Philosophy is Dead

To say that philosophy is dead is a philosophical, not a scientific, proposition. Indeed, it is no more scientific than was Nietzsche's assertion that God is Dead a theological one.

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@JLNobody,

How about, god is a creation of man?

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@cicerone imposter,

All mental constructions (ideas, ideals, values, ideologies, theories, etc. etc.) are human creations

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@JLNobody,

I know that! Drunk

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

All mental constructions (ideas, ideals, values, ideologies, theories, etc. etc.) are human creations

They are all sort of metaphores, and all metaphores used to understand reality require the reality which can hardly be called a human creation... Ideas or forms must have a relationship to some part of reality or they are simply with out point or purpose...Even before humans had the wheel they had their ideas and when they moved their ideas were carried with them out of necessity... No one carried pointless and purposeless ideas... No one had the time or space for them...People carried ideas forward because they were found to work and were necessary...

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@Fido,

Not true; all one needs to do is follow human history to see that humans follow whatever is in vogue at the time. Humans kill with abandon, and that will continue into the foreseeable future. If necessity is the direction, we're going the wrong way.

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@Fido,

But the idea machine is itself a crucial part of the reality and it's perceptive and interpretive capacities, particularly, in relation to what is experienced. Within a tribe there is a certain consistency to what is experienced with important differences relating to sex, age and status which are possibly more important to the individual idea machines than differences with other tribes.

So that aspect of reality which is the idea machine itself varies a great deal. The canoe rowing crew might be similar to each other and so also the ladies waiting for them to bring the next meal but the two groups are profoundly different. As idea machines. One sweats taking risks the other calculates.

And all idea machines are part of the reality as well.

Whether ideas have a point or purpose is dependent on understanding the ideas of others. If we don't understand the ideas of other idea machines we cannot say they have no point or purpose. And we never fully can. We can only improve our capacity to understand others at every level from the individual to the nation.

It's the main reason I go to the pub. I can drink beer at home at half price.

And then there are ideas about a reality that might be. Were ideas to be based only on the outside reality staying the same there would never be any of those ideas.

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@spendius,

You wrote,

Quote:

It's the main reason I go to the pub. I can drink beer at home at half price.

You are a capitalist after all! LOL Mr. Green

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@Fido,

We do live in a partially metaphorical reality. But we also live in a world that we may not yet be aware of it--and much of it has consequences for us that we are not dealing with, metaphorically or not. Various ideas do, it seems, compete with others--as if there were a kind of natural selection of constructions going on in an "evolutionary" framework. Nevertheless, we do not seem to come to grips with physical reality until we conceptualize it--metaphorically. That's culture. Sometimes what we see now, or from the perspective of our different culture, stupid ideas surviving in other cultures because, while they may have no survival value, they do not threaten the survival of their bearers. It's a complex matter.

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@JLNobody,

That's an understatement.

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@Fido,

Quote:

No one carried pointless and purposeless ideas

Man can shape ideas, but it's often a case of idea shapes man. Perhaps pointless and purposeless ideas aren't carried on through the generations, but experience speaks to the contrary.

I once heard a story about a housewife who used to carve a piece of the sunday steak before she cooked it in the oven. The carved off piece she would cook separately afterward. She taught this to her daughter, but the daughter asked why she carved off one piece. The mother didn't know, so the daughter asked her grandmother.
The grandmother told her that it was something her mother had taught her to do, so the daughter talked to her great grandmother. She told her that the oven she'd used to cook for the family was too small for the steak, so she had to carve off a piece to fit it into the oven, and then cook the carved off piece later.
There was no need for later generations to do this, since they had big enough ovens, but the practice survived for several generations, simply because it was passed on.

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@Cyracuz,

So true with so many habits we pick up from our parents and siblings without knowing why we do things. We don't question them, because we believe our parents know what is the correct way to do things. That's one of the reasons why culture and religion is followed for many generations without it being questioned.

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@cicerone imposter,

I think I could provide a plausible reason for everything I do without any reference to my parents or siblings.

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@cicerone imposter,

I would add that unexamined 'habits' is more prevalent in the 'mainstream' culture. Is it any wonder why big news corporations are selective in the way the news is presented for example?

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

I think I could provide a plausible reason for everything I do without any reference to my parents or siblings.

Plausible??? You give yourself away, first as some one who is self conscious; but also ignorant of the reasons behind his reasons... Why do people wear wedding bands??? The Romans believed there was a nerve in the ring finger that led directly to the heart... I have another reason... I don't want anyone thinking I'm a 58 year old virgin with thinning hair and coffee breath...And to be honest, and who would expect any less, and so why say: Frankly, or Honestly before giving ones version of events; so without such predicate, obviously, people do what is done by people without much thought to it, so that what is thought moral is only thought moral because it is traditional... Since I always have a plan it is safe to assume I have a reason, but the first is a lie an the other is nonsense... We are creatures of habit and of custom; and our goals may reveal our character, but they do not excuse our corruption, and prevarication...

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

So true with so many habits we pick up from our parents and siblings without knowing why we do things. We don't question them, because we believe our parents know what is the correct way to do things. That's one of the reasons why culture and religion is followed for many generations without it being questioned.

What is worse, is that so often we ape the behavior of the wealthy or learned having no sense what ever of why we do so... The definitions of ethics in Custom or Character explains quite well why we act as those like us act, but in the sense that naive, as a word, comes from native, we imitate fashion to seem fashionable, and though we consider ourselves individuals will not do the least individual actions for fear of standing out... If you see children acting and dressing unusually, and you should inquire after reasons, you would find both the excuse and the reason... The are making a badge of the fact that they do not feel they fit in, and cannot be popular... What seems to them vicious, they turn into the virtue of individualism... They feel different, and they put a plausible spin on it, of wanting to be different...

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@Fido,

I don't wear any rings anywhere Fido. Think of something I might do that I can't give a reason, a good one, for doing.

I have a beard because I can't see a reason for not having. I trim it occasionally because it grows to spoil beer drinking and soup slurping. I wear trousers narrow enough to reduce wind resistance and wide enough to get my feet through easily. I don't use soap because it is a nasty chemical which can be absorbed through the skin.

Suppose the absence of corruption was the most corrupt of all states. Which is real nonsense because such a state would be awash with corruption but nobody would know.

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@Cyracuz,

Cyracuz wrote:

Quote:
No one carried pointless and purposeless ideas

Man can shape ideas, but it's often a case of idea shapes man. Perhaps pointless and purposeless ideas aren't carried on through the generations, but experience speaks to the contrary.

I once heard a story about a housewife who used to carve a piece of the sunday steak before she cooked it in the oven. The carved off piece she would cook separately afterward. She taught this to her daughter, but the daughter asked why she carved off one piece. The mother didn't know, so the daughter asked her grandmother.
The grandmother told her that it was something her mother had taught her to do, so the daughter talked to her great grandmother. She told her that the oven she'd used to cook for the family was too small for the steak, so she had to carve off a piece to fit it into the oven, and then cook the carved off piece later.
There was no need for later generations to do this, since they had big enough ovens, but the practice survived for several generations, simply because it was passed on.

every idea is a. Metaphore of reality, and we use the to shape reality... the idea of the cave helped shape the dungeon but what would the dungeon have been if the idea of the cave was not a correct metaphore?

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We had an amazing debate on precisely this subject at our last philosophy and music festival - HowTheLightGetsIn. The theme of the debate was 'The End of Ideas'. You can watch the debate here: http://bit.ly/wJc6uA

In my opinion, the disenchanted observation that philosophy is dead and that we are not producing new ways of aprehending the world is a cyclic, recurrent and ubiquitous phenomenon - I wonder whether it became more intense in post modern times and to what extent this has to do with the impossibility of thinking a present in an era of accelerated temporality...

1 Reply

@emilybaker,

emilybaker wrote:

We had an amazing debate on precisely this subject at our last philosophy and music festival - HowTheLightGetsIn. The theme of the debate was 'The End of Ideas'. You can watch the debate here: http://bit.ly/wJc6uA

In my opinion, the disenchanted observation that philosophy is dead and that we are not producing new ways of aprehending the world is a cyclic, recurrent and ubiquitous phenomenon - I wonder whether it became more intense in post modern times and to what extent this has to do with the impossibility of thinking a present in an era of accelerated temporality...

Our ways of aprehending the world corresponds to our senses, and all scientific instraments are only exstentions of our physical senses... Our world is not the problem... We have figured out, and pretty well mastered the world... The problem with the world is the problem of people, and this is to say: our problems are ethical problems, and solutions nearly impossible to arrive at or implement because of our moral forms, and the fact that unlike forms of the physical world, are infinites and impossible to define... For example: We have infinite examples of justice and no way to define justice fairly in regard to all the possible situations where the need to have a definition may arise... So; what is the point of talking about it??? We should talk about it because the more we do so, the more we can arrive at an ad hoc, quasi definition with which to begin any discussion of the issue, and can accept, that ultimately we are with our lives in the process of defining justice in a -good enough- fashion to support our continued existence... Everybody in any dispute decides for themselves what is just, and what they can live with, and this is true of all moral forms, like Liberty, or God, or Love, or Good...

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Philosophy is Dead

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