Who destroyed philosophy?

No I would not, but I have consciously separated myself from the mainstream, though. I didn't know that this was what I was doing when I set out, but that is what happened. Remember the 60's? I was part of the 'counter-culture'. We felt that Western thinking generally had become too materialistic, too driven by science, and had lost all sense of the human relationship to nature. That is why we got interested in Eastern philosophy. Now I have mentioned this before, but you generally seem to have a very negative, or possibly stereotyped, view of Eastern philosophy. But Eastern philosophy is created around the teaching, or the state, of spiritual enlightenment, which I don't think is comprehended or represented in current Western philosophy. (I always get a lot of criticism for saying this.)

I am making an effort to understand current Western philosophy - in fact, speaking of Brian Greene, I am labouring through 'Fabric of the Cosmos' even as we speak. But I still stand by many of my criticisms. Also I think that some Eastern perspectives are becoming part of the mainstream now, mainly by way of the developments in Physics and Philosophy that we have discussed many times previously. I can say without fear of contradiction that quantum theory discredits the perspective of naive realism, or absolute objectivity, or the idea of a mind-independent reality (however you want to put it). This is a very difficult thing for Western philosophy to accept. (Remember the argument about whether the Moon exists if nobody is looking at it? I have learned that Einstein - Einstein! - said exactly the same. In fact I think Western philosophy, in the broadest sense, is literally in a state of crisis at this time.)

'Philosophical knowledge' is no longer something that I believe can be held at arm's length. It can't be formulated and summarized and written down in a series of verbal propositions. Hence my interest in Buddhism, which is not concerned with verbal formulae but with 'realization'. Traditional philosophy had something in common with this, even if the terminology was different: it was a spiritual disicpline and a way of life, aimed at emancipation from the thousands of trivial concerns of worldlings.

Anyway I know all these are very big statements. I really don't want to force them on anyone. This is just my understanding of the matter. Others will have a different view.

Oh well, having recovered my composure from the body blow of your harsh criticism, my argument is with the condition of being modern, with modernity itself. Modern philosophy, so called, is a symptom of that lamentable condition, not a way of ameliorating it. The many crises of modernity aren't just showing up in the philosophy department, but also in environmental and economic stresses which may yet turn into catastrophes. Although you will probably consider that out-of-scope.

While we are at it, and as you never have any compunction in handing out condemnatory judgements, my judgement of you is that philosophy is to you as a carapace is to a turtle. You withdraw inside it, and feel very secure from the harsh world of uncertainty and perplexing views which appear to bump up against your very circumscribed view of the world from time to time. This kind of thinking is the reason I abandoned philosophy for more fruitful fields of study. But never mind, I am sure we will find some areas of concourse in the future. I have no wish to persuade you of anything, but there might be some who find my perspective useful

You are interested in humanistic studies coupled with religion and a touch of the occult. Fine. Philosophy is not that. It has never been that. If you think it should be that, and you are disappointed that it isn't that, whose fault is that? Philosophy's? Be reasonable.

kennethamy wrote:

You are interested in humanistic studies coupled with religion and a touch of the occult. Fine. Philosophy is not that. It has never been that. If you think it should be that, and you are disappointed that it isn't that, whose fault is that? Philosophy's? Be reasonable.

You may not be correct here Ken.

Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522)
He was a German humanist, political councelor to the chancellor, a classics scholar and an expert in ancient languages and traditions (Latin, Greek and Hebrew) was affiliated with the heads of Platonic Arcademia (Della, Mirandola and others.

Wrote.
My teacher Pythagoras, who is the father of philosophy, did nevertheless not receive those teachings from the Greeks, but rather he received them from the Jews. Therefore he must be called Kabbalist and he himself was the first to convert the name Kabbala, unknown to the Greeks, in the Greek name philosophy.

Pythagoras' philosophy eminated from the infinate sea of Kabbalah.

This is the Kabbalah that does not let us spend our lives on the ground, but rather raises our intellect to the highest goal of understanding.
Reuchlin, De Arte Cabbalistica

Aha! I have found a kindred spirit. Thankyou Abya.

Also, reading Kennethamy's statement again, 'philosophy has never been that', I completely disagree. And also I have never mentioned the word 'occult' and am not interested in anything of an occult nature.

Plato, Pythagoras and Plotinus were all mystics and religious visionaries. The fact that modern materialism has eviscerated the spiritual meaning from the Western tradition doesn't mean it isn't there. This is why you get involved in these interminable conversations that never, ever finish, about truth, knoweldge, certainty, and the capital of Ecuador. It is just talking about talking. Nothing that I say will ever change that idea, because it is what you think the subject is. Which is why I agree that philosophy, in the original sense of the term, has been destroyed, and replaced with word games. Philosophy is meant to transform your reality, not turn you into a broken record. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

I haven't any idea what you are saying

Schleiermacher and Hegel [both] thought that Kant had missed something important—namely, that the self which experiences the world is also a part of the world it is experiencing. Rather than there being this sharp divide between the experiencing subject and things-in-themselves, with phenomena emerging at the point of interface, the experiencing subject is a thing-in-itself. It is one of the noumena—or, put another way, the self that experiences the world is part of the ultimate reality that lies behind experience.

So: the self that has experiences is a noumenal reality. Both Schleiermacher and Hegel believed that this fact could be made use of, so that somehow the self could serve as a wedge to pry open a doorway through the wall of mystery, into an understanding of reality as it is in itself.

But this understanding couldn’t be achieved by simply turning our attention on ourselves. As soon as we do that we’ve made ourselves into an object of experience, and this object is just as likely to be the product of our own cognitive reconstructions as any other object. In other words, what we are presented with when we investigate ourselves introspectively is the phenomenal self, not the noumenal self. The self as it appears to itself may be radically unlike the self as it is in itself.

Through it I can now speak to you over the internet, but at what cost?