But he slightly preceded Locke, who is considered the founder of empiricism. — Merkwurdichliebe

I recently read Locke for the first time. Overall I liked the spirit of his book. Before Kant we already get the theme of humans figuring out what kind of thing they are...good at figuring out. I think the empircists had their eye on the right ball. They wanted an escape from superstition and linguistic confusion.

Your points about politics are food for thought. I suppose I read Hobbes largely for his prose style and his vision of human nature. I found his politics more fascinating than convincing.

To begin, Hobbes was essentially an empiricist. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree. But for me that's not bad thing. I guess we agree about the negative influence of Descartes --or part of Descartes, because his math was great. So I thought that the subject-object metaphysics was what you most objected to, not the emphasis on experience.

Life calls. I will check back. Great thread!

Fascinating. From my point of view the metaphysicks of empiricism in Hume, admittedly obsolete, is perhaps less important than what that obsolete metaphysicks was successfully aimed against.

Along the same lines, Kant's preface to the CPR has arguably aged better than the details of his system. It's as if these guys were trying to beat metaphysicks within metaphysicks. But they also eloquently explained their general project while doing so.

As I see it, the moderns rehashed the ancient ideas into new terms. And in their unique cleverness, they created a bunch of fantastical problems. — Merkwurdichliebe

So do you not like Hume?

Here's another quote from Hobbes that impressed me. It's something that we 'already know.' And yet I find it a plausible image of the human intellect.

And because in Deliberation the Appetites and Aversions are raised by foresight of the good and evill consequences, and sequels of the action whereof we Deliberate; the good or evill effect thereof dependeth on the foresight of a long chain of consequences, of which very seldome any man is able to see to the end. But for so far as a man seeth, if the Good in those consequences be greater than the evill, the whole chain is that which Writers call Apparent or Seeming Good. And contrarily, when the evill exceedeth the good, the whole is Apparent or Seeming Evill: so that he who hath by Experience, or Reason, the greatest and surest prospect of Consequences, Deliberates best himself; and is able, when he will, to give the best counsel unto others. — Hobbes

Reason-experience is directed at future consequences. I like all that is packed into this way of framing it. It looks outward at the world and prioritizes experience.

nice point. That is why I prefer the ancient spirit in which there is no mediation. They bring it to your face, and if necessary, a hammer to the back of the head. — Merkwurdichliebe

Thanks. And when I look into the ancients or the moderns I like...it seems to me that not much has really been accomplished since. Admittedly some important insights were made explicit, and that can be valuable. When Hegel isn't being too metaphysickal, he's great, for instance. And he's even a great writer at times. I also think that some of Marx is powerful.

And most modern philosophy is constructed so as to adhere to scientific facts, given this, he was right to eliminate metaphysical and mystical concerns from philosophy. But in doing so, he cut the balls off. — Merkwurdichliebe

Good point. How much of philosophy is left over once part of it becomes literature-mysticism-politics and the other part of it becomes science? Others who know more might illuminate me here, but it seems to me that obsessing over language is largely what's left over.

philosophers are a prideful bunch, perhaps because of how much criticism philosophy gets in the modern day, not many are willing to admit that a lot of it is, in fact, contradictory bullshit. — Grre

This is a great point. The shrewder philosophers must assimilate these criticisms. So Wittgenstein and Heidegger become the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, for instance. If an anti-philosopher is sufficiently exciting, he gets interpreted as a philosopher.

His demystifications are repackaged so that yet again experts are needed as sage-whisperers. Heidegger played into this big time, at least at first. Later he's just a naked poet-sage. Wittgenstein's style in Philosophical Investigations is so informal and anti-systematic that it backfired! The anti-systematic point was presented so anti-systematically that experts are called in to connect the dots...into a system.

I think both H and W are great, by the way. To what degree, though, did they catch on because their styles were strange? And because of their cult-leader charisma? To what degree is the novelty of their insights exaggerated within philosophy ? As others have said, many have anti-philosophical insights that are manifested by just not becoming a philosopher. Maybe some of them write novels. Others study psychology or physics.

Word! And it's a nice thing to see!

I am under the impression that he felt everything mystical and metaphical should be excluded from philosophy due to the vagaries of language they provoke. — Merkwurdichliebe

FWIW, what I get from Wittgenstein is his disgust at the idea that the higher things can be treated scientifically. What's wrong with metaphysicks isn't its target but the phoniness of its method.

I doubt many on TPF have read 'The Discourses'. — Merkwurdichliebe

You may be right. I have read most of Epictetus, though, I think. There's a certain amount of redundancy, so it's hard to remember if I got it all. But great , essential stuff.

Of course. And I hope my clarification didn't come off rude, because it was meant in a friendly tone.

Was Epicurus stoic, I thought he was the founder of Epicurianism? — Merkwurdichliebe

No. I didn't mean to imply that he was. I was misleading in my prose, perhaps. Epicurianism is (in my mind) the same kind of thing as stoicism. It's a grounded strategy for life.

Awesome. Thanks. Though I might look for a paperback too. Philosophy is great in the tub. The hot water heater and the air conditioner are my household gods.

I meant Epicurus, but I had Epictetus quitely in mind when I mentioned the stoics. I like all of those guys who focused on living life well and used theory as a mere tool. It's not that I don't like theory at all: it's just that I have mixed feelings about the transformation of philosophy into an intellectual game.

Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Where ever they agree, you can be certain it is Fire. — Merkwurdichliebe

I have read some K that I really liked. There's so much stuff by K that I think I need to find a great intro that skillfully chooses the highlights.

Like Wayfarer points out, there is a critical need for a return to the ancients. — Merkwurdichliebe

I also love the ancients. I just got around to seriously reading Aristotle's Ethics. I thought it was great. I also like the stoics, Epicurus, etc. That said, it's nice to read later philosophers who wrote in powerful English. That's something like a maximum connection.

Nietzsche has been huge for me. He's such a pleasure to read. Obviously he's extreme at times, but that's part of the fun. What's excessive in him unfortunately puts some people off of what is profound and noble in his thinking. His personality was large. He contained multitudes.

I recently bought Of Truth and Non-Truth: Selected Writings. Some of the passages were new to me. The first one is a killer (about Heraclitus). Taylor Carmen does a great job translating.

Fair point. And I don't agree with all of Hobbes' theories. But I would stress that he was doing 'my' kind of philosophy by concerning himself with something other than language and other pseudo-problems. Note in that quote his focus on the intellect as a forge of decisions about what is to be done. Contrast this with endless discussions about what it is to know something in some endlessly elusive and seemingly useless absolute sense.

For me some of the moderns or pre-moderns are great. I'm fascinated by Bacon at the moment. I kick myself at times for having felt the need to read certain 'pomo' thinkers when I should have been grounding myself more in 'mo' thinkers (the good ones.) The pomo thinkers IMV are often more style than substance (metaphysicks^3).

Hungry Hegelian Hippo...hey! That's what I was going to call the philosophical problem. Verdict: Wittgenstein, guilty. — Merkwurdichliebe

I like that you get what I mean by the Hegelian hippo. Since the theme is lit up for me right now, I'll expand. By this I mean that intellectual fantasy that one person or mind can genuinely include all other minds, including those with radically different attitudes /perspectives. I'd say that we can be everyone at the same time --that we really are forced to make choices as mortals, and that we can't justify all of them with some mathematically secure System. We are embodied, finite individuals who are indeed also blinded by the same torches that otherwise light our way. One commitment makes another impossible, in other words.

What Hegel gets right may be individually appropriate, though. We can understand the perspectives we have sincerely embraced but transcended. I guess I just don't think any little mortal can experience and synthesize them all, given the shortness of life and the variance of circumstances.

I would say these were the ancients, everything preceding Descarte, and I'm open to call it even earlier. Everything deriving from Descartes has been fucked. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree. What do you think of Hobbes? I'd call him one of the good guys. In Hobbes the subject/object game is downplayed, and he focuses on the practical use of the mind. It largely calculates consequences. By merely ignoring some of the problems that drive other philosophers mad, the game is won by refusing to take it seriously.

I have said before, (in the second chapter,) that a Man did excell all other Animals in this faculty, that when he conceived any thing whatsoever, he was apt to enquire the consequences of it, and what effects he could do with it. And now I adde this other degree of the same excellence, that he can by words reduce the consequences he findes to generall Rules, called Theoremes, or Aphorismes; that is, he can Reason, or reckon, not onely in number; but in all other things, whereof one may be added unto, or substracted from another.

But this priviledge, is allayed by another; and that is, by the priviledge of Absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man onely. And of men, those are of all most subject to it, that professe Philosophy. — Hobbes

On a side, I also think this problem is analogous to the atheist who discusses God. — Merkwurdichliebe

Indeed.

Of course here I am targeting phantasms, a ghostbusting ghost. I justify that by insisting that the earlier critics of phantasms got it pretty much right. They were either ignored or assimilated by metaphysicks --a metaphysicks that has changed its name without changing its prioritization of theory over practice.

So just saying 'boo, phantasms', might not show any insight into what those phantasms are and why they are the subject of philosophy. — Wayfarer

I agree, but I'd also stress that new phantasms are created in the science of phantasms, and this is what I mean by metaphysicks^2 and metaphysicks^3. If we take the phantasms too seriously, then we have to become ghostbusters who...only pay attention to the ghosts we are supposed to be busting. But the whole point was to turn our attention to better paths to virtue in all its forms

Hadot's recurring theme is that philosophy in Antiquity was characterized by a series of spiritual exercises intended to transform the perception, and therefore the being, of those who practice it; that philosophy is best pursued in real conversation and not through written texts and lectures; and that philosophy, as it is taught in universities today, is for the most part a distortion of its original, therapeutic impulse. — Wiki

The 'real conversation' theme is great, as is insisting on the gap between academic concerns and philosophy that matters to us as worldly mortals. We also largely read to become better people. So books are merely an aid to our lives outside of books.

I think this connects to the phantasms theme. It's in the interest of some academics that the water remains muddy. Insider jargon also helps to disguise the ignorance of professionals not only from non-specialists but also from those professionals. The 'ignorance' I have in mind is not of the body of metaphysicks that they preserve but of the limited power and relevance of metaphysicks.

Anyone here know Hadot? — Wayfarer

Just looked him up.

Wittgenstein had claimed that philosophy was an illness of language and Hadot notes that the cure required a particular type of literary genre.[7] — Wiki

Sounds fascinating. But what one often sees is Wittgenstein himself becoming part of the disease. The disease is a hungry Hegelian hippo. Before long one needs Wittgenstein^2 as a cure for Wittgenstein.

many of the problems of philosophy...related to ethics are essentially about attitudes. — Wallows

I agree.

And, speaking of Nietzsche, he's largely valuable as one more eloquent attitude to have spent some time with. In my mind, being educated is connected to having exposed one's self to many ways of looking at the world. Our own attitudes are often made more virtuous and eloquent this way, or so I continue to think and hope.

Philosophy has a unspeakable personal value for me. — Merkwurdichliebe

Same here. I love philosophy. I consider it a central expression of what some would call my spirituality.

My distaste for phantasms is connected to a pursuit of the true and the real. Since philosophers generally want the true and the real, I'm ultimately just calling many approaches dead ends. What these approaches have in common is getting lost in language, including getting lost in language about getting lost in language. The goal is roughly the same, something like virtue.

Well stated. That is getting at the heart of my position. — Merkwurdichliebe

I was excited to see your post. I had to pipe up and support it.

My position is that the problems of philosophy are phantasms, and that modern day reductionism/analytics is not only guilty of perpetuating the nonexisting problem, but compounding it, mutilating it beyond recognition and into a greater delusion that, again, thinks something might actually be resolved. — Merkwurdichliebe

I agree, at least when it comes to much of philosophy. To keep metaphysicks going, such critiques must be (falsely) assimilated by those too attached to metaphysicks to let it go. So we get metaphysicks^2, metaphysicks^3, and so on. To play these 'anti-metaphysickal' games, one of course has to steeped in the lower levels of metaphysicks. This is like having to master A Course In Miracles before one is allowed to dismiss it. Life is short. We have to make choices.