Is philosophy useless?

@Fil Albuquerque,

It took me a long time, too long, to learn that a tedious and boring existence is the best. Colourful days are thankfully long gone.

The only tree I ever shake is that of literature. I leave colourful life-styles to my customers. I'm an Omar Khayyam fan who is too shagged out to bother with the "Thou" except when it's harmless like on here.

I am convinced that all our economic and military problems are due to the conditioned desire to live colourfully. I used to have a pale yellow E-type Jag. Six cylinder. Man did that get me into some ****.

I'm glad women don't scare you. I thank the heavenly powers that Charlotte, our weekend barmaid, doesn't take it into her head to see what she might make me do.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

There is a well known expression: "being philosophical" about things. It means being "cool".

You don't seem very cool.

What normative issues do you wish to be cool about?

You wrote--

Quote:
I was hoping to do some philosophy, and philosophy involves argumentation.

I responded to that and you then said--

Quote:
"arguing" is not ******* philosophy, you ******* moron.

I'm a bit confused about your position. I offered you 5 topics to be philosophical about and you have ducked them all with an unphilosophical rant which has no meaning.

You said"
Well argue about something then. Argue with Schopenauer's essay on women. I found it very useful. As I did Veblen's economic theory of women's dress. Is lingerie useful?

Arguing with ci. is a complete waste of time and energy.

Argue about the meaning of meaning or about whether thoughts are material objects. Get your teeth into something TE. "

Do you know how many times did "argue" appear, moron? I was responding to your use of the word argue as if to suggest it is philosophy, moron. You are completely loss.

Philosophy means being cool? really? You much be ******* joking, because those "cool people" become losers. From competition to a high pay job to admission to graduate problem at Harvard, People have to compete, and compete to win. All my friends( worthy to be associated to me) are all successful, because each of them in a group of merely "cool", but good students, they will win, loser. academic philosophy is no different, bitch. Perhaps you are a man whore. I kind that stick rocks up your ass, because you sure sound like a ******* woman..

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@TuringEquivalent,

I'm philosophical about posts like that.

Your bag of cliches will soon be worn out.

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@spendius,

spendi, Your cliches ran out long time ago, but that doesn't seem to slow you down.

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@cicerone imposter,

You are targeting the wrong person...(just an opinion for what is worth)

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@Fil Albuquerque,

FA, It was a knee-jerk reaction against spendi - out of habit. Gotta watch that; the enemy of my enemy could even be a "friend" of sorts. LOL

Thanks for the head's up!

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@cicerone imposter,

Spendi likes to stand aside and I like him for that...besides the man can write some interesting rantings even if just to disagree with everybody else...he probably is to old to give a f*** on what we "kids" think...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I've been shooting the breeze with spendi for many a year, and still enjoy some of his prose. We have our daily battles, but it's all in fun.

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is thought useless ?

is reasoning useless ?

is logic useless ?

since none of the above are useless , then philosophy is NOT useless

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@north,

I would prefer to say that too much thought, too much reasoning and too much logic can be useless. Actions speak louder than words.

Is anything that happens useless?

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TurningEquivalent wrote:

Why is philosophy useful, or useless. I will argue the latter.

vikorr wrote:
The answer is 'It is useful when it produces a useful outcome'. A generic 'yes' or 'no' answer will always be, as a generalisation, wrong. The answer is specific to the situation.

TurningEquivalent wrote:

Fixing on a thesis, because people can come up with arguments.

This doesn’t make sense, for I certainly didn’t fix on a thesis.

TurningEquivalent wrote:

Can you even give an argument? Since why the **** would you post in a ******* philosophy forum, and not a give some type of argument? Do you need some ******* social connection, or what?

It appears the ‘argument’ was so simple that you missed it. That aside, I’m curious - what’s the go with your agro posts?

Now, in relation to your apparent problem with usefulness being situational, I would post these following quotes from yourself :

-My point is not that there are situation dependent cases
-For some people, philosophy will be very useless. (read : for some people it will be useful)
-In everyday use of the the word "useful", it is situational
-What is useful for an accountant might not be useful for a pilot. There is no fixed definition, criterion for useful.

TurningEquivalent wrote:

It is funny, but philosophy is not at all about asking profound questions. It is about reading thick books.

Have you decided to redefine the commonly accepted definition of philosophy?

TurningEquivalent wrote:

At least 8 hours a day, and 5 days a week. It is a long time for doing something that is not related to philosophy. Since a large part of our life will not be using philosophy, it follows that such set of skills is useless.

This is flawed logic. ‘that such a set of skills is useless’ does not follow from the former.

And it could always be argued that our personal beliefs, that influence the attitudes we hold to everything we encounter, are fairly philosophical (for anyone who's spent time reviewing their beliefs). Our attitudes of course, heavily influence any interaction we have with another person.

Quote:

Philosophers read/write philosophy books that takes time( time to read/write the books), and energy( the energy consumption from reading/writing). This is a huge opportunity cost, with no obvious benefits.

This is like arguing that education has no benefit. Higher maths for example, has very little obvious use in peoples lives, and yet it teaches logic, and problem solving.

TurningEquivalent wrote:

but I say there is a lack of a unified notion, thus, warranted a need for a unified notion that is based on market demand

That’s pure personal opinion, which anyone with a different opinion can disagree with, rendering any talk thereafter based on different foundations....something rather pointless.

I've reported your posts btw.

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@vikorr,

Unfortunately, poor mastery of logic, lacking basis of facts and an inability to hear others are not crimes, and you cannot get banned for it. Truth be told, I am not sure there would be many of us here if this wasn't so.

That said, I have wished for it many times that there was some sort of "mediators" who could say to people: "hey, wise up and treat people with the respect they offer to you by taking the time to read what you post". But I don't think its practically doable.

A deeper wish I have is that people would stop being so afraid of being wrong that they will sacrifice their integrity and their reputation just to avoid having to admit to themselves that their ideas aren't as perfect as their emotional high makes them think.

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@vikorr,

volorr, Spot on!

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@cicerone imposter,

I wonder how would people react to this thread if instead the question was is Analysis useful ?

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Sometimes it's necessary to ask the question in a manner that doesn't confuse the masses. LOL

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@cicerone imposter,

The problem seams to be the "love of politics"...people often prefer a superficial debate upon the institution, the symbol, and that kind of territory institutional fight, thus incredibly missing the central point on what actually is being asked...

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@Cyracuz,

Hi Cyr,

I didn't report his posts for flawed logic etc Laughing

As many know, I find people who can't be civil distasteful. For some people, being obnoxious or abusive etc is almost habitual, and these are the only ones worth reporting (first person I've ever reported on these forums).

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@vikorr,

I assumed that was why. I didn't read his post, as I figured if it made someone want to report the maker of it, I could just as well spare myself the experience. Smile

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

The problem seams to be the "love of politics"...people often prefer a superficial debate upon the institution, the symbol, and that kind of territory institutional fight, thus incredibly missing the central point on what actually is being asked...

I agree. Reading through this casually, I kept wondering the same thing.

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@TuringEquivalent,

If you conclude that philosophy is useless you are effectively ensuring that you will remain an idiot until the day you die.

Why not delve into it instead and figure out what it is all about, and perhaps you will discover that spending time with philosophy sharpens your wits and excersizes your brain. Is that of no use to you?

1 Reply

Is philosophy useless?

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