Summum Delirium (Highest Confusion)

TheMadFool

First of all, I have to admit that I could be wrong about this but I'm more than satisfied if there's even just a grain of truth in what I'm about to articulate in this, hopefully, short & sweet but also, in some way, truthful post.

My point is quite simple and requires nothing more than knowledge of an easily understood fact to wit, for every thesis that some clever philosopher worth faer salt comes up with there's another philosopher who develops an opposing, antipodal antithesis.

I believe this is old news to veterans and novices of philosophy alike and appears in philosophical discourse as Dialectics. Dialectics puts the thesis-antithesis duo in a positive light, assuring the two sides that what results - synthesis - all things considered, counts as progress.

However, to me, this glowing report of the situation conceals what I feel is a rather unsavory truth - confusion reigns supreme in the world of philosophy and has philosphers in its grip. Since philosophers deal with matters that have major implications in all areas of life and, if one really must go the whole nine yards, the universe itself, it follows that we are all in a state of utter bewilderment.

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece — William Shakespeare

Furthermore, though I'm wary of reading too much into the sorry state of affairs in philosophy I can't shake off the feeling that the universe is, like it or not, playing both sides, hunting with the hounds and running with the hares as it were:

There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition — Blaise Pascal

Deus Deceptor!? - René Descartes

Pantagruel

Tension creates energy. I think it's a feature of the universe to create itself in counterposing forces.

Pantagruel

Plus some people just always have to say the opposite....

deleteduserax

↪TheMadFool

wouldn't it be summa perplexitas?

TheMadFool

wouldn't it be summa perplexitas? — Alexandros

Why not? Latin isn't my strong suit.

Tension creates energy. I think it's a feature of the universe to create itself in counterposing forces. — Pantagruel

This rings a bell - Taoism. I wonder if Laozi's quasi-philosophical work, the Tao Te Ching, was meant to as an exposé of the underlying "...tension..." which I consider an euphemism for perplexity. I suppose though that there are occasions in which to call a spade a spade isn't the most appropriate thing to do. This might be one of them.

baker

↪TheMadFool

From what I understood, philosophy is supposed to be about the way one thinks and talks about things, not about coming up with definitive narratives about "how things really are".

TheMadFool

From what I understood, philosophy is supposed to be about the way one thinks and talks about things, not about coming up with definitive narratives about "how things really are". — baker

Point made, point noted. Yet, there's this underlying sentiment, a deep desire/wish to know the truth i.e. "...coming up with definitive narrartives about 'how things really are'..." is, all said and done, the primary objective of doing philosophy. That philosophers have to settle for less - work on "...the way one thinks and talks about things..." - is due to the undeniable fact encapsulated in the title of this thread viz. summum delirium and the accompanying text that attempts to both describe this state of confusion and explain it.

The situation is analogous/comparable to one in which one's favorite cola, Coke, is unavailable and one makes do with Pepsi. I'm a Coke person; maybe your tastes are not the same as mine but swap the drinks if you wish or even replace them with your own best and second-best beverage and the analogy still holds.

180 Proof

↪baker

:up:

↪TheMadFool

I don't see the issue. The territory can be mapped countless ways, many of which are incommensurable and some antithetical. Therein lies the conceptual plenum inherent in (any) topic. "Confusion"? Only in so far as the thesis is incoherent. "Perplexity"? Well, yes, the catalyst for proposing a thesis in the first place. I think of dialectics as analogous to Eudoxus' method of exhaustion: as the theses-antheses exchanges increase the topic becomes clearer though broader and deeper. A dialectical process is asymptoptic (like the method of exhaustion), or unbounded by horizons it can always approach but never reach. An infinite task of unlearning assumed, or dogmatic, 'either/or antitheticals' – performative, not propositional.

magritte

↪baker

:up:

Dialectics puts the thesis-antithesis duo in a positive light, assuring the two sides that what results - synthesis - all things considered, counts as progress. — TheMadFool

Dialectics is a great method to demonstrate that neither of two incompatible points of view can possibly be correct. Thus it represents small occasionally significant progress in finding out what we don't know.

TheMadFool

"Confusion"? Only in so far as the thesis is incoherent. — 180 Proof

Excelente Amigo. It appears that confusion comes in two strains, at least to the extent I'm aware, 1. Confusion as incoherence (self-contradiction, inconsistency) within a thesis or antithesis but not betwixt them and 2. "Confusion" as thesis-antithesis pairs which we seem to have a difference of opinion on.

My simple response would be that the duo of anti-thesis is incoherence and hence the appropriate reply to:

I don't see the issue — 180 Proof

Tom Storm

From what I understood, philosophy is supposed to be about the way one thinks and talks about things, not about coming up with definitive narratives about "how things really are". — baker

That's a good point. Although hopefully one is getting closer to the best possible version of reality (whatever that might be), or why bother?

I would have thought that for every idea proposed there is always going to be an opposite statement made by someone at some time. I don't read anything into this.

baker

That's a good point. Although hopefully one is getting closer to the best possible version of reality (whatever that might be), or why bother? — Tom Storm

Some people drink with buddies in pubs, and some discuss stuff on internetz forumz.

I would have thought that for every idea proposed there is always going to be an opposite statement made by someone at some time. I don't read anything into this.

Oh, there are things to read into this, things that drive the OP!

(But I must leave for today.)

magritte

thesis-antithesis pairs — TheMadFool

Again, thesis-antithesis pairs are arbitrary and are logically incoherent. For dialectic to have any logical validity some whole pie, or some portion of the pie, has to be cut once into two parts A and B with nothing in-between.
Then if not A then B. But if neither A nor B, as per Hegel, then for the whole pie there is nothing left at all, and for some portion of the pie it is anything and everything else, and never some arbitrary C the 'synthesis' of A+B.

If Hegel were truly a Heraclitean, then his logic would need to be switched from either-or to the Heraclitean both-neither. For example, see Plato's bedeviling Parmenides where things both are and are not. Modern science is the strongest testament, noting that in the physical world everything both moves and does not move, and changes and does not change all times everywhere. This is one big reason why both traditional and modern philosophy are almost totally incompatible with science.

Janus

↪180 Proof

:up:

Summum Delirium (Highest Confusion)

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