I would say our relationship with science is not in a very healthy state. It's too much like the relationship 12th century Catholics had with the Church. — Foghorn

That is certainly a very common view. I think it misses something. I would argue that the average person knows and cares little for science and often fears it (atom bombs/climate change/whatever). Over the years there's been a plethora of news articles about why people ignore or hate science. Increasingly we are hearing that science is the source (not solution) of all our problems, - climate change, pollution, technology and the loss of personal liberty.

evolves past its previous presumptions without the direct help of philosophy. What philosophy can do is make explicit what is only held as implicit within other modes of thought. — Joshs

Are you saying that the role of philosophy is essentially descriptive? How do you assess Midgley's paper?

when things go to shit, then we start questioning fundamentals such as the 2008 market crash or the Pandemic now. — Manuel

Perhaps. My take is that people look for scapegoats more than questioning fundamentals. Being able to comprehend what has gone wrong may well be out of reach of many people for reasons of education/aptitude/bias - whatever it might be.

It also intrigues me how people often want to replace ideas (revolution) that aren't working well rather than repairing/adjusting them (assuming this is possible).

I've always been suspicious of system builders and great edifices of 'knowledge' built out of playing cards.

That is a vey intriguing idea. Nice.

we as a society only need philosophy when things go bad or things don't work anymore. — Manuel

Is it the case that when society works it is because the underlying philosophy works? Perhaps we only notice philosophy when there's clear conflict.

Thanks for this and forgive my fumbling response. Midgley's essay is extremely accessible and thought provoking but does not fill me with hope. Much as her recommendations seem sensible (and I say this as someone from outside academic philosophy) I wonder how achievable her vision might be. I like how she considers philosophy to be unavoidable and ubiquitous. We're all in it together. But how do we procede?

Can philosophers and, presumably thinkers more broadly, really work on identifying the patterns inherent in ostensibly contradictory ideas and see how they can fit together? Almost sounds utopian.

When Midgley talks about the need to see the 'unconsidered mass' that lies behind our ideas I wonder how this plays out more broadly. Her example of unpacking the social contact is intriguing. I can't say if her analysis is right but it does resonate (especially on children/the mentally ill, the 'outcasts').

Is there not a risk that in adopting a plumbing approach like this that philosophical debate will shift to an illimitable and perhaps confusing exploration of what the unconsidered mass consists of?

What's your sense of her criticism of social contacts?

Maybe.

Which way is better? — Wheatley

The best way is the one that works best for you. People have different learning styles.

Also noted, throughout modern society, depression runs rampant. — Ladybug

Not sure we can say that depression is more common now than in pervious eras. I suspect depression was always a strong feature of human life. Today people are more aware of the issue and it is a constant subject of media. There are many different types of depression and many potential solutions - medication does work wonders for some people. Some find volunteering or exercise helpful. Most people need a combination of factors to improve.

We'd have no excuse not to get our act together....

I think I got to page 5 but I don't remember a thing....

They're my favorites among the symphonies, but I've never thought of them quite that way. I prefer his chamber music, generally--chamber music in general, I suppose--but that doesn't make me a minimalist, I believe. Quietist, perhaps. — Ciceronianus the White

I love Brahms, sorry I was just trying to be humorous there with the gland comment, given people's need to parse experiences into categories. Both symphonies work just the same way on me to be honest. You've gotta love that violin concerto too, no?

That is a compelling and helpful answer, 180, thank you.

I hear you. I don't share the poem's sentiment particularly, it's just one of the more memorable poems about death.

There's a lot of philosophy in movies. For example Body Heat teaches you not to help your new girlfriend get rid of her inconvenient husband, if you didn't already learn that lesson from Double Indemnity. — fishfry

That's very good.

Aubade
I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anesthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Philip Larkin

And in so far as 'wisdom' denotes mastery over folly & stupidity (i.e. misuses & abuses, respectively, of intelligence, knowledge, judgment, etc), I translate philosophy as the love of 'opposing folly & stupidity'. — 180 Proof

I agree. In your view would it be possible for a person to be wise without engaging with philosophy?

If I listen to Brahm's First Symphony, for example, and don't think about God or the spiritual as I do so, but admire and enjoy the skill with which it's composed, the skill of the musicians playing it, and the sound of it, is it appropriate to describe what I feel or think as materialist or materialistic? — Ciceronianus the White

I'm left a physicalist when I hear Brahms's First, an acosmist when I hear his Fourth. I think there's something about that E minor first movement that awakens my numinosity gland and suppresses my physicalist gland.

I saw this when it came out. The effects back then had a huge impact and mainstream cinema still had surprises. Yes, the story is: an academic regresses using hallucinogens in an isolation tank and gradually we learn that consciousness can alter the psychical structure of the body itself as the reversions to an atavistic state pass from the mental to the physical. It's all petty arch. I think the love of a woman brings him back to normalcy. It's like a slow motion, arty variation of a Jekyll and Hyde tale.

Well, the problem for me is that a god hypothesis may well claim perfect moral authority but it makes no practical difference to morality in life. I am responding to the notion that secular morality is inferior to god morality.

Believers making moral choices based on God are in no better position than atheists. All they have is the idea that a perfect being might exist and that their moral choices might be pleasing to God.

But I have flogged this a lot so maybe I will put it away for now. Thanks TMF.

That's ok. Not your fault. Ok - we (well, some) expect God to be the foundation for all morality. I'll sit with this but it doesn't seem to provide a solution to the argument. How does this help?

That's an entirely different question. — TheMadFool

Yes it is, so you don't need address that. What about my key point? No one can know what God wants so morality is still dependent on argument. Theism does not offer any certainty over atheism. All positions come down to arguing a case for one particular moral view or another.

That there are different Gods, one or many for every culture, is irrlevant. God or gods, in whichever culture fae/they are found in, represnt the idea of a perfect moral authority - an infallible creator of mora laws - and that's what the issue is all about? — TheMadFool

I totally understand this but the gods represent an unattainable notion of perfect moral authority even if true, because no one can demonstrate what they want.

I'm just skipping past the assumption and going to the practical consequences of the idea. All the believer can argue to justify your premise is a series of claims which cannot be demonstrated:

1- I know which God is true
2- I know this God is the source of moral authority
3- I know what this God wants from us regarding moral behavior.

In practical terms there is no difference between an atheist and the believer - they still have to decide what is morally acceptable based on personal preference or personal 'interpretation'.

Incidentally we can't even demonstrate point 2, that moral authority comes from any kind of God - the evidence for this is unavailable.

Basically, atheistic moral theories are missing definitive answers to moral questions. An act is sometimes good and at other times bad which implies that all acts are neither obligatory (good) nor prohibited (bad). — TheMadFool

The same thing is true for religious morality which varies according to the denomination, church, preacher/Iman, and varies with the subjective preferences of individual believers. We have no way of knowing what a higher consciousness thinks our moral choices should be so why make the claim it provides a foundation?

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. Walter Lippmann

I suspect that experience is often mistaken for wisdom.

Yep. I certainly do understand that. But a morality founded on a faith or a deity has no more substance than a secular one. Either way, it is based on people's subjective interpretation of what these transcendent sources of values stand for - hence the huge differences between believers, sects, schools, etc. All the same arguments about who is right ensues. In this way, theistic morality, for instance, avoids none of the problems that face secular morality.

Now, sure, I hear this idea that in theory 'the good' is in some way connected to, or emanates from a transcendent source. But what is the precise advantage of saying that morality is founded on something when there's no clarity about what that something stands for or might require from people in terms of moral behaviour?

It sounds to me as if moral concerns - divorce, abortion, capital punishment, gay rights, euthanasia, roles for women, environment - are matters for secular debate. As in fact they generally have been, often dragging theisms into a more compassionate and humane world, but let's not go there.

Incidentally, in case we are heading here, can we wait a bit before we go down the path of where human rights and the 'sacred' status of human beings originate?

Isn't that just 20th Century footnotes to Nietzsche?

Morality is thereby conceived of as inherently prejudicial in character so that, for example, there appears to be no way in which one can objectively and rationally resolve disputes between conflicting substantive moral beliefs and values. Under the condition of nihilism one cannot distinguish between more or less valid moral beliefs and values since the criteria allowing for such evaluative distinctions have been excluded from the domain of subjective knowledge. — Adorno's moral philosophy

I'm not sure if moral beliefs were any easier to discern before rationalism - pre-democratic, verging on monolithic cultures, nurtured less diversity.

You’re missing the very essence of understanding. You’re mistaking the pre-condition for comprehending anything with some sort of flaw, which is the point Nietzsche is trying to make. But you’re not alone here. There are never ending laments on this site about ‘prejudice’, ‘bias, the appeal of ‘emotion ‘ over objectivity. What you’re calling ‘personal taste’ is the result of the fact that the understanding of anything new must be based on compatibility with a pre-existing frame of reference. What makes us drawn to certain thing s over others is our ability to relate to them, to find them relevant and significant to our concerns. Something appeals to us because it matters to us, and it matters to us because it is comprehensible and meaningful in relation to how we see the world. Things and events completely outside of our worldview not only don’t matter to us, they are entirely invisible to us. This isn’t something unique to philosophy, it’s how scientific knowledge functions as well, which is what Kuhn was getting at. — Joshs

Joshs, Interesting! I'm not sure this actually changes what I said, it only adjusts the terminology and perhaps clarifies a point or two. But I wasn't going for depth.

So my 'preexisting frame of reference' (personal taste) makes them 'significant to my concerns' (worldview).

Things outside this worldview are 'entirely invisible' to me. Well, some are and some are not. Some are shadows and shapes.

And yes, that's precisely my point.

Now here's the thing. I have sometimes been made to read something (I did not want to consider) by someone (work/friendship/associates) and it has significantly changed or enlarged my worldview. I'm pretty sure we can behave in ways which trigger such moments more often.

To render the invisible visible (your word) is something I believe can be done by exposure to ideas and philosophy not to one's taste - and that essentially was the nature of my comment, which you nicely deconstructed for me.

If moral norms and values are the prescriptions and values of God, then God is one confused, mixed up motherfucker... — creativesoul

It's one thing for a person to accept the proposition that a God exists. It's quite another to accept that he exists AND is not a mixed up motherfucker... :razz:

Trees, mice, birds, inanimate objects, many directly perceptible things, celestial bodies, causality. — creativesoul

All the trees and mice I have known have been heavily into Ayn Rand.

I can't think of anything that is ideology free, can you?

To assume otherwise would be like thinking it's possible to be a philosopher without giving a damn about truth - philosophizing is about caring about truth just like survival is. — TheMadFool

Have you not read any Richard Rorty? :razz:

:up:

Can we make an effort to read and understand thinkers we are not drawn to?
— Tom Storm
Only if they call into question those vital philosophical positions which one is drawn to. How could one so troubled not? — 180 Proof

Fair point. You would hope intellectual honesty was the winner.

If you are honest with yourself, you will see it in yourself. You can ask yourself, what does this philosopher have that the other philosopher doesn't have? Answer: He appeals to you more. — spirit-salamander

I have often wondered about this and have written here that temperament and aesthetics probably inform people's choices. I'm fairly certain people with strong beliefs often choose the philosophy or school that most supports the ideas they have already determined to be true or reflective of reality. How far does this go?

But to Banno's point - this ain't a brilliant thing for the philosophical enterprise if accurate.

If true, it raises follow up questions - can this be overcome or dealt with in some way? How is it identified?

Can we make an effort to read and understand thinkers we are not drawn to? What should matter is the quality of the content, not whether it appeals, but I guess it could be argued that even our ability to sit with some ideas and not with others may rest with personal taste.

From my own perspective I am personally struck by this from Nietzsche's The Gay Science

We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we can live - by positing bodies, lines, planes, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content; without these articles of faith nobody now could endure life. But that does not prove them. Life is no argument. The conditions of life might include error.”

No worries, TC. I am tired as a result of a COVID emergency at work. No harm done.

I appreciate the conversation and your perspective.

No worries - the idea of dreams being a bowel movement is not intended as a negative insight. This 'dumping of images and themes' may be necessary for mental health just as being regular is vital for physical health. Where I differ to some others is in the usefulness and possibility of dream interpretation.

I've always thought of dreams as a kind of mental bowel movement.
— Tom Storm

I thought that is why you came here to the forum. — T Clark

That's an unpleasant comment. I hope I am better than this TC.

The idea of dreams as a kind of bowel movement is not uncommon and was certainly an idea proposed when I studied counselling in the 1980's.

I see also in The Dream Interpretation Dictionary: Symbols, Signs, and Meanings
By J.M. DeBord, that the bowel movement/dream comparison is suggested. Page 384. 'The bowel movement is... a perfect analogy for the nightly process of discarding unneeded memories.' I don't know about memories as such, but all the material that goes into the mind during the day is processed and, perhaps, is subsequently evacuated.