Quite.Philosophy has never shown any inclination to roll over and die. — Srap Tasmaner
Yes. That would be a good description of the agenda of any Philosophy 101 course. It seems to me that it is now an essential step in learning about philosophy or, better, how to philosophize. Perhaps we should assess our students' success in such courses by their level of bewilderment. Look at how carefully Descartes instils his doubt at the beginning of the Meditations.But there may be a third sort of philosophy, which is the more or less deliberate cultivation of perplexity — Srap Tasmaner
That's true, so far as it goes.If I give someone the order "fetch me a red flower from that meadow", how is he to know what sort of flower to bring, as I have only given him a word?
— p. 3
Where does this question come from? It's not an ordinary question, not the sort of problem people raise in everyday life. ..... Frege says that we have to get behind the signs to the meaning, precisely what Wittgenstein notes it never occurs to anyone to say about the signs we exchange in everyday life. — Srap Tasmaner
I would put it as a particular perspective, but imagination seems to work as well. Perhaps philosophy arises from a disruption of ordinary life.It requires a particular sort of imagination to notice what people do not do and what they do not worry about, and a particular sort of imagination to make it plausible that they would. ...... Now we have something a bit like a problem to work on, philosophically. A deliberately induced perplexity. — Srap Tasmaner
Yes. Oddball questions are sometimes just muddles or fantasies (nightmares). But sometimes they are more than that.there are the oddball questions which lead either to science (why does the second ball move? is also a very good question) or to philosophy. — Srap Tasmaner
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