Do you think that you're currently living the good life? — Πετροκότσυφας

Yes, and no. How does one answer such a question?

What does yes and no means? If you don't know how one answers that question how does the phrase "living the good live" even make sense? — Πετροκότσυφας

It's an ideal. I don't know how it looks like and is hard to attain if I don't know what it looks like.

If your "ideal" has any content, you have a grasp of it; maybe not refined, but a grasp nonetheless. If you don't, then your ideal is nothing. It's a vacuous concept which corresponds to nothing. — Πετροκότσυφας

I guess so. I'm just uncertain if it's truly good.

That what is contrary to how I am currently living my life, call them alternate realities if you wish to.

I don't follow. You meant you're uncertain of the goodness of what? Of the ideal or of your current way of living? — Πετροκότσυφας

Both. I'm uncertain if the way I'm living or the ideal I'm striving towards is actually good.

If you're uncertain of your current situation, then it's something specific in your life that causes this. What is it? Is it depression, unemployment, familial relations, anger? Is it the way you deal with some or with all of these? What is it? — Πετροκότσυφας

I don't know. It's not that I feel depressed, angry, or anything. I don't feel much at all. I just spend my days here on this forum reading stuff and apathetically wallowing. But, hopefully, tomorrow my classes start and I might feel a renewed interest in philosophy again. Speaking of which, it's time to hit the sack. Night!

There is no 'the good life,' for there must be bad in the good life for it to be good; otherwise it would be neither.

Are you referencing Plato directly with this talk of "the good", or is it coincidental?

Yes, both and somewhat unintentionally.

Is it procrastination that makes you feel uncertain? Maybe a lack of productivity? Or at least an ideal level of productivity? — Πετροκότσυφας

Yes, I think so. But is t that the bane of philosophers to feel that way? Not saying Im a philosopher, just in general.

It's quite similar to what we both we talking about. As itself obscured, it is not clearly identifiable, or explicable, but like the sun, it is required to see everything else. It is that which, upon recognition, moves one from student to master.

I think your overpsychologizing the issue. I just want to live a good life. If philosophy can't answer that question then what would? Besides you haven't addressed the OP...

Yes, interesting.

I'm not confused. Just in wonder.

Confused about me saying that I'm not a stoic or what?

Well now that you put it that way, I guess all the CBT or metacognitive therapy along with the stoicism has come to some fruition. It's just that there's some nagging uncertainty about the issue of whether I'm actually flourishing...

I don't quite get yet how philosophy should be studied?

Do you just pick up a work and plow through it? — Posty McPostface

Definitely not, as you'll probably forget most of what you've ploughed through. See here.

Pick up a work and plow through it. True philosophy is doing it in your own way. — Blue Lux

Disregard bad advice like that contained in the quote above.

Disregard bad advice like that contained in the quote above. — Sapientia

That's how all the guys we can list on a whim did it, I think, so not that bad of advice.

It's bad advice. It doesn't mean that you can't get good results that way, but it makes it harder, and even if you do achieve good results, chances are they could've been better. I study philosophy in a way that I wouldn't recommend, but I do so informally, so I don't mind, and I can afford to take a casual approach. But if you're serious about studying philosophy, then do as I say, not as I do. And I can confirm that I've forgotten a very large proportion of the literature on philosophy that I've read.

Understanding differs greatly to remembering specific things. What specific details do you remember about learning to talk? If you had to take a test on the details of your advancement, what you learned from one day to the next, I think you'd fail that test. Look though, fluency, like magic!

Understanding differs greatly to remembering specific things. What specific details do you remember about learning to talk? If you had to take a test on the details of your advancement, what you learn from one day to the next, I think you'd fail that test. Look though, fluency, like magic! — All sight

I didn't say, "Don't try to understand anything, just remember as much as you can!".

You did not, but the link suggests that. As it is about remembering particular details necessary for passing a test in school. Memorization, repetition, mnemonic devices and such.

If one goes about treating the very questions of philosophy as problems, per se, then how do you ever lift yourself out of that sorry predicament that philosophy imposes upon you? — Posty McPostface

It's not a sorry predicament at all. Particular 'philosophies' are nothing but problems taken to the very end: problems explored for all their implications, for all they say about the world. And the field of problems is open-ended and constantly evolving, calling each time for a creative endeavour equal to it. To study philosophy is to learn how to occupy these problems, and implicate ever vaster swathes of the world into them.

Interesting! I've always held that Wittgenstein was the epitome of what you are describing (a philosopher who treated the whole field of philosophy as one big problem), and hence the resolution of said problems was found in quietism. — Posty McPostface

I don't think there's anything particularly exclusive to Wittgenstein about this. As much as I love Witty - I count him as a formative influence - he doesn't differ in kind from a Plato, a Leibniz, or a Arendt: each inhabits a field of problems through which the world is viewed, and through which it is made sense of. A problem is not something to be solved as if once and for all: it it something to work-through, to occupy, to inhabit. Life as a problem to which individual lives are diverse solutions: philosophy is not unlike this.

As an aside, I don't think quietism qualifies as philosophy. It's intellectual failure hardened into pseudo-philosophical position. The failure of thought masquerading as the thought of failure. Wittgenstein which much more than his 'quietism', which was nothing more than a weakness of nerve.

As an aside, I don't think quietism qualifies as philosophy. It's intellectual failure hardened into pseudo-philosophical position. — StreetlightX

Failure to do what? I thought philosophy was not about solutions?

It isn't. But then, to equate 'solutions to problems' with 'success' is, of course, an infantile image of philosophy.

So how do you describe 'sucess' in such a way as it would not be possible to re-phrase as a solution to a problem?

It's not a sorry predicament at all. Particular 'philosophies' are nothing but problems taken to the very end: problems explored for all their implications, for all they say about the world. And the field of problems is open-ended and constantly evolving, calling each time for a creative endeavour equal to it. To study philosophy is to learn how to occupy these problems, and implicate ever vaster swathes of the world into them. — StreetlightX

I want to believe that this is the true purpose of philosophy; but, then I am taken aback by how many more problems appear if there are no real solutions. It places philosophy behind more pragmatic endeavors such as science or religion (depending on how you define pragmatic here, or rather applicable). But, if one goes down this route, then one can posit, why aren't all philosophers utilitarians then? Don't know if you got the gist.

A problem is not something to be solved as if once and for all: it it something to work-through, to occupy, to inhabit. — StreetlightX

Well, this just gives philosophers a bad rap if you will. There are new paradigms and vistas that get opened up through new lines of thought, in my opinion. So, yes, philosophy is an art, although it would not seem so in academia, I would surmise.

As an aside, I don't think quietism qualifies as philosophy. It's intellectual failure hardened into pseudo-philosophical position. The the failure of thought masquerading as the thought of failure. Wittgenstein which much more than his 'quietism', which was nothing more than a weakness of nerve. — StreetlightX

This is something I would disagree on. Language games have their context, where they derive meaning from; but, no philosophy is so all-encompassing as to endow meaning on any and all sentences. So, we are restricted to always delineating where and when meaning, truth, or validity (applicability?) starts and ends. The premise being, that one be unbiased towards every language game by professing quietism.

To show why a problem matters: the purchase it has on what it aims to come to grips with, the degree of fecundity with which one can see the world in it's light (an Aristotelian light, a Cartesian light, a Sellarsian light...). Problems are essentially distributions of categories of sense: what happens when such categories are distributed in this way rather than that? To succeed philosophically is to explore those implications to the nth degree.

Problem: There is need we feel to show why each problem matters
Solution: The relevant work showing why some problem matters

Problem: We don't know what purchase a problem has on what it aims to come to grips with.
Solution: The relevant work showing what purchase can be had on what a problem aims to come to grips with.

Problem: We don't know what happens when such categories are distributed in this way rather than that.
Solution: The work showing what happens when such categories are distributed in this way rather than that.

It's all very interesting exploring different ways of describing the same issue, but it's in bearable arrogant to go around claiming every other way is 'infantile' and not even proper philosophy.

Every other way? No, just one.