If this were true, then how could we ever know that we have reached the brute fact that has no further explanation? What would be the unmistakable indicator that any further investigation would be a waste of time? — aletheist
This sounds like the nominalist view - we invent laws of nature that are descriptive; things seem to behave with a certain consistency. The realist, on the other hand, believes that we discover laws of — aletheist
What my point is though is that by listening to opinions of those who have differing positions on basic assumptions and life values, we can come to a more holistic understand of ourselves. To do otherwise is to filter out dynamic possibilities of perspective and only have, as you say, "little clones of ourselves" to listen to and reciprocate what we feel to be true.
People who can't do this end up becoming offended, end up feeling "attacked" and end up doubling down and trying to preserve "face". If one is without ego then this does not arise because one is either self-assured in some manner or knows that it really isn't that important and truth is not relative to one individual. — intrapersona
I don't think it's absurd. And this is how I've understood Heidegger's "ethical" appeal. I think Nietzsche was right when he suggested that we look the ethics of a philosophy to see its core. Everything radiates outward from the kind of "hero" the philosopher takes himself to be. I'd split philosophers as a first approximation into 2 groups. The first group counsels the community as a whole (perhaps saving it from a self-destructive or degrading forgetfulness of being or perhaps the belief in God or perhaps from its atheism). The second group counsels individuals. Nietzsche himself switches back and forth. The grandiose fantasy (which is admittedly tempting!) of being a "world historical" thinker requires one to play the first role. As far as the second role goes, it's hard to improve upon Epicurus, Epictetus, etc. The "atomized" or Hellenistic philosopher accepts and affirms the loss of the community. The social or world-historical philosopher is basically "running for election."here may be something uniquely threatening about our modern condition, in which all beings, including humans, are reduced to the one-dimensional level of exploitable resource. This experiment seems to be getting beyond our control, and nothing less than a radical shift in our understanding of Being can save us from this danger. I honestly don't think this insight of Heidegger's is as far-fetched or absurd as it sounds. — Erik
I would tentatively say that I see Heidegger as someone who tries to infuse our existence with a (re)new(ed) sense of wonder, the sort which seems to have shaped the greatness of the ancient Greek world (at least in art, philosophy, and a few other areas) but that's largely non-existent these days. I think this is a worthy goal. I also appreciate his attempt to displace human existence from our current sense of imperious subjectivity, while simultaneously giving us an even more profound sense of dignity through our relatedness to something much 'greater' than ourselves, to Being. His is a nuanced position, I think: it's more concerned with asking difficult questions than with giving easy answers; it sees the material world as radiating a profound sense of 'spiritual' significance; it's very this-worldly without being reductionist; it finds the extraordinary in the ordinary; it's revolutionary while also being respectful of the tradition. In other words, this is a unique perspective which isn't easy to categorize according to standard oppositions like religious/atheistic, progressive/reactionary, etc. All of this resonates with me a great deal and has influenced my thinking on a variety of topics. — Erik
Are you saying that you see no distinction between treating predictable regularities as a brute fact vs. explaining them as the logical consequence of there being real laws of nature that really govern actual (and counterfactual) events? — aletheist
In my opinion, and I'm not at all putting myself "above" this, philosophy tends to be ad hoc justifications/rationalizations of views that people already hold. A lot of views are already entrenched by some combination of disposition and early socialization. — Terrapin Station
Some people change opinion, philosophers even, when truth matters more than the appearance or reputation of being right. — jkop
I see the Buddha's 'world-transcending wisdom' as the acme of the teaching. (The other profound difference with Greek philosophy, however, is that Mahāyāna Buddhism says that ultimately Nirvāṇa and Samsara are not different - 'Nirvāṇa is samsara released, samsara is Nirvāṇa grasped'.) — Wayfarer
That is much nearer to Plotinus than Epicurus. — Wayfarer
For man loses all semblance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings. — Epicurus
'Supernatural' is such a boo-word, isn't it? Meaning, what? — Wayfarer
I don't believe it is. I respect anyone else's right to believe it is, but that's what I'm challenging. — Wayfarer
Can debate entrench people in their views? — Jeremiah
Not having understood the game they're in, or that they're in a game, it's like 'let's make the best of it'. But from the viewpoint of a Plotinus, whatever good Epicurus makes of it, is temporary, transient, subject to decay, unsatisfactory. They're actually in a situation of grave peril, which they don't understand. — Wayfarer
Philosophy comes from humans, while religion supposedly comes from some higher source. — Jeremiah
I am suggesting that "Rational Theist" is a contradiction in terms because I don't think that the Theistic belief can be reasoned. You seem to be arguing that Theism is rational because it employs rational arguments. — Cavacava
Making itself intelligible is suicide for philosophy. — Heidegger
Both friends said on different occasions that they only want to hear opinions about themselves from people they regard as "worthy", whose opinions they "respect". — intrapersona
I'm a master of the Tao Te Ching. — wuliheron
How can something that is unequally distributed and has the potential to be a source of even more suffering in the short or long run be a reason for embracing life or providing new life to other individuals (i.e. reason for procreation), or being in any way a reason for having a positive outlook in regards to the lot of the human experience? — schopenhauer1
According to Sextus, one does not start out as a skeptic, but rather stumbles on to it. Initially, one becomes troubled by the kinds of disagreements focused on in Aenesidemus' modes and seeks to determine which appearances accurately represent the world and which explanations accurately reveal the causal histories of events. The motivation for figuring things out, Sextus asserts, is to become tranquil, i.e. to remove the disturbance that results from confronting incompatible views of the world. As the proto-skeptic attempts to sort out the evidence and discover the privileged perspectiveor the correct theory, he finds that for each account that purports to establish something true about the world there is another, equally convincing account, that purports to establish an opposed and incompatible view of the same thing. Being faced with this equipollence, he is unable to assent to either of the opposed accounts and thereby suspends judgment. This, of course, is not what he set out to do. But by virtue of his intellectual integrity, he is simply not able to arrive at a conclusion and so he finds himself without any definite view. What he also finds is that the tranquility that he originally thought would come only by arriving at the truth, follows upon his suspended judgment as a shadow follows a body.
Sextus provides a vivid story to illustrate this process. A certain painter, Apelles, was trying to represent foam on the mouth of the horse he was painting. But each time he applied the paint he failed to get the desired effect. Growing frustrated, he flung the sponge, on which he had been wiping off the paint, at the picture, inadvertently producing the effect he had been struggling to achieve (PH 1.28-29). The analogous point in the case of seeking the truth is that the desired tranquility only comes indirectly, not by giving up the pursuit of truth, but rather by giving up the expectation that we must acquire truth to get tranquility. It is a strikingly Zen-like point: one cannot intentionally acquire a peaceful, tranquil state but must let it happen as a result of giving up the struggle. But again, giving up the struggle for the skeptic does not mean giving up the pursuit of truth. The skeptic continues to investigate in order to protect himself against the deceptions and seductions of reason that lead to our holding definite views. — IEP
A life free of mental anxiety and open to the enjoyment of other pleasures was deemed equal to that of the gods. Indeed, it is from the gods themselves, via the simulacra that reach us from their abode, that we derive our image of blessed happiness, and prayer for the Epicureans consisted not in petitioning favors but rather in a receptivity to this vision. (Epicurus encouraged the practice of the conventional cults.) Although they held the gods to be immortal and indestructible (how this might work in a materialist universe remains unclear), human pleasure might nevertheless equal divine, since pleasure, Epicurus maintained (KD 19), is not augmented by duration (compare the idea of perfect health, which is not more perfect for lasting longer); the catastematic pleasure experienced by a human being completely free of mental distress and with no bodily pain to disturb him is at the absolute top of the scale. Nor is such pleasure difficult to achieve: it is a mark precisely of those desires that are neither natural nor necessary that they are hard to satisfy. — Epicurus
Once the man is a Sage, the means of happiness, the way to good, are within, for nothing is good that lies outside him. Anything he desires further than this he seeks as a necessity, and not for himself but for a subordinate, for the body bound to him, to which since it has life he must minister the needs of life, not needs, however, to the true man of this degree. He knows himself to stand above all such things, and what he gives to the lower he so gives as to leave his true life undiminished.
Adverse fortune does not shake his felicity: the life so founded is stable ever. Suppose death strikes at his household or at his friends; he knows what death is, as the victims, if they are among the wise, know too. And if death taking from him his familiars and intimates does bring grief, it is not to him, not to the true man, but to that in him which stands apart from the Supreme, to that lower man in whose distress he takes no part. — Plotinus
The swerve of the atom, furthermore is another flash of brilliance, which is much alike the "weird" quantum mechanics effects that science is only now discovering. If anything, all this should make them awe-inspiring, and more philosophical interest should go towards investigating their methods of using reason, which clearly yielded astounding results. — Agustino
He's something like a practical atheist without, in this letter at least, being a genuine atheist. Perhaps he was quietly an agnostic who saw the use of the gods or of God as an image, or perhaps he thought the world needed a cause (deism, etc.).First believe that God is a living being immortal and blessed, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of mankind; and so believing, you shall not affirm of him anything that is foreign to his immortality or that is repugnant to his blessedness. Believe about him whatever may uphold both his blessedness and his immortality. For there are gods, and the knowledge of them is manifest; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that men do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. — Epicurus
I would agree in thinking about the self as swimming in a sea of language, at least in terms of its intersubjective dimension; but I do not think of the self as 'made" of language. For me it is more like it is made by something that might be called 'emotion'; perhaps 'affective disposition' is a better term. affective disposition and the creativity it engenders is "not well represented in language" if you mean by "language" something along the lines of discursive analysis. I think you're right that emotion, or as I would prefer, affective disposition, at least contributes towards driving the evolution of ideas, but I do also think that ideas have their own supplementary dialectical engine, with its own logical momentum. — John
The first type of thinking deals with specific beings, while the second focuses on Being--or, more properly, the Being of beings. And since the Being of beings is not an extant being, a form of thinking predicated upon representation and calculation cannot, ipso facto, address the very 'thing' which makes us who we are. — Erik
We live in the spiritual wasteland that Nietzsche predicted, and this is the predicament that Heidegger was responding to. If you don't feel that alienation and dehumanization are becoming more widespread, then once again Heidegger will not resonate with you. — Erik
Nearly always they are interested in questions concerning the overall meaning of life, but many, if not most, have followed the current fashion of disdaining any religion. — John
But people generally hate talking about logic-chopping academic philosophical issues; they think it is meaningless, inconsequential bullshit. — John
With his "The Rational is the Real", though, I think he objectifies spirit and intuition. I don't personally believe there is an evolution of spirit in a dialectical sense, although there may certainly be a logical evolution of ideas in that kind of sense. — John
So, the Philosopher "dying into the Sage" has been going on from the beginning of self-consciousness, in various spiritual forms in various cultures, I would say. I don't believe there will be a general culminating vision of Absolute Knowing. — John
In the Christian religion God has revealed Himself, — that is, he has given us to understand what He is; so that He is no longer a concealed or secret existence. And this possibility of knowing Him, thus afforded us, renders such knowledge a duty. God wishes no narrow-hearted souls or empty heads for his children; but those whose spirit is of itself indeed, poor, but rich in the knowledge of Him; and who regard this knowledge of God as the only valuable possession. That development of the thinking spirit, which has resulted from the revelation of the Divine Being as its original basis, must ultimately advance to the intellectual comprehension of what was presented in the first instance, to feeling and imagination. The time must eventually come for understanding that rich product of active Reason, which the History of the World offers to us. It was for a while the fashion to profess admiration for the wisdom of God, as displayed in animals, plants, and isolated occurrences. But, if it be allowed that Providence manifests itself in such objects and forms of existence, why not also in Universal History? This is deemed too great a matter to be thus regarded. But Divine Wisdom, i.e. Reason., is one and the same in the great as in the little; and we must not imagine God to be too weak to exercise his wisdom on the grand scale. Our intellectual striving aims at realising the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom, is actually accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as in that of mere Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in this aspect, a Theodicaea, — a justification of the ways of God, — which Leibnitz attempted metaphysically in his method, i.e. in indefinite abstract categories, — so that the ill that is found in the World may be comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. Indeed, nowhere is such a harmonising view more pressingly demanded than in Universal History; and it can be attained only by recognising the positive existence, in which that negative element is a subordinate, and vanquished nullity. On the one hand. the ultimate design of the World must be perceived; and, on the other hand, the fact that this design has been actually, realised in it, and that evil has not been able permanently to assert a competing position. — Hegel
And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ]
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ]
And justifie the wayes of God to men. — Milton
Every discipline has it's esotericism. It's just that philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, tends to be almost entirely esoteric. It's meaningless, worthless, and an Other to those who have never studied it. — darthbarracuda
So enjoy it. Go talk to people. Engage with the world in person or on sites like this. Because at the end of the day that's where the raw fun of philosophy is. In a very real sense, what you're doing with your coffee group is substantially more pure philosophically then what academics do. Sure - you might not be as specialized, but you're enjoying it! — Carbon