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Is philosophy dead?

Truth, perhaps cannot be represented at all. Yet, language can help us to come to conclusions about the truth. Sophistry is certainly something to consider. Maybe it is true that symbols can only degrade the value of truth. But i still think it is worth trying to convey in someway even though a part of me thinks it may be the sole reason for the never ending wars that have been going on since the arrival of civilization. I mean maybe when people started arguing bielefs they started taking things too seriously.
 
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Slaughterhouse, i think u've confused "philosophy" with "sophistry."

philosophy is simply love for knowledge. it's a fundamental human pursuit. the study of ethics applies to everything we do in life, and the study of formal logic, dialectic, and epistemology apply to all fields of learning.

if you think that philosophy is as trivial as rambling incoherently using "really big words" then perhaps you just lack the mental accumen to grasp the content of most philosophical discourse.

just because you don't understand the terminology or the vocabulary that academics use doesn't mean that their studies are meaningless or that it's all just gibberish. what does "combinatorial theory" mean to you? what is "isomorphism" or "eigenvector?" do you know what a "karnaugh map" is? these are universally understood terms used by mathematicians, computer scientists, and engineers. just because you haven't taken the time to decipher their meaning doesn't mean that formal logic, math, and engineering are all meaningless rubbish as well.

anyone can string smart-sounding words together without understanding their meaning or having any prior knowledge of their respective field of study. but thinking that by doing so you are proving that these fields are meaningless really just emphasizes your own ignorance.

and frankly, your pathetic attempt to parody philosophical discourse doesn't even come close to sounding like coherently formulated statements. i mean, c'mon, you could have atleast use the word "circumference" correctly; or you could have looked up what "subjective" means so that you don't make egregious misuse of it making yourself look like a complete dumbass. and are "subjective" and "circumference," your idea of "really-big-words?" they aren't even philosophy-specific terms. they're words that any jr. high student knows the meaning of. and "language frames?" are you trying to look like an idiot?

i think you're trying too hard to sound smarter than you actually are. it's really difficult to knock a field of study which is built upon the works of some of the world's greatest intellectuals and has been rigorously reviewed, revised, and reinterpretted by a multitude of prominent academics for many centuries ...especially if you only possess a 4th grade vocabulary and grammar skills.
 
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Actually thursday, I believe it's in part the specialisation of language that is suffocating philosophy. "Ordinary" people feel that they are excluded from discussing such lofty topics because the lexicon serves to exclude them. I would hope that language is powerful enough to allow us to use it sparingly. Sadly a lot of people use language as an exclusionist tool, rather than a means of communication.

That was a really nice flame though :)
 
yes, because we all know that philosophers try so hard to exclude people from academic discourse by intentionally obfuscating their ideas with unnecessary terminology. sorry to break it to you, but specialization of language occurs in all schools of knowledge. it's necessary for communicating common ideas.

are you going to accuse mathematicians, physicists, biologists, sociologists, psychologists, etc. of using language as an "exclusionist tool" as well? should we start referring to k-maps as matrixes--no, wait--multi-column multi-row boxes filled with truth values of their respective maxterms or minterms determined by the axial placement of variables? oh wait, "maxterm," "minterm," are also specialized language so i have to also write out the definition of those terms whenever i need to use those concepts. so instead of writing "k-map" i need to write an entire paragraph describing what a k-map is because otherwise i'd be excluding people from the discussion.

it's idiotic to criticize philosophers, or academics in any field, for using terminology. usually terminology is coined when it's necessary to reference a certain concept in conveying another idea. when more esoteric terminology is introduced in most texts, the author will usually define the term for the reader. if it's a very common concept in the particular field of study such as "utilitarianism" in philosophy or "platonic forms" it may not be necessary to introduce these terms because it is assumed that most readers would already be familiar with the texts they are outlined in.

but go on accusing philosophers of excluding you from the discussion because you don't know how to use a dictionary or look up a term on the internet if you aren't particularly familiar with it. i'm sure you'll get really far in your intellectual pursuits that way.

i guess instead of reading essential texts and familiarizing myself with basic concepts and vocabulary i should have just dismissed philosophy as bullshit because philosophers use big words like 'categorical imperatives' that i didn't understand. and when i first saw a calculus equation in 7th grade i should have just dismissed math too. afterall, it's just a bunch of numbers, letters, and strange symbols that mean absolutely nothing to me. shit, i should just drop out of college cuz in most of the texts i read for pretty much all of my classes i still have to consult the dictionary or google every 10-15 minutes.
 
Do you really think anyone is going to engage you in debate if you try to belittle them? You have four sentences of mine on which to base your rant and yet you've systematically shut down any opportunity you could have had for exploration or negotiation. I appreciate your perspective but not the way you expressed it.
 
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Thursday makes a potent argument. Why should we hate on philosophy for using unbreakable terminology, unintelligible to even educated people? I would say first of all, philosophy does not rely on a mathematical or experimental systems to verify it.

If you talk to philosophy people today, they sound like they are satisfying themselves with a linguistic exercise in their head.
We should also beat the physicists, biologists, chemists, psychologists, who do not make their work accessible to the common public. However, publications in these fields are peer reviewed and based on the scientific method, instead of subjective wording. If you break down everything, you end up with objective nihilism...But nihilism is a fairly useless belief to cling to.

My point is that we as a species should form our philosophy as sort of a mission statement, realizing it is subjective and based on an arbitrary system of language frames.
Here is my philosophy: There are two rules in this world: What I can do, and what I cannot. Why don't we use philosophy to provide a directive to better illustrate and frame what we can and SHOULD do.
 
i just wish more people would admit that they dont know what the hell they are talking about

i would be more impressed with philosophy in general if they actually came up with alot of things that couldnt be disproved to a reasonable degree by other philosophers.
in my experience it goes like this: some guy says some shit, and some people agree with him and some dont. then we all go back to eating our value meal. while i really like philosophy, its not very good at producing any results beyond opinions.

it can get pretty dry too when someone who cant write very well uses the academic language and strings 5 dense adjectives together. academic language is fine, but it shouldnt obscure the clarity of the ideas.
 
^that's not a criticism of philosophy, that's a criticism of poor writers. name one prominent contemporary philosopher who uses dense language to hide his lack of genuine ideas.

and philosophy isn't a hard science. it doesn't follow the form of: observation->hypothesis->experimentation->theory->reproduction->fact

you can't really judge the progress made in philosophy by the number of "hard facts" it's produced. mostly, it's produced new ways of thinking, and an outpour of discourse. political philosophy has had a tremendous impact on the development of different governments and what people expect out of an ideal government. moral philosophy provids us with methods of determining the right course of action in moral dilemmas. in philosophy you don't simply accept the framework or ideology which the most people agree on. you adopt the framework or ideology which makes the most logical sense to you. the array of discourse on the subject allows you to better critique and select, or perhaps even re-interpret and revise, a particular idea to apply to your own life.

discourse is valuable in and of itself. practicing discourse will familiarize you with the rules of formal logic which allow you to better distinguish tautological arguments from logical fallacies. just like a scientist practices his labratory skills to minimize error in experimentation and the collection of experimentational data, all persons should hone their faculties of reason so they can minimize error in discerning truth from falsehood in their daily lives.

i mean, how many philosophy texts have most of you read before you jumped to the conclusion that philosophers are all just wasting their time? how many philosophy courses have you taken? you can't really criticize a particular field of knowledge unless you actually know something about that field. and from your arguments, i would suspect that you lack the authority to make such broad generalizations.
 
>>i mean, how many philosophy texts have most of you read before you jumped to the conclusion that philosophers are all just wasting their time? how many philosophy courses have you taken? >>

It took me pretty much until my bachelor's in philosophy to figure that out. :)

ebola
 
thursday said:
^that's not a criticism of philosophy, that's a criticism of poor writers. name one prominent contemporary philosopher who uses dense language to hide his lack of genuine ideas.

and philosophy isn't a hard science. it doesn't follow the form of: observation->hypothesis->experimentation->theory->reproduction->fact

you can't really judge the progress made in philosophy by the number of "hard facts" it's produced. mostly, it's produced new ways of thinking, and an outpour of discourse. political philosophy has had a tremendous impact on the development of different governments and what people expect out of an ideal government. moral philosophy provids us with methods of determining the right course of action in moral dilemmas. in philosophy you don't simply accept the framework or ideology which the most people agree on. you adopt the framework or ideology which makes the most logical sense to you. the array of discourse on the subject allows you to better critique and select, or perhaps even re-interpret and revise, a particular idea to apply to your own life.

discourse is valuable in and of itself. practicing discourse will familiarize you with the rules of formal logic which allow you to better distinguish tautological arguments from logical fallacies. just like a scientist practices his labratory skills to minimize error in experimentation and the collection of experimentational data, all persons should hone their faculties of reason so they can minimize error in discerning truth from falsehood in their daily lives.

i mean, how many philosophy texts have most of you read before you jumped to the conclusion that philosophers are all just wasting their time? how many philosophy courses have you taken? you can't really criticize a particular field of knowledge unless you actually know something about that field. and from your arguments, i would suspect that you lack the authority to make such broad generalizations.
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it wasnt meant to be a criticism of philosophy in general, it was meant to be a criticism of the apparent lack of writing ability that many philosophers have.

im giving reasons why a society full of pragmatists would pay little attention to something that produces very few dependable results. Also, logic may be important, but it is only the basis for philosophy. People problably do find logic to be important, but most philosophy is making arguments for things using that logic, oftentimes things that an average person doesnt give two flying shits about.

you adopt the framework or ideology which makes the most logical sense to you. the array of discourse on the subject allows you to better critique and select, or perhaps even re-interpret and revise, a particular idea to apply to your own life.
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You are right, its a great way to FORM OPINIONS ABOUT THINGS. Wait, that sounds familiar........oh yeah, i just posted it.

and no, i dont feel the need to qualify myself to you.......dick.
 
I guess moral philosophy and ethics has taught Thursday how to effectively hurl anathemas. 4th grade education- yup i haf dat! Imma dumass, egreeegusly makin mistaches becoz I don't no no betta. Thursday might have a grasp of big terms he found on google or in textbooks he didn't write, but he certainly isn't original or effective in communicating a fluid argument. He is quite proficient at dick-sizing and alienating those who assume differently than him. Anyone can look up terms on google or in text books. Anyone can make up words. You tell me that I don't know what subjective means, but that is my point- YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT BELIEF than I.
I for one believe language limits everyone from seeing what is truly apparent. Our written language, while a great form of communication, has divided society under different language frames: pro-life, freedom of speech, libwal/conservative, happy/sad, good/bad, heaven/hell, god/no god, etc.
Yet all is connected. I participate in the same information that you do, and language is a great metaphor for the information, but it

I don't know what you call it in philosophy technical language, but my assumption is that language/logic/dialectic is fundamentally flawed and subjective, as an arbitrary system with no meaning within oneself or others. That is my assumption and belief, if you do not agree, then we have a difference of opinion. Even 4th graders are allowed to have those. But good spirits will not soil themselves by hurling empty insults at differentially moving electrons and waves of light. I am merely a figment of your imagination.

Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one. -Albert Einstein
 
If you talk to a mirror for hours on end, telling him how smart you are and about eudamonism and eigavectors and dinosaur philosophy, you will surely believe yourself.
You will probably feel even better if you converse with other self-proclaimed philosophers about their own superior logic. At least, you rejoice, a philosopher, a lover of knowledge, someone who is on my level. You feel as if you have found your place in the society of philosophers. It makes Thursday quite happy to feel accepted in such heavy company.
But fortunately, it is just linguistic nonsense.
The first step to wisdom is realizing how little we know.
 
utilitarianism, rationalism, empiricism, transcendentalism, post-modernism, etc. are not just "opinions." they are revolutionary ideas, and philosophical frameworks which much of modern thought, literature, politics, and even science are based off of.

embracing a particular framework over another because you believe it to be the most accurate may be an opinion, but saying that all philosophical ideas are just opinions is a gross over-simplification. that's akin to saying that the works of shakespeare is just opinions, or that scientific theories are just opinions.

and if you are only criticizing the writing ability of certain philosophers then you need to qualify your statements with what particular philosophical text you are criticizing, because most essential philosophical texts are not just dense and meaningless babble. and i was originally responding to slaughterhouse and auntyestablishment's claims that:
Philosophy = Talking to yourself in your own language frames, inventing your own meaning

Philosophy- n. The term for the study of really big words which lose all meaning when spoken and understood.
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or that most philosophers use language to exclude others from philosophical discussions just because they use specialized language. these are fairly uninformed judgements in my opinion, and the same puerile criticism can be applied to advanced studies in any field.
 
Philosophy is people seeking knowledge, which quantum theory would say is subjective and uncertain and chaotic. Tell me how you can prove anything with words and i'll give you thirty million dollars.

"Beyond ideas of 'right' and 'wrong' there is a field. I will meet you there. When souls lie down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other' doesn't make any sense." -Rumi
 
Slaughterhousefive42 said:
The first step to wisdom is realizing how little we know.
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so when are you going to take that first step?

i'm not dicksizing. i used examples of terminology from other fields to demonstrate that specialized language isn't unique to philosophy, not to alienate those who assume differently from me. my point is that you are assuming too much without actually making an attempt to understand what you have dismissed off the bat as gibberish.

i don't need to talk down on anyone to feel better about myself, and i don't assume that i have "superior logic." i just think it's dumb for your to criticize philosophers, or any other kind of academic, for using language that you don't understand. that's a very feeble argument. but go ahead and keep assuming that just because someone uses words or phrases that you don't understand that they are doing so pretentiously.
 
IMO, JS Mill was onto something with utilitarianism.
IMO, Transcendentalism is essential to overcoming our biological, mimetic, and physical constraints.
IMO, rationalism is the best we can logically word arguments, but each persons' world is decidedly NOT rational.
IMO, post-modernism is just dandy, but its part of the reason why no one gives a shit about the world, why the masses worship celebrities, and why no one takes anything seriously.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

-Bertrand Russell, he was da man!
 
thursday said:
utilitarianism, rationalism, empiricism, transcendentalism, post-modernism, etc. are not just "opinions." they are revolutionary ideas, and philosophical frameworks which much of modern thought, literature, politics, and even science are based off of.

embracing a particular framework over another because you believe it to be the most accurate may be an opinion, but saying that all philosophical ideas are just opinions is a gross over-simplification. that's akin to saying that the works of shakespeare is just opinions, or that scientific theories are just opinions.

and if you are only criticizing the writing ability of certain philosophers then you need to qualify your statements with what particular philosophical text you are criticizing, because most essential philosophical texts are not just dense and meaningless babble. and i was originally responding to slaughterhouse and auntyestablishment's claims that:
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im not knocking philosophy. point of fact, i love philosophy. im trying to answer the question that the post was originally based on. And yes, shakespeare is just opinion, as are scientific theories. They just happen to be opinions that most people agree are better opinions. and thats just their opinion. I dont think there is anything wrong with me stating my opinion, and that is that i would be more impressed with philosophy if its logic could give me some concrete answers rather than just opinions to ascribe to. i think most philosophers would.

and i was criticizing no one in particular, just stating that philosophical discourse is plagued by stodgy academics that would rather use 10 back to back specialized academic terms to describe something rather than put out the effort to make it sound anything like a coherent statement. i never said it was JUST anything, i was only saying that maybe they could have taken a writing course too.
 
A priori knowledge is a concept that seems alien at first but makes sense. We know everything, but we just have to convince ourselves we know first. Google makes it alot easier.

Thursday, your argument was that I am dumb, I don't understand, I have a feeble argument, and you are completely right in your mind. And I am right in mind. Yet you did not provide any definition for those heavy constructs you used as examples. You haven't argued any novel or original thought, except that we should be in awe of big words. I'm all about big words, but not if you don't employ them for productive, progressive, or positive use. You have provided no new ideas, are doomed to worship the terms of past philosophers, and lace your non-arguments with insults and unsupported assumptions.
 
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