"Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the common sense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer.” - Wittgenstein

^ That's what it boils down to. Philosophy is about understanding why things you already knew are the case. Epistemology makes you think you know nothing, but then you use it to figure out how you know what you already knew. Metaphysics makes you think the universe of experience can't be the true reality, but then you work out a metaphysical system that explains how our commonsense reality is what matters after all. Ethics makes you think distinguishing right from wrong is impossible, but then you use it to rationalize the moral judgement you were already making.

In the process, you gain an understanding of yourself and how your mind works. And you relieve yourself of the fear that everything is horribly wrong.

I think quietist philosophy is no different than any other topic done properly, in a critical rationalist way.

Critical rationalism means all you’re ever justified in saying on any topic is that the answer to a question is not such-and-such, only ever saying that it must be so-and-so to the effect that “so-and-so” just means “not-such-and-such”.

And yet there is an enormous amount that can be said on the topic of e.g. what ways empirical investigations have shown cannot be the correct physics, and what the remaining range of possibilities in physics are.

There is similarly an enormous amount to say about philosophy, even if what you end up doing is basically cataloguing in detail all the ways that various approaches to philosophy go wrong.

:up:

Aristotle starts his Metaphysics by sayng "All humans by nature desire to know." It is not the role of philosophy to sow confusion, but to truly satisfy our natural desire to know. When we know, we know that there is a God who is the ultimate cause of all reality and that contemplation of God quiets the mind.

Fantastic post.

"Philosophy can be said to consist of three activities: to see the commonsense answer, to get yourself so deeply into the problem that the common sense answer is unbearable, and to get from that situation back to the commonsense answer.” - Wittgenstein — Paul

At this point I feel the need to ask, what is common sense? Also, most importantly, is Wittgenstein's observation on philosophy something someone just using common sense would say? I'd say if everything is simply a matter of common sense it takes a person with an uncommon sense to notice it - someone like Wittgenstein for example - and that amounts to self-refutation.

Interesting thank you!

Are you versed in quietist philosophy? I'd like to know how a quietist would defuse a few specific problems. Like for example, how does quietism defuse the fear of death based on negative afterlife beliefs? If someone tells a quietist "I'm afraid I'll live forever as a hungry ghost!" How would they respond?

Or if Lao Tzu said "I'm afraid I'm actually a butterfly dreaming it is Lao Tzu!" To a quietist, what is the quietist way to defuse this philosophical problem?

I should have clarified, this post is not about Christian quietism, but rather the Quietism of Wittgenstein and Pyrrho.

Though I still appreciate your response :). Are you well versed on Christian quietism? If so, what does it have to say about fear of a negative afterlife? Is one to seek mental quietude? Or try to rectify one's life and seek forgiveness from God before death so as to avoid this fate? Seems like Christianity demands action, thought, prayer and knowledge of the Bible to avoid negative fates, and so quietism would be the last thing one would want. But surely I'm misunderstanding something as I've no knowledge of this tradition.

Thank you for the clarification. While I am a Christian, Aristotle was not.

It seems to me that we should not pin the discussion of a goal to the perspective of any one philosopher, but rather gather insights where they may be found.

Whoops! Iedited my previous post to discuss further with you but I think you'd already replied. Would you mind reading this (I copied my previous reply):

Though I still appreciate your response :). Are you well versed on Christian quietism? If so, what does it have to say about fear of a negative afterlife? Is one to seek mental quietude? Or try to rectify one's life and seek forgiveness from God before death so as to avoid this fate? Seems like Christianity demands action, thought, prayer and knowledge of the Bible to avoid negative fates, and so quietism would be the last thing one would want. But surely I'm misunderstanding something as I've no knowledge of this tradition.

I am not well versed in George Fox's teachings or the practices of the Society of Friends. I am familiar with mystical experience as a transcultural phenomenon, and with Christian, and to a lesser degree, Buddhist teaching on the subject.

As one trained in physics, I had acquired a strong prejudice against mysticism, when I chanced to read W. T. Stace's Mysticism and Philosophy, which gives an empirical case for the reality of mystical experience. I concluded from his work that mystical experience is a real mode of knowing, key to understanding a lot of philosophy that makes no mention of it, but not a way of being informed.

While not central to mystical experience, one aftereffect is the quieting of fear and desire -- even among atheists (e.g. Bucke, as explained in his Cosmic Consciousness). So, I see it as quite relevant to the question of quietism you raise.

Thanks

This would be quite laughable.....if it weren’t, for most intents and purposes, the sad truth.

You are welcome.

I forgot to respond to the rest of your question. I suppose that one reason is that I try to be philosophical on this forum, rather than theological. Since you seem interested in learning about the tradition, I will say a bit about it.

Augustine rightly, I think, divides humanity into two cities, the earthly city, whose citizens are motivated by self-interest, and the city of God, whose citizens are committed to the common good. While many might identify the city of God with institutional Christianity, I think this is a misunderstanding, for many so-called Christians are concerned only with their own welfare, and many non-Christians are fully committed to the common good. So, citizenship in the cities is not based on our doctrinal commitments, but on our commitment to doing good and avoiding evil.

This same division is discussed by the 19th c. utilitarian moralist, Henry Sidgewick, who was unable to find a utilitarian reason to prefer one ethical stance to the other. Aquinas sees the division in terms of our "intentionality to God," which has also been called our fundamental option. Again, this should not be projected into the space of doctrinal division. Rather, it should be seen in light of Aquinas' identification of God with Goodness and Truth -- in which "God is good" does assert that He has the property of being good, but that God and Goodness are identical. Thus, intentionality to God, is intentionality to Good, regardless of doctrinal commitments, even commitments to atheism.

In this framework, no one is "sent to hell." Rather, hell is self-chosen alienation in a timeless state of being. It is the very thing one chooses in opting for selfishness over commitment to other beings as well as one's self.

Mystical experience is a shift of awareness, like the shift in how Rubin's vase is seen (as a vase or as two faces). There is no change in the reality apprehended, but only in how it is apprehended. If God maintains the cosmos in being, then God maintaining the cosmos is identically the cosmos being maintained in being by God. (They are just different ways of describing the same reality.) So, by a shift of intellectual focus, we can move our awareness from the cosmos (or our self), to God. Doing so is the basis of mystical experience.

What has this to do with afterlife outcomes? We know, and so experience, what we choose to attend to. Those who attend only to themselves have chosen not to seek the one thing that can satiate human desire, and so wind up "in hell."

At this point I feel the need to ask, what is common sense? Also, most importantly, is Wittgenstein's observation on philosophy something someone just using common sense would say? I'd say if everything is simply a matter of common sense it takes a person with an uncommon sense to notice it - someone like Wittgenstein for example - and that amounts to self-refutation. — TheMadFool

Obviously I can't speak for Wittgenstein, but substitute intuitive sense for common sense and the whole paragraph makes intuitive sense.

Common sense does not mean in German what it means in English. In English, it means the sense that is common to all. Which is in itself an impossible proposition in most cases. In German (and in Hungarian, coincidentally, as in most other European languages) common sense is expressed as "reine Vernunft", or tiszta esz, in Hungarian, or Nyezhdravanskoye Nyiho in Russian: pure reason, pure brain, pure thinking. A sober mind. That sorta thing, nothing to do with consensus. Thus, Wittgenstein's uncommon sense is dictated by his personal intuitive thought, which is different from mine or yours; but the slavish stupid fucking asshole translators are incapable of bridging some differences in lingual constructs.

Sorry, post by mistake. Please disregard.

Obviously I can't speak for Wittgenstein, but substitute intuitive sense for common sense and the whole paragraph makes intuitive sense.

Common sense does not mean in German what it means in English. In English, it means the sense that is common to all. Which is in itself an impossible proposition in most cases. In German (and in Hungarian, coincidentally, as in most other European languages) common sense is expressed as "reine Vernunft", or tiszta esz, in Hungarian, or Nyezhdravanskoye Nyiho in Russian: pure reason, pure brain, pure thinking. A sober mind. That sorta thing, nothing to do with consensus. Thus, Wittgenstein's uncommon sense is dictated by his personal intuitive thought, which is different from mine or yours; but the slavish stupid fucking asshole translators are incapable of bridging some differences in lingual constructs. — god must be atheist

Oh, what's the point? Thanks

Oh, what's the point? Thanks — TheMadFool

You asked what common sense was. I explained it. That's the point. "Common sense" in the quote by Wittgenstein is nothing but a bad translation that alters the effective meaning of his point.

You asked what common sense was. I explained it. That's the point. "Common sense" in the quote by Wittgenstein is nothing but a bad translation that alters the effective meaning of his point — god must be atheist

I see. Thanks a ton :up:

I see. Thanks a ton — TheMadFool

No sweat. My pleasure.

but the slavish stupid fucking asshole translators are incapable of bridging some differences in lingual constructs. — god must be atheist

Too true, Erfucht Vom der Leben gets translated as reverence for life, when in reality the phrase used here for reverence is also supposed to express rejoice.

I'm reminded of something I wrote in the intro to my own philosophy book:

"The general worldview I am going to lay out is one that seems to be a naively uncontroversial, common-sense kind of view, i.e. the kind of view that I expect people who have given no thought at all to philosophical questions to find trivial and obvious. Nevertheless I expect most readers, of most points of view, to largely disagree with the consequent details of it, until I explain why they are entailed by that common-sense view. Many various other philosophical schools of thought deviate from that common-sense view in different ways, and their adherents think that they have surpassed that naive common sense and attained a deeper understanding. In these essays I aim to shore up and refine that common-sense view into a more rigorous form that can better withstand the temptation of such deviation, and to show the common error underlying all of those different deviations from this common-sense view."

I guess as much as I dislike Wittgenstein's attitude, we have more in common than I often think.

I'm reminded of something I wrote in the intro to my own philosophy book:

"The general worldview I am going to lay out is one that seems to be a naively uncontroversial, common-sense kind of view, i.e. the kind of view that I expect people who have given no thought at all to philosophical questions to find trivial and obvious. Nevertheless I expect most readers, of most points of view, to largely disagree with the consequent details of it, until I explain why they are entailed by that common-sense view. Many various other philosophical schools of thought deviate from that common-sense view in different ways, and their adherents think that they have surpassed that naive common sense and attained a deeper understanding. In these essays I aim to shore up and refine that common-sense view into a more rigorous form that can better withstand the temptation of such deviation, and to show the common error underlying all of those different deviations from this common-sense view."

I guess as much as I dislike Wittgenstein's attitude, we have more in common than I often think. — Pfhorrest

What is common-sense and what is a common-sense view? Can you give an example and explain to me why it is a common sense view?

I defined that right in the post you quoted: "the kind of view that I expect people who have given no thought at all to philosophical questions to find trivial and obvious".

Specifically, I go on to say that such "common sense" consists in things like that there is more to truth than just belief, that someone just saying so doesn't make something true, that we are justified in tentatively believing things that seem true even if we can't completely prove them from the ground up yet, and that we can turn to the experiences we have in common with each other to figure out what's more or less likely to be true. You know, the way ordinary people operate in their ordinary lives every day.

So common sense to you is consensus?

That seems like a strange way of putting it. I would agree that the definition of “common sense” is something like “something that has a broad consensus”, in the sense of being largely uncontroversial. But the specific philosophical principles that I think rightly enjoy that broad uncontroversial consensus do not include anything like “whatever enjoys a consensus is probably right”, if that’s what you mean. That would actually violate the second example of a common-sense view that I gave, that somebody (in this case a majority) just saying so doesn’t make it true.

That seems like a strange way of putting it. I would agree that the definition of “common sense” is something like “something that has a broad consensus”, in the sense of being large uncontroversial. But the specific philosophical principles that I think rightly enjoy that broad uncontroversial consensus do not include anything like “whatever enjoys a consensus is probably right”, if that’s what you mean. That would actually violate the second example of a common-sense view that I gave, that somebody (in this case a majority) just saying so doesn’t make it true. — Pfhorrest

I see.

So you're suggesting then, that common sense is referring to the idea that if ordinary people thought about the problem, charitably, reasonably and rationally, their conclusion is a common sense one?

I'd agree to that.

Good to hear from you, Paul. As erudite as ever.

Quietism.

The kale bolted, so I'm picking it while still tender. I'm out of the dried stuff from last year, so I also pulled a green garlic. So fragrant. The brown hen is not laying, so I fried halloumi in the place of eggs. On toast with some tomato, and a drizzle of olive oil.

The thing about quietism is, if someone writes about it, they are not doing it right.