Serious Philosophy Discussion

[franklinstower]

Not even close.

I wouldn't want to invoke the mystical or the spiritual myself, but I'm with you here generally speaking. I'm especially with you on the idea of being concerned with "the right approach to life." How that isn't every individual's primary concern I'll never understand.



Nope, you've got the right name and the right synopsis. This is exactly their back-and-forth over the mind/body problem.



This is my fault. I should've clarified that, in saying that academia is at an all time low, I meant intellectually, not politically. You're right: Even though we seem to be inching closer and closer to an academic climate reminiscent of those stories, that's not where we are. However, across the board, I think that the kind and quality of scholarship being produced is worse than ever. Would you agree with that at least?

I've been involved in a ton of personal growth kind of endeavours from psychology to spirituality and it does seem like humanity would be better off if growing as human beings were more of a global focus than it is now.

It is especially sad to see the kind of pain and wounding and smallness that gets passed on generationally and to know that if just a few generations could maintain a consistent focus on growing emotionally and psychologically then that entire line of people would be changed forever.

I often think we must be more than a little off when watching the news and our focus of attention seems to always be on something other that what would help us the most.

 

[MescalineDreams]

Manly P Hall

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

Consciousness requires-feelings and experiences..... emotional reactions to stimuli.

Are you really asking if a chair or a tree has consciousness?

Did you read or know anything about the post I was responding to?

 

[Luminosity]

I don’t know enough about what is being produced today to speak to that. I’m not an academic and graduated a decade ago. I’ll take your word for it.

The only halfway interesting thing I can say on this subject comes from applying a bit of Werner Herzog.

Have you seen “Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World” ?

From that documentary to what I’m reading here (which seems to echo mainstream discontent around modern academia) it looks we’re opening up some silly new realms of inquiry in the humanities that will probably, eventually, go extinct. But, as per my man Werner, we’re also in an era of historically high literacy rates, enormous populations and an almost unbelievable level of access to information.

Perhaps we just need to let the academy get used to a new social, cultural, and everything else, paradigm - and then judge the academy in this era against other eras that featured revolutionary change.

It seems fair to ask how we’re doing compared to “the academy” when the printing press was invented, or when we started to use telegraph machines, rather than to compare us to recent eras of relative technological stablity.

Academia is definitely changing with the coming of the digital, especially in the way in which we disseminate information and teaching practices. However, I feel like some of the things you are talking about is part of a wider political movement instigated by a hard shift to the right that demonizes intellectualism and thought in general. Universities are at a crossroads, they were once places of developing independent thought but have been hijacked by business models that we are suppose to be job trainers. Training people for professional roles has always been part of our job but more and more it is becoming the primary focus, leading to a watering down of the 'hard' stuff. In Australia universities are now taking on the role of TAFE (Techinqual and Further Education) , which were designed for job training, but because TAFES are seen as not as prestigious as universities they have taken the student away from job trainers, leaving them with only the trade training. This has had the affect of lowering their standards in not only teaching but the quality of students they accept from the get go. We, as educators, are also placed in a business model that sees the student as a "customer" in which it is our job make the customer happy, which includes not making things too difficult. There is a lack of respect to teachers nowadays in which we are supposed to bend our teaching to meet the expectations of students in what they want to learn as opposed to what people in the field know they need to be taken seriously. I am constantly being told, we don't need to learn this stuff from young folks who wouldn't know shit from shoe polish. This is a two way street though and that is why it is so important for lecturers to be engaged with the field and be on the cutting edge of research and not rest on past laurels, which in turn leads to more current relevant coursework and better students.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

Academia is definitely changing with the coming of the digital, especially in the way in which we disseminate information and teaching practices. However, I feel like some of the things you are talking about is part of a wider political movement instigated by a hard shift to the right that demonizes intellectualism and thought in general. Universities are at a crossroads, they were once places of developing independent thought but have been hijacked by business models that we are suppose to be job trainers. Training people for professional roles has always been part of our job but more and more it is becoming the primary focus, leading to a watering down of the 'hard' stuff. In Australia universities are now taking on the role of TAFE (Techinqual and Further Education) , which were designed for job training, but because TAFES are seen as not as prestigious as universities they have taken the student away from job trainers, leaving them with only the trade training. This has had the affect of lowering their standards in not only teaching but the quality of students they accept from the get go. We, as educators, are also placed in a business model that sees the student as a "customer" in which it is our job make the customer happy, which includes not making things too difficult. There is a lack of respect to teachers nowadays in which we are supposed to bend our teaching to meet the expectations of students in what they want to learn as opposed to what people in the field know they need to be taken seriously. I am constantly being told, we don't need to learn this stuff from young folks who wouldn't know shit from shoe polish. This is a two way street though and that is why it is so important for lecturers to be engaged with the field and be on the cutting edge of research and not rest on past laurels, which in turn leads to more current relevant coursework and better students.

What caused that rightward shift in Australia, do you have any ideas?

In the USA, Jane Mayer wrote an interesting book on the subject.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

What caused that rightward shift in Australia, do you have any ideas?

In the USA, Jane Mayer wrote an interesting book on the subject.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html

Did you read that book? It's a screed - I couldn't get more than a few chapters into it.

 

[Luminosity]

What caused that rightward shift in Australia, do you have any ideas?

In the USA, Jane Mayer wrote an interesting book on the subject.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/books/review/dark-money-by-jane-mayer.html

Personally I think the shift to the left including women's equality, gay rights, multiculturalism etc.. left many behind who have had a violent reaction to the change. Too many changes too fast for some I think. In some ways I feel as if it is a natural correction, too fast to the left then too fast to the right. It will settle somewhere in the middle on the next phase I think.

 

[smooth assassin]

I only got to chapter 3 in the introduction of thread, I’ll eat a snack and read some more later

 

[genecop]

All this talk of and not one mention of..

 

[genecop]

An order of therapie, with a side order of philosofry...

 

[genecop]

"There is nothing like a gleam of humor to reassure you that a fellow human being is ticking inside a strange face." - Eva Hoffman

 

[EyeOfNewt]

Academia is definitely changing with the coming of the digital, especially in the way in which we disseminate information and teaching practices. However, I feel like some of the things you are talking about is part of a wider political movement instigated by a hard shift to the right that demonizes intellectualism and thought in general. Universities are at a crossroads, they were once places of developing independent thought but have been hijacked by business models that we are suppose to be job trainers. Training people for professional roles has always been part of our job but more and more it is becoming the primary focus, leading to a watering down of the 'hard' stuff. In Australia universities are now taking on the role of TAFE (Techinqual and Further Education) , which were designed for job training, but because TAFES are seen as not as prestigious as universities they have taken the student away from job trainers, leaving them with only the trade training. This has had the affect of lowering their standards in not only teaching but the quality of students they accept from the get go. We, as educators, are also placed in a business model that sees the student as a "customer" in which it is our job make the customer happy, which includes not making things too difficult. There is a lack of respect to teachers nowadays in which we are supposed to bend our teaching to meet the expectations of students in what they want to learn as opposed to what people in the field know they need to be taken seriously. I am constantly being told, we don't need to learn this stuff from young folks who wouldn't know shit from shoe polish. This is a two way street though and that is why it is so important for lecturers to be engaged with the field and be on the cutting edge of research and not rest on past laurels, which in turn leads to more current relevant coursework and better students.

What do you mean by a hard shift to the right? How do you describe the right?

Academia went to the dogs when it turned into a business and ceased to be a place of learning. Like with any other business, the old adage applies: "the customer (student) is always right". Undergrad professors look really helpless!

Being a business, it's important to keep customer flow. Science courses are now trimmed to bare bones in order to speed up the graduation process and increased competition among students leaves little room for learning, only for competing.

But there's something else to consider. Science changed a lot in the last 100 years. There's a lot more information to store and grasp than a century ago, but with the same limitations (of the mind). Unless AI takes over, I don't see a way out of this bottleneck. At some point there will be just too much information for the mind to store and understand. For example, in the 1700's advancements in the field of mathematics were usually small personal endeavors. Now in order to keep up and push the boundaries one must read all sorts of work across different branches from many authors

 

[Yotsuya]

My answer to your question is: "Yes, but..." As I read it, Confucianism, like Platonism and Aristotelianism, isn't trying to be systematic like Kantianism or Objectivism, but it is trying to be comprehensive in the sense that it's meant to cover all the bases from the personal to the interpersonal to the social. So, yes, one's relationships to/in society and to/in the family are crucial, but not over and above or at the expense of the cultivation of character on the level of the individual. It starts from within the family and then you (are supposed to) become an individual. And a lot of the emphasis on family has been critiqued from the perspective of virtue ethics. But it all-too-often and all-too-easily gets reduced to a collectivist philosophy that's all about the family and about society and in which the individual is lost or nonexistent. It is about those things, but not only about those things.

Sounds like collectivism to me, if individual needs to cultivate his character in order to become better member of the family/society.

 

[Rimbaud82]

The link between mysticism and philosophy is an interesting concept and one could argue that the search for an understanding of life is mystical in that the philosopher, like the mystic or the religious scholar, seeks an elevated perception of this thing we call life.

There are definitely some parallels, with some schools of philosophy more than others, particularly some 20th century continental philosophy. Guys like Buber, Heidegger, some of Levinas, Jaspers, Wittgenstein, and others, all provide some interesting parallels.

Much of Levinas' thought skirts the mystic and one could argue that for Levinas the 'face' of the Other is actually the 'face' of god in that it is a transcendent experience. He doesn't come outright and say it but the suggestion is definitely there. I didn't really pay much attention to his religious writings when doing my PhD as it wasn't really relevant to what I was doing.

This is why I was recommending Buber to you before, Levinas' stress on on the encounter with the Other 'face-to-face' is somewhat similar to Buber's conception of the 'I-Thou' relationship. As far as I understand it anyway, when it comes to philosophy other than some theory I read for my history research (ie. all this stuff) then I am just an interested amateur. There are certainly some 'mystical undercurrents' in Levinas writings that I have read, it's more explicit in Buber the 'I-Thou' relationship is the one we have with God. But I suppose there are some key differences between the two, for instance whereas Levinas' 'face' of the Other in these encounters actually requires a human face, Buber thinks we could potentially have an 'I-Thou' relationship with anything, including an animal, or even a tree:

"I contemplate a tree.

I can accept it as a picture: a rigid pillar in a flood of light, or splashes of green traversed by the gentleness of the blue silver ground.
I can feel it as movement: the flowing veins around the sturdy, striving core, the sucking of the roots, the breathing of the leaves, the infinite commerce with earth and air—and the growing itself in its darkness.
I can assign it to a species and observe it as an instance, with an eye to its construction and its way of life. I can overcome its uniqueness and form so rigorously that I recognize it only as an expression of the law—those laws according to which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or those laws according to which the elements mix and separate.
I can dissolve it into a number, into a pure relation between numbers, and eternalize it. Throughout all of this the tree remains my object and has its place and its time span, its kind and condition.
But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has seized me. This does not require me to forego any of the modes of contemplation. There is nothing that I must not see in order to see, and there is no knowledge that I must forget. Rather is everything, picture and movement, species and instance, law and number included and inseparably fused. Whatever belongs to the tree is included: its form and its mechanics, its colors and its chemistry, its conversation with the elements and its conversation with the stars—all this in its entirety.
The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no aspect of a mood; it confronts me bodily and has to deal with me as I must deal with it—only differently. One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relation: relation is reciprocity. Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself."

 

[Rimbaud82]

I am a big fan of Karl Jaspers, particularly the manner in which he differentiates philosophy from science. Some quotes from the first section of Way to Wisdom which pertain to some of what has been said by certain individuals in this thread.

"What philosophy is and how much it is worth a matters of controversy. One may expect to yield extraordinary revelations or one may view it with indifference as a thinking in the void. One may look upon it with awe as the meaningful endeavour of exception men or despise it as the superfluous broodings of dreamers..."

"For the scientific-minded, the worst aspect of philosophy is that it produces no universally valid results; it provides nothing that we can know and thus possess..." [BUT] "It lies in the very nature of philosophy, as distinguished from the sciences, that in any of its forms it must dispense with the unanimous recognition of all. The certainty to which it aspires is not of the objective, scientific sort, which is the same for every mind; it is an inner certainty in which a man's whole being participates. Whereas science always pertains to particular objects, the knowledge of which is by no means indispensable to all men, philosophy deals with the whole of being, which concerns man as man, with a truth which, wherever it is manifested, moves us more deeply than any scientific knowledge."

"Since man cannot avoid philosophy, it is always present: in the proverbs handed down bytradition, in popular philosophical phrases, in dominant convictions such as are embodied in the idiom of the
'emancipated,' in political opinions, but most of all, since the very beginnings of history, in myths. There is no escape from philosophy. The question is only whether a philosophy is conscious or not, whether it is good or bad, muddled or clear. Anyone who rejects philosophy is himself unconsciously practising a philosophy."

"the essence of philosophy is not the possession of truth but the search for truth, regardless of how many philosophers may belie it with their dogmatism, that is, with a body of didactic principles purporting to be definitive and complete. Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question."

That is how I look at it as well,philosophy and philosophical thinking is never going to result in a definitive scientific truth - though without 'philosophy' there would be no science - but it is the journey, or the ladder to return to Wittgenstein - which is what provides it with the most value. It's a process. Of course, that's not the say that it's all relative, that every philosopher's ideas are just as valid as any other or that it's just some endless search with no answers at all. Obviously it can result in certain conclusion, or lead you to some kind of peace/understanding, but it is a mental activity that can lead to personal satisfaction, or at least a greater degree of insight too.

 

[Rimbaud82]

View attachment 470851 All this talk of and not one mention of..

what's this, bill murray as a Tibetan monk?

 

[genecop]

what's this, bill murray as a Tibetan monk?

A film that had a big impact on my life..The Razors Edge...

 

[Rimbaud82]

A film that had a big impact on my life..The Razors Edge...

Haven't heard of it, is it a serious film, I always assume Bill Murray is going to be in comedies and such. Sounds interesting, there are some fascinating stories about Western Buddhist monks.

Are you interested in Buddhism?

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

has there been a serious counterpt to either the Argument of Motion (First Mover) or Ex Nihilo (from nothing comes nothing) from Aquinas's Summa Theologica?

I've read Kant and Hume's critique of the Cosmological Arguments, haven't read Dawkins critique tho.

What would a counterpart seek to prove exactly?

I think the cosmological argument is a good argument that doesn't tell you too much about the entity or whatever it concludes with (nor do I think that's what Aquinas intended to do with his version). The arguments that are often used in conjunction with it are not so good. Addressing the soundness of the premises is work for physics now though, imo.

The ex nihilo argument is similar. Could nothing ever have existed? Can't the universe be infinite? How far back can we trace the creation of "stuff"?

Ancient philosophers and theologians aren't the people I would turn to for answers to those questions.

Haven't heard of it, is it a serious film, I always assume Bill Murray is going to be in comedies and such. Sounds interesting, there are some fascinating stories about Western Buddhist monks.

Are you interested in Buddhism?

Something something authenticity, something something.

A philosopher I follow actually recommended that as his favourite work of fiction.

I found it pretty dull, though it may be because I agreed with it so thoroughly that nothing about it surprised me.

Have not seen the film.

 

[all caps]

Well you can act like a poor unread chap with an inferority complex, or you could have just posted what it is you wanted contribute? If I you have some thoughts, ponderings, or insights I'm sure they would be welcomed.

Same for you @Cubo de Sangre, get a conversation rolling the way that you enjoy it then?

I will jump in when I feel I have something to contribute. Just dont want anyone to get the idea that I think I'm smart or well read.

I thought he was busting my balls, not speaking for himself.

I wish you guys would take me seriously. Even just sometimes