My suggestion is that the problem is most likely a communication barrier. — Jeremiah

Can you recommend some philosophers who have overcome this barrier?

Albert Camus is clearly the most prominent figure that comes to mind. His ability to put philosophy into an easily digestible format is a skill to envy by both philosophers and writers.

If you really want to know how to effectively communicate philosophical concepts I would suggest you explore literature and poetry. Writing is very much connected to philosophy. These people explore philosophical concepts, but in a manner much different than philosophers do.

Albert Camus is clearly the most prominent figure that comes to mind. His ability to put philosophy into an easily digestible format is a skill to envy by both philosophers and writers. — Jeremiah

But Camus is writing about a very specific philosophical idea.. namely, absurdism. I'm thinking about an overview of just what philosophy even is.

I read Dostoyevsky back when I didn't care a whit about philosophy. He's a great writer, but I read him and remained ignorant about even the basics of philosophy.

I talk to myself all the time.
— m-theory

Quite so. It's often the only way to have a conversation with someone intelligent. — Bitter Crank

Or at the very least have a patient listener who never disagrees and laughs at my obscure jokes! Though there are some sensitive topics I don't bring up with myself until i've had some wine... :D

I am not even sure philosophers know what philosophy is, I mean I have a very focused idea of what it is, but I am sure we had a few threads in the past forums about it that never reached any solid conclusion.

I have always found Plato to be very accessible. I find that many religious people can relate to Soren Kierkegaard. Poets tend to be adapt at comprehending most abstract thoughts. Anyone in the fields of science you can always talk about the philosophy of science with. You just need to find a common ground as a starting point.

Dostoevsky is a great source of philosophical literature, really all those existentialist writers are.

Here is a short easy read if you have the time:

http://opie.wvnet.edu/~jelkins/lawyerslit/stories/death-of-ivan-ilych.pdf

Come to think of it, I do know what I'd suggest people read, if they want to know about philosophy. I'd still like to at least be able to mention the topic, and then field the assumptions that people tend to make, and talk about philosophy in a way that makes it interesting to someone who may not know much about it.

meh... I'm overthinking it.

Do you talk about Philosophy w/ people who don't know much about it?" — anonymous66

I post here, don't I?

Seriously, though, I don't bring up philosophy with anyone who doesn't bring it up first. A lot of my friends and family have no interest in it. A lot of them have very little interest in anything "intellectual." That's one of the reasons I frequent this place. I don't have people I regularly interact with offline to discuss anything philosophical with.

I post here, don't I? — Terrapin Station

I already said that.

That's one of the reasons I frequent this place. I don't have people I regularly interact with offline to discuss anything philosophical with. — Terrapin Station

That's about where I'm at. I'd like to change it, if possible.

Ah, well, lack of culture... You do know that he doesn't have a lack of culture, he just doesn't have YOUR culture. (Don't get me wrong; I value literacy highly, but in anthropological terms, he is probably as "cultured" as you or me.)

Actually I thought his answer was perfectly adequate. Lots of people don't know what to believe anymore. You weren't giving him a cultural literacy test, you asked him a reasonable question, he gave you a reasonable answer.

Ah, well, lack of culture... You do know that he doesn't have a lack of culture, he just doesn't have YOUR culture. (Don't get me wrong; I value literacy highly, but in anthropological terms, he is probably as "cultured" as you or me.)

Actually I thought his answer was perfectly adequate. Lots of people don't know what to believe anymore. You weren't giving him a cultural literacy test, you asked him a reasonable question, he gave you a reasonable answer. — Bitter Crank

But why do you take my retelling so? I never suggested he was inferior or irrational. Quite the contrary, I admire his reason, and looked with scorn upon the bookworms - that's why I offered him as an example. Even apparently uncultured and uneducated folks can reason/philosophise.

Discussing philosophy

in the mornings. — anonymous66

How do you still have friends mate?

Many heads nodded in agreement and two days later I received an envelope in the mail asking if I wished to be the head lecturer at my university's philosophy department. I declined, of course, because I won't support the nihilistic regime known as contemporary analytic philosophy.

This is 100% true. — darthbarracuda

:D haha! Explain plz why you no like the analytic philosophy?

From what I can see in western society people HATE philosophy! They only want to talk and "deep and meaningfuls" with the ones they love at very specific times and even then it only breaks the surface of "i wonder if there is anyone else out there".

No sir, they like their iphones and their facebooky feeds about crap nonsense and laughs and thats aboooout it. You get the odd few who actually ENJOYED university and studying something like Law, History etc. but it's dependant on their personality.

With the squareheads, I do as someone else stated here... ask them questions about their believes and them laugh at them and point out how stupid they are whilst lifting my chin, pouting and walking away with grace.

I don't mind analytic philosophy, in fact I study it often. It's just that it has the tendency to create over-specialization and cottage industries: professional philosophers writing for professional philosophers. Nobody else, except the oddball like myself who takes a glance at their work. Analytic philosophy, especially metaphysics and epistemology, is largely irrelevant to other fields and society at large.

I don't mind analytic philosophy, in fact I study it often. It's just that it has the tendency to create over-specialization and cottage industries: professional philosophers writing for professional philosophers. Nobody else, except the oddball like myself who takes a glance at their work. Analytic philosophy, especially metaphysics and epistemology, is largely irrelevant to other fields and society at large. — darthbarracuda

Can't that be said for all academia though? Usually after you studied you are so specialized that it makes no sense to make it public to people because they don't understand. That is the essence of why we create groups in the first place, to gather with people who know all the relevant information on how to be a klu klux klan etc.

I don't really talk about philosophy outside of the circles of those who are familiar with it already, unless people ask. It's just kind of hard to, because there's no real one to three-line explanation of what involved, and it's just not just a great causal conversation sorta thing. I've recently taken to keeping a couple of 'sexy' ideas from the history of philosophy in my back pocket to throw out there if someone really presses me (Nietzsche's eternal return as an ethical test, psychoanalytic approaches to eroticism, speech act theory), which are generally quite fun to discuss if it comes up.

Otherwise, if you're looking to talk to people in real life outside of academia, look for conferences or seminars held by academics in whatever city you live in. Some are free, some you'll have to pay for, but it's where the types who are keen on this stuff tend to gather, and they're all generally itching to talk to other people as well. Just try searching things like 'philosophy conference [your city here]' in Google. Or look for the facebook pages of active philosophy circles, where they generally advertise this stuff and are great for keeping up to date.

Sometimes I will, but just because it's one of the things I know about. I won't bring it up first, though. I get a kick out of pretending to believe things and arguing for them sometimes.

As an amateur from the get-go, I find conversations with people who don't know much about philosophy to be pretty interesting. I'm always surprised by how much they have to say about philosophical topics right off the bat. I'd rather look at these things as a spectrum anyway; some folks are somewhere in the middle: they think about philosophical things from time to time, but don't have the chance to express their thoughts.

I've been making an attempt to talk about it w/ a group I've been drinking coffee w/ in the mornings. Does anyone else talk about philosophy w/ people not already interested? — anonymous66

I find that most people (or at least most people I'd seek conversation with) have an interest at least in non-academic philosophy or the "philosophy of life." I actually embrace the challenge of taking things from my reading of Hegel, for instance, and seeing whether I can put them in appealing terms for someone less exposed to the tradition. To the degree that I can't, this encourages me to rethink the value of said thinker for contemporary individual life. Not everyone is terribly interested in intellectual history. While I am, I can respect a present-and-future oriented focus. Perhaps most will agree that the best philosophers of the past allow us to view the present and the future with new eyes, and that, for me, is the key to making these thinkers relevant --connecting them to the present and future, if possible, via unpretentious (ok, less pretentious) paraphrasings and examples.

So just a recommendation to the original poster: go ahead and talk to your coffee group if they are receptive. Part of the "doing" of philosophy is chatting with people - it's not part of academia. Once you cross the level of specialization required to call yourself an academic - it gets really obnoxious to talk to non-academic people about whatever the hell they think "philosophy" means. And usually people with paltry amounts of training want to talk about the same crap once you tell them what you do (e.g. "I think therefore I am, right?" or "I totally agree with that one German guy who said 'God is dead'.") Seriously - it gives you a headache and most lay people don't understand that as an academic you're just a really specialized person - not a machine who has read or bothered to care about every dumb philosophy quote someone pulled for their Facebook page.

Quick anecdote for you: I was on a plane to a conference in Prague this September and sat next to a very nice gentleman visiting family. We got to chatting, he was a manager at a bank or something. He asked what I do - I told him I was post-doc researcher in philosophy. And like clockwork he opens his mouth and goes, "Let me tell you my philosophy!" After a fifteen minute exposition that basically ended up being a long diatribe against Donald Trump, he brought up Descartes... Because everyone who took a damn philosophy class in college brings up Descartes. But as it just so happens I am not a Descartes scholar, hell I haven't read Descartes since I was an undergrad. So I gingerly pointed out to the guy that I didn't know what the hell he was talking about and that I focus on what students usually call "Continental" philosophy. The conversation immediately died. I spent the remainder of my time in the air reading.

What's my point? Well once you get into the biz of academic philosophy you don't want to waste time talking about things you don't know/have the time to read or to people who know even less. In no small part because it's your job - it's not a hobby. I would have much rather talked to the guy about how many licks it takes to get to the center of Tootsie Pop or why Ben Stiller should never be taken seriously as an actor. I don't want to talk to people about my job all the time, because I literally do it every day. I already have to read asinine papers and listen to students blather on about things that they pretend to read - I don't want to have to do it on a plane with a complete stranger and not get paid for it.

So enjoy it. Go talk to people. Engage with the world in person or on sites like this. Because at the end of the day that's where the raw fun of philosophy is. In a very real sense, what you're doing with your coffee group is substantially more pure philosophically then what academics do. Sure - you might not be as specialized, but you're enjoying it! And maybe by chatting with a few people about your interests, you'll encourage a few other people to get into philosophy as well.

he brought up Descartes... Because everyone who took a damn philosophy class in college brings up Descartes. — Carbon

LOL. So true, the exact same thing happened to me recently.

So enjoy it. Go talk to people. Engage with the world in person or on sites like this. Because at the end of the day that's where the raw fun of philosophy is. In a very real sense, what you're doing with your coffee group is substantially more pure philosophically then what academics do. Sure - you might not be as specialized, but you're enjoying it! And maybe by chatting with a few people about your interests, you'll encourage a few other people to get into philosophy as well. — Carbon

Thanks for this. I do remember a time when philosophy seemed really weird to me. I would like to find ways to popularize it.. that is my basic goal.

I think the best way to surreptitiously introduce philosophy to those who may believe they are not philosophical (for whatever reason) ((and when they clearly are, given the sort of questions and discussions they like having -- they may just not like the associations of philosophy, or think they're bad at it, or think it's for "they" and not "us")) is to not discuss this or that philosopher, but to discuss the ideas people might be interested in.

I posted this book in the last forum, but it's worth the repost: https://www.amazon.com/Socrates-Cafe-Fresh-Taste-Philosophy/dp/039332298X

I joined a group found on this model (in a small town, even -- so you don't need a city), and even led it for a couple of years after joining. It's worth a read for anyone whose interested in philosophy "in the streets", so to speak.

Can't that be said for all academia though? Usually after you studied you are so specialized that it makes no sense to make it public to people because they don't understand. That is the essence of why we create groups in the first place, to gather with people who know all the relevant information on how to be a klu klux klan etc. — intrapersona

Every discipline has it's esotericism. It's just that philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, tends to be almost entirely esoteric. It's meaningless, worthless, and an Other to those who have never studied it.

Seriously, the analytic metaphysicians have some good stuff but it's also almost entirely separated from any relevant scientific inquiry. This means two things:

1.) There is no communication between the relevant sciences, especially physics and the biological sciences, and philosophy, specifically metaphysics.

2.) Because of this, metaphysical questions might be better suited for science, or relevant scientific theories are not being taken in account when metaphysicians "work".

Problems arise when you think you know everything and you actually don't. We see this on both sides and it's only really not a problem when you are knowledgeable and active in both philosophy and the relevant sciences. Philosophy divorced from science is pure, unaided speculation without natural constraints (it can come across more like intellectual art than actual inquiry; everyone tries to make the most aesthetically pleasing or excitingly surprising theory, even if it's outlandish), and science divorced from philosophy makes it crude and dogmatic.

Every discipline has it's esotericism. It's just that philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, tends to be almost entirely esoteric. It's meaningless, worthless, and an Other to those who have never studied it. — darthbarracuda

Perhaps the question is whether philosophy as a specialized discipline is still philosophy in the grand sense at all. I suppose we are just talking about what we want to name a certain kind of conversation that is called "philosophy" away from the academic types that "know better." I thought Carbon's post was great.

So enjoy it. Go talk to people. Engage with the world in person or on sites like this. Because at the end of the day that's where the raw fun of philosophy is. In a very real sense, what you're doing with your coffee group is substantially more pure philosophically then what academics do. Sure - you might not be as specialized, but you're enjoying it! — Carbon

In the non-academic sense of the word, philosophy is sometimes a life and death matter like religion (our way of making peace with ugly aspects of experience that allows us to thrive rather than self-destruct) and sometimes the ecstasy of the soaring over our own previous relatively-cramped perspectives on the world ---often and maybe especially both at the time. Some people are less bookish and get their philosophy from song lyrics or youtube videos, etc., which is to say from personalities who aren't classified as philosophers. But I don't think this necessarily makes their philosophy inferior. Some of these people have more social intelligence than the bookish loner. I guess my point is that the "official" philosophical tradition can indeed be an Other, but this speaks as much against the irrelevance of much of the tradition to modern life as it does against those who don't read it. There's a wisdom in not reading what bores one, and there's a foolishness in slogging through what is possibly just a fad whose appeal if founded on the opportunities that obscurity presents for posing. (This cuts both ways. Anti-intellectualism is also the sometimes the mask of mental sloth or weakness.)

I have experienced exactly the same with people in relation to the "big issues". But people generally hate talking about logic-chopping academic philosophical issues; they think it is meaningless, inconsequential bullshit. I have tested this out on quite a few highly intelligent artists, engineers, scientists, writers and musicians who don't have much familiarity with academic philosophy or the history of ideas in general. Nearly always they are interested in questions concerning the overall meaning of life, but many, if not most, have followed the current fashion of disdaining any religion.

Nearly always they are interested in questions concerning the overall meaning of life, but many, if not most, have followed the current fashion of disdaining any religion. — John

Perhaps there is a growing disdain for traditional religion as a general rule, but I'm inclined to view this as a change of religion, especially since religion in a generalized sense seems to be almost spontaneously generated by human beings. In our "DJ culture," most are happy to assemble a rough system using parts that weren't manufactured as a set.

But people generally hate talking about logic-chopping academic philosophical issues; they think it is meaningless, inconsequential bullshit. — John

It is a big "ask" with an uncertain payoff. I don't think that people have stopped believing in wisdom, but I do think that "logic chopping" comes across as "scientistic." Maybe the age of Kant, still dazzled by Newton, expected wisdom to "smell" like science. But maybe technology is now so banal, so ubiquitous, that we get the sages who advise us to "declutter" our lives or put away our smartphones. I'm also aware of some "new age" personalities becoming popular online. In this electronic culture, it's as if we not only want to see our singers dance --and often in the nude --- but also experience our sages more viscerally. (And there are those who get their wisdom from Miley, who's really pretty likable.) Anyway, we seem to have developed a taste for complete audio-visual personalities. Those content with text are perhaps an endangered species on the outskirts of the global village.

Perhaps there is a growing disdain for traditional religion as a general rule, but I'm inclined to view this as a change of religion, especially since religion in a generalized sense seems to be almost spontaneously generated by human beings. — R-13

I think this is right, although only in a certain sense; there are more or less trivial inauthentic kinds of "generalized" religion and then there is genuine religion, I would say.