Guess i'll just leave for now. These fields are no fodder for an ADHD Mind.

I swore an oath to uphold a Wittgensteinian view regarding philosophy

I am here.

Why Philosophy?

To staff philosophy departments.

I do think, however, that philosophy pertaining to human behavior and societal matters is appropriate. Morals. ethics, the law, etc. are all excellent venues for philosophical deliberations.

Metaphysics, not so much. It seems to lead nowhere.

Metaphysics and epistemology are what you end up doing when you try to justify an argument that you shouldn't do them and should just use science instead.

Even Stephen Hawking fell for that. :grin:

What's philosophy?

Answer: it's using reason to investigate reality.

What's its value?

Answer: first, the question itself presupposes the value of philosophy, for answering it requires doing philosophy (thus, the questioner displays either insincerity or stupidity or both). Second, it is intrinsically valuable. Third, it is instrumentally valuable, as you can quickly discover for yourself by simply not using your reason to figure out what's what and then seeing what happens.

Why do we have philosophy departments and professional philosophers and universities?

Answer: universities were created by philosophers (Plato and Aristotle respectively) to teach philosophy. People who went to their universities became very clever. Very clever people thrive, stupid people don't. Thus, nations that make their populations clever by putting them through universities become wealthier, healthier places to live. Hence why any half-way sensible state funds universities and philosophy programmes even though in philosophy you are taught to trust reason over state authorities and traditions.

I trust your questions are now answered.

Metaphysics and epistemology are what you end up doing when you try to justify an argument that you shouldn't do them and should just use science instead. — Pfhorrest

I almost answered something like this. Statements that attempt to reduce the status of philosophy are often philosophical. 'Metaphysics is bunk' is a 'metaphysical' statement.

Because joy; because eros.

Thanks for your kind replies.

っ

Why not. — armonie

Elementary.

It's true. My graduate degree says "philosophy"

Oh dear . . .

If that's not sarcasm, you should vote in this thread.

Because we love wisdom and it’s articulation. There is a certain beauty in it.

Isn't it a rule of articulation not to articulate our thoughts in a sentence beginning with a because? And also why is that?

Oh, wait.... Grammar.

You think and thought, you play with it, let artistry do its thang, then present some articulated form in hope of pushing beyond comfort yet remaining - hopefully - within communicative comprehension.

The rest is scholarship - a worthy and often thankless task! I believe the bast majority of ‘philosophers’ offer more in terms of ‘scholarship’ than instigating a ‘push beyond comfort’.

doesn't allow me to take seriously any philosophy or philosophers — Per Chance

I don’t have ADHD and I don’t take anything anyone says too seriously - philosopher or otherwise (to be honest I’m inclined to pay less attention to most philosophers, yet find philosophies interesting play things).

Why philosophy?

despair

(i.e. sisyphean opposing of stupidity)

My graduate degree says "philosophy" — John Gill

I came to the field in a completely different way.

I was customizing software, maintaining software, writing new programs, and otherwise doing really practical stuff for dollars, when I realized that I found myself surrounded by commercial messages that were sheer bullshit. These completely false beliefs were only meant to make other people money; people, who owned the corporations that were advertising these piles of lies.

So, what exactly was I doing? What was it? That is where ontology kicked in.

So, how else are we supposed to be doing the things that we were doing? That is where epistemology kicked in.

The beginning of the solution was to move to linux and open source. That got rid of the corporate nonsense that otherwise kept cropping up in my own work. The funny thing was that getting rid of the commercial vendors also allowed me to make more money.

Still, part of the problem remained. When people started hyping their particular choice of open-source solutions as the be-all and end-all, I understood that the battle wasn't over. We still needed better knowledge justification. Mathematics is part of the solution. The combination ontology+epistemology, aka, philosophy, is the other part.

Personally, i'm just a brick lifter.

I don’t have ADHD and I don’t take anything anyone says too seriously - philosopher or otherwise (to be honest I’m inclined to pay less attention to most philosophers, yet find philosophies interesting play things) — I like sushi

Sure thing. I find your insight helpful.

Until recently i held on to the opinion that philosophy is really needed for the sake of philosophy itself. — Per Chance

Thus we now meet the view very usually taken of the history of Philosophy which ascribes to it the narration of a number of philosophical opinions as they have arisen and manifested themselves in time...This history, considered only as the enumeration of various opinions, thus becomes an idle tale, or, if you will, an erudite investigation...If the history of Philosophy merely represented various opinions in array, whether they be of God or of natural and spiritual things existent, it would be a most superfluous and tiresome science... — who

Later in the text, after being told that philosophy evolves toward the truth, we find that

the study of the history of Philosophy is the study of Philosophy itself, for, indeed, it can be nothing else. — who

excluding those that write also psychoanalysis and hegelese — Per Chance

If you successfully made sense of the quotes above, you already know Hegelese. I've also read biased writers warning against the dangers of Hegel. Well, Hegel is readable (most of the time). And, as to Freud, isn't there a middle ground between believing whatever he says and writing it off because he said it?

I swore an oath to uphold a Wittgensteinian view regarding philosophy — Per Chance

Which view is that? I'm curious.

Do enlighten me. — Per Chance

Philosophy feels to me like what I, as a human being, was born to do. 'Doing' philosophy largely means studying philosophy which largely means reading the history of philosophy. Metaphorically speaking, there is just one philosopher who leaps from dying ape to dying ape. In the same way a single flame from leap from melting candle to melting candle. To participate in philosophy is to be more than a harried self-concerned ape.

Thus we now meet the view very usually taken of the history of Philosophy which ascribes to it the narration of a number of philosophical opinions as they have arisen and manifested themselves in time...This history, considered only as the enumeration of various opinions, thus becomes an idle tale, or, if you will, an erudite investigation...If the history of Philosophy merely represented various opinions in array, whether they be of God or of natural and spiritual things existent, it would be a most superfluous and tiresome science...
— who

Later in the text, after being told that philosophy evolves toward the truth, we find that

the study of the history of Philosophy is the study of Philosophy itself, for, indeed, it can be nothing else.
— who

excluding those that write also psychoanalysis and hegelese — softwhere

If you successfully made sense of the quotes above, you already know Hegelese. — softwhere

I was halfway through zizek's hegelese/less than nothing when my ADHD medication was cut off. For which i have my mother, father and the pompous psychiatrist to blame who probably/authentically thought he has the right to decide what i am into or onto. He said when i am into software engineering i have no right to also study philosophy along with it. Hence no, I can't say for sure i know hegelese or least hegel through zizek. And no, i was referring to zizek when i said psychoanalysis.

I swore an oath to uphold a Wittgensteinian view regarding philosophy
— Per Chance

Which view is that? I'm curious. — softwhere

The view that all philosophical problems are linguistic problems.

The view that all philosophical problems are linguistic problems. — Per Chance

Thanks. I think there is some truth in that, but those linguistic problems are also the problems of what it means to be human, as I see it. What is language?

I think the later Wittgenstein saw that language is inseparable from social existence. So problems of language quickly become problems of social existence. Who have we been? Who are we? Who shall we be?

I was halfway through zizek's hegelese/less than nothing when my ADHD medication was cut off. — Per Chance

That would be tough. Less Than Nothing was less than I hoped it would be. I like Zizek, but I prefer Kojeve on Hegel. And then of course one should just read Hegel.

Hence no, I can't say for sure i know hegelese or least hegel through zizek. And no, i was referring to zizek when i said psychoanalysis. — Per Chance

Just to be clear, those quotes in my first post were from Hegel. I was trying to dispel the common notion (among those who haven't studied him) that Hegel is word salad.

Lacan via Zizek is fascinating. I can understand your frustration. Zizek has a lovable persona. He tempts one to read history backwards. But it's hard to read Hegel without having read Kant, and it's hard to make sense of Lacan without making sense of Freud. The temptation is to skip to the end, to find the result. But, as Hegel tells us, philosophy doesn't work like that. The result is a dead string of words without the process of its construction. It's only at the end of that difficult cognitive journey that the result (an aphoristic summary) has real meaning. I'm not saying that any mortal human can grasp it all. But one can make real progress over the years.

He said when i am into software engineering i have no right to also study philosophy along with it. — Per Chance

Ah. That's complicated. I should be studying software engineering right now. I could improve my marketability. Instead I'm obsessed with softwhere engineering. Anyway, sounds like a tough situation. To me philosophy is one of the better vices. As I understand it, social skills are quite valuable in the software world. One has to work on teams, project oneself as valuable, etc. And then philosophy is conceptually challenging. I suspect that studying philosophy helps with most intellectual pursuits, as long as one doesn't forget to practice coding.

Alright, I'm someone with a philosophy degree here so I'll try to give you my take on this.

Yes, morals, ethics, and law are all fascinating subjects that initially drew me into philosophy. The thing is, when you dive deeper into these topics and you start working some of those fundamental assumptions it inevitably goes into metaphysics.

Metaphysics is just unavoidable. For instance, one ethical system (e.g. virtue ethics) could be very compatible with one metaphysical assumption (possibly some sort of teleological theism) but I've never quite been able to make sense of it under a sort of atheistic materialism. What counts as a virtue? Who decides?

Metaphysics is just unavoidable. — BitconnectCarlos

Couldn’t be any other way, if one digs deep enough.

“....For, as the world has never been, and, no doubt, never will be without a system of metaphysics of one kind or another, it is the highest and weightiest concern of philosophy to render it powerless for harm, by closing up the sources of error....”
(1787)