they had before.

On the other hand, of course, if the act of stealing is "predetermined. ect (sic!)" then so would the philosopher's emotional reaction also be."predetermined. ect (sic!)". So, it is a wash. If you see what I mean.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164474 wrote:

On the other hand, of course, if the act of stealing is "predetermined. ect (sic!)" then so would the philosopher's emotional reaction also be."predetermined. ect (sic!)". So, it is a wash. If you see what I mean.

Yes, but then how could someone who knows of that go on to live, when and what causes the philosophical questioning to stop?

3 Replies

@Render,

Render;164475 wrote:

Yes, but then how could someone who knows of that go on to live, when and what causes the philosophical questioning to stop?

Well, according to you, that is not up to him either. That is why there is something rotten in Denmark, or wherever this view is held.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164477 wrote:

Well, according to you, that is not up to him either. That is why there is something rotten in Denmark, or wherever this view is held.

Ok thank you, though i wasn't necessarily referring to free will in particular that was just an example(sorry if it was unclear, this is my first post and I'll do better in the future before posting), but I ultimately realized the point I was trying to make is more of a question of existentialism.

0 Replies

@Render,

I think I see what you're getting at, and I agree with you. Being caught up in constantly analyzing life in a 'philosophical' way can be kind of a waste of energy. But I don't know if philosophy is only the tendency to over-intellectualise even if it often is that.

You will find that in martial arts training, if you have any experience with that, you are trained to react very quickly and to act from you 'vital center' which is not in your thinking brain, but in the center of your abdomen. Zen Buddhist training also teaches you to go beyond or outside of discursive thinking (that is, thinking that is like an inner dialog).

That explains why Zen artwork and calligraphy is usually spontaneously composed and executed very quickly.

Jazz improvisation draws in similar types of skills.

Is that the kind of thing you have in mind?

0 Replies

@Render,

Render;164475 wrote:

when and what causes the philosophical questioning to stop?

Fashion, to a great extent.

0 Replies

@Render,

Render;164475 wrote:

Yes, but then how could someone who knows of that go on to live, when and what causes the philosophical questioning to stop?

Fatigue, I suppose, and the realization that, as Wittenstein said, 'All explanation comes to an end". There is the philosophical neurosis that nothing is explained unless everything is explained, which like most neuroses, is psychologically powerful, but, on examination, has nothing to be said for it.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164589 wrote:

Fatigue, I suppose, and the realization that, as Wittenstein said, 'All explanation comes to an end". There is the philosophical neurosis that nothing is explained unless everything is explained, which like most neuroses, is psychologically powerful, but, on examination, has nothing to be said for it.

I rather preferred the "conclusions are what you reach when you get tired of thinking"
or
"There is a self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge." ANW

1 Reply

@prothero,

prothero;164599 wrote:

I rather preferred the "conclusions are what you reach when you get tired of thinking"
or
"There is a self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period of its history cherishes the delusion of the finality of existing modes of knowledge." ANW

The conclusions you may reach when you tire of thinking may not be worth much, and, indeed, need not even be conclusions, but simple dogmas. Consecutive thinking is as difficult as it is rare, and much of what goes under that name is something entirely different. Thinking effectively is something people need to be trained to do.

1 Reply

@Render,

peace and... silence?

0 Replies

@Render,

Let's float the notions that contradictions itch. Another notion is that questions are thrilling. They turn the mundane into the mysterious.

It's only neurotic if it isn't life enhancing.

I agree that silence is sometimes the best "music."

0 Replies

@kennethamy,

Death or addiction.

1 Reply

@sometime sun,

sometime sun;164812 wrote:

Death or addiction.

Or maybe it simply cannot be definable.

1 Reply

@Render,

Render;164817 wrote:

Or maybe it simply cannot be definable.

What is not definable? People always say that when they to define something and can't that it must be indefinable. They usually just mean that they cannot define it.

2 Replies

@kennethamy,

What causes philosophical questioning to begin?

kennethamy quoted this a while back

Quote:

T. S. Eliot
Little Gidding V
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164823 wrote:

What is not definable? People always say that when they to define something and can't that it must be indefinable. They usually just mean that they cannot define it.

So they usually just mean that they cannot define it. Just as I said maybe its not definable?

0 Replies

@Deckard,

Deckard;164831 wrote:

What causes philosophical questioning to begin?

kennethamy quoted this a while back

There doesn't seem to be just one motive for asking philosophical questions. For instance, the wonderful philosopher, G. E. Moore wrote in his autobiographical sketch that he doubt that he would have ever asked any philosophical questions has he not been struck by the strange and what he considered often blatantly false things some philosophers said, and his curiosity was aroused to ask why intelligent men would say such outlandish things. Moore was an undergraduate at Cambridge University at the time, and he knew that the philosopher, McTaggert had written that time was unreal. Moore was so puzzled by what McTaggert said that when Moore's friend, Bertrand Russell, invited him and McTaggert for tea one afternoon, Moore went and kept asking McTaggert some very commonsense questions about Mctaggert's view. Moore relates how, although, he is sure his questions were quite naive, he thought he gave quite a good account of himself. Moore continues to write that even now, his main impetus in philosophy was to try to unravel the mystery of why philosophers kept maintaining view that seemed to him to be outrageously false, and which he thought that even the philosophers who maintained them did not really believe were true. McTaggert, after all, kept his appointment to have tea with Russell and Moore while still maintaining that time was unreal.

Note in Eliot's poem the two lines?

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;164839 wrote:

Note in Eliot's poem the two lines?

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

I'm not sure if you left that line out intentionally. If we don't "know the place for the first time" then it is just a matter of going around in circles and on that merry-go-round it matters little whether you are the one proposing the answers or the one asking the questions.

2 Replies

@Deckard,

Deckard;164843 wrote:

And know the place for the first time.

I'm not sure if you left that line out intentionally. If we don't "know the place for the first time" then it is just a matter of going around in circles and on that merry-go-round it matters little whether you are the one proposing the answers or the one asking the questions.

Yes. You are right. I should have left that line in. I just wanted to underline the two I did quote. But you are right. The third line is just as important. It is because we know the place for the first time that there is progress in philosophy. Not the same kind, of course, as in science, but progress nevertheless. Understanding is as much progress as is discovery.

0 Replies

What causes philosophical questioning to stop?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know