reflexivity of the mind and will; as self-awareness and self-control, the ability to have opinions about your opinions, to be aware of what you are thinking, to assess whether you are thinking the correct things, and if you deem that you are not, to cause yourself to think differently. — Pfhorrest

Perhaps, we think the same thing, but slightly differently. For now I'll stand by what I wrote months ago.

What are the faculties that enable someone to do philosophy, to be a philosopher?
— Pfhorrest

1.4 Courage Sapere aude. Amor fati. Solitaire et solidaire. No doubt intellectual courage is needed, but only moral courage suffices for philosophizing with skin in the game (i.e. fat in the fire), or like Freddy says "with a hammer", and not just to sound out "hollow idols" but to build anew in (or bricole with) the rubble (our) hammering makes of (the last) old prisons. Otherwise, without courage, philosophers amount to little more than idly vacuous, tenured twats - either p0m0 scholastics of "wokeness" or think-tank rationalizers of the status quo ante. — 180 Proof

In other words, (at minimum) one needs the courage - nerve - to question questions and problematize problems without giving-in to the temptation to offer "answers" or "solutions" (à la self-help / sophistry), in order to do philosophy well (that is, limiting 'beliefs-in' to make room for agency (i.e. capabilities for judging, etc)).

allowing you to assess the validity of the inferences you make — Pfhorrest

So I am judging my judgements. Understand my understandings.

Cognize my cognitions? Know my knowledge?

I see no profit in allowing myself to do that which I am mandated by my very nature to have already done.

What it takes to do philosophy is the same as what it takes for a human to do anything of conscious intent: reason.

That is a good addition. Parallel to the notion of courage, I think curiosity might be another good addition too.

I see no profit in allowing myself to do that which I am mandated by my very nature to have already done. — Mww

I don’t understand this sentence.

What it takes to do philosophy is the same as what it takes for a human to do anything of conscious intent: reason. — Mww

I agree, in that sapience basically is the capacity for reason, and consciousness and intention flesh out to that self-awareness and self-control that sapience consists of.

First, as a matter of mere personal preference, I find myself rejecting your re-arrangement of sapience from wisdom to reflexivity, because by doing so, salience then belongs in a different category, from a quality (schema: limitation) to a modality (schema: community).

Second, left as it was, sapience remains that by means of which a rational agent and the quality of his wisdom are related, thus relieving it of anything to do with the capacity for reason, already imbued in him by his own nature. Reason then becomes the method by which wisdom is obtained or enlarged.

Taken together, I might grant that sapience consists of self-control, as a possible derivative of wisdom, I hesitate to ascribe to it self-awareness, that being the purview of the transcendental ego representing the manifold of consciousness united under a singular rational agency.

But it’s your creation, this exchange of sapience with reflexivity, so.......run with it.

I hold that all that is needed, strictly speaking, is personhood; or rather the function that I hold to define personhood, which is sapience. "Sapience" literally means just "wisdom" ... — Pfhorrest

So what it takes to practice 'the love of wisdom' is ... "wisdom"? :confused:

No, because you trimmed off the part where I said I’m not using the word in its Latin sense, but in the sense that another non-human life form might be recognized as every much a person as ourselves. Sapience is that faculty that makes something a person; a sapient being is one that possesses those features that make humans count as persons. I analyze the structure of that faculty to be reflexivity of both experience and behavior, hence self-awareness and self-control. Sapience in that sense is not wisdom itself, but more like the capacity for wisdom.

Scifi commonly misuses the word “sentient” in place of this sense of “sapient”.

@Mww I understand you even less in that post, but I hope the above addresses something for you too.

I hold that all that is needed, strictly speaking, is personhood — Pfhorrest

Is personhood sufficient to do brain surgery? No.

Is personhood sufficient to sit on the couch and watch tv? Yes (plus owning a tv, having electric service, and being physically able to operate the remote).

Is philosophy therefore more like sitting on the couch and watching tv than it is like brain surgery?

Or by philosophy do you mean typing idle thoughts into a philosophy forum, which is no more involved that watching tv; as opposed to excelling in academic philosophy, which typically takes years of focussed study?

Please clarify your terms.

I think it takes a deep questioning of the ‘consensus reality’ - just the kinds of things that everyone knows must be true. It takes understanding that a lot of what people think they know, are really just social conditioning and the opinions of the people around them. It also takes recognising that in oneself and being able to see yourself in that same light.

Questioning the social consensus in current culture involves questioning science, because in a secular-scientific culture, science is the yardstick by which everything else is judged. The problem with that being that science is third-person, and philosophy deals with many questions that can only be grappled with first person. (That particular point is made strongly by Kierkegaard.)

So I think it also takes a degree of willingness to go out on a limb, in that you’ll often find yourself in disagreement with a lot of people, with nothing more to go on than your reasoned conviction.

Sapience is that faculty that makes something a person; a sapient being is one that possesses those features that make humans count as persons. I analyze the structure of that faculty to be reflexivity of both experience and behavior, hence self-awareness and self-control. Sapience in that sense is not wisdom itself, but more like the capacity for wisdom. — Pfhorrest

I use agent where you use "person" and agency where you use "sapience" and judgment instead of "wisdom". Our respective terms are more or less sympatico. A person, however, I think of as an agent (that's) capable of anticipating and recognizing suffering other than her own, or sentience (which you seem to dismiss).

Still, your "sapience" corresponds to my intellectual courage (inherited aptitude), which is necessary for doing any abstract, intelligent, adaptive practice but I don't think, absent moral courage (lived competence), is sufficient for philosophizing well.

Please clarify your terms. — fishfry

I feel like I shouldn’t even respond to this, but I don’t mean that mere sapience is all it takes to do philosophy WELL. Just that people who do philosophy, well or otherwise, aren’t using any special faculties or abilities besides their capacity for reflection, honed to various degrees. And that other faculties like intelligence, as in problem-solving ability, all by themselves, no matter how well-honed, don’t make someone able to do philosophy, without first adding in that capacity for reflection.

So I think it also takes a degree of willingness to go out on a limb, in that you’ll often find yourself in disagreement with a lot of people, with nothing more to go on than your reasoned conviction. — Wayfarer

Agreed, and I think this is the same courage that 180 Proof mentions. But your examples also make me think that such courage must be countered as well by temperance or serenity, lest one be so eager to surpass the wisdom of the crowds that they buy into the first amazing-sounding account from the first supposed wise man they meet. One needs to be as skeptical of those who say they are wiser than the crowds as they are of the crowds themselves.

I use agent where you use "person" and agency where you use "sapience" — 180 Proof

Agency is the behavioral half of sapience or personhood as I mean them. There is also a corresponding experiential half. Agency, or will, is the self-control part, being self-directed. Just as important, though, is consciousness, self-awareness, or self-knowledge.

A person, however, I think of as an agent (that's) capable of anticipating and recognizing suffering other than her own, — 180 Proof

That is a consequence of sapience as I mean it, as I described in the OP. The ability to look upon yourself reflexively, as though in the third person, comes with it the ability to imagine a first person perspective for others who look, in the third person, like yourself.

sentience (which you seem to dismiss). — 180 Proof

Sentience as I mean it is the capacity for perception and desire, for feeling in general. I don’t mean to dismiss it at all — sapience is built on it, made by turning sentience upon itself, feeling things about your feelings, perceiving that you perceive and desire things, and desiring to perceive and desire otherwise sometimes. I only remarked that scifi writers often misuse “sentient” (feeling) when they really mean “sapient” (thinking). All sapient things are sentient, but not all sentient things are sapient.

Is philosophy therefore more like sitting on the couch and watching tv than it is like brain surgery? — fishfry

Interesting question. I would say philosophy is like sitting on the couch watching a Science Channel show on brain surgery, then chatting knowingly about it with others in the room. Hmmm . . . :chin:

All sapient things are sentient, but not all sentient things are sapient. — Pfhorrest

I'll pick this nit, P, with non-sentient sapients - like (yeah speculative but plausable) strong AI. Sentience seems a pecularly biological-mammalian, phenomenal function and, at least from functionalist-connectionist or enactivist perspectives(?), not (strictly) required for sapience. :chin:

In other words, (at minimum) one needs the courage - nerve - to question questions and problematize problems without giving-in to the temptation to offer "answers" or "solutions" (à la self-help / sophistry), in order to do philosophy well (that is, limiting 'beliefs-in' to make room for agency (i.e. capabilities for judging, etc)). — 180 Proof

(From another here, only not attributing because the context in which the quote was quoted so differs)

Rilke:

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer"

It might leave something out, but I don't think so. Maybe there are different ways to approach the same thing. Clenched resolve or long-lashed languid acceptance, we're all circling around the same idea.

:up:

I don't think you could create sapient strong AI without making it sentient along the way -- which I think you could do in principle, NB, as sentience is on my account just another kind of functionality, and the corresponding phenomenal experience comes along for free in anything that has the same functionality.

Sentience on my account is the initial, first-order, unreflective interpretation of experiences into both a model with mind-to-world fit (perceptions) and another model with world-to-mind fit (desires), the difference between which drives the subsequent behavior. Sapience is what you get when you turn a system like that upon itself: reflective self-experience generating higher-order assessments of both what its own perceptions and desires are (self-perception) and what they should be (self-desire), and then self-behavior driven by the difference between those to change its own first-order perceptions and desires from what (it thinks) they are to what (it thinks) they should be.

You could totally have intelligence without sentience, as in a sophisticated problem-solving ability, but not sapience, since that just is reflective, higher-order sentience.

You could totally have intelligence without sentience, as in a sophisticated problem-solving ability, but not sapience, since that just is reflective, higher-order sentience. — Pfhorrest

:chin: Okay, works for me ...

EDIT:

'Sentience-Sapience' is merely aptitude, as I pointed out above, and aptitude alone is not sufficient for any adaptive, intellectual, endeavor, including philosophy. That's my point. Competence of a relevant kind must be developed through discipline and experience; moral courage - reflectively practicing without dogmatic commitments or sophist preaching - is what I think is required to 'live philosophically'. As Freddy says

I profit from a philosopher only insofar as he can be an example. — Untimely Meditations III

Do not let yourself be deceived: great intellects are sceptical. Zarathustra is a sceptic. The strength, the freedom which proceed from intellectual power, from a superabundance of intellectual power, manifest themselves as scepticism. Men of fixed convictions do not count when it comes to determining what is fundamental in values and lack of values. Men of convictions are prisoners. — The Antichrist

Philosophy, as I have so far understood and lived it, means living voluntarily among ice and high mountains—seeking out everything strange and questionable in existence, everything so far placed under a ban by morality. — Ecce Homo

Re: provocations (aporias à la koans) - no 'answers', no 'solutions'.

:death: :flower:

Interesting question. I would say philosophy is like sitting on the couch watching a Science Channel show on brain surgery, then chatting knowingly about it with others in the room. Hmmm . . — jgill

See I have a problem with this. There's philosophizing like we used to do late at night in the dorm, or as we can do in an online forum; then there's academic philosophizing. I get the feeling the OP means the former and not the latter. There are years, decades of technical training and acquired knowledge and skill. "Shooting the breeze about the universe" doesn't count except as, let's call it amateur philosophy or forum philosophy. And I think there's a big difference between a forum and an academic paper in philosophy! A difference in kind not only in degree, that would be my point.

I feel like I shouldn’t even respond to this, — Pfhorrest

I don't know why. If you feel you shouldn't respond to something I write, you probably shouldn't. I surely meant no offense and don't understand why you wrote that. But if it's true you shouldn't have replied! Or perhaps asked for clarification.

but I don’t mean that mere sapience is all it takes to do philosophy WELL. Just that people who do philosophy, well or otherwise, aren’t using any special faculties or abilities besides their capacity for reflection, honed to various degrees. — Pfhorrest

If they are using "special faculties or abilities," then they are like surgeons: starting out as disciplined and ambitious learners, and acquiring much knowledge and many skills over the years and sometimes building to true mastery only after decades. Just as academic philosophers take years to develop their skills and abilities.

Again if you're just talking about philosophizing as shooting the breeze around the dorm or bar room or online forum, that's not actually what passes for philosophy these days. It would be helpful if you say which use of the word philosophizing you're using: breeze-shooting or academic research or at least serious philosophy, even if done by amateurs.

And that other faculties like intelligence, as in problem-solving ability, all by themselves, no matter how well-honed, don’t make someone able to do philosophy, without first adding in that capacity for reflection. — Pfhorrest

Ok. If your entire point was to say that a capacity for reflection is necessary, then I understand your point. I don't actually agree. I'd say that good philosophizing might require that, but plenty of what passes for philosophy these days falls short of reflection and sometimes even coherence. Wouldn't you agree? Or would you go No True Scotsman and say, "Well that's not really philosophy!" In which case your position reduces to a tautology.

Again, from mere personal preference, I favor sapience as the capacity for wisdom much more than sapience as the capacity for reason, in as much as the categorical error is remediated.

At any rate......carry on.

I don't know why. If you feel you shouldn't respond to something I write, you probably shouldn't. I surely meant no offense and don't understand why you wrote that. But if it's true you shouldn't have replied! Or perhaps asked for clarification. — fishfry

I got a strong sense of hostility in your post, which was perhaps a mistake on my part. If so, my apologies.

It would be helpful if you say which use of the word philosophizing you're using: breeze-shooting or academic research or at least serious philosophy, even if done by amateurs. — fishfry

I don’t see those as different in kind, but more of a spectrum of quality: doing the same thing at its core, but with different degrees of skill and sophistication.

I've described my opinion of breeze shooters - and nothing wrong with that, it's a kind of philosophy I suppose, and I should have made that distinction - but what I'm thinking of now is a more academic philosophy focused on a scientific subject like physics.

How much technical knowledge of the subject would enable a serious philosopher to formulate ideas that would be sophisticated and impactful? Could a purely qualitative understanding of the subject suffice, like reading popular accounts of discoveries? In some instances, my answer would be yes. In others, no.

For example, in another forum I watched an intelligent and productive debate between a professional philosopher and a professional physicist concerning Bell's Theorem. Logical inference was the particular concern. On the other hand, I believe some degree of competence in, say, quantum theory, would be necessary for a philosopher to attempt to untangle the mysteries of that subject, when physicists, themselves, have had only limited success. But maybe not. Wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong!

I got a strong sense of hostility in your post, which was perhaps a mistake on my part. If so, my apologies. — Pfhorrest

No prob. Please quote the exact phrase that set you off so that I can analyze it and adjust my programming. At my end it felt like sharp questions in response to vague and ambiguous thinking. You could just as well have thanked me.

My curiosity is genuine. Please quote the phrase I wrote that set you off so that I can learn from it.

I
I don’t see those as different in kind, but more of a spectrum of quality: doing the same thing at its core, but with different degrees of skill and sophistication. — Pfhorrest

By that standard a high schooler cutting up a frog in biology class is engaged in the same essential activity as an experienced surgeon. In which case you've said nothing.

I reject your argument and don't find your arguments convincing. That's not hostile. It's an invitation for you to tighten up your thinking and your writing.

Please quote the exact phrase that set you off so that I can analyze it and adjust my programming — fishfry

It was this bit, which felt like an accusation that what I'm / we're doing here on this forum / in this thread is somehow deridable:

Or by philosophy do you mean typing idle thoughts into a philosophy forum, which is no more involved that watching tv; as opposed to excelling in academic philosophy, which typically takes years of focussed study? — fishfry

At my end it felt like sharp questions in response to vague and ambiguous thinking. You could just as well have thanked me. — fishfry

FWIW this also seems hostile to me. Because it seems condescending, I guess? (Not trying to attack you here, you just seem to want feedback like this).

By that standard a high schooler cutting up a frog in biology class is engaged in the same essential activity as an experienced surgeon. — fishfry

They are, just to different degrees of importance and with different degrees of skill. The important similarity for this analogy with philosophy (amateur and professional) is that if you were to build a robot to do both of those things, the robot would need to have basically the same abilities in either case (sapience not being one of them, but things like vision, dexterity, and the programming to interpret what it sees into contextually appropriate plans of action), it would just need much more refined and reliable versions of those abilities to do human surgery than it would need to dissect a frog at a high school level.

Similarly, if you were to build an AI to do philosophy, the important functions it needs to do either amateur or professional philosophy would be the same (different functions than a surgery robot needs), it would just need to be much better at them to do professional philosophy rather than amateur.

I suspect we are all "doing philosophy" by simply making our way through life.

Some people seem to want to make "doing philosophy" mean using big words and constructing complicated thoughts. It shouldn't be. And frankly, much of what passes for "doing philosophy" is little more than pretentious babble.

Some "philosophical thought", in fact, is just a relatively unlearned person speaking the way he/she supposes a learned person speaks.

Waking in the morning and wondering, "What should I do first today?" is more "doing philosophy" than many of the musings of supposed "philosophers."

I suspect we are all "doing philosophy" by simply making our way through life. — Frank Apisa

:up:

Waking in the morning and wondering, "What should I do first today?" is more "doing philosophy" — Frank Apisa

I wouldn’t say that exactly, but the immediate followup question of “How do I decide?” definitely is philosophy.

:up:

There is a difference between overthinking for thinking's sake and critical thinking. We all could use a little bit more of this : " It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome native egocentrism and sociocentrism."

Pfhorrest
2.2k
I suspect we are all "doing philosophy" by simply making our way through life.
— Frank Apisa

:up:

Waking in the morning and wondering, "What should I do first today?" is more "doing philosophy"
— Frank Apisa

I wouldn’t say that exactly, but the immediate followup question of “How do I decide?” definitely is philosophy. — Pfhorrest

Yep.

:up:

3017amen
1.6k
↪Frank Apisa

:up:

There is a difference between overthinking for thinking's sake and critical thinking. We all could use a little bit more of this : " It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome native egocentrism and sociocentrism." — 3017amen

Indeed.


:up:

I just noticed your edit here, and thought I would share something that I wrote on this topic in the mean time, since I did already agree that moral courage is important:

For a person to actually use this faculty of sapience, to exercise their mind and will, to examine their thoughts and change them if needed, their mind must be sufficiently enlightened, and their will sufficiently empowered. Which is to say, they must have the curiosity to wonder whether their thoughts are the right ones, and the courage to admit when they are not, and so to change them. But this is not a faculty separate from sapience, rather only the refinement of it: curiosity is just more mindfulness to that of which one is unsure, and courage is just more willfulness toward that of which one is afraid. And more mindfulness of oneself, more willfulness toward oneself, more self-awareness and self-control, together just are sapience itself.

And yes, this means that in order to effectively use one's sapience, one must already have sufficiently developed sapience, but there is no paradox there. It is simply just like one can more effectively use one's muscles when one already has well-developed muscles. Sapience is a faculty, like many, that is further developed by its use, and the development of which enables and encourages its further use.

It was this bit, which felt like an accusation that what I'm / we're doing here on this forum / in this thread is somehow deridable:

Or by philosophy do you mean typing idle thoughts into a philosophy forum, which is no more involved that watching tv; as opposed to excelling in academic philosophy, which typically takes years of focussed study?
— fishfry — Pfhorrest

But I absolutely reiterate the question. It's the heart of my objection to your thesis. You conflate idle forum chitchat to the work of professional philosophers. The former is available to anyone; the latter requires years of formal training.

If you regard this as hostile I truly can't help that. You are equating a kid stabbing a doll with a knife, with a trained surgeon excising a tumor. You're claiming the actions are essentially the same. That's nonsense.

I hope I haven't triggered you even more. I challenged your core assumption with a sharp question. Isn't that what philosophers do? Amateurs AND professionals!

Why do you label a clarifying question as derision?