Standard definition for Philosophy

Philosophy is the art of quoting from, or referring to, famous philosophers from the past, in order to hide the fact that nine times out of ten you don't even understand the original question, let alone the ensung answers, most of which having been supplied by people who quote from, or refer you on to, a famous philosopher from the past.

Philosophy is a perception of yourself, the world around you, and everything inbetween, put into words.

[url]en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy[/url]

In the Anglophone world, it's fancied that the proper goal of philosophy has finally been established: (1) The analysis of the structure of thought; (2) That the study of thought is to be distinct from psychological research and theories about thinking; (3) That the method for analysing thought consists in the analysis of language. This idealization apparently oblivious to analytic philosophy in current times having "deteriorated" into a post-linguistic era of eclecticism / pluralism, where the former has less unifying emphasis.

What's transpiring in common forums on the web would better fall under: (1) Discussions about the "history of philosophy"; (2) Feeding current socio-political circumstances into the meat-grinder of existing frameworks, theories, doctrines; (3) Students refining or seeking input on their required projects; (4) Folk philosophy, mysticism, and crackpot concoctions being paraded (as tenured professors and free-lance authors are hardly submitting their "new ideas"[facetiousness?] in such arenas).

Immanuel Kant: Philosophy is not some sort of science of representations, concepts, and ideas, or a science of all sciences, or anything else of this sort; rather, it is a science of the human being, of its representing, thinking, and acting - it should present the human being in all of its components, as it is and ought to be, that is, in accordance with its natural determinations as well as its relationship of morality and freedom. --The Conflict of the Faculties, 1798

Truth.

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more accurately, I believe Plato described it as the love of truth

Then I would be a philosopher,
A lover of truth.

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I don't know where you guys are getting this "truth" angle from. The etymology of "philosophy" is "love of wisdom". Recent issues about the status of academic philosophy have been focussed on whether "philosophy" is a discipline in its own right as distinct from psychology, or whether it is merely intellectual "conversationalism"...a view held by Richard Rorty.

1 - ...and what would be wisdom about then ?
What does it mean to say that there are wise insights upon things ?

2 - I rather think that "conversationalism" is a form or a human variation of the more abstract property of relation between functions...

3 - ...You mention Einstein the other day, as I´ve been busy I did n´t answer promptly, but I can tell you that you seam to know little about what Einstein used to believe...figure that, he was an Spinoza´s admirer...besides Relativity does not oppose to the concept of Truth, instead instantiates that several manifestations of a phenomena can be true in relation to different operators...something that very much goes well along with my interpretation on this regard...

I like this one:

(Philosopher and historian Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said of all contemporary philosophers, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all.")

Precisely Rorty's point .....nobody has any authority in that respect.


To what end...? Rorty said it was (merely) the activity of debate rather than the contents which was "politically" healthy.

No other but the mere possibility is end enough to my view my dear friend...
The possible must be exhaustively pursued...a question of completion...nothing to fancy you see, simplicity is of essence in order to explain what such question could really wonder about...

Systems are build always by the same rules, they only diverge in size or operational extension, it all comes down to the length of zeros and ones in the process...any given sized segment of info you peak can be a system and relate to another, any other, segment or system...as long as they all are in contact...and not necessarily in the same time frame...a point of contact anywhere is enough to bind them all to a final system of absolute meaning granted the full extension of the Universe is not Infinite...I think we talked about this before...it all resumes to the "World" having a limit or not...discrete or continuum ? that is the only "real" question in place as you well know...

PS - In the end it is a matter of taste...while I rather choose to save all "fully functional", "real", operating meanings you instead prefer to destroy them all...it happens that in order to do so, at the very least, you must be real !...or what in the hack, it is true that it is not true, but circumstantially true, hell ???!!!

Best Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

...the point being, either to destroy or accept, YOU as a system of relation, are the referent, to assert the Truthfulness of what it is true to be or be not true...
...granted something is true, even to that !!! (destroy or accept)
...what else could "circumstantially true" be about ?
...you and only you, "observing thing/system", lay on the scope on what functions from were you stand...what is integrated by your mind or regarded as "background noise"...and even the noise is there, as a "shadow"...
...what can or cannot relate to you, and the how... which you much more experience rather then think...is another kind of "thinking", the "direct computing", the being there, watching, observing, relating, as you can or are able, to an extent or limit, YOURS, in which "existence" happens...

...so to state that something/anything, it is not true, whatever true, it is a contradiction in terms with the very nature of stating upon that something...that which has no function its not even speakable, no-thing !
Say...Donald Duck for instance...DD has a set of X given functions and meanings in the realm of my mind, it is a real cartoon operating in my perception...it could be the "Moon" hell, which is "atoms", "waves or branes" or even "info bits"...no matter how I describe its operativeness towards myself...it is happening, it is there !
We all are "Bots" in the "Program " which is the Universe...also cartoons... and just as real !

Hmm...that's a lengthy illustration of philosophy as an egocentric activity which plays with acquired mathematical models. I realize you have invested much thinking in trying to establish your position, but it seems to me "the philosopher", that there are going to be multiple positions according to whether we take biocentric, egocentric, anthropocentric, sociocentric frames as the starting point. I think it was Schopenhauer who drew attention to disparate reference frames which resisted compatibility. There is no reason other than "Occam's Razor" (hijacked from "science") to assume that the same "logic" (mathematics) should be applicable to all.

Again, it is not...you´ve seen half the picture...it is not me, but circumstantially as I speak...I am the "processor" instantiating something in the relation, so the function is rightfully "my own", efficient cause...again each perspective from anything or anyone is valid, none is wrong, be it either by thinking or being, two different yet fundamentally similar ways of processing information...now what it matters is to rightfully understand what each "variable" is really communicating from their standing point...oh, and thanks for listening, even when I not always logically and sufficiently fully clarify with efficiency from where I am coming from...my model it is not to be my model but only the necessary model...I want it to be abstract and none less precisely to prove we all inter relate...there are grounds for an impartial model although the description of such model will have always "attached" the perspective of the one who´s describing it...one needs to focus not in the description but in the algorithm in it, which is conversely compatible...

Imagine how would a musician "capture" the algorithm ins its musical sheds and conversed it into an image or a painting by applying the same mathematical algorithm, that is, the same underlying "geometric elegance" in it...

Best Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

Best Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE

Philosophy 101
The path to wisdom is truth.

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MJA

"Truth is a pathless land"

J. Krishnamurti 101

Perhaps he'll find the Way to wisdom One day too.
Truth is,

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Standard definition for Philosophy

pot talk gone wrong