So, seriously, what is philosophy anyway?

@msolga,

Oh, utterly agreed on all counts Msolga.

Also, I have been around more, having been sick again...I have taken any opportunity I have had to come home early and such to rest...so I am doing more A2king.

But it's been fascinating to self-diagnose and reflect upon this weird tribalism!!!

If we were dogs, one good mutual butt sniff would have solved a lot of it.

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well as far as online philosophizing goes, and speaking for myself, it has become a habit. I think it is an OK habit, but I do wonder. Sometimes I think I have too much time on my hands.

As to what it is: the literal definition is the 'love of wisdom' or better still 'love-wisdom'. I am inclined to the mystical, so I generally stick with that vein of philosophy. It is represented in most ages of philosophy. I have studied quite a bit of it, but I know there are more knowledgeable posters than myself.

Oh, as for 'not being offending' and 'not offending'. When I first started out I think I was a real hot-head and often very sarcastic. I try and restrain myself now and not to be too attached to viewpoints, while still trying to put the best argument possible.

And there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Of that I am sure.

(As for the influx of Philforum folks into A2k, the image that springs to mind is this nice party going on in this very laid back, but nicely decorated, venue, and suddenly all these earnest types appear in one corner, many of them bearded, carrying on these intense conversations about the existence of abstract objects.....)

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jeeprs wrote:

And there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Of that I am sure.

Certainly was, I found it.

But with my lame alchemist skills, I transformed it in plain lead..

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@jeeprs,

We already HAD nerds!

I am a nerd!

Wink

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@jeeprs,

Quote:

(As for the influx of Philforum folks into A2k, the image that springs to mind is this nice party going on in this very laid back, but nicely decorated, venue, and suddenly all these earnest types appear in one corner, many of them bearded, carrying on these intense conversations about the existence of abstract objects.....)

With all due respects, jeeprs, I think you philosophy folk were just as set & comfortable in your established ways as we were. Possibly more so? Wink

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@msolga,

Yeah, and they seem to be more upset by the change than we do..

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@Francis,

I've been mainly watching on & reading quietly, yesterday & today, Francis. Not participating much in the philosophy & related threads. I have seen real efforts on the part of some A2Kers to participate in the philosophy discussions, sometimes only to feel rebuffed in spite of their efforts. Or to be "set straight" in their thinking ... I think this is why some have gotten a bit huffy recently.

I have come across some philosophy folk I've taken quite a shine to & would genuinely like to know better. But it takes two to tango & I'd love it if a few more of them would venture into a few more of our threads, too. Good for you, to those who have. We do not have to be quite so territorial.

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@jeeprs,

jeeprs wrote:

well as far as online philosophizing goes, and speaking for myself, it has become a habit.
I think it is an OK habit, but I do wonder. Sometimes I think I have too much time on my hands.

As to what it is: the literal definition is the 'love of wisdom' or better still 'love-wisdom'.
I am inclined to the mystical, so I generally stick with that vein of philosophy.

That is reminiscent of the 2 criteria by which one judges his life on Judgment Day,
according to the consensus of people who have returned from death, in hospitals, to wit:
Love and Learning.
www.IANDS.org

David

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@msolga,

msolga wrote:

I've been mainly watching on & reading quietly, yesterday & today, Francis.
Not participating much in the philosophy & related threads.
I have seen real efforts on the part of some A2Kers to participate
in the philosophy discussions, sometimes only to feel rebuffed in spite of their efforts.

Or to be "set straight" in their thinking ...

As if WE don 't do that here.

msolga wrote:

I think this is why some have gotten a bit huffy recently.

I have come across some philosophy folk I've taken quite a shine to & would genuinely like to know better.
But it takes two to tango & I'd love it if a few more of them would venture into a few more of our threads, too.
Good for you, to those who have. We do not have to be quite so territorial.

I am very pleased with their arrival; thay r good assets for us; good, fresh intellectual blood.

Hooray for us and thanks to Robert !

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

If you've read anything at all that I've written about this merger, David, you'll know that I am delighted to have the philosophy folk here.

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@Jebediah,

Jebediah wrote:

It's probably a mistake to take these threads as good examples of philosophy

Somebody give that boy a cee-gar . . . i'd suggest a blue ribbon if he hadn't needlessly used the word "probably" . . .

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@ABYA,

ABYA wrote:

Hi chai2 and all
Philosophy is nothing but a figment of our imagination.
Its speculation about knowledge, action and properties that can't be empirically researched. Its a personal speculative guesswork, one person thinks this and another thinks that. All are welcome to input thier opinions as we all have a right to our personal viewpoints.

Correct me if i'm wrong about this, but this seems implicitly to suggest that all opinions are equal. Clearly, they are not. If you are of the opinion that the world is flat, your opinion is rather obviously worthless.

The problem i have most consistently seen with the philosophy forum people who i've encountered here is a lack of coherence, upon the heels of which ineptitude in expressing oneself in the English follows closely.

Speculation is all well and good, but if it doesn't proceed from premises which can be examined, and if it is not to be subjected to critical scrutiny, than it differs little from the babble of dope-smokers giddy from the initial rush. I gave that up decades ago.

These new members seem to be awfully thin-skinned, too. It is not a personal attack to point out that what you've said is bullshit.

After all, we all have a right to our personal viewpoints . . . n'est-ce pas?

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@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

Philosophy is simply a meta-conversation, or in some people's cases a meta-monologue; Inherently abstract and unattainably, universal.

Don't forget meta-drivel . . . there's an awful lot of that going around.

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I can't believe that Miss Olga said "my two bobs worth." Have you ever actually used shillings and pence, Miss Olga?

I think your native courtesy is blinding you to the unbridled obscurantism of the handful of coherent posts from this crowd, and the unbridled incoherence of nearly all the rest of what they post.

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@msolga,

msolga wrote:

Especially if a bit more cross-fertilization occurs.

Now that's something to philosophize over, is it not? Maybe 'tis just the perpetual sensation of foaming on testosterone, which predestined my imaginative disposition in life, yet I have always tended (well not really always, but . . .to see fertilization as being a one-way process?

Yet, if I were allowed a moment of seriousness here, for whatever it may be worth, I would simply point out that as far as the present moment stands, I only see one forum here, one group of folks posting, talking, communicating. Additionally, it has been but just slightly one week since I have been a member here, so I am a new member. Sure I know some folks here who I also knew on other internet sites (plural used in poetic license), yet there is no difference there...they have not really changed, nor have I, really.

Philosophy, or not philosophy, may not be the question, really, instead, how long might it take for the homeostatic state to be acheived once again, for all our members . . . and of course, by all, I do mean ALL . . .including the whole fertilization processes . . . hee, hee, hee...

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I can't believe that Miss Olga said "my two bobs worth." Have you ever actually used shillings and pence, Miss Olga?

She has...and so have I.

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I had thought that the Australians used dollars and cents. As well, England stopped using shillings and pence when they went to the hundred pennies in a pound system, which i believe was in the mid-1960s. Surely neither of you is old enough to have traveled to England before then. Some of the old timers in the 1970s still referred to a five pence piece as a shilling, but that was becoming uncommon even then.

Are you saying that Australia used the pound/shilling/pence system before adopting the dollars/cents system?

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@Setanta,

We swapped over in 1966.

Quote:

Are you saying that Australia used the pound/shilling/pence system before adopting the dollars/cents system?

Yes.

And we changed weights and measures to the metric system gradually after 1966.

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@KaseiJin,

Quote:

Philosophy, or not philosophy, may not be the question, really, instead, how long might it take for the homeostatic state to be acheived once again, for all our members . . . and of course, by all, I do mean ALL . . .including the whole fertilization processes . . . hee, hee, hee...

It's spelled achieved.
And it would be really nice if you lightened up a little.

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"Philosophy," as I believe Aristotle once said, " begins in wonder.
Now wonder can be "awe" at the sheer being of the world, of all the occasions that make it as large and deep as it is. Wonder can also mean "confusion" as when we ask the question, "I wonder what made Green act that way."

In either case, philosophy takes a leap from mere acceptance and comportment in the world, to a critical attitude of asking questions. Either I question the world and demand for myself an answer in place of all the different and confusing claims made about it; or an event intrudes itself into my habitual perspective that causes me to step back and attend to it with the greatest of care.

Since Socrates, in another philosopher's apt expression, philosophy has been guilty of "disturbing the peace." The Athenian gadfly went about asking the simplest of questions from its citizens only to find that what they thought they knew, they really didn't. His calling was to encourage Others on the path of thinking; "I only know that I don't know" he said.

Didn't Russell---and I am probably wrong in my memory--- write that if philosophy does not directly change the world,it forever changes the individual who undertakes it? It is, of course, easy to ridicule the answers philosophy has proposed or to ask why, after thousands of years, they cannot agree on a single principle. Yet, there is something to be said for its always renewing itself with each generation and each individual, and for providing the methods for rigourous and independent thinking, and for providing perspectives that one might never have discovered on ones own.

This is the more so given that the age in which we live is beset by major problems caused by science and technology, and the pressures to either conform to what "everyone knows" or to spend one's life in the ever-interesting and ever-amusing present moment of earning one's bread and attending all the diverting circuses so readily provided at every turn.

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So, seriously, what is philosophy anyway?

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