...art is useless -at least when compared, say, to the work of a plumber, or a doctor, or a railroad engineer. But is uselessness a bad thing? Does a lack of practical purpose mean that books and paintings and string quartets are simply a waste of our time? Many people think so. But I would argue that it is the very uselessness of art that gives it its value -and that the making of art is what distinguishes us from all other creatures who inhabit this planet, that it is, essentially, what defines us as human beings. To do something for the pure pleasure and beauty of doing it. Think of the effort involved, the long hours of practice and discipline required to become an accomplished pianist or dancer. All the suffering and hard work, all the sacrifices in order to achieve something that is utterly and magnificently... useless.

Paul Auster

some complementary remarks from Alain Badiou (Adventures of French Philosophy) who more or less written, interviewed or debated with them all, a concise (inevitably biased and not without criticism, excludes the contribution of French feminist/women philosophers) overview of contemporary French philosophy chief concerns:

We may summarize the main points of the programme that inspired postwar French
philosophy as follows:
1. To have done with the separation of concept and existence—no longer to oppose the two; to demonstrate that the concept is a living thing, a creation, a process, an event, and, as such, not divorced from existence;
2. To inscribe philosophy within modernity, which also means taking it out of the academy and putting it into circulation in daily life. Sexual modernity, artistic modernity, social modernity: philosophy has to engage with all of this;
3.To abandon the opposition between philosophy of knowledge and philosophy of action, the Kantian division between theoretical and practical reason, and to demonstrate that knowledge itself, even scientific knowledge, is actually a practice;
4. To situate philosophy directly within the political arena, without making the detour via political philosophy; to invent what I would call the ‘philosophical militant’, to make philosophy into a militant practice in its presence, in its way of being: not simply a reflection upon politics, but a real political intervention;
5. To reprise the question of the subject, abandoning the reflexive model, and thus to engage with psychoanalysis—to rival and, if possible, to better it
6. To create a new style of philosophical exposition, and so to compete with literature; essentially, to reinvent in contemporary terms the 18th-century figure of the philosopher-writer.

Such is the French philosophical moment, its programme, its high ambition. To identify it further, its one essential desire—for every identity is the identity of a desire—was to turn philosophy into an active form of writing that would be the medium for the new subject. And by the same token, to banish the meditative or professorial image of the philosopher; to make the philosopher something other than a sage, and so other than a rival to the priest. Rather, the philosopher aspired to become a writer-combatant, an artist of the subject, a lover of invention, a philosophical militant—these are the names for the desire that runs through this period: the desire that philosophy should act in its own name. I am reminded of the phrase Malraux attributed to de Gaulle in Les chênes qu’on abat: ‘Greatness is a road toward something that one does not know’. Fundamentally, the French philosophical moment of the second half of the 20th century was proposing that philosophy should prefer that road to the goals it knew, that it should choose philosophical action or intervention over wisdom and meditation. It is as philosophy without wisdom that it is condemned today.

This book does not have the function of a proof. It exists as a sort of prelude, to explore the keyboard, sketch out the themes and see how people react, what will be criticised, what will be misunderstood, and what will cause resentment - it was in some sense to give the other volumes access to these reactions that I wrote this one first.As to the problem of fiction, it seems to me to be a very important one; I am well aware that I have never written anything but fictions. I do not mean to say, however, that truth is therefore absent. It seems to me that the possibility exists for fiction to function in truth, for a fictional discourse to induce effects of truth, and for bringing it about that a true discourse engenders or "manufactures' something that does not as yet exist, that is, 'fictions' it. One 'fictions' history on the basis of a political reality that makes it true, one 'fictions' a politics not yet in existence on the basis of a historical truth.

Michel Foucault 'Les rapports de pouvoir passent a l'interieur des corps', in Quinzaine Litteraire 247, 1-15 January 1977.

this fourfold OP is not dissimilar to poetic tones of (the later) Heidegger, an attempt to make a distinction between calculative thinking and meditative thinking, and by implication the distinction between the correspondence theory truth and, truth as unconcealment/disclosure- Aletheia (ἀλήθεια) . Note that Heidegger argues that these are not oppositional binaries nor a rallying call to undermine science, but a more modest claim that the latter is forgotten, made indifferent, symptomatic of the technological utility driven epoch we are now dwelling:
Calculative thinking computes. It computes ever new, ever more promising and at the same time more economical possibilities. Calculative thinking races from one prospect to the next. Calculative thinking never stops, never collects itself. Calculative thinking is not meditative thinking, not thinking which contemplates the meaning which reigns in everything that is. There are, then, two kinds of thinking, each justified and needed in its own way: calculative thinking and meditative thinking…
…Yet anyone can follow the path of meditative thinking in his own manner and within his own limits. Why? Because man is a “thinking”, that is, a “meditating being”. Thus meditative thinking need by no means be "high-flown." It is enough if we dwell on what lies close and meditate on what is closest; upon that which concerns us, each one of us, here and now; here, on this patch of home ground; now, in the present hour of history…
… For the way to what is near is always the longest and thus the hardest for us humans. This way is the way of meditative thinking. Meditative thinking demands of us not to cling one-sidedly to a single idea, nor to run down a one-track course of ideas. Meditative thinking demands of us that we engage ourselves with what at first sight does not go to-gether at all (Discourse on Thinking 1959).

there is a recurring discourse about appearance vs reality that historically stems from Plato’s Republic book X, I won’t bother with footnotes, nor the subsequent playful repartee in contemporary arts criticism and practise, that most who are interested in art history culturally as I infer would be acquainted with anyway. Just a mention of the artist Gerhard Richter whose opus includes a substantial body of photorealist paintings. They are worth looking if you are interested in philosophical informed artworks involving the complex interplay of photography and painting, he once said it like this: Photography has almost no reality; it is almost a hundred per cent picture. And painting always has reality: you can touch the paint; it has presence; but it always yields a picture – no matter whether good or bad. That’s all theory. It’s no good. I once took small photographs and then smeared them with paint. That partly resolved the problem, and it’s really good – better than anything I could ever say on the subject.

heard that Santa Claus was at a Xmas speed dating event, he pulled a cracker.

happy new year everyone! :smile:

Wittgenstein “On Certainty”

286. What we believe depends on what we learn. We all believe that it isn't possible to get to the moon; but there might be people who believe that that is possible and that it sometimes happens. We say: these people do not know a lot that we know. And, let them be never so sure of their belief - they are wrong and we know it. If we compare our system of knowledge with theirs then theirs is evidently the poorer one by far. (23.9.50)

question/comments prompts me to the famous story of the philosopher Thales (water of all things), who whilst looking at the stars fell into a well (not implying any users here! ). The below abridged passage is the earliest version for all to enjoy, for me it’s a reminder, a caution, at times not to take philosophers or philosophy too seriously.

From Plato’s Theaetetus:
Socrates and Theodorus in discussion…

SOCRATES: Well, here’s an instance: they say Thales was studying the stars, Theodorus, and gazing aloft, when he fell into a well; and a witty and amusing Thracian servant-girl made fun of him because, she said, he was wild to know about what was up in the sky but failed to see what was in front of him and under his feet. The same joke applies to all who spend their lives in philosophy. It really is true that the philosopher fails to see his next-door neighbor; he not only doesn’t notice what he is doing; he scarcely knows whether he is a man or some other kind of creature. The question he asks is, What is Man? What actions and passions properly belong to human nature and distinguish it from all other beings? This is what he wants to know and concerns himself to investigate. You see what I mean, Theodorus, don’t you?

find this quote quite funny (my bold), from Heidegger:
...Nietzsche never did publish what he really thought after Zarathustra something we tend to over
look. All his writings after Zarathustra are polemics; they are outcries. What he really thought became known only through the largely inadequate posthumous publications.
From all that has here been suggested, it should be dear that one cannot read Nietzsche in a haphazard ways that each one of his writings has its own character and limits;
and that the most important works and labors of his thought, which are contained in his posthumous writings, make demands to which we are not equal. It is advisable, therefore, that you postpone reading
Nietzsche for the time being, and first study Aristotle for ten to fifteen years.

…question made complicated because “science” or “philosophy” means different things to different people/contexts. With the shifting and inconsistent definitions it could lead to misunderstanding.
I think it was Wittgenstein, somewhere, who said that one of the problems with philosophy is the lack of consensus of what philosophy should entail, conflicting language games.

My initial thoughts, and I stand to be corrected or further elaborated by those with more expertise, is the relevance of methodology.
Hard science (as opposed to soft descriptive science) is more in the business of doing actual experiments, confirming/rejecting measurable hypotheses, ultimately, at least provisionally to establish casual connections, leading to more predictive power etc.
Otoh, philosophy is not usually lab work, but more to question or to clarity these presuppositions, it could for example examine the latent cultural structures in which these operate, or it could be a non-scientific (not anti-science) endeavour putting the emphasis on “being” back to some kind of primordial, non-dualistic thinking.

roland barthes, in particular: "image, music text" could be helpful,

semiotics combined with psychoanalysis, would be the way i would approach the question, if you wanna be more critical then maybe add modern marxist thought to the mix.

psychological/biological theories tend to be more reductive,

from an arts perspective
check out cindy sherman, her art work addresses "he gaze" critically, too many postmod essays out there to quote, but the work speaks for itself

mostly agree above, but i would say the one way to address this question more deeply is perhaps go to go an art gallery and look at the work of artists. something i miss sooo much in these covid times.

this is my first post not sure if this works