Glaucon said: If curiosity makes a philosopher, you will find many a strange
being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning,
and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely
out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world
who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help,
while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears
to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country–that makes
no difference–they are there. Now are we to maintain that all these and
any who have similar tastes, as well as the professors of quite minor arts, are
philosophers?
Certainly not, I replied; they are only an imitation.
He said: Who then are the true philosophers?
Those, I said, who are lovers of the vision of truth.
That is also good, he said; but I should like to know what you mean?
To another, I replied, I might have a difficulty in explaining; but I am sure that
you will admit a proposition which I am about to make.
What is the proposition?
That since beauty is the opposite of ugliness, they are two?
Certainly.
And inasmuch as they are two, each of them is one?
True again.
And of just and unjust, good and evil, and of every other class, the same remark
holds: taken singly, each of them is one; but from the various combinations of
them with actions and things and with one another, they are seen in all sorts of
lights and appear many?
Very true.
And this is the distinction which I draw between the sight-loving, art-loving,
practical class and those of whom I am speaking, and who are alone worthy of
the name of philosophers.
How do you distinguish them? he said.
The lovers of sounds and sights, I replied, are, as I conceive, fond of fine tones
and colours and forms and all the artificial products that are made out of them,
but their mind is incapable of seeing or loving absolute beauty.
True, he replied.
Few are they who are able to attain to the sight of this.
Very true.
they want to lay around in the shade of the tree and talk instead of pushing ahead. — Jeremiah
To some philosophy is a precursor to scientific investigation. In philosophy they came to understand and define truth. A point others seem stuck on, but for some they are able to move beyond that aspect which creates a natural path to science. Science is modern philosophy and philosophy is ancient science. Some do not see a division but see them as a single continuation. — Jeremiah
Plato: “No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.”
Very true quote, the ignorant will always get angry attack those who expose their ignorance.
On the contrary you should thank me for trying to step up the philosophical skills amongst these cozy chatters, to evolve humankind from the stone ages to information age. — HexHammer
Intellectuals have an over-inflated sense of the importance of their discipline and make broad, sweeping generalizations of other disciplines they are unfamiliar with? :gasp:
There will never be a cohesive and inclusive model for inquiry. Everyone thinks that their favorite philosopher, or their chosen scientific field, is the be-all-end-all pinnacle of everything, and fuck everything else. Echo-chambers exist throughout the sciences and humanities. One person may doubt another person's self-evident truths. et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam. At the end of the day, nothing changes, nobody has learned anything, and we all go home just a little more disappointed in others.
If I had to criticize philosophers and scientists for one thing, it's that they tend to make things into a big narrative, with philosophy or science being the "ultimate" that eclipses any other discipline. Philosophy does, in my opinion, technically hold the cards as the "ultimate", but it's often so impotent and slow-moving that you might as well just give the torch to someone more competent. If science is to be the model for everything and anything (as naturalism wishes it to be), then scientists need to be philosophically literate. Before, we had scientist-philosophers, who really were the model intellectuals, and who held a deep respect for philosophy. Nowadays you just have douchey wannabes spouting racist and sexist hate-speech and pretending it's science, parading around and T-bagging dissenters. Rah-rah, we're the best! Rah-rah! — darthbarracuda
So then you do see them as separate paths? — Jeremiah
No one is suggesting "one single model" for anything; however, if your statement is that there is bad philosophy then you must have reasons for thinking that. So then, what are the characteristics of "bad philosophy"? — Jeremiah
think a characteristics of bad philosophy is over generalizations and giving up before before even trying. — Jeremiah
HexHammer is right, there are a lot of lovers of opinion that masquerade as philosophers, — Jeremiah
Anyone who thinks the path of truth does not include a heavy dose of science is kidding themselves. — Jeremiah
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