Are Philosophers lost in the clouds?

@guigus,

Guigus;

I have a friend who likes to dig his heels in and entice you to participate in his argument. He never moves and is a waste of time. You and he are on your own.

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@guigus,

In your reply to Dasien you remind me of much of what I like about Heidegger.., Sure, it is easy to see where he went wrong, but with phenomenology there is the serious attempt to discover how forms work in our consciousness, and clearly the form is not the thing, but is something spiritual, the essence of the thing that is so often confused that we think our form of God, for example, is God; when in fact, our form as a meaning may be all there is of God... We should all remember that just as morals gives meat to religion, that is, gives life to what is primarily a spiritual pursuit, so can philosophy give life to even a dead movements like German Romanticism and Nationalism that justified the rise of Hitler who rode them to power and to hell.... It is the job of philosophy to see through forms and not be blinded by them... It is the job of philosophy to get out of the way of mass movements and observe rather than getting behind them to give them force and appearance of reason, which they never possess... Heidegger, like all people was a political animal, and what what was suggested of Lincoln, that his ambition was a little engine that never quit, was true of Heidegger... To forgive him is to understand the currents in his life and times which even and especially among the educated was elitist, and anti democratic... The Weimar republic was a cul, and one the Western Powers helped to conceive... There was so much that might have been done differently especially by Wilson, but eventually by all, that could have helped the thing to work, or to make it better to begin with... Out of misery, frustration and ignorance grows more misery, frustration and ignorance... A crap pile is not suddenly going to sprout lillies... So, to give blame and credit where blame and credit is due, mea culpa...

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@Dasein,

Dasein wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

I think you go too far in criticizing what philosophy is supposed to accomplish.

Philosophy can't accomplish anything only individuals philosophizing (thinking/Be-ing) can.

Quote:
All humans are programmed from infancy by biology, language, culture, and the other environmental influences that makes up each individual.

Humans are not programmed. They are defined by the measurable world because that is what their proclivity is to do. You are the 'programmer', not the program. You can think your way through the measuarble, definable world and determine that 'it' can't define who you are.

Quote:
When people talk about philosophy, most define it as an attempt to seek truth and wisdom; nothing more, nothing less.

Philosophy is the container (concept) where what takes place between the beginning and end of philosophizing 'Truth' and 'wisdom' aren't in the container called philosophy. 'Truth' and 'wisdom' show up in Be-ing/philosophizing. When you discover that there is no 'truth' and 'wisdom' in 'philosophy' that's when you'll start philosophizing.

Quote:
How each individual learns from this experience is what matters.

There is no 'thing' for you to 'learn'. There is only uncovering the cover-up that you are which will give you 'truth' and 'wisdom'.

Quote:
Nobody will ever become "perfect."

Everbody is perfect, they just won't fit into your concept of "perfect". Disentagle your 'self' from just that one concept and you will change the world. No kidding!!!

I would not say that people are programed, like computers are programed, except as an analogy...

Since I have known a couple of humans from their births onward, I can say that they were born with personalities intact, and looking back from any point, they were always themselves, always differing from each other and their parents in specific detail... When you change a person's way of doing things or way of thinking of things, this is a task made much easier when it is clear you are not trying to change a person, that you are not attacking them with any hope of effecting change... If a person is intelligent, and you show them a better way they will pick it up and discard ineffective behavior... You have to do it with love, and I am often too reactive to hostility to do much good... The only thing I have found that actually changes behavior in a hurry is to help people to feel differently... Just as some appeal to the anger and frustration in people's lives to get them to act on it, others appeal to their nobility as humans, or their humanity, or their spiritual connectedness, or their love, or honor...If you can make a person move out of their most basic, their lowest instincts you have done them no good... You are a demagoge...Appeal to the best in people, their finest sense of self, the self they want to be, and you can accomplish great things...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;

You are accurate in what you are saying and it couldn't be said better.

Each person does have their own humanity, love, and honor. However, most people don't know that they are so entangled in the explanation of the world's and the they's concept of humanity, love, and honor that they don't have any room for themselves to 'be'.

The purpose of philosophizing is to de-construct the world and the they's concepts so that when you dismantle the concepts, you get to a place where you realize that the concepts really don't represent who you are and then you come face-to-face with the possibility of the impossibility of your existence. When you see through the concepts and realize you are not a thing and that nothing in the world can prove your existence, you laugh your ass off and stop looking for proof. This is the essence of human freedom. This is the answer to the question “Who Am I”.

Humanity, love, and honor come from who you are, it's not the other way around. They are not concepts you need to fit your 'self' into.

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@Dasein,

Don't have to go "that far" to know we don't exist. After one generation, nobody will ever know I existed.

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@cicerone imposter,

You do exist, otherwise you couldn't tap the keyboard. Just because who you are doesn't 'show up' as a measurable, difinable, substantial thing doesn't mean that who you are doesn't exist.

Yes, you're accurate, it doesn't matter if anybody remembers you, it only matters to you if you 'just survived' or if you 'lived'. Living is a hell of a lot better than surviving. 'You' are the only one that matters to you. You get to choose how you live your life. That's all there is.

I suggest you break out of (not that you haven't already) the confines of the world's and the they's 'definition' of who you are and do whatever it takes to uncover who you really are.

Live dangerously, my friend.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

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@Dasein,

You're talking about the present; do you understand the English language such as "after one generation?"

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@cicerone imposter,

"Yes, you're accurate, it doesn't matter if anybody remembers you, it only matters to you if you 'just survived' or if you 'lived'. Living is a hell of a lot better than surviving. 'You' are the only one that matters to you. You get to choose how you live your life. That's all there is."

It doesn't matter if its the 'present' or if its "after one generation" it still doesn't matter if anybody remembers you. A rose is still a rose whether its a seed or dropping its petals.

Again, 'You' are the only one that matters to you. You get to choose how you live your life. That's all there is.

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@Dasein,

I rather say, you get to be your life...your choice is your being...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Not always true because of biological or environment restrictions, but for most human animals, that's pretty true.

We hear often what one wishes they can do. Whether that is controlled by his/her biology (mental capacity), environment, or finances, everyone is not free to be "our" life.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Not always true because of biological or environment restrictions, but for most human animals, that's pretty true.

We hear often what one wishes they can do. Whether that is controlled by his/her biology (mental capacity), environment, or finances, everyone is not free to be "our" life.

We all get our own life and we pay for the experience with our lives whether we live five minutes, fifty or a hundred years; and the price never goes up... The only way it can mean more than that individual experience is to turn on to the organic experience of being a living creature, part of all life in a cosmos for all our knowledge free of life, or, be as a part of the organism of humanity...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque;

Here's a response to another post that I just made. It is an appropriate response to your post.

NAACP & fresco;

Actually, what Heidegger said was "Be-ing languages". I take that to mean that who you are Be-ing languages it's 'self' from it's existence into the world. Languaging comes before all concept creation, theorizing, and conjecture. 'You' show up long before speaking and thinking. What occurs before all speaking, thinking, concept creation, theorizing, and conjecture is Be-ing.

This is your authentic 'self'. 'You' show up long before the world , before talking about the world, and before representing your 'self' as a thing of the 'world'.

Authenticity is re-presenting your 'self' as what happens before the concept creation, the theorizing, and the conjecture. Inauthenticity is re-presenting your 'self' as a thing of the world.

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@Fido,

Fido, You're usually very succinct in your posts, but I'm afraid I missed the meaning of your last post in response to mine. You're one of the few on a2k that I respect, and wish to understand what your point was.

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

guigus wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

I didn't say that, but that's also a possibility. I haven't given it that much thought to say one way or another.

However, on some level it is about both, because you can't separate seeking knowledge from the self. All this activity happens with other people, but it may also mean we are trying to make somebody else understand a point of knowledge.

It is not philosophy that is nothing without other people, it is each one of us. And how we relate to others is central to our philosophy.

I was just on the point of agreeing with this, to an extent when I scroled down and found your other comment that showed you do not know as much as this comment make it appear...

Philosophy is a form that is all about forms, like art perhaps; and every form is a form of relationship.... Cast in the most simple terms, forms represent understanding and meaning, knowledge, which is then communicated or passed to the next generation, and this ability to take knowledge and add to by way of forms has allowed us to take over this place and to an extent, ensure our survival, it we would only universally rely upon it... Our spiritual beliefs which we take out of childhood and our common past endanger our survival in spite of the forms which make life possible... What meaning would our forms have, and what meaning would life have, or God, or any moral form if there were no people alive to receive them??? They are all about relationships, not only between ideas and objects, but between ourselves and each other...

Now; a lot of the problem with philosophy is in the communication of it.... It is easy for me to find it interesting because that is natural to me, to see beauty in simple things that others may miss... If, as I suspect, our salvation lies in philosophy there has to be some way to glamorize it, and make it sexy... That is, our approach to doing it should be the same as our approach to selling it, and that is, with creativity... And the reason I made the comparison to psychotherapy was a long discussion going back long before Freud about the relations of insight to reason in creativity that I read about in a good book on Freud I am reading called the mind of the moralist, by Philip Rieff... It is not uncommon for people with emotional problems to intellectualize them and in the process, not get at the root of them so much as sweep them under the carpet... From my understanding of the subject it was essential to get patients to let go of their judgements and get a hold of their feelings through free associations and dream relations and for the analyst to do the same, and for both to feel their way through the problem creatively...

You must be aware, to do this stuff -how little a part reason plays in our lives... We shine a bright light on reason, and use unreasonableness as an insult, but behind all our careful plans is a mad house of emotional drives.... I am not arguing against reason, but as a moralist I recognize its limits at the front end, and don't expect much good out of its back side...

Are you familiar with the psychoanalytic term "projection"? Reason plays indeed a very little role in your thought, which does not mean it plays a little role in everybody's life. Thinking is harder than you...

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@Fido,

Fido wrote:

guigus wrote:

Fido wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

I didn't say that, but that's also a possibility. I haven't given it that much thought to say one way or another.

However, on some level it is about both, because you can't separate seeking knowledge from the self. All this activity happens with other people, but it may also mean we are trying to make somebody else understand a point of knowledge.

As with all things on this earth, philosophy is a form, and every form is a form of relationship; and yet, what makes philosophers and philosophy are people who have failed at all normal, or perhaps, more common sorts of forms of relationships..

Speak for yourself.

I am speaking for myself, and speaking of us, people, humanity... If I were speaking of you, I would say: If your relationships are so good what are you doing on the computer at 4 in the morning...

Have you ever heard about timezones? So now you are speaking for me? Did you realize you are doing this without my authorization? Oh, I see: this is for my own good, right? Don't you think you are being a bit authoritarian?

Fido wrote:

Quote:
Fido wrote:
People are driven into an excess of intellectual activity by the inability to relate because relationships happen at the emotional level...

Wasn't you to say that philosophy is not psychotherapy?
No... I said it was like psychotherapy....

You memory is failing you:

http://able2know.org/topic/153710-35#post-4410873

Fido wrote:

Quote:
Fido wrote:
It is a narrow field, and there is not much company, and the greats are more often dead than alive...

This is because the philosophy you have chosen to "relate to" is dead.
Maybe... We stand on the dead to reach heaven.... I think I have added to what I have found; but I will never say: I did it alone...

I wasn't talking about dead people: I was talking about a dead philosophy.

Fido wrote:

Quote:
Fido wrote:
I don't think of so many spooks as good company but it beats being alone...I want to take one single truth from philosophy that no one actually needs philosophy to know, and it is how to relate, how to love and trust...Yet, if philosophy held that truth, philsophers would be relating rather than philosophizing because there is the single place where happiness can be found..

This is not philosophy: this is escapism. Or even worse: an escapist philosophy.

First of all, I am more of a moralist than a philosopher, and as such I cannot divorce philosophy from human good... I start with humanity and end with humanity and only in between can I escape into the cold, clean world of reason... At some point we should all do the same thing no matter what our activity, and ask: WHO does this help???

You are indeed more of a moralist than a philosopher. And beware: you are changing cold reason for warm insanity.

What about warm reason?

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@Dasein,

Dasein wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

I think you go too far in criticizing what philosophy is supposed to accomplish.

Philosophy can't accomplish anything only individuals philosophizing (thinking/Be-ing) can.

Quote:
All humans are programmed from infancy by biology, language, culture, and the other environmental influences that makes up each individual.

Humans are not programmed. They are defined by the measurable world because that is what their proclivity is to do. You are the 'programmer', not the program. You can think your way through the measuarble, definable world and determine that 'it' can't define who you are.

Quote:
When people talk about philosophy, most define it as an attempt to seek truth and wisdom; nothing more, nothing less.

Philosophy is the container (concept) where what takes place between the beginning and end of philosophizing 'Truth' and 'wisdom' aren't in the container called philosophy. 'Truth' and 'wisdom' show up in Be-ing/philosophizing. When you discover that there is no 'truth' and 'wisdom' in 'philosophy' that's when you'll start philosophizing.

Quote:
How each individual learns from this experience is what matters.

There is no 'thing' for you to 'learn'. There is only uncovering the cover-up that you are which will give you 'truth' and 'wisdom'.

Quote:
Nobody will ever become "perfect."

Everbody is perfect, they just won't fit into your concept of "perfect". Disentagle your 'self' from just that one concept and you will change the world. No kidding!!!

Do you think Hitler was perfect?

Anyway, he changed the world, I give you that. Perhaps because he succeeded in disentangling himself from "perfection" -- not without also disentangling millions of people from their lives (unfortunately, changing the world is not always a good thing, despite making you feel important -- no kidding).

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@guigus,

guigus, Good response!

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@guigus,

Your comment "Do you think Hitler was perfect?" is not 'on point' to the conversation we were having and a distraction away from what you and I know we were talking about.

Your second paragraph is an acknowledgement of your faux pas and a scurrying around to cover up your not staying on point.

Not a very interesting strategy.

1 Reply

@Dasein,

It certainly is on point; and it also responds perfectly to your idea of it.

You wrote:

Quote:

Everbody is perfect, they just won't fit into your concept of "perfect". Disentagle your 'self' from just that one concept and you will change the world. No kidding!!!

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@cicerone imposter,

No, its not!

You're supposed to say "Yes, it is!

Then I say "No, its not!, ad infinitum. - LOL

2 Replies

Are Philosophers lost in the clouds?

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