what is the beggining of philosophy?

Fido, Isn't that supposed to be all hat and no cattle? LOL
But, I did enjoy your

I just read a history of the Weimar Republic and Germany... I think the way Von Papan was discribed by his fellow officers for his habit of losing important papers while on diplomatic assignment, like the zimmerman telegram and others was as a hat without a head... I thought that was pretty good, and I think they hung him pretty well after the war...

You haven't participated in any political threads.

May I suggest you read my latest post, "A Message to Michael". It should give you an idea of what philosophy is and what it isn't. Go to: http://able2know.org/topic/163653-1

My take on the question is to say that because i take philosophy to have as its goal "understanding the world" , that any rudimentary thinking about the world by earliest homo sapiens was philosophical thinking, and I have no problem with applying the terminology to bacteria and viruses .
I guess a more common answer would be that philosophy arises as the thinker begins to distinguish him/herself from the observed world, and starts asking questions about subject/object.
If "suffering is the sole origin of consciousness" -Dostotoevsky- one could also say that is when subject/object issues become of critical importance and philosophy is most apt to occur when there are dislocations in society and hence in individuals.

Philosophizing is not about understanding the world!!!! Philosophizing is about you uncovering you so you can disentangle your 'self' from the world. It has absolutely nothing to do with terminology!

Is n't the "yourself" you are refering a "world" in itself?

Philosophy begins with ones self, and once you have mastered yourself, then you can philosophise on the world outside of yourself. If you philosophise on the world before you have yourself "disentangled", your philosophy will be distorted.

If we look at how many have made a name for themselves in Philosophy it is hard to argue that the self does not play a part in philosophy... But that is only to argue that people are not always doing philosophy, and were not always doing philosophy long before the word for the activity came into being, and this, I cannot accept... If you read about the way Native Americans tolerated being cut up and burned by the inch after capture, then you would recognize that they were stoics, just as they were often described...And understanding that to whine like babies was to invite attack on their people as weak, when to show themselves strong and enduring also showed their people strong and enduring showed they were very moral even without the study of Ethics... And yet primities were never individuals in any true meaning of the word, since they formed their identity from their group and would each describe themselves as one of their group... It may be impossible for a group to reach a sense of truth, and to hold knowledge; but I rate the chances better to find a measure of truth in that fashion than as an individual... In fact; what we would know without the effort of humanity and society before us that we receive with culture would leave us all as children...

It is society that gives us the means to think of ourselves as individuals even though, if individual existence were possible it would deny us all knowledge...

I think individualism, and the sense of self are the greatest impediment to knowledge, and never lead to philosophy except by accident... I am an individual; but I consider it more a symptom of mental illness than an asset... Only when we can see knowledge as it is: received from society through culture, and returned to society through culture- can we put knowledge and self in perspective... What do you think

You said exactly the same thing I said with a very small shift in angle.

You can't master your 'self'. You can only 'disentangle' your 'self' from the world. Disentangling your 'self' from the world causes you to open up a clearing for 'you' to show up in (Be in). As you disentangle your 'self' from the world you begin to see the world for what it is. You discover that you live in the world and along side others, yet you and the others are not part of the world you live in. You realize that you have always had a choice about how you are going to show up in the world and how you are Be-ing may not be who you are. Eventually, you uncover more reasons to define you than reasons for having the world define you and you make the leap into Be-ing. This is what disentanglement looks like.

Until you uncover Be-ing you feel for the walls of the corridor you've created to make sure you're still on the 'right' path and you periodically 'check in' with the others on the 'path' to make sure that they are still there too because without them you wouldn't be able use their agreement and disagreement as a rudder to direct your 'quest'.

Once you reach the 'clearing' you realize that there never was any clearing to reach, that there never was any corridor, walls to feel for, path to walk on, or anything to 'master'. You realize that you have been your 'self' all along and that you have been distracting your 'self' from Be-ing by using the world to define you and comparing notes with others who are doing the same thing.

The 'turd' is using the world and the 'they' to define you, the only 'thing' to 'master' is not picking it up.

You can be who you are in a world of machines,
but you can't be a machine and know who you are. ~ William Bales

I agree with just about everything you said. Read my response to Smileyrius.

However, individuals who are considered to be a 'part of society' made the contributions to knowledge. Society just took credit for it.

Galileo, Thomas Aquinas, John Browning, Socrates, Alexander Graham Bell, Martin Heidegger, Henry Ford, Louis Pasteur, Madame Curie, all individuals.

Society continues to take credit for individual accomplishment because society exists for itself and individual accomplishment is contrary to the purpose of society. The purpose of society/culture is to 'level down' the individual to 'getting along' with every member of society by making rules and enforcing them.

Look at this forum as an example. This forum is a snapshot of the world. Most posts are knee-jerk reactions. They are nothing more than opinions about opinions. The purpose of the opinion is to first and foremost exercise the right to freedom of speech. Secondly, it's society's way of controlling it's members by agreeing or disagreeing with them.

School teaching methodology dictates that teachers 'talk down' to the 'brighter' students so that they don't leave the 'not-so-bright' behind.

Business management is instructed to 'talk down' to everybody that they employ because (1) there might be 'stupid' people working for them and you don't want to leave them behind, offend them, or call them stupid (lawsuits). (2) Talking down to employees keeps the brighter ones in place, elevates the employer's status and justifies income disparity. That structure is enforced by the threat to your survival (losing your job).

Society's purpose is to keep it's members stupid and punish individuals for going their own way. If by chance the 'rebels' create something of value, then it's society's function to take credit for the accomplishment (industrial revolution, the renaissance, etc.)

Albert Einstein was ridiculed by his teachers, chastised by fellow students, and dropped out of school. Look who he turned out to be.

Be-ing an individual is not a mental illness, society is.

Dasein, You are absolutely correct! Anything that individuals do is "normal" to homo sapiens. Society are the ones that attach negativity to human actions, but even then, they are all conflicted. How does one reconcile the idea that cultures can go to war and kill innocent people, while a "civilian" who kills within any society is a murder.

Humans create war machines that kills thousands of people; it's a natural consequence of being "human."

War is not a consequence of being "human". War is about the acquisition or preservation of territory, whether mental, physical, economical, spiritual, etc. All wars are about resources and the ones who fund the wars are the ones who end up with the resources.

Identifying your 'self' with some territory (wife, kids, job, country, religion, or da Bears!) requires you to defend that territory or acquire more territory, etc. It leaves you open to manipulation and domination.

I don't know that identifying your 'self' with some territory is behavior that is in your best interest.

It's the same thing. You fail to understand the subject called homo sapiens. Many animals are also territorial, but they don't have the capacity to create a-bombs.

Just because your perception of what I understand is not consistent with your understanding doesn't give you permission to say that I "fail to understand". You don't know anything about what I "fail to understand". Who annointed you pope, a-hole?

Humans are not territorial. They just choose to express Be-ing that way.

Just my personal observation; don't take it to heart. There will be people who agree and disagree with both of us.

...of course humans are territorial...just look at this forum.

Anybody who understands human history (and life sciences) understands this simple concept on territory.

It must be our lowly origin, "We are animals.

Humans are not territorial monkeys with rational minds.

A conclusion is that place where humans Be-ing refuse to think anymore, hence the root word conclude.

Your observations always support your conclusions.

Your 'conclusion' of thinking is wrong. Who you are is the Be-ing that hangs out around the monkey you were born into. You are not the monkey. Wake up and stop defending your half- thought conclusions or live your life as a territorial monkey. I frankly don't care what you do. You're the one doing it to you.