I think the problem with philosophy is that it is not radical enough and like most other things suffers from bias.

There have been radical philosophers but their ideas have been downplayed or not taken seriously.

It is kind of ironic now that some scientists have more radical ideas than philosophers whilst philosophers have pandered to an archaic notion of science.

I am currently a moral nihilist because I have not heard a satisfactory defense of morality and I think it is much healthier to accept moral nihilism or moral skepticism than pander to moral prejudices that are probably indefensible. Moral nihilism can be like agnosticism.

It doesn't favour anyone's moral claims or actions and then we can make rules which we know are fallible and provisional.

Philosophy always cuts both ways and is awash in a sea of motives. There are likely deep personal reasons for your inquiring into philosophy's use as a justification for personal investment in society and the status quo as opposed to philosophy's use as a justification for resentment towards society and personal inability to cope successfully with the status quo. The only philosophical cure for bad philosophical self-justification is more philosophy. But as we all know too much philosophy usually destroys a person, so it may often be best to let people play in their sandbox of philosophical self-deception, or at least not to be shocked or dismayed when they prefer to do so.

Whenever philosophy is biased towards anything other than truth, it is not true philosophy. The ancient Greeks used to make a distinction between philosophy, the love of wisdom, and philodoxia, the love of opinion. That distinction nowadays is almost never made, resulting in much pseudo-philosophy posing as actual philosophy. Philosophy deals with facts and reality, and whenever it doesn't, it is delusion and nothing else.

How do we know when philosophy is just justifying the status quo of whatever is considered important for society to function. For example, work is necessary to keep society going, so the idea goes, so it must be a good that people need to participate in. The hidden context is it’s beneficience for society, the stated one is it is good for the person. The one dies not necessitate the other though; it is an excuse to keep the status quo. It is then furthered by stern messages of there’s no other way and common sense, and the like. It is just assumed in other words. — schopenhauer1

Whether or not the status quo on any topic is justified is conditional on other premises, like your example of collectivism vs. individualism, and common sense is another example. So, if you find out what they are, then you can at least make some progress towards an answer. But these other premises aren't necessarily "just assumed", even if a lot of people might do so.

Whenever philosophy is biased towards anything other than truth, it is not true philosophy. — Tzeentch

This looks to me like epistemic and value claims hiding within a tautology hoping to go unnoticed. Either we ignore it and some notion of truth self-justifies by refusing to scrutinize itself further or we're off to the races with "What is truth?" and "What is the value of truth?".

A lot of "argumentative effort" (we can debate whether it's philosophy or not) goes into justifying the status quo, and this effort gets publicity: either because it's pushed by propagandists or then people searching out what they want to hear (that everything is fine).

As important, ideas that challenge the status quo (in an incompatible way), almost by definition, meet with resistance: censorship, counter-propaganda etc.

In the propaganda context, it's easy to use philosophy either as sophistry or then an appeal to authority (this philosopher developed "just war theory", and you better believe our leaders are taking all that really seriously, so nothing more to say about that). Of course, in another context where the justification for the war is clearly absurd, then the opposite strategy of simply dismissing any analysis as superfluous and even childish (certainly to act on one's analysis), so phrases will be used such as it's "human nature" or "we felt threatened, so very understandable" or just "we needed the oil and we should be grown up about it and not whine" and of course the timeless "support the troops" etc.

So, in other words, philosophy (or the appearance as such) will serve the status quo when it serves the status quo, and it if doesn't it will be dismissed.

A great example of this playing out in practice is Noam Chomsky, who has probably the highest name recognition of any intellectual today, but never appears on mainstream TV. Whereas a scientist playing the roll of a "real intellectual", like Neil deGrasse Tyson, appears on TV all the time. The difference, Chomsky challenges the status quo and asks uncomfortable questions, makes detailed investigations and provides hefty backup for his conclusions. If you observe Tyson, you will see sometimes he does mention something a bit "political serious", but it will be always be in the form "some people would say" and no substance of the arguments behind why those people are saying it, nor ever taking risk in what he's saying (other than he believes in science), which of course implicitly legitimatizes whatever talking-heads status quo view of the matter is, as it's all just opinion, none better than another. Chomsky on the same subject would call out the talking heads for being dishonest and duplicitous, just pushing propaganda and making the audiences dumber; more grievous, Chomsky can provide lists of details proving his point as well as the abundant evidence the talking heads ignore all the inconvenient facts, even ignoring whole regions of world history or current affairs if it's easier than making even a cursory white-wash (case in point, Yemen), and can also list ample times the talking heads contradict themselves whenever it suits their pay-masters and clearly have no legitimate intellectual framework they are overtly working within (covertly they may have a very sophisticated framework where it's justified in detail why manipulating the public is good, and also money).

In even more other words, imagine if there was some prime time tv show called "philosophical inquiry" and Chomsky, as a prominent intellectual -- as well as Marxists like Richard Wolf, journalists like Chris Hedges, and the most concerned climate scientists -- was on it often, along with talking heads and whomever, would such a show support the impression that philosophy supports the status quo? Even if one watched this imagined show, and concluded Chomsky and other "leftists" were wrong, I don't think one would conclude philosophy as-such is conducive to maintaining people docile and unquestioning.

Whenever philosophy is biased towards anything other than truth, it is not true philosophy.
— Tzeentch

This looks to me like epistemic and value claims hiding within a tautology hoping to go unnoticed.

Either we ignore it and some notion of truth self-justifies by refusing to scrutinize itself further or we're off to the races with "What is truth?" and "What is the value of truth?". — John Doe

I am glad you didn't ignore and had that trippy first sentence roll off your tongue.
And the third horse in the race: 'What is philosophy ?' Perhaps the heart of the OP ?

How do we know when philosophy is just justifying the status quo — schopenhauer1

When that philosophy is popular.

It is certainly not hoping to go unnoticed. If you disagree, make your case.

Philosophy always cuts both ways and is awash in a sea of motives. There are likely deep personal reasons for your inquiring into philosophy's use as a justification for personal investment in society and the status quo as opposed to philosophy's use as a justification for resentment towards society and personal inability to cope successfully with the status quo. The only philosophical cure for bad philosophical self-justification is more philosophy. But as we all know too much philosophy usually destroys a person, so it may often be best to let people play in their sandbox of philosophical self-deception, or at least not to be shocked or dismayed when they prefer to do so. — John Doe

Wow, yea, what he said. Nice post, standing ovation.

I do think it is the role of philosophy to explore the boundaries of the group consensus, but it's probably good that the project is rarely successful at rocking the group consensus boat, because...

....as we all know too much philosophy usually destroys a person — John Doe

The same is probably true for a society. Hopefully philosophy can help in knocking the edges off of some of the wild excesses of the group consensus, but too much challenging of the group consensus becomes another form of excess.

In my opinion, philosophy is necessary for essential human activities (establishing a government, raising children, education). And if we have to do it, we might as well do it well. But in terms of studying philosophy that in and of itself can mean very different things and I don't think is always to the benefit of society, especially when philosophy departments or programs become very radicalized and homogenous.

It is certainly not hoping to go unnoticed. If you disagree, make your case. — Tzeentch

Would you kindly point out what I'm making my case against? I don't really wish to debate a tautology. It's one of the coolest sentences I've read on this site, but it's really wonky and I hope you see that. I probably can't be of much help if you don't.

:up: :up:

Whenever philosophy is biased towards anything other than truth, it is not true philosophy. — Tzeentch

How can this possibly be so when the question "what is 'truth'?" is purportedly within the purview of philosophy? Wouldn't that beg the question?

Thank you for clearing that up. I had gotten the impression you disagreed. To elaborate upon that general statement; much like a scientist a philosopher should concern himself solely with what is true, and not what he wants to be true. Even more so because the philosopher's findings cannot always be easily verified. He needs to be brutally honest about himself and his findings, lest he falls into the trap of self-delusion to which the human mind is so susceptible. That's why a philosopher needs to be utterly dedicated to truth, and nothing but the truth, and he must scrutinize himself every step of the way, for of all people a philosopher should know how valuable and rare truth is.

How can this possibly be so when the question "what is 'truth'?" is purportedly within the purview of philosophy? Wouldn't that beg the question? — Isaac

It's a perfectly valid question to ask. I don't see how a bias towards truth should prevent such questions from being asked.

It's a perfectly valid question to ask. I don't see how a bias towards truth should prevent such questions from being asked. — Tzeentch

How can you ask "what is truth?" but only persue the investigation with a bias toward truth? What would be the point of the question if you already know what 'truth' is sufficiently to determine a bias toward it? It's like saying you're going to begin an investigation to find the lost city of Eldorado by heading unswervingly in the direction of the lost city of Eldorado.

So one must find the lost city of Eldorado.

So one must find the lost city of Eldorado. — Tzeentch

Maybe, but you weren't referring to the objective, but the method, that's my point. 'Truth' cannot be both objective and method. One cannot say that a philosopher is not perusing his quest for the meaning of 'truth' in a way that is biased toward truth.

Can you not say that in his quest for truth, the philosopher should be utterly dedicated to it, and not allow his view of it to be corrupted by his own preferences? That's the message I am trying to convey.

Can you not say that in his quest for truth, the philosopher should be utterly dedicated to it, and not allow his view of it to be corrupted by his own preferences? That's the message I am trying to convey. — Tzeentch

Then whose view of it is he to take, if not his own?

Ideally one should strive to face the facts without predispositions, much like a scientist should not let his research be influenced by his personal opinions. Of course, this is not an easy task, but one should strive for nothing less.

Yes, my question was (in your terminology) how would one know one is facing facts without predisposition? Do predispositions come to us clearly labelled as such, or even cryptically so?

In striving to see facts this way, what is it that you think we should use to identify where we are going wrong?

There's a difference between tasks which are not easy (climb a high wall) and tasks which are impossible (climb a wall despite not knowing what 'a wall' is)

That's why a philosopher needs to be utterly dedicated to truth, and nothing but the truth, and he must scrutinize himself every step of the way, for of all people a philosopher should know how valuable and rare truth is. — Tzeentch

One device that might assist this process could be for all philosophy to be done anonymously. No names attached to any statements. This would help remove extremely distracting agendas like ego and career advancement etc.

I recently spent a few months on a group blog for academic philosophers. It was almost entirely about chanting the politically correct group consensus so as to develop one's career by seeking affirmation from one's peers etc.

What complicated that realm almost beyond hope of redemption is that the academics are very articulate and well endowed with authority credentials such as the PhD. So the writers, especially the younger ones, were very sincerely convinced they were doing advanced philosophy when really they are just running a business built upon chanting the group consensus.

Anyway, remove all the names and there is little left to do but real philosophy.

One can never be sure that one is free of predisposition. But by virtue of striving honestly and critically one may hope to see more clearly. Some people have a natural inclination towards such an attitude.

Indications that one may be on a wrong trail depend on what the person is trying to understand.

It could be argued that if a person needs to be restrained in order to make him engage in true philosophy, he does not yet have the capacity to be a true philosopher. Anyhow, I tend not to worry myself with how others practice philosophy. For me it's a very personal endeavour.

But by virtue of striving honestly and critically one may hope to see more clearly. — Tzeentch

But to strive one must have a direction and to critique one must have a conception of right/wrong, good/bad. So one cannot strive honestly nor critically toward truth without having first, a direction to head in (what 'truth' looks like) and second, a knowledge of what the wrong direction might be (what bias looks like). So you haven't answered the question about how one carries out the initial investigation into what 'truth' is (or indeed how to distinguish a bias).

It could be argued that if a person needs to be restrained in order to make him engage in true philosophy, he does not yet have the capacity to be a true philosopher. — Tzeentch

I think my point might have been that it's the human condition that we all have egos and so if our names, even anonymous screen names, are attached to our thoughts then a distracting agenda is introduced.

Perhaps there are those who can attach a name to their writing without their ego becoming engaged, but in 20 years of doing this dance I've yet to meet them. :smile:

Hey everybody, look at this post! It's by Jake! Isn't Jake incredibly wise? :smile:

Perhaps there are those who can attach a name to their writing without their ego becoming engaged, but in 20 years of doing this dance I've yet to meet them. — Jake

How would you know?

What are some examples of this (philosophy bolstering the status quo) a la papers published in peer-reviewed journals, books from academic presses or by philosophy professors, etc.? I'm not doubting that there are any, but offhand I can't think of one (I have a crappy memory sometimes though).

How would you know? — Tzeentch

I have know what I have observed, a significant pile of evidence. But you're right, I surely can't claim that NOBODY could escape their philosophical ego.

In fact, I have escaped my ego. Yes, it's true. In fact I won the 2018 Most Humble Man Competition, having trounced my pathetic competitors. What a bunch of losers, nowhere near as humble as me! :smile:

Perhaps the first step towards finding truth is not uncovering truth itself, but uncovering falsehoods instead, or at least false thoughts. For example, I may be under the impression that all Italians are lazy, because I once met a lazy Italian and I did not like him very much. Realizing my assumption about Italians is not based on anything substantial uncovers a falsehood, or at the very least a hastily-drawn, unsubstantiated conclusion.

It is a matter of what the status quo is defined, but we can say broadly defending the current social, political, ethical, and even metaphysical ideas without much change. The OP explains what I meant. Thus, for example, pick any philosopher that says hard work is good or meaningful in itself, and then analyze whether this is somehow done as a means to keep institutions of society perpetuated. Businesses need productive workers, ideologies that promote people to value hard work would clearly be favorable to manager/owner interests. In a broader way, it is good to maintain the current social institutions, in these philosophies.

Edit: Usually there is little reflection as to whether society itself is harmful for the individual. This would be considered too radical. Rather, what already exists is assumed to be correct. There is no thinking outside what is about keeping society going with minor tweaks. Where it may be rightly assumed major catastrophic actions taken by social institutions would harm an individual, the daily grind of what is current (and perceived to be the "real") is harmful as well, albeit more diffusely and less obvious. The very fact of the individual being used by society, being a part of just what is "real" is telling, for example.