Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Hugo Holbling · 01-02-2003, 03:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bluenose
My first philosophy teacher felt it was all about developing better questions rather than just learning the old answers to old questions. So she tried to get us to learn how to think philosophically and try to understand how the big questions endure while each generation wrestles with the contemporary problems.

Thanks for your thoughts, Bluenose. Sounds like your teacher was keen to emphasize the continuity of philosophy.

Feather · 01-02-2003, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hugo Holbling
Funny that you should say this, as most of the complaints i hear about philosophy are that it's too verbose, wasting a lot of words saying nothing.

Well if the shoe fits....

Kantian · 01-02-2003, 08:43 PM

I think the assumption that there should be a criterion for proper philosophical discourse is itself a problematic issue, and opens new cans of worms. What exactly constitutes as the subject matter of philosophy is the beginning of philosophy in the Hegelian sense. Some demand clarity- as is the analytic thinker's wont - while others demand something entirely different- originality, interpretation, criticism, etcetera. By deciding on the criteria you have decided on the type of philosophical journey you are going to take.

~transcendentalist~
__________________
Reason has often led us into transcendent metaphysics that "overstep the limits of all experience, [and] no object adequate to the transcendental ideal can ever be found within experience."

Hugo Holbling · 01-03-2003, 01:09 AM

... and raise you a dime.

Quote:

Originally posted by Kantian
By deciding on the criteria you have decided on the type of philosophical journey you are going to take.

A fella could be forgiven for thinking you've heard of Sir John Lubbock, dear Kantian, and his famous remark: "what we see depends mostly on what we look for."

Your remarks redress the balance, methinks, making it "even stevens".

phaedrus · 01-03-2003, 03:23 AM

Ahh well lets just see what some souls had to say on the matter ...

Quote:

The aim of philosophy is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term. Wilfred Sellars -Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man

Quote:

Philosophy, beginning in wonder ... is able to fancy everything different from what it is. It sees the familiar as if it were strange, and the strange as if it were familiar. It can take things up and lay them down again. Its mind is full of air that plays round every subject. It rouses us from our native dogmatic slumber and breaks up our caked prejudices....A man with no philosophy in him is the most inauspicious and unprofitable of all possible social mates. William James - Some Problems of Philosophy

Quote:

Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity. A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations. Philosophy does not result in philosophical propositions', but rather in the clarification of propositions. Without philosophy thoughts are, as it were, cloudy and indistinct: its task is to make them clear and to give them sharp boundaries.Ludwig Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

And yaa...

Quote:

We are now in the process of wakening from the nightmare of modernity, with its manipulative reason and fetish of the totality, into the laid-back ["joyful," as Nietzsche would say] pluralism of the postmodern, that heterogeneous range of life-styles and language games which has renounced the nostalgic urge to totalize and legitimate itself....Science and philosophy must jettison their grandiose metaphysical claims and view themselves more modestly as just another set of narratives.Terry Eagleton

Even the jargon can be boiled down to thoughts which even a layman can understand, but i think language or academically-inclined is not the issues while "doing" (sic!) philosophy. You cant expect a science fella to explain the quantum physics to someone who doesnt understand math . You can to an extent give the gist but not make one understand the whole manna.

Interest in philosophy or to put it plainly - "interest in knowing, discussing, learning the way we are and the world is" a continous process and there are no boundaries (only those set by the people involved in the process.

Hugo Holbling · 01-03-2003, 03:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by phaedrus Interest in philosophy or to put it plainly - "interest in knowing, discussing, learning the way we are and the world is" a continous process and there are no boundaries (only those set by the people involved in the process.

Thanks for the input, phaedrus. Would you agree with Rorty, then, that:

Quote:

The idea that philosophy should be put on the secure path of a science is as bad as the idea, mocked by Fine, of awarding prizes for scientificity as one awards blue ribbons to prize goats. It is one thing to say that philosophers should form a distinct expert culture, but quite another to suggest that they ought to be more like mathematicians than like lawyers, or more like microbiologists than like historians. You can have an expert culture without having an agreed upon procedure for resolving disputes. Expertise is a matter of familiarity with the course of a previous conversation, not a matter of ability to bring that conversation to a conclusion by attaining general agreement.

How about his views on the conflict between Continental and Analytic philosophy?

phaedrus · 01-03-2003, 04:48 AM

Umm...rorty...well i had given my views on rorty to ender long ago...but alas the search function is not working and hence you will have to make do with madison's lovely article/paper which deals with rorty along with others.....Coping with Nietzsche's legacy: Rorty, Derrida, Gadamer

Regd the particular quote....laters...gotta head home...slogged enough for a day....

Hugo Holbling · 01-03-2003, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by phaedrus Umm...rorty...well i had given my views on rorty to ender long ago...

Ah, yes! I heard about said views - "damning by faint praise" was the jist of it, right?

Quote:

hence you will have to make do with madison's lovely article/paper which deals with rorty along with others

I read the paper and was decidely underwhelmed. The criticism of Derrida is very weak, while the treatment of Rorty was lame. I often wonder where anti-Rortians get their understanding of his ideas from - certainly not his works.

I'll be happy to take this disagreement to the philosophical squared-circle if you like!

(Probably better to go to PM though - i can't see anyone else being interested...)

phaedrus · 01-03-2003, 10:30 PM

Thats great, havent met anyone who didnt like the article. Will look forward to your expanded views on the same.

Truth neither comes nor goes. That is not because it is an entity that enjoys an atemporal existence, but because it is not an entity at all. The word 'truth', in this context, is just the reification of an approbative and indefinable adjective...I take this cautionary use [of 'true'] not to be a gesture toward "the way the world might be anyway" but toward possible future generations -- toward the "better us"... Putnam takes it as something more than that -- the same mysterious "something more" which causes him to take seriously realistic talk about the presence or absence of a "matter of fact".... I see no problem about the irreducibility of the normative...

Keith Russell · 01-04-2003, 08:37 AM

Greetings:

Recently bought books by Chomsky, Jung, and Popper. Still plowing through Popper and Jung. I also want to get a few more translations of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason--along with the other two Critiques--so I can make an accurate assessment of what Kant meant in those three works.

(I think most Objectivists simply take Rand at her word that Kant was wrong, without reading Kant in order to be sure. But, Rand herself admonished her followers--and others--to check their premises. That's what I'm doing, vis a vis Mr. Kant. This is going to take a while...)

Almost bought a book by Derrida yesterday. Plan to pick it up later this month, or early next month. I have some Rorty around here somewhere--but I'm still unpacking, so Rorty'll have to wait a bit longer, too.

(So many philosophers, so little time...)

So, I'm not going to offer my opinions on Rorty or Derrida right now, maybe not 'til later this year...

Stay tuned.

What books by Rorty and/or Derrida are good 'places to start', for someone interested in becoming familiar with their basic epistemological ideas?

Keith.

01-02-2003, 08:43 PM	#13
Kantian Regular Member Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Konigsberg Posts: 238	my worthless cents... I think the assumption that there should be a criterion for proper philosophical discourse is itself a problematic issue, and opens new cans of worms. What exactly constitutes as the subject matter of philosophy is the beginning of philosophy in the Hegelian sense. Some demand clarity- as is the analytic thinker's wont - while others demand something entirely different- originality, interpretation, criticism, etcetera. By deciding on the criteria you have decided on the type of philosophical journey you are going to take. ~transcendentalist~ __________________ Reason has often led us into transcendent metaphysics that "overstep the limits of all experience, [and] no object adequate to the transcendental ideal can ever be found within experience."

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

01-03-2003, 04:48 AM	#17
phaedrus Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Indus Posts: 1,038	Umm...rorty...well i had given my views on rorty to ender long ago...but alas the search function is not working and hence you will have to make do with madison's lovely article/paper which deals with rorty along with others.....Coping with Nietzsche's legacy: Rorty, Derrida, Gadamer Regd the particular quote....laters...gotta head home...slogged enough for a day....

01-03-2003, 10:30 PM	#19
phaedrus Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Indus Posts: 1,038	Thats great, havent met anyone who didnt like the article. Will look forward to your expanded views on the same. Truth neither comes nor goes. That is not because it is an entity that enjoys an atemporal existence, but because it is not an entity at all. The word 'truth', in this context, is just the reification of an approbative and indefinable adjective...I take this cautionary use [of 'true'] not to be a gesture toward "the way the world might be anyway" but toward possible future generations -- toward the "better us"... Putnam takes it as something more than that -- the same mysterious "something more" which causes him to take seriously realistic talk about the presence or absence of a "matter of fact".... I see no problem about the irreducibility of the normative...

01-04-2003, 08:37 AM	#20
Keith Russell Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Overland Park, Kansas Posts: 1,336	Greetings: Recently bought books by Chomsky, Jung, and Popper. Still plowing through Popper and Jung. I also want to get a few more translations of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason--along with the other two Critiques--so I can make an accurate assessment of what Kant meant in those three works. (I think most Objectivists simply take Rand at her word that Kant was wrong, without reading Kant in order to be sure. But, Rand herself admonished her followers--and others--to check their premises. That's what I'm doing, vis a vis Mr. Kant. This is going to take a while...) Almost bought a book by Derrida yesterday. Plan to pick it up later this month, or early next month. I have some Rorty around here somewhere--but I'm still unpacking, so Rorty'll have to wait a bit longer, too. (So many philosophers, so little time...) So, I'm not going to offer my opinions on Rorty or Derrida right now, maybe not 'til later this year... Stay tuned. What books by Rorty and/or Derrida are good 'places to start', for someone interested in becoming familiar with their basic epistemological ideas? Keith.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.