Anyways, what are other people's most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy and why? — schopenhauer1

Nietzche's Übermensch.

It is uninteresting once you know it is about existentialism and the will to power.

In other words, when one misunderstands it.

In other words, when one misunderstands it. — 180 Proof

I didn't say you should implicate yourself.
.

The problem is the popular philosophers did something new and for this reason alone they can be deemed somewhat interesting. For me Heidegger is absolutely predictable and boring after reading one book I know them all, that's a style of philosophy easily replacable by chat gpt. Also these cheap tropes of authenticity and independence, that's just annoyingly childish. I find his critique of ontotheology interesting but it's anticipated by Kant so no news there. What's surprising is a theologian and medieval scholar falling for the old trap of mistaking scholasticism for Wolffianism.

The problem is the popular philosophers did something new and for this reason alone they can be deemed somewhat interesting. For me Heidegger is absolutely predictable and boring after reading one book I know them all, that's a style of philosophy easily replacable by chat gpt — Johnnie

Whenever someone offers a sweeping dismissal of the ideas of a philosopher as notable as Heidegger, it is not just an individual writer being critiqued, it is an entire culture of thought. It would be interesting to put together a list of all the philosophers and social scientists who find Heidegger’s work indispensable. Your indictment of Heidegger is a tacit indictment of them. I would love to hear your summation of Heidegger’s contribution to philosophy.

Noam Chomsky b. 1928

I've been a Chomsky fan boy since the early 80s but not for his "philosophy" per se.

I would love to hear your summation of Heidegger’s contribution to philosophy. — Joshs

Well, fwiw, I'd begin here ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/790451

... and whose "thought" has engendered a few pseudo-intellectual (according to Chomsky et al) generations of "post-truth" p0m0 populism. No doubt, Heidi is very important but, imho, more as a negative example – how not to philosophize – than anything else. :mask:

I would love to hear your summation of Heidegger’s contribution to philosophy.
— Joshs
Well, fwiw, I'd begin here ...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/790451

... and whose "thought" has engendered a few pseudo-intellectual (according to Chomsky et al) generations of "post-truth" p0m0 populism. No doubt, Heidi is very important but, imho, more as a negative example – how not to philosophize – than anything else — 180 Proof

I would love to hear your summary of Heidegger’s philosophy, but that link isn’t it. It sounds like all you’ve done there is take the facts of Heidegger’s involvement with the Nazi party and combine it with a summary of popular fascist philosophies of the time. Pretty much what Richard Wolin did in his Heidegger in Ruins book.

Pretty much what Richard Wolin did in his Heidegger in Ruins book. — Joshs

I appreciate the mention. Maybe my local public library will have a copy.

I would love to hear your summary of Heidegger’s philosophy ...

Gladly. Here's some old posts ...

(2020) from a thread titled Martin Heiddeger
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/421047
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/431182
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/427142
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/431469

And from one our an old exchanges which I'm sure you've forgotten. :smirk:

I would love to hear your summary of Heidegger’s philosophy ...
Gladly. Here's some old posts — 180 Proof

Well, these are certainly negative comments on Heidegger, but they consist mainly of references to other authors’ opinions of him. There’s no actual summary of his philosophy. My summary is embedded in various places, like here:

https://www.academia.edu/113482477/Heideggers_World_Projection_vs_Bravers_Concept_of_Worldview

and here:

https://www.academia.edu/117697814/Heidegger_on_Anxiety_Nothingness_and_Time_How_Not_to_Think_Authenticity_Inauthentically

There’s no actual summary of his philosophy. — Joshs

You're right, just a summary of my objections. Heidegger's philosophy: "Nothing noths". :eyes:

Thoughts on Husserl? I personally believe Heidegger, for the most part, hijacked Husserl's line of investigation and fixated on one tiny aspect of it effectively throwing the entire point of the phenomenology out of the window. I kind of think of it a little like the New Age movement hijacking Jung's work. The only difference being people took Heidegger seriously.

↪180 Proof Thoughts on Husserl? I personally believe Heidegger, for the most part, hijacked Husserl's line of investigation and fixated on one tiny aspect of it effectively throwing the entire point of the phenomenology out of the window. I kind of think of it a little like the New Age movement hijacking Jung's work. The only difference being people took Heidegger seriously. — I like sushi

Have you read Derrida’s deconstruction of Husserl in Speech and Phenomena and his intro to Origin of Geometry?

My criteria for uninteresting here:
1) The subject matter is small/pedantic/minutia-mongering
2) The answers to the problem are not new or informative but a rehash of what we already think, or a rehash of previous philosopher but in drag (e.g. We must take for granted certain things like "Other people exist" in order to move on with our language games.. this is already our common sense notion made writ large into a profound statement- Hinge propositions). — schopenhauer1

The guy who said snow is white if and only if snow is white... That's like ... deep ... ya know...

No doubt, Heidi is very important but, imho, more as a negative example – how not to philosophize – than anything else. — 180 Proof

Ahhh 180 proof, bashing Heidegger again?

From your profile:
i. "Why is there anything at all?" Because
(A) 'absence of the possibility of anything at all' – nothing-ness – is impossible, to wit:
(B1) there is not any possible version of the actual world that is 'the negation of the actual world' (i.e. nothing-ness);
(B2) there is not any possible world in which it is true that 'a possible world is not a possible world' (i.e. nothing-ness);
(C) the only ultimate why-answer that does not beg the question is There Is No Ultimate Why-Answer.

You do realize you are introducing your readers to your thought, via Heidggers' main question? In good German I would say: "was sich liebt das neckt sich" ... :wink:

The guy who said snow is white if and only if snow is white... That's like ... deep ... ya know... — Tobias

Some might say that the big concept here is it merely needs to satisfy an object language and meta-language. I’d imagine some would say this is just adding more stuff to make things work out. “Snow is white” is object. “Snow is white if and only if snow is white” is the meta language that reflects whether the statement satisfies. I mean this all goes back to “how does one know?” But I’m always dismissed that how we know matters not to the logic itself.

Hint: It’s probably some verification/falsification theory

Heidggers' main question? — Tobias

"What is the meaning of Being (or Seyn)? I believe is Der Rektor-Führer's "main question" ... At any rate, "why is there anything at all?" on my profile page is just a prompt, or TPF conversation starter – dismissal of the Leibnizian (ontotheo) fetish – and has never been my aporia¹. :smirk:

(2019)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/326211 [1]

I personally believe Heidegger, for the most part, hijacked Husserl's line of investigation and fixated on one tiny aspect of it effectively throwing the entire point of the phenomenology out of the window. — I like sushi

:up: :up: Btw, I prefer Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology (and those variations derived from, or influenced by, it e.g. David Abram's ecophenomenology, enactivism, etc) to any other version including Husserl's which is much too Cartesian/idealist for me.

[deleted]

You do realize you are introducing your readers to your thought, via Heidggers' main question? In good German I would say: "was sich liebt das neckt sich" ... :wink: — Tobias

Are you saying Heidegger’s main question is ‘ why is there something rather than nothing’?

Yeah, a long time ago. I thought it was utter garbage. Nothing but hermeneutical jargon under misrepresentation and twaddle.

That said, I would not dismiss either Heidegger nor Derrida out of hand. Heidegger has his uses (negatively) and I suspect Derrida could be of value to from what others have reported but I have not really had the time for a deep dive into Derrida. One day, sooner rather than later, I am likely to have a closer look at him.

Every philosophy is dubious to a degree and a matter of taste too. I like what Husserl was attempting and Heidegger did a pretty decent job (in places) of explicating some of Husserl's ideas, but overall I am still on the fence as to whether Husserlian phenomenology can rightly be labeled as 'idealist' or not. He remains intriguing to me and another I have to dive deeper into to find out more (maybe one day!).

:up:

My criteria for uninteresting here:
1) The subject matter is small/pedantic/minutia-mongering
2) The answers to the problem are not new or informative but a rehash of what we already think, or a rehash of previous philosopher but in drag — schopenhauer1

All the people marketing their niche topic (self help, self healing, self improvement etc) as being a way of life, a genuine philosophy. And are marketed thus as philosophers.

They are so uninteresting I don't want to even know anything about them. Believe me, they are out there.

Or the "scientist" that have been disgusted how bad modern philosophy and the humanities are, and then start themselves describing what it should be (which comes down to a rehash of Age of Enlightenment philosophers).

The most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy is interesting because they are (or it is) the most uninteresting philosopher/philosophy. — Agree-to-Disagree

Or the worst philosophers.

And this is the reason why the most hated one's aren't the most uniteresting: Ayn Rand and the postmodernists like Julia Kristeva, Bruno Latour etc. All the crappy things they do, doesn't make them uninteresting because they're a huge army of new philosophy students trying to make sense postmodernism and be in the in-crowd. And with Rand there's a cult following there too.

"What is the meaning of Being (or Seyn)? I believe is Der Rektor-Führer's "main question"↪180 Proof ... At any rate, "why is there anything at all?" on my profile page is just a prompt, or TPF conversation starter – dismissal of the Leibnizian (ontotheo) fetish – and has never been my aporia¹. :smirk: — 180 Proof

I know 180, it was meant in jocular fashion. The aversion against 'onto-theology' you actually share with Heidegger. And yes, his view on authenticity you do not. Yet I think, Heidegger and you are not that far off in thinking, but are in writing and fortunately, in political belief... What Heidegger tried to do was to root thinking in practice, which is a rather modern idea. The way he did it... well, we will not quibble there I think.

Are you saying Heidegger’s main question is ‘ why is there something rather than nothing’? — Joshs

I do not know if it is 'the question'... it is his opener in his 'einführung in die Metaphysik" I believe...

As a non-philosopher, it often looks as if the thinkers people are drawn to seem to reflect their presuppositions. How often have you seen someone completely change their world views after exposure to a philosopher's ideas? It must happen. I don't know anyone who studies philosophy, so I have no sample group. And I'm not thinking of guys in their twenties who discover and misinterpret Nietzsche to bolster the radicalisation of their own arrogance.

How often have you seen someone completely change their world views after exposure to a philosopher's ideas? — Tom Storm

I would say, based on contemplating neuroscience and life experience, that dramatic changes in a person's worldview is something that takes a considerable amount of time to occur.

It must happen. — Tom Storm

I'm skeptical.

Are you saying Heidegger’s main question is ‘ why is there something rather than nothing’?
— Joshs

I do not know if it is 'the question'... it is his opener in his 'einführung in die Metaphysik" I believe... — Tobias

Indeed it is. What many don’t realize, though, is that he isn’t simply repeating Leibnitz’s question, he is deconstructing it. What he is really asking is , ‘why do we exclusively associate the copula ‘is’ with the notion of something, of presence, and not also the Nothing’?

How does it come about that beings take precedence everywhere and lay claim to every "is," while that which is not a being - namely, the Nothing thus understood as Being itself- remains forgotten? How does it come about that with Being It is really nothing and that the Nothing does not properly prevail? (Introduction to What is Metaphysics?)

Anyone who's seen my posts know I am not a fan of Wittgenstein's philosophy as it seems to make common sense notions into philosophical "strokes of genius" (heavy on the quotes). — schopenhauer1

I actually like Wittgenstein and find that his thinking has helped me clarify my own. I took a course on him years ago. I still find it helpful to think of e.g. inter-religious discussion as discussion between essentially different self-contained 'language games.' Christian theology, Jewish theology, Buddhist, etc. -- just their own language games. Similarly, the atheist partakes in the same way by stomping his foot down and insisting that divinity does not exist. In the same way the atheist declares the rules of his language game.

EDIT: Within a given language game, certain "moves" are correct or incorrect -- but this is dependent on the language game. The goal of much inter-religious discussion is finding which "moves" (statements) are acceptable within both systems which facilitates harmony.

As far as the general idea of language games, that's fine. I think it might be perhaps the project of turning philosophy into "philosophy of language" that I'm not a fan of. It would have been more interesting to get an actual epistemology and metaphysics, but you see, he insulated himself because he made the idea seem legitimate that "One must be silent whereof.." and/or we can never really reveal anything beside constructed games from communities. Also these notions like "language games" and "hinge propositions" seem like common sense "writ large". Perhaps he was the first to write it "explicitly" as philosophy, but I think in some sense we all have these notions of language games and meaning as use and that we take for granted certain concepts when we use language (so-called hinge propositions).

The Tractatus is also a program without a foundation and so lacks the metaphysics and epistemology that the correspondence theory supposedly shows. It needs the psychology that is lacking. In fact, as far as I see, all these debates around logic, correspondence, truth statements, etc. are missing the "how" foundations. People in PoL want to tell me that you don't need that to discuss the logic itself, but it seems like pointless twiddle twaddle if you remove the epistemic and metaphysical questions from the supposed language that is conveying the meaning and content of sentences. They want to separate them, but it's like doing something with half the necessary tools. Oh well. But I'm sure I'll be "schooled" about how great PoL is without epistemology, metaphysics, and psychology. I will surely be told that truth statements can be simply derived by parsing the logic itself.

I agree that we only derive from a philosophy what already accords with our worldview to a large degree. But that philosophy can still have a legitimately profound effect on our thinking , and it’s a testament to the richness and fecundity of great philosophy that it can have this effect, in different ways with different people, like the blind men and the elephant. In a way, most of us who are influenced by a set of philosophical ideas are in a similar position to “guys in their twenties who discover and misinterpret Nietzsche to bolster the radicalisation of their own arrogance.”

This thread belongs in the Lounge. What people find interesting or uninteresting in philosophy says more about them than about philosophy.

PS But yeah, antinatalism for sure.