• Worthy! Most worthy is the Philosopher
    " I think that's a misguided view and so react negatively when philosophy is portrayed as the study of something superior in some profound sense to life as lived." — InternetStranger

    I think yours views are misguided as well, but I did not react negatively to it. I did not even say that philosophy was a study of something superior.

    Rutherford isolated the nucleus of the atom. He wasn't, however, concerned with its possible applications. He died believing nothing would come of that discovery, and that the release of the energy from the nucleus would not mean much. He gloried in the knowledge for its own sake, i.e., real knowledge. Not "stamp collecting" — InternetStranger

    So what? How big of a percentage of humans stand along side him? Do you think that all humans should be scientists as well?

    Weber in many respects controls the universities today. The notion of the "ideal type" is very powerful. The notion of a "fact value" distinction (which, make no mistake, became powerful through Weber, though it was developed by Simmel and stems from Nietzsche, Hume is only accidentally and retrospectively credited with this because of Kant/Nietzsche) controls the whole academic product and the methodology of each field (just as much and more in the those social sciences were it is explicitly rejected, because it still founds those disciplines in their methodology:, e.g., sociology, ethnology, anthropology and the rest of the Kulturwissenschaften). The systematic expulsion of subjectivity, political science, not political philosophy. — InternetStranger

    Again, so what? what does this have to do with your statement that all humans are philosophers and therefore should practice philosophy?

    Ergo, the point is, philosophy is no other world. — InternetStranger

    Who said it was?

    Think of living in a tribal life of scarcity and without education. Is it not closer to barbarity? — InternetStranger

    Downtown in most big cities you can find street people that are close to being barbarians, is that because of lack of philosophizing?

    Ergo, the raising up is what you are now because of what has been philosophized. — InternetStranger

    You are what you are now because of history, not all of history was philosophy. Come to think of it there were actually very few philosophers through out history.

    Man is not a born philosopher even though he is a born thinker, they are two different things. Science is what has created the screwed up world we live in, why don't we have more scientist to try and straighten it out? Simple, because not everyone is capable of being one. The same goes for philosophy, not everyone is cut out to be one.

    I personally would hate to live in a world where everyone practiced philosophy, we would probably still be the same as in the 12th century.
  • Worthy! Most worthy is the Philosopher
    I'm with Socrates so far as he made the starkly patent truth vocal in propounding that a life that does not inquire is no human life. — InternetStranger

    What he actually said was "The unexamined life is not worth living". Well that was his opinion anyway, I have never seen any evidence to back it up though.

    You do not have to be a philosopher to examine your life, a lot of people simple ask themselves, "am I happy, content with what I have?" then answer "it ain't f*****g worth the work to get any better". Examination done, go back to the telly and six pack and watch football.

    Ergo, all humans are philosophers. — InternetStranger

    Show me how that adds up. From the premises you stated it could just as easily be all humans that don't inquire are not alive. Or not human.
  • Worthy! Most worthy is the Philosopher
    It seems to follow as corollary of philosophy's status as the highest activity vouchsafed to human beings. The rest is "stamp collecting". — InternetStranger

    But most humans are not philosophers, they resist it. That is why I asked why you see it s a duty for people to be philosophers.
  • Worthy! Most worthy is the Philosopher
    Yet, is this not an appalling shirking of one's duty to roar philosophically, and to heroically inquire into what is? — InternetStranger

    For most people a meow is excess work never mind roaring.

    But why do you think of it as a duty? Is there some sort of built-in "ought to" function that controls the inquire process or does it just get switched on when it is convenient?
  • The Last Word
    ↪ArguingWAristotleTiff


    Hi Tiff,

    Sorry I have not been around recently but I have been really busy. I have looked in a few times but I did not want to start participating in anything if I could not continue.

    I hope to have some free time at the end of the month when I have 2 weeks of vacation. Maybe there will be something interesting to post in then.

    See you around
  • deGrasse Tyson, "a disturbing thought"
    What can they do that we cannot? — tim wood

    Come to visit us!

    And the parallel question, what would better thinking for humans look like? — tim wood

    Going to visit them.
  • The Last Word
    No, it is Wednesday.
  • This place is special.
    How long does the probation last? — VagabondSpectre

    Until you have proven yourself or the day after eternity ends, which ever comes first. :rofl:
  • This place is special.
    Ah but I AM awesome, therefore you must know me! — VagabondSpectre

    OK, so now I know you. But that does not mean that you are awesome, I know a lot of idiots as well.

    Let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V! — VagabondSpectre

    Well V, if you put it that way I might try to consider you as reasonable. Not awesome yet because you will have to prove your awesomeness. :wink:
    But please don't make any more comments about eloping, things like that give me the shivers. And not the nice ones either. :zip:
  • This place is special.
    An awesome member who is never wrong? — VagabondSpectre

    If I don't know who you are then you cannot be awesome, therefore you are wrong. :cool:
  • This place is special.
    Finally I get recognition. — VagabondSpectre

    Who the hell are you? :confused:
  • Wiser Words Have Never Been Spoken
    To be honest to thyself and to keep an open mind to actually, dare I say, being wrong. — Posty McPostface
  • This place is special.
    To be honest to thyself and to keep an open mind to actually, dare I say, being wrong. — Posty McPostface

    Someone put this in Wiser Words Have Never Been Spoken thread. Oh, hang on and I will do it.

    It is a well known fact that only certain AWESOME members are never wrong(just screwed up). But the rest of us can be and we should recognize the fact.

    I've come to realize that the questions posed here are very personal and intimate to the arguer. — Posty McPostface

    A person's opinions are formed through their way of thinking and the information that they have. Most people don't see the opposing arguments as valid because their mind deals with the information differently and it is difficult to see from someone else's point of view.
    Most people don't try to argue from both sides because it goes against the grain, a religious person for instance will flatly refuse to even think about abortion or euthanasia.
  • Your Favourite Philosophical Books
    I have not done any heavy reading for years, even though I have quite a few books lined up to read or re-read.

    But I have read some lighter stuff and mostly on the humorous side.

    On Bullshit - Harry Frankfurt
    The Humans - Matt Haig
    How to Stop Time - Matt Haig
    Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life - Daniel Klein
    Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won't Go Away - Rebecca Goldstein
    Plato and a Platypus Walk into a bar - Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein
    Aristotle and an Aardvark Go to Washington - Thomas Cathcart, Daniel Klein

    Not so humorous.
    The Gospel of Philip - Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and the Gnosis of Sacred Union - Jean-Yves Leloup
    The Computer and the Brain - John von Neumann
    Theory and Reality An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science - Peter Godfrey-Smith

    There are a bunch of Richard Dawkins and Carl Sagan I want to re-read as well. When I get the time. :chin:
  • The Social God
    it seemed like a good idea to turn society into God — frank

    If anything I would say that we let society become the puppet master, but not the god.
    Society cannot be seem as a god because the common definition of god usually includes "super natural" and there is no way that you can classify society as super natural.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    ↪Sapientia
    Talk to the hand.

    Raised_Hand_Emoji.png?9898922749706957214
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    But many gun owners aren't responsible. Is there a way to force them to be so short of threatening to take their guns off them? — Baden

    You do not need to be a gun, or even explosives, collector to be dangerous to your kids. Most parents are careless with house cleaning products that are poisonous or flammable. Lots of parents don't have child protection locks on doors to places that can be harmful to kids.
    But I would like to ask how many of these mass murderers used their family's guns to kill people?

    I know that there have been many accidents and murders with the house protection weapon caused through carelessness or ease of access. But mass murders usually acquire their weapons just for that purpose and most families have no idea they have them.
  • A "Timeless" Moral Code?
    Is there some tiny trace of objective morality that has emanated throughout all cultures in all time periods? — Robot Brain

    Don't hurt the community, the future of it.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    While an ancient one rises in the East (er... north, form here...) — Banno

    The next big question is
    How far are they going to rise before we all get wiped out in the conflict?
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    Ain't that the truth!

    But then the yanks can be weird sometimes, present company are not counted in that generality. :wink:
  • The Last Word
    ↪Posty McPostface
    You might be a coward, but you are a rooster. Now stand up straight and stop acting like an egg layer.
    And ducks don't cluck either, they quack. It just was not poetically pleasing. :wink:
  • The Last Word
    Ducks cluck.
    Crows crow.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    No, I would take away the scissors and replace them with guns.

    Of course it should be followed by an explanation! I was only talking about the first thing that you should do.     — Sapientia

    Sorry, but if you would explain instead of getting snarky it might help.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    If you catch kids running around with scissors, then the first thing that you should do is stop them and take away the scissors. Whose bright idea was it to leave them unsupervised with easy access to scissors? — Sapientia

    You would take away the scissors and explain why they should not do that. Education.

    Taking away the scissors without an explanation is the same as oppression and leads to resentment and frustration, which in turn might lead to violence.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    The American obsession with guns is not behavioral. — Buxtebuddha

    So obsessive behavior is not behavior, that's news.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    ↪Baden
    I know all about the battles in education systems, I have talked to many people around the world and they all have the same problems. And I have my own battlefield to get through everyday at work.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    I've come to the conclusion it's more of a cultural thing though and isn't going to change in the foreseeable. — Baden

    And the only way to change culture (=behavior) is through education.

    Positive behavioral changes do not usually happen by themselves, they take conscious reasoning and control.
    Negative behavioral changes in behavior, unfortunately, do not. Negative behavioral changes are often the results of mindless follow the leader/example type of thing. "Dat's cool, I gonna do dat".
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    They can't even successfully educate people in the basics of reading and arithmatic. — Hanover

    That is why I said "in a couple of generations". They have a long way to go.

    But that problem is not just the American society, that is a world wide problem right now. Many of today's kids do not want to learn.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    ↪Banno
    I thought that the article was interesting because it highlights the points I have been making.

    There are just too many guns in the USA, the attitude of the people towards their guns and the fact that it is not the good majority of the people that are the problem but a very small percent that do.

    If they start now with an educational program that teaches people the benefits of not having guns, start reviewing all of the people that already have them and begin a restrict control of who gets one in the future they might make a difference in a couple of generations.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/21/17028930/gun-violence-us-statistics-charts
  • 'Why haven't I won the lottery yet?'
    'Why haven't I won the lottery yet?'

    You are getting too complicated in your thinking.

    The reason is probably something simple.

    Did you even but the tickets?
  • Trump to receive Nobel Peace Prize?
    Fake news.

    Moving on.
  • Everything That Rises Must Converge
    Hint: it wasn't changes in agriculture or industry. — Bitter Crank

    Not in the deep south definitely.

    I lived around New Orleans from early 60's to 71. It was not much fun sometimes.

    I went to all white schools, rode on all white school buses, ate in all white restaurants and lived in all white neighborhoods. When we went to live there I had no idea that such feeling of superiority over other people could exist. While it was not everyone that was like that, the ones that were were often so intense about it that it was scary sometimes.

    We went to a Woolworth's that had 2 snack bars, the difference between them so sad. But even those that were not racists accepted that was what it should be like. The day after arriving in New Orleans after a 6 day drive from Montreal, we went to wash the dirty clothes at a launderette next to the hotel, it had a sign on it that said "Whites Only", I was worried about not being allowed to wash my shirts.

    In England there had been a few black people but mostly there were Pakistani, Indian and Chinese. And no one really bothered about them back them. I never heard anyone say anything bad about them or tell me to keep away from them, so I never developed any emotions about them. Being white down south you were expected by a lot of people to treat the blacks as though they were inferior by at least ignoring their presence.

    When the government decided to start integrating the school bus services I got to see the black kids neighborhood and school for the first time because our driver had to pick up a bunch of them and pass by their school to drop them off first. That was an eye opener.

    The first few days there were some scuffles but nothing to serious. In the afternoon we would pass by to pick them up again. On about the third day a black girl sat down next to me. She spent the whole trip staring at me as if expecting me to do something. The next day a bunch of idiots started calling me nasty names because I had not sat in the center and refused to let her pass and sit next to me. They said that I should have made her stand up.

    After a few months had passed, I asked one of my friends why our school was so much better than theirs. He answered that it was because most of their parents did not work so they did not pay taxes and therefore could not afford anything better.

    Most of the people we knew were not racists, some of them were so used to the situation that to them it was considered normal, the mother.
    Some were aware that it was not quite right that the black people should be treated like that but were not prepared to go out and do something about it until pushed to do so by something, the son. And it was usually for selfish reasons that they stood up for the black people, not love for them.

    The year I left the US they had their first black students in the school.
  • Everything That Rises Must Converge
    I love porn, but let's have a nice clean story about racism instead of sex. — Bitter Crank

    I really don't think that the story is about racism as such. It is about peoples ability or lack of ability to adapt to change, Baden's "cultural straitjacket" says it nicely. But it is also about meanness and self righteousness, the guy did not really have to rub his mothers nose in it.

    I know of a family that this happened to, but not because of race. Their problem was religion. Many generations of stout catholic upbringing came to an ugly end when one of the 2 sons left the church and became a mormon.

    Even though the parents had made sacrifices to educate them, in catholic schools and colleges, one of them took every opportunity to show them the bad things about the church, its decadence, the abuse, oppression, and corruption before he left the church.

    The father died a year or so later, the mother said of a broken heart.
  • What is uncertainty?
    The first thing to note is that certainty is an attitude. — Banno

    Not sure about that, but I would say that it is a state of being.

    Certainty being a real, true state and uncertainty an unknown or unproven state.
  • Beautiful Things
    ↪T Clark
    I agree with here, blue is my color.
  • The Last Word
    If I can type straight that is.
  • The Last Word
    Chocolateeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! — ArguingWAristotleTiff

    I received today as a gift a bottle of local made cocoa wine, never tried it before. I'll let you know the results.
  • The Last Word
    Liberty is not the power of doing what we ought, but the right of doing what we want, and liking it. Except guns. — Sapientia

    OK, so someone then has the liberty to kill others with a machete and like it.

    Admit that it is a stupid thing to say or I will post another 100 example to show you are wrong.
  • The American Gun Control Debate
    It's an instance of the fallacy because it fits the description. — Sapientia

    No it does not fit the description.

    As for the rest.

    Sappy said "Blah blah, yak yak"

    Whatever, nothing of value there.
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