What philosopher do you think has been most successful in embracing atheism and avoiding nihilism? If you have some book you can recommend, I would be happy to read it. — Ron Cram
My philosophical interests are in epistemology, logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of life with a minor interest in political philosophy. — Ron Cram
What is the crisis of philosophy in his view? — Ron Cram
I understood that it was the question of how to embrace atheism while avoiding nihilism. I haven't done any reading in this area, but I was told that the history of philosophy since Nietzsche has been a search for a way to reject God while avoiding nihilism. — Ron Cram
I have been told that no philosopher has yet been successful in this search. — Ron Cram
I think there's some sentimental attachment as this was the first work of Nietzsche's that I read, and it's the one I return to most. Beyond that superficial reason... — Erik
I think it presents a nice broad overview of the major themes of his philosophy. It also contains a few of my favorite aphorisms (e.g. #1 in 'Reason' in Philosophy, #8 in The Four Great Errors and #5 in What the Germans Lack). So yeah, I know it's not typically interpreted by the experts as being one of his better or more important works, but it's the one that's stuck with me most. — Erik
Well, I can't comment on Hegel's Logic because I haven't read it, and large parts of the Phenomenology remain incomprehensible to me. But just when I was about to give up on him, I heard someone mention Philosophy of Right as being surprisingly accessible and full of valuable insights. Have you read it? If so, what's your take? There are some parts where I was a bit surprised by how traditionally conservative Hegel comes across as, but there are also areas where's he's pretty radical in outlook. — Erik
I remember reading somewhere that they were Kauffman's recommended places to start with Nietzsche as well, though I can't for the life of me remember where. — StreetlightX
Dreyfus has a chart for how "ontic" and "ontology" are used in various circumstances. I'm not getting it, though. I think I'm going to cruise on and come back to it later. — frank
Hegel - Philosophy of Right
Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols — Erik
We witness in ourselves a pre-ontological understanding (↪Ilyosha
I think this is right?) of the world. That understanding arrives at vegan-bacon and teeth in an unthinking way. So the objects are there before us with their respective horizons (our expectations about them) without any analysis. — frank
Dreyfus: "Thanks to our preontological understanding of being, what shows up for us shows up as something.
A pre-ontological understanding of being is in play as we interact with the tree. — frank
Yes, it's very useful to distinguish those cognitive abilities we have that we share with animals (that are therefore pre-verbal) from those that require the use of words and concepts. Schopenhauer distinguished between Reason (which uses words and concepts) and the Understanding, which we share with animals.
Obviously, animals can distinguish 3-d objects and their position in space, they can distinguish colours and textures, smells, etc. They can distinguish things as defined by such criteria.
There's a whole bunch of stuff like that. You can actually get along at a rudimentary level in life without much use of concepts and words at all - it can even be quite pleasurable (not for the chattering classes, for whom it could only possibly ever be a break, but for most normal people, who are generally fairly taciturn).
Although it has to be said that human children can probably sense the "shape" of social roles before they have the words to plug into their own thoughts. We're exquisitely designed to follow social cues, etc., to "fit in." So a good deal of acculturation in the early years can indeed be pre-verbal too.
But yes, once words, symbols, concepts enter the picture, the cognitive landscape is vastly extended, as is the possibility of various social roles, and acculturation to them. — gurugeorge
There is a social practices aspect to the ontology of the tree. Further there is something Kantian about the ontology of the tree that I don't think varies from culture to culture. — frank
What is Dasein in your view? — frank
Why talk about trees? I realize H was doing a different kind of ontology having to do with ways of being. I got caught up in trees because of what Dreyfus said about what Dasein is: it's not subjectivity. OTOH it doesn't leave subjectivity out. — frank
I think H's point is that Dasein is a fusion or relationship between subjectivity and the world of trees and cups which are basically what humanity makes of greys and browns. — frank
I think there are fundamentally human practices that give meaning to what we sense. For instance, when we see a mass of grey and brown, it isn't influence from any particular culture that produces a declaration of "tree." It's something more fundamental that has to do with objects in space and time. — frank
I'm not offended at all. Honestly, after I made this post I realized how much ignorance was in this post. What I really should of asked was where can I learn more about Kierkegaard. So thank you for the link, I am really curios as to where it will lead, not only in Kierkegaard but in existentialism as well. Thank you. — Derek
Am I wrong? — Derek
How so? Genuinely interested. — Posty McPostface
What alternative do you propose? The Nietzschean will to power? — Posty McPostface
But, what does that prove? — Posty McPostface
Sure, there are differing motives for doing philosophy. My primary question that I just stumbled upon in making this thread through my response to you is, "What affective need does philosophy fulfill?" — Posty McPostface
Spinoza could not help but to examine what was before him. We all do by degree.
We're getting hung up on the trappings — Monitor
I would like to clarify any ambiguity about my attitude towards philosophy. I am not proposing that philosophy serve as a utilitarian purpose here, since what utility does the Mona Lisa serve? It's quite clear from what I've read about the dropout rates of grad school philosophy, that the people who make it through it are motivated by reasons apart from material gain or financial wellbeing. So, hence I return back to my original premise, that philosophy serves an affectual need to be fulfilled in some intellectual sense.. — Posty McPostface
Of course there will always be elements of an athlete's skill that cannot be made conceptually explicit, and even if they could be explicated they could only be emulated by those who possess the necessary physical potentialities. — Janus
But I also think, as I have explained to Frank that, to continue with this example, MJ's capacity to play basketball has within it the potential to be explicated, so that all the distinctions that become explicit in any such explication are incipient within his capacity to play basketball. This does not mean that those distinctions are actually being drawn in the course of MJ's playing basketball.
So, there is a kind of "isomorphism" there, I would want to argue, even though the playing and the explication are very different conceptually and experientially. (When iI say that the playing and the explication of it are conceptually different, what I mean is that the explication of the playing and the explication of the explication of the playing are different). — Janus
Yes. What's there in a reflective moment is the realization that we can't explain how we're able to ride the bike or speak. Maybe some portion of philosophy is exactly that: trying to explain how it works. The question is whether, after we put aside the question of how, we can still see outlines of some structure to our background practices. — frank
You mentioned the I emerging from We. What's of interest to me is that this We is not necessarily people. There's a We made of me and the non-human world. That is as much background as social practices. — frank
That sounds interesting. I hadn't been aware of any debate between McDowell and Dreyfus. Will you start such a thread? — Janus
Ontological antirealist. It's the same thing we've been talking about. Our knowledge of our pre-reflective behavior generates conflicting ontologies. In the past I imagined the conflict could be resolved in some way. It can't be. — frank
I would be disappointed because I've been turning into an anti-realist existentialist. — frank
Would it not be possible to hold both views? If a conceptual understanding makes explicit our pre-reflective experience it seems natural enough to think that this making-explicit would also transform our experience. Still, I don't see any kind of gulf between the two 'modes' of experience, so no kind of troublesome "dualism" would seem to be involved. — Janus
In other words if there were no pre-reflective understanding of self and other could we ever arrive at the explicit position of self and other? Is the new explicit understanding not then,in that sense, precisely an understanding of the "fundamental" pre-reflective state? — Janus
Assertion or psychophysics 101? It's just standard psychological science. — apokrisis
But even the experiencing eye is imposing an intelligible structure on the world. [...] So the scientific method is just about making the epistemology of being "a reasoning mind" something that is explicit and thus perfectable. [...] And from that prosaic truth, you can always continue on to the exciting ontic implications. — apokrisis
Trump's philosophers?
I doubt he's familar with many or any of them but I'd suggest:
Julius Evola
Alexander Geljewitsch Dugin
Ayn Rand
Giovanni Gentile
Arthur de Gobineau
Lothrop Stoddard — Mayor of Simpleton
Looks like no-one answered your question. Maybe:
Output: e.g. Aristotle ~100
Cool Factor: e.g. Camus ~100
Influence: e.g. Plato ~100
Controversy: e.g. Nietzsche ~100 — Baden