I don't think Dewey ever maintained that habits, or customs, or culture or what have you (name your preferred source of prejudice) prevent us from making reasonable judgments, or preclude us from using what he called "inquiry" (which includes logic and the scientific method) to come to warranted conclusions. Quite the contrary, in fact.

I had the impression from your replies, which seem to me to be vague and perhaps even evasive, that you'd rather not commit yourself to any conclusion or make any judgment on what is the (admittedly unimportant, relatively speaking) matter at hand. That's fine. But I agree with Dewey that as significant as what he called "habits" may be, we have the capacity to judge and come to conclusions based on available evidence and consequences, which are not absolute and are subject to modification based on subsequent evidence and experience.

So I confess I'm less than fond of attitudes along the lines of "Any judgment or claim we make is tainted, so maybe this or that other judgment or claim is just as good if not better" and the ambivalence which results from them.

The German soldier is equated to a bloodthirsty ape. — _db

Doesn't seem bloodthirsty to me. Why did the poster convey to you the idea the ape, or German soldier, drank blood or was thirsty for it?

We are loaded with prejudices, AKA culture. So we need them and yet they are in our way. Metaphors, pictures, myths. Is there a system without some unjustified master concept, some kind of grand narrative that's true for no reason? Look for an image of their hero, their ego ideal, their proposed what-we-should-all-be. I've never met/read anyone, including myself, without holes in their story, things they take for granted without noticing it, a roleplay of some version of the hero. — jas0n

It strikes me that there's a point when the inclination to discount any assertion or argument because we can't really know anything since we're permeated with prejudices and "culture" should serve to end discussion as well as judgment. Why bother?

Why the fear of magical thinking? Can you prove that magical thinking is bad? — jas0n

Wouldn't be more apt to ask whether magical thinking is philosophy?

Was Helena Blavatsky a philosopher? What about Aleister Crowley? What about other kinds of thinking, e.g. religious, or New Age? Was Ram Dass a philosopher? The Dalai Lama? John Lennon?

If you wish, you can claim most anyone of these individuals or others who "think great thoughts" are/were philosophers.

These are matters which don't yield to thought. Addressing them are tasks for the artist or mystic or the religious. What is sought is an evocation, a showing, a revealing rather than argument or demonstration.

The ruling metaphor here is the eye which can see everything but itself. — jas0n

A curious metaphor, as there is no eye that sees anything, really. Our eyes don't see. We do. And we see ourselves with some frequency. So, just what is intended by this "metaphor"? What does it describe?

The four horsemen are primarily polemicists. Hitchens wrote very well, on a number of things; the others I haven't read much. They say nothing new about the abundant problems of institutional religion and the so-called proofs of God's existence, as far as I know.

It brings to mind an analogous scenario in which a chess player recklessly plays white by rashly forcefully moving his pawn first in foolish anticipation that doing so will indeed stupefy his adversary. — FrankGSterleJr

The chess player who plays the white pieces moves a pawn first quite often. It's common, in fact. There's nothing rash about doing so, and nobody playing the black pieces would be surprised, let alone stupefied, by such a move.

So you're a partisan in the "Analytic-Continental" divide to the degree that any discourses which do not meet the peculiar standards of the Anglo-American Analytical tradition (or schools) you consider "anything but philosophy"? — 180 Proof

No, as that would exclude Dewey. I don't think he can be said to be in the Analytical tradition. And, it would exclude most philosophers in the Western tradition, who were still philosophers though misguided (e.g. Descartes).

I don't think it's a question of exclusion so much as a concern with inclusion. How big is the tent of philosophy? Was Dostoyevsky a philosopher? Timothy Leary? Is Eckhart Tolle a philosopher? What about Deepak Chopra? Erich Fromm? Max Weber?

I find it hard to consider someone a philosopher solely because they think or write about "big questions."

‘Why are there beings at all, and why not rather nothing?( — Joshs

I think "how" there is something may be an answerable question but one to be resolved, if at all, by science rather than by philosophy. "Why" can't even be considered until we know how.

Thank you.

Ah (or is it AHHHH?), the philosophy of orgasms. "For a good time, call....[insert (yuk-yuk) whatever philosopher comes (yuk-yuk) to mind]."

La petite mort sums it up well enough, if it must be addressed at all in philosophy. And it will be, I know.

Yes, I see. That's interesting. What's that quote from?

Heidegger believes that we dont simply experience a world, each of us produces a world. For each of us, all of the particular objects and events that we experience are interwoven as a totality of relevant relations. When we recognize an object as something , it is already familiar
to us at some level in its belonging to our larger pragmatic dealings with the world. From time to time , these overarching schemes by which we interpret our world undergo transformation. We re-frame the frame. When we do this , we wonder anew at the world, because now we look at all its particulars with fresh eyes. This is how science evolves, through such gestalt shifts in outlook. — Joshs

I don't think this constitutes wondering that there are things in the world, which seems more along the lines of "wondering why there is something rather than nothing." That's what my questions addressed, for what they're worth.

Perhaps you've read N. Perhaps, more likely, you've not bothered to study his work. — 180 Proof

I've read Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and The Birth of Tragedy, I recall. I may have read The Genealogy of Morals and Twilight of the Idols; they seem familiar as they're described. I say "may have" because it was some time ago. It's fair to say I've never studied him.

I may have been too influenced by the Anglo-American philosophical tradition when it comes to my conception of philosophy. In that tradition, I think, we don't encounter writers like N or some others of the more modern "Continentals" as philosophers. We might encounter them as social critics, or satirists or non-philosophical authors, though.

But I don't think this is a purely Anglo-American prejudice. We don't see writers like Nietzsche in the tradition of ancient philosophy, or in Medieval philosophy, or in Enlightenment philosophy. Nietzsche and others like him seem to have appeared in the last two centuries or so, in Europe; I would say Europe of the Romantic tradition, post-Revolutionary and post-Napoleonic France.

Writers like Nietzsche can inspire, can be insightful, can provide new ways of viewing things. So can art, or religion, or mystical experiences. So, I suspect, might Buddhism, or Zen, or Taoism or reading works associated with them. I simply think philosophy is distinct; it isn't the same as those paths, and I think that when it tries to mimic them it fails.

we are filled with wonderment that things are in the world. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Why, and when, would we wonder that things are in the world? What else would be "in the world"?

What would we expect to be the case if there were no things in the world? What would we think to be an alternative? "Gee, if nothing existed, then....." Then what?

But how do we shift from the everyday mode to the ontological mode? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Why would anyone want to do that? To learn what, to know what, for what purpose?

You might be describing why I like him. There are places I'd still want to critique Nietzsche... but I actually think it's safe to say that most philosophers think too much. — SatmBopd

He certainly isn't tedious or dry, which is to his credit, but neither are poets or prophets, or passionate critics of our lives. I don't think of them as philosophers, though. One doesn't have to be a philosopher to be insightful and profound.

It seems to me that Freddie the Frenzied had a unique style and way of thinking which was declarative rather than reflective, or analytic. He's righteous, he bears witness rather than explains. He floods us with his thoughts. His writing is an avalanche of opinions.

This is unusual in a philosopher (I suppose I should say those I've read), and seems to me to be unphilosophical. That's not to say he's unintelligible, or lacking in insight, but he doesn't explain--he doesn't argue, which is what the philosophers I've read do.

Perhaps philosophers you've read are similar to him.

. Does anybody know of a philosopher or philosophical project/ question that is more interesting or important? — SatmBopd

I don't think Frantic Freddie was a philosopher. I think he was an insightful, interesting, passionate critic of art and culture, who never had the patience or the inclination to make an argument or analysis. Instead, he issued proclamations; declarations, sometimes vehement, often absolute, accompanied by rhetorical questions and exclamation points. A voice crying in the wilderness, similar in some respects to a religious figure, come to condemn us for our inadequacies. Someone who did not think as much as emote.

Refining and furthering Friedrich Neitzsche’s project of creating new values and transcending the limitations of humanity by understanding/ creating the Ubermensch is the only interesting or important philosophical project. — SatmBopd

Well, get to it then.

The Democratic President specifically asked for a woman rather than a man, and yet the nominee cannot explain the difference between a woman and a man.

If the nominee does not know whether they are a woman or a man, then perhaps they should recuse themselves from the nomination, as the President specifically asked for a woman. — RussellA

It's simple really. From the standpoint of a lawyer or judge, a woman is, of course, whatever the law in question says a woman is, just as a man, or anyone or anything is whatever the law says it is. All else is irrelevant in assessing the legal qualifications of a person.

We're desperately trying to find something that doesn't exist, because we simply cannot comprehend the confrontation with the fact, that the universe doesn't care whether or not we exist. — Carlikoff

Speak for yourself.

I'm sure many won't accept that the universe doesn't care whether or not we exist, but it's a far more reasonable conclusion than that it does care, given the available evidence. Regardless, though, it seems childish to attribute caring to the universe. It suffices that we're parts of it. Does the universe care that the Earth has a moon? Things (including humans) merely are, as far as we know.

That should suffice, as far as "meaning" is concerned. We are, undoubtedly. How should we live is a pertinent question, but it's unrelated to "the meaning of life." We don't require a particular "meaning of life" to live happily, tranquilly, free of disturbance. It's singularly futile to maintain we must have a particular reason, or adhere to a particular meaning or maxim, to want to live happily, tranquilly, and free of disturbance.

If I recall correctly, Lewis was maintaining that Jesus must be either God or a lunatic based on the assumption that he declared he was God.

According to the Gospels, also as I recall, such a statement is made by Jesus only in the Gospel of John. That's the last of the (orthodox) Gospels. The others, supposedly by Matthew, Mark and Luke, make no mention of any such claim being made by Jesus.

A reasonable person might infer that the Gospel of John was, in this sense, less than accurate. Why wouldn't this be noted in the other, earlier Gospels? Did Matthew, Mark and Luke forget he said he was God? Did they think that the fact he said he was God was unimportant? It's more likely he never said such a thing--that's the weight of the evidence, such as it is.

But Lewis was an apologist, not a reasonable person.

Here's Marcus Tullius Cicero on Julius Caesar:

"When I notice how carefully arranged his hair is and when I watch him adjusting the parting with one finger, I cannot imagine that this man could conceive of such a wicked thing as to destroy the Roman constitution.”

Irony by a master of rhetoric. Excessive self-love is the root of all evil done by we humans

My suspicion is that parents don't actually want their children to learn anything, or be told anything, beyond what the parents already know and believe. The purpose of school is to keep children occupied while they learn some things, true, but not anything by which they may challenge or contest their parents or do or want to do what parents think inappropriate. This view may change as the children grow older and their parents are no longer responsible (or liable) for them, however.

I can't help but put myself in the place of a lawyer for a school district in Florida, asked to render an opinion regarding how a school district may comply with the law and avoid liability. Employee manuals and procedures will have to be revised to prohibit the "encouragement." Signage forbidding, or at least discouraging, discussion of the topics, may be useful in avoiding liability (that has its own problems). What if "discussion" includes electronic communications? Will they have to be monitored? Will discussion of proms and other social events be allowed? Will the use of pronouns be restricted? Will "straight" rulers be banned?

Obviously, the teaching/reading/discussion of certain books will have to be prohibited. Well, most books, in fact.

These are impossible to standardize. — god must be atheist

Yes.

Aside from this, the law does NOT prohibit or inhibit PRIVATE discussions, even when it is not appropriate by age or by developmentia. — god must be atheist

Not expressly, no. I doubt anything a parent or the legislature can do will prevent students from discussing these topics. But what happens if students discuss them in the classroom, privately, and an action is brought nonetheless? Will the teacher's lack of knowledge of the discussion constitute a defense, or will it be expected that a teacher must monitor discussions and prevent them to avoid a finding of "encouragement" of the discussion? Will, or can, a school district prohibit discussion of such topics by students, in order to protect itself from litigation?

It strikes me that the purpose of the law is to make local school boards in progressive districts fearful of discussing homosexuality or transsexualism.. The vagueness might be intentional. Prudence would dictate steering very clear from any such discussion. The likely result though will be defiance by someone and then the courts can figure out the scope of the law. — Hanover

It will inspire fear in teachers and school districts, no doubt about it. I'm hopeful it's vagueness will be its downfall, though.

It looks like the law is meant to encourage frivolous lawsuits. If you have pent up sexual misgivings, seek "injunctive relief". — Metaphysician Undercover

It will certainly encourage lawsuits. The vagueness of the law is such that it isn't clear what would constitute a frivolous action, though.

For all you good people out there, this thread is about extremism. The point of view that the universe only existed last Thursday. So what could be gained from it? It is a challenge to our deep seated beliefs, the ones with absolute certainty. Nothing excites philosophers than a question of grounds for doubt -- why couldn't we just point to the sky, or to the moon as proof? Because paper doubt has that edge that we couldn't quite brush off. We have to deal with it. — Caldwell

Ah, the beguiling, one might even say idealized, view that philosophy consists of the contemplation of those matters which have nothing to do with, but are nonetheless somehow more significant than, actual life. I'm with Pierce on this, and other things: "Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts."

It has been cited that indeed there is no way to prove whether or not this could be the case — Benj96

Then what's to be gained by considering it?

doorstep of Heidegger’s project. — Joshs

The one bearing the words "Arbeit Macht Frei"? Perhaps that was another doorstep, though, and the project of other Nazis.

Fol de rol!

The summary is fine. I don't mock it.

Well that’s obviously a very broad summary, but I did so to show that it’s not that mysterious. — Xtrix

Not that remarkable, either .

He's saying that since the Greeks, entities have been interpreted in terms of the present (ousia), which is a particular human state (the "present at hand"). That's the thesis. Not particularly difficult, but with interesting implications. — Xtrix

Seems obvious enough. So much for Heidegger, then.

Funny— I’ve offered to explain (and have done so) Heidegger several times. — Xtrix

That's not funny at all.

There’s no code to break. It’s not a mysterious thesis. — Xtrix

It must be me, then. Incapable of understanding him, I must await a revelation, as I've said. Perhaps Heidegger selects us. I may yet be his greatest apostle.

Talk about Heidegger being a Nazi is boring. Don’t like it? Fine— go do something else. — Xtrix

Yes, that someone is a Nazi means less to some of us than others, I know. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Thank you. It looks interesting.

I think his view that we only really think when we encounter problems (broadly defined) is quite true. This is essentially Peirce's position when he criticizes Descartes faux doubt. His rejection of dualism, his support of intelligent inquiry (of which the scientific method is an example) in understanding ourselves and the world, and his position that we humans are living organisms functioning as part of an environment, part of the world not apart from it, all appeal to me.

Do, you have something more important to do with your time on Earth? If so, why are you wasting it on feckless Philosophy? :smile: — Gnomon

I think there's a place for philosophy even in living as we do.

I await a revelation. Like Paul on the road to Damascus.