Modern philosophers- jukeboxes...

Literature is about literature.The ideas are neither here nor there.Beautiful writing.

Flaubert's ambition was to write a book about nothing.

We had to wait for Seinfeld for that.

Aren't we all philosophers?
To varying degrees, we are all philosophers. We are partaking in a discussion on philosophy for goodness sake.

spendius



Very interesting idea. I agree in some obvious cases - Mallarmé being perhaps the most obvious.
In music there are similar cases, like Richard Strauss with his opera "Capriccio".

But do you think that art being the object of art can be viewed as a general rule?

Here's an offering from Nietzche on the subject.

Books will sometimes help to connect an idea or some ideas together.

Many times I've stumbled a passage in a book where I've said: "Yes, this is what I had thought but I wasn't able to express it this clearly".

Joe FX wrote:


I know what you mean. I am sometimes seduced by the sheer skill of the writers. Some can produce the most beautiful passages, and I find myself at times wanting to believe what is said simply because it is said with such eloquence.

This reminds me of the "opponents" of Plato and Socrates. I don't remember what they're called, but one of them was named Gorgias or Gorgas. Scoundrels the lot of them

Cyracuz

It is Gorgias. He was one of the most respected sophists in Socrate's time.

Sophists was the word I didn't recall. Thanks val. I recall the debate between Gorgias and Socrates, where Gorgias claims that if you know rethorics you know everything. Socrates proves him wrong of course. But I think we would need another Socrates or two or three if we were to prove the modern sophists wrong.

Cyracuz

We only know the sophists from the presentation that Plato gives of their ideas in order to refute them. It is not the best way to know someones works.
In some of those dialogues, I must say I am on the side of the sophists (see the Protagoras, or the Hypias). They claimed that moral was relative, according to a specific time and place. And they believed that virtue can be learned - Plato, of course, didn't.
Sophists were the first philosophers with a sociological perspective.

That is true. They were sort of the villains in a hero's tale.

I do not believe that virtue can be taught. You can dress a monkey in a suit, it will still be a monkey.

or

You can take the girl out of the trailerpark but you can't take the trailerpark out of the girl

But in any case, sophists or other philosophers, they are dead, and we are alive. We should turn off the jukebox and make a new song.

Anyone planning on developing their philosophy into a piece of literature?

That would be a short piece of paper...

Yes, I've been making an effort of this sort for some years now. In effect you've inadvertently uncovered the source of my initial response to this inquiry:



I have roughly five 200-page notebooks worth of material, but still nothing resembling a "piece of literature"; it's a lot harder than one might think. But to uncover a bit of my "true self" to the board, this is more or less what I've been up to for the past five, six years.

is changing your avatar part of that process?

i think message boards & blogs are a form of literature, assuming one doesn't exclude popular writing from the literature classification.

Interesting Nietzche. . 200 pages is a lot.

Nietzche wrote:


I disagree. Isn't that the way to becoming a jukebox?

That certainly does not sound like Nietzsche. Unless, he meant that philosophers must engage the challenges of past anthropologists but not their conclusions.

JLN wrote:


I think that's what he meant.

If we see the question as the root and the answer as the flower I think I'll be able to explain myself. You sow a seed and it takes root. This is the question. Then a flower peeks up through the dirt, and with nurturing it grows bright and beautiful. This is the answer.
But what happens if you remove the flower. If you sever it from it's roots and take it home it will die. It will fade and become dry and shriveled. A fragile thing that crumbles at the slightest touch.
So, in the same way that a flower is nothing without it's root, an answer is nothing without it's question. You can sever the connection, but then it's only a matter of time before the answer becomes old, taken for granted and eventually dead.

So engaging former anthropologist's problems is in a way like sowing their old seeds. We are sure to get the same flowers.

It is my opinion that the show of constancy and coherency is the flaw in every philosophy. It is a charade, an elaborate sheme to hide the fact that all these answers came to the philosopher in jumbles, not like the strings of pearls he presents.

Maybe should be a new philosophy. One that takes this lack of coherency into consideration. Not one that seeks to explain and justify the world, but one that can arm the people in it to find their own happiness. Maybe this philosophy already exists. I don't know.

Cyracuz, yes. You say that "it's only a matter of time before the answer becomes old, taken for granted and eventually dead".
That's how rigid and blind doctrine/dogma and dead metaphor/cliche come into existence.