Are Philosophers lost in the clouds?

Quote:

To some, philosophy is too esoteric to be useful. To others, it’s the basis of a good drinking party.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/lost-in-the-clouds/?hp

Two interesting opinions at the link above. My own opinion is that almost all modern Philosophy is useless, because it does not address the human condition. It is kinda like the sport of rhythmic gymnastics, to some interesting to watch for a few minutes every four years at the Olympics, otherwise it never has cause to cross our minds. The problem is not hopeless, but to solve it we need a new vision of what Philosophy is, and a whole boat load of new people to do it.

Opinions?

philosophy is a wonderful thing. It is analytic structure that is very beautiful.

It is wrong to demand this analytic structure to give you hope, or make you less sad, or help you pay the rent. It is your job to learn about yourself. It is your job to make the most of your life. It is not for 'philosophy' to help you, or guide you.

Of course, the deeper problem may be that you are just not interested in philosophy, but only in what you think to be philosophy. And that is still another problem.

There are three levels in research. The immediate, intermediate and ultimate. The immediate in technolgy would be the technicians in car repairs. The intermediate would be engineers who design vehicles and the ultimate in technolgy would be the scientists who formulate the equations. In philosophy the immediate would be journalists, lawyers and politicians who use philosophy for the operations of the state. The intermediate (natural) philosophers would be scientists and the ultimate would be the true philosophers. I feel many are engaging in the ultimate philosophy while their talents are elsewhere. They seem to be spinning their wheels.

I agree with you about the constitution. We think it's the greatest, but obviously it is imperfect. The fact that we can understand that it is imperfect, even if we can't create a perfect constitution, means that we can evaluate such thing that is a constitution.

I'd suggest evaluating it by its own stated goals. I think we do this without being told, and I think that's why we can find near consensus that it is not perfect.

A
R
T

I think philosophy deals with very general and very hard questions, and that through out the ages, the "easier" questions have branched off into specific sciences---which then percolates to engineering/medical applications that we call "useful". And what remain are still harder conundrums that we have not yet found a way, or a "science" to branch off to.
Talking about "usefulness": how useful, with respect to current day issues, can the study of string theory, or the study of black holes be to current day human sufferings? Therefore, there are many "useless" scientific pursuits also.
My take is this: philosophy deals with extremely hard problems...some are even so muddled and confused...but it doesn't mean it's "useless." We just have not found a way to clarify or solve philosophical issues yet.

Quote:

To some, philosophy is too esoteric to be useful. To others, it’s the basis of a good drinking party.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/lost-in-the-clouds/?hp

Two interesting opinions at the link above. My own opinion is that almost all modern Philosophy is useless, because it does not address the human condition. It is kinda like the sport of rhythmic gymnastics, to some interesting to watch for a few minutes every four years at the Olympics, otherwise it never has cause to cross our minds. The problem is not hopeless, but to solve it we need a new vision of what Philosophy is, and a whole boat load of new people to do it.

Opinions?

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:

To some, philosophy is too esoteric to be useful. To others, it’s the basis of a good drinking party.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/lost-in-the-clouds/?hp

Two interesting opinions at the link above. My own opinion is that almost all modern Philosophy is useless, because it does not address the human condition. It is kinda like the sport of rhythmic gymnastics, to some interesting to watch for a few minutes every four years at the Olympics, otherwise it never has cause to cross our minds. The problem is not hopeless, but to solve it we need a new vision of what Philosophy is, and a whole boat load of new people to do it.

Opinions?

It is amazing that the text you refer to begins talking about symbolic logic. I started a post in this forum regarding a reasoning of mine that begins with the assertion that "every truth must be true." There were two kinds of reaction to this: one telling me that my statement was a tautology; the other telling me it was false for being an instance of the "modal fallacy." This is the legacy of symbolic logic: taking whatever is true for truth itself. The new philosophy we need reads "truth" as "truthness." Traditional philosophy reads "truth" as "true things." When we read "truth" as if it were in the world, waiting for us to find it, we are locked into natural necessity. When we read "truth" as the truth itself of whatever is true, then we free ourselves by means of a necessity that is rather the need that a true statement, or true idea, or true memory, or whatever "truth" has of a state of affairs out there in the world to make it a truth. For the new philosophy we need, necessity itself is a relation, instead of a property. This is the only way to address the "human condition," since it resides precisely in the true statement side of the correspondence between a statement and a state of affairs.

I think someone should tell you that symbolic logic is merely an extension and elaboration of classical logic. It is not different from classical logic except for that, and it incorporates classical logic. You seem to believe that classical logic and symbolic logic are in conflict. But the truth is that symbolic logic is classical logic put more precisely, and further extended and elaborated on. There is no conflict. And everything that can be said in classical logic can also be said in symbolic logic, only more precisely. I thought you ought to know.

kennethamy wrote:

I think someone should tell you that symbolic logic is merely an extension and elaboration of classical logic. It is not different from classical logic except for that, and it incorporates classical logic. You seem to believe that classical logic and symbolic logic are in conflict. But the truth is that symbolic logic is classical logic put more precisely, and further extended and elaborated on. There is no conflict. And everything that can be said in classical logic can also be said in symbolic logic, only more precisely. I thought you ought to know.

From what I understand, different "forms" of logic are differnet in three areas: Syntax, Semantics, and Deductive Theory. Thus, Categorical Logic, Propositional Logic, and Predicate logic all differ in those areas. These differences might translate to different applications and conclusions that are drawn between the three forms of logic that I mentioned, but I'm not sure on that one.

I don't know that much about symbolic logic, but my guess is that it has a different Syntax, Semantics, and Deductive Theory than classical logic and, thus, differs from classical logic in it's applications and conclusions.

Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that symbolic logic is not an extension of classical logic, but I think it does show that it is more than just an extension. However, because symbolic logic has a more precise syntax, semantics, and deductive theory than classical logic, I do think it means that symobolic logic can "say" (or rather desribe) more than classical logic. Describing more precisly is definitely describing differently and can lead to different conclusions.

(Disclaimer: I am in no way knowledgable about logic theory, so if I said something incorrect, I apologize. Thanks)

Describing precisely the same thing is not describing differently. An illustration is Arabic numbers versus Roman numbers. Roman numbering is unwieldy, and trying to multiply using Roman numerals is a nightmare. It can be done, but multiplication with Arabic numbers which are much more precise is far easier...

It is like the difference between trying to do mathematics in plain English, and doing mathematics in the language of numbers...

kennethamy wrote:

Describing precisely the same thing is not describing differently. An illustration is Arabic numbers versus Roman numbers. Roman numbering is unwieldy, and trying to multiply using Roman numerals is a nightmare. It can be done, but multiplication with Arabic numbers which are much more precise is far easier...

It is like the difference between trying to do mathematics in plain English, and doing mathematics in the language of numbers...

It seems to me that the two exmples above are not examples of describing the same thing more precisely. More precise, with regard to logic, seems to me to mean that there are more facts that are incorporated into the logical reasoning. For exmaple, I have the proposition "If The dog with the red hair looks at you, then it will bite you". Propositional logic can deal with "dog" and "bite" while Predicate logic can deal with "dog with red hair" and "bite you". The fact that Predicate logic can handle more detailed propositions means that different conclusions can be drawn from it. (I think?) This would then seem to translate to different conclusions being drawn from classical logic to modern logic.

I know it is just an analogy, but in the example of doing math in English or in Mathematical Language, the syntax is different while the semantics and deductive theory stay the same. Whereas with the different forms of logic, the syntax as well as the semantics and deductive theory change. (I think this criticism holds for the Arabic numbers/Roman Numerals example, also).

We can draw further conclusions from predicate logic because predicate logic goes further into detail. (But Aristotelian logic is just an elemantary version of predicate logic). But it is not that we can draw different conclusions from predicate logic, only further conclusions. There is a difference.

kennethamy wrote:

We can draw further conclusions from predicate logic because predicate logic goes further into detail. (But Aristotelian logic is just an elemantary version of predicate logic). But it is not that we can draw different conclusions from predicate logic, only further conclusions. There is a difference.

What is the difference?

de Silentio wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

We can draw further conclusions from predicate logic because predicate logic goes further into detail. (But Aristotelian logic is just an elemantary version of predicate logic). But it is not that we can draw different conclusions from predicate logic, only further conclusions. There is a difference.

What is the difference?

We can draw the same conclusions from predicate logic as we can from classical logic. And, in addition, we can draw further conclusions.

kennethamy wrote:

de Silentio wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

We can draw further conclusions from predicate logic because predicate logic goes further into detail. (But Aristotelian logic is just an elemantary version of predicate logic). But it is not that we can draw different conclusions from predicate logic, only further conclusions. There is a difference.

What is the difference?

We can draw the same conclusions from predicate logic as we can from classical logic. And, in addition, we can draw further conclusions.

I meant what is the difference between "further conclusions" and "different conclusions". It seems to me that when there is further information in the conclusion, the conclusion is different.

For example, the conclusions: (C1) "The dog is going to bite" and (C2) "The dog with red hair is going to bite" seem like different conclusions to me, even though (C2) merely has further information. ( (C1) would represent Propositional Logic while (C2) would represent Predicate Logic)