I thought we were discussing philosophy and its "...failure to create a better world..."

Another point worth mentioning is philosophy is left with the really difficult problems that other formal disciplines can't handle or won't touch with a barge pole in a manner of speaking and creating "...a better world..." features in the top 3 of world's currently unsolved problems. My suggestion, for what it's worth, is to announce a million dollar cash prize for anyone who can tackle this problem. I'm fairly confident that should get people's, philosophers' juices flowing. Why hasn't somebody already thought of this?

"Philosophy has failed to create a better world"

I am not sure if that is one of the mandates of Philosophy: to create a better world. There is a trend that subscribes to that, but I don't think philosophers do. The closest philosophers come to this, is moral philosophy, but that in and by itself tells you only (if at all successfully) how to behave morally, and not how to reduce carbon dioxide or how to reduce the accelerating population explosion.

So yes, the title is right, except philosophy never said it would do that.

My suggestion, for what it's worth, is to announce a million dollar cash prize for anyone who can tackle this problem. I'm fairly confident that should get people's, philosophers' juices flowing. Why hasn't somebody already thought of this? — TheMadFool

there are tons of competitions and contests on the topics. The prize is not a million dollars, but something like $500, which at the current economic situation is about a fair price for saving the world.

Also, tons and tons of research money goes into the pockets of lame, impotent physicists and chemists who try to make a buck under the pretext of saving the world.

I have a plan, and I offered it for free to past participants of many international congresses that are held worldwide all over the place on global warming, for instance; and mostly I get no reply, and the ones I get treat my suggestion as if they never read it.

It is a common concept to disregard the opinion or the "solutions" of the dilettante. There is merit in that, but sometimes you throw out a diamond with the pig water.

I am not sure if that is one of the mandates of Philosophy: to create a better world. There is a trend that subscribes to that, but I don't think philosophers do. The closest philosophers come to this, is moral philosophy, but that in and by itself tells you only (if at all successfully) how to behave morally, and not how to reduce carbon dioxide or how to reduce the accelerating population explosion.

@god must be atheist

Completely agree with you, Sir. What a solid statement. It remembered me when politicians of Athens asked to the Sophist why they do not have the rule of governance and then answered "we are not here to solve the problems. We debate and theorise about these. Without them we cannot develop philosophy itself"
Nevertheless there are people who criticise Sophists. lol

Whether or not technology has saved us is open to debate, but we'll leave that for now. Science by itself doesn't help anyone. It has to be turned into technology by engineering. Engineering is applied science.

And science is applied philosophy. — T Clark

Technology is not science. Humans have had technology since they lived in caves. The Egyptians obviously had technology but they did not understand universal truths, such as a triangle has three sides on earth and every other planet in the universe. As far as we know, not until the Greeks did philosophers start working on proofs. That is technology, plus philosophy, equals science. We understand not only what works but why it works.

Religion is a stumbling stone for science. Even today, Christians oppose the science of evolution and the 2012 Texas Republican agenda was to prevent teaching the higher-order thinking skills and teachers had to take Texas to court to end forcing teaching creationism as equal to science. We are not as controlled by the church as we once were but for thousands of years it has been a stumbling block. Since 1958 we have had education for technology and that is not education for science.

Liberal education was well-rounded education for well-rounded individual growth and independent thinking. It was the basis of education in the US until 1958 and we made a lot of progress before the military and industry hi-jacked education.

Completely agree with you, Sir. What a solid statement. It remembered me when politicians of Athens asked to the Sophist why they do not have the rule of governance and then answered "we are not here to solve the problems. We debate and theorise about these. Without them we cannot develop philosophy itself"
Nevertheless there are people who criticise Sophists. lol — javi2541997

The Sophists were equal to our education for technology. A totally changed purpose of education with a focus on being technologically correct, with the need to prepare men for bureaucratic positions resulting from Athens colonization of new territory and perhaps the natural result of focusing on proofs, a kind of word of God, and the evolution of democracy. A totally different way to perceive the value of a human being.

Sure. Sophist were one of those communities which focused more in the State and its democracy rather than individualism. But I guess they did not get involved enough into politics in general. Consider that back then slavery was legal but Epicurus was against the establishment, etc...
It is interesting the way you described it: Education for technology. Well this situation is due to Spinoza's enlightenment. He decided to divide the knowledge into two different branches: Science/humanists. We keep exactly the same perception of education. Can we change it? I guess No, like you said there are a lot of bureaucracy jobs out there which sustain the State.

Technology is not science. Humans have had technology since they lived in caves. ...That is technology, plus philosophy, equals science. — Athena

I specifically made the distinction between science and technology.

We understand not only what works but why it works. — Athena

I'll nitpick - Science doesn't tell us anything about why, only how.

Religion is a stumbling stone for science.... We are not as controlled by the church as we once were but for thousands of years it has been a stumbling block. — Athena

I'm not a theist, but I don't see it that way.

You seem like a hardheaded, no nonsense type. That's a good thing. Fun to argue with. I am a softheaded, nonsense type.

I am very impressed with your knowledge of Spinoza and his separation of vocational education and education for the humanities. However, I disagree with the notion that education must be one thing and not both. The argument for each side of this division is made in many books about education.

Technology advancements made vocational training very important but in the US and England, but it was ignored in favor of a classical education, the humanities. When we mobilized for the first world war, the mistake of ignoring vocational training was obvious because not only did industry need people with vocational training but so did the military!

Industry tried to close schools in the US as Europe had closed its schools during the war. It argued the war caused a labor shortage and they were not getting their money's worth because they still had to train new employees. Only a few years earlier child labor laws kept children out of industry, and industry lost its supply of really cheap labor.

Teachers argued an institution good for making good citizens is good for making patriotic citizens. The book of all the speeches at the 1917 National Education Association, explains all this and how education was used to mobilize the US for war and sustain the war effort.

So education for vocational training was added, but education for citizenship remained the priority purpose of education until the military technology of WWII. Clearly, we can have both. What is not so obvious to those who have not read the books about war and education is the US adopted so much of German bureaucracy and education and philosophy, it is now what defended its democracy against. A new commission is now looking into returning to education for citizenship. Such an education is the first-line defense against social problems and we seriously need to get back to that. It is the only way to have liberty and avoid becoming an authoritarian police state.

More to the point of this thread, we need to return to Greek and Roman classics and might want to question if storming the Capital Building has something to do with German philosophy?

am not sure if that is one of the mandates of Philosophy: to create a better world. There is a trend that subscribes to that, but I don't think philosophers do. The closest philosophers come to this, is moral philosophy, but that in and by itself tells you only (if at all successfully) how to behave morally, and not how to reduce carbon dioxide or how to reduce the accelerating population explosion.

So yes, the title is right, except philosophy never said it would do that. — god must be atheist

In my world, which is probably different from everyone else's :lol: a moral is a matter of cause and effect and that makes destroying our planet immoral. In the US, we had education for good moral judgment but religion retarded our sciences and we were not working with the sciences essential to preserving our planet and having a high standard of living. That education was for everyone, not just those who choose liberal education at the college level and while we needed to prepare for a high-tech society, we made a mistake by dropping the education that turned everyone into more or less philosophical creatures. Now we have the science we need, but preparing everyone for a technological society, has short-circuited their ability to think and they no longer associate morals with cause and effect, so we continue to destroy our planet and put profit today above the future and health of our planet.

Yes. I know about Spinoza because I read some of him some years ago when I was interested in enlightenment. As you said yes I do not agree either of how he divided the art of learning in schools. I even consider Spinoza as one of the worst thinkers ever of how he decided to destroy the concept of Roman/Greek learnings.
I guess you are from the United States because of the examples you are putting on the table. I am from Europe and somehow I am jealous of your education system. When education fails there is nothing to do in th State. But I guess your educational system works when the universities are the best worldwide and generally the incomes/development are good. Despite probably we forget about the basics back in ancient times. So it is a great dilemma of what is the right path inside education... Spinoza stupid division of branches or Roman/Greek education which wants the perfect goal: happiness

Interesting fact here: Russia (I guess they still doing this) teaches in their schools how to play chess. What a beautiful way of improve the knowledge of the students. Probably this is the main reason why they have discovered a vaccine for Covid sputnik. Nevertheless U.S. Also discovered vaccines for Covid.
Another interesting point of view that me, as a citizen from a neutral/nobody cares country like Spain, remembers as the 1960's fights between US and Soviet Unión of who can have the best educational system despite they are far from Greek/Roman ones.

I'm not a theist, but I don't see it that way. — T Clark

That appears to be the only argument we could have. I see a few nuggets of wisdom in the Bible but Creationism is not one of them. I don't think Christianity has such a good history, and today, to me it appears one of the worst problems we have. Not because Christianity is so bad, but without education in the classics, it is really bad. How people interpret the Bible depends largely on how they were educated. How we understand God depends a lot on if we are concrete thinkers and abstract thinkers.

I hate the mythology that Christianity and God's blessing is what made us so good great. Our history and the treatment of Native Americans, immigrants from China, Japan, Ireland, Italy, people of color, and women in general, has not been that good. Our greatness has been very worldly and it was built on exploiting human beings and taking from them what was not ours to take. This failure of philosophy is a failure to see the whole picture and storytelling that excluded our wrongs. This is a new day and we need to value philosophy to move ahead without doing more damage.

I don't think Christianity has such a good history, and today, to me it appears one of the worst problems we have. — Athena

Science and religion are just expressions of human nature projected onto a world where the don't, can't fit. Humanity doesn't have such a good history in the sense you mean.

happiness — javi2541997

How do you understand happiness? In the US because we turned our backs on the classics we think it is a frivolous pleasure. That is not what Jefferson meant by the "pursuit of happiness" when he wrote our Declaration of Independence separating the colonies from the king of England.

Coming from the classics the pursuit of happiness means gaining knowledge because knowledge is power and power leads to having things go our way but this is not self-centered because of the morality of cause and effect. As Socrates pointed out, if we make life unpleasant for others, sooner or later they will be our problem, and boy oh boy, the practice of slavery has lead to a serious problem in the US. That is exactly what Socrates was talking about. Too bad Jefferson and his peers ignored Socrates. :grimace:

Science and religion are just expressions of human nature projected onto a world where the don't, can't fit. Humanity doesn't have such a good history in the sense you mean. — T Clark

Wow, this is so on topic! We have both the good and the bad. :grin: Never before have so many people enjoyed so much security and so many pleasures, and developing technology holds out the hope that we can do even better than this.

Excuse me, I am a believer in the New Age and I get really excited about what is possible. I am sure this is the excitement many of the US founding fathers felt with their education in the classics. We have to acknowledge our past wrongs and the truth of what you said, but I think we also need to acknowledge our progress and the possibility that we can do better. I think we have created a better world.

Right now we might be in the Resurrection with archeologists, geologists and related sciences bring the past into the present. If reincarnation is a possibility, the human mass on earth today would be reincarnated souls, another possible form of Resurrection but not scientifically supported.

Now if we had not been thrown out of the Garden of Eden, the abundance of the Garden might have brought out the best in us, as abundance is bringing the best in us now. There are some pretty unpleasant things happening, but a lot of this is a demand that we do better. If we get education back on the enlightenment path we might come out of the present transition okay? But first, we have to do something about the nihilism we are dealing with now. Nihilism is probably part of the transition process.

I am not sure if that is one of the mandates of Philosophy: to create a better world. There is a trend that subscribes to that, but I don't think philosophers do. The closest philosophers come to this, is moral philosophy, but that in and by itself tells you only (if at all successfully) how to behave morally, and not how to reduce carbon dioxide or how to reduce the accelerating population explosion.

So yes, the title is right, except philosophy never said it would do that. — god must be atheist

Never? I think it has been a goal of philosophy and the Enlightenment. Good moral thinking depends on knowledge of science. Cicero, we do the right thing when we know what it is. Maybe if the Bible had advanced knowledge of science, we would be doing better? I feel frustrated by our apparent failure to understand what science has to do with good moral judgment and democracy. From the time the West refound science and began improving on it, we have made incredible progress.

At least we are replanting trees with we cut them down, instead of waiting for God to give us our forest back.

I am a believer in the New Age and I get really excited about what is possible. ... I think we have created a better world....abundance is bringing the best in us now. — Athena

This forum is generally full of sour pusses and depressed introverts. I usually find myself one of the few rosy cheeked, bright eyed romantics. You make me look like Eeyore.

If we get education back on the enlightenment path we might come out of the present transition okay — Athena

I'm not sure the capital E enlightenment path is the right one. It's certainly not the only one.

Good moral thinking depends on knowledge of science. — Athena

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.....................................................

Do you believe that good moral behavior depends on good moral thinking?

How do you understand happiness? — Athena

What a complex question. I think happiness is just moments we live along our lives. I going to sound pretty pessimistic but life in general is full of sadness. Even when you are getting older. So I guess this is why we are so obsessed to pursue happiness because it is so ephemeral

My suggestion, for what it's worth, is to announce a million dollar cash prize for anyone who can tackle this problem. — TheMadFool

you need to have connections. And a good opportunity. And philosophy isn't mainstream like you mentioned. When technology improves, hopefully there'll be more interactive platforms on the internet. But for now, I guess we'll have to with this one. Maybe one day a millionaire shows up :)

Ultimately philosophy is a personal orientation regarding our place in the universe. Since everyone is free to believe as they will it is unlikely that enough people will orient themselves in a way that will bring consensus on collective actions- no more than religion or politics can.

Forgive me for my bluntness, but it does feel like a waste. A waste of intellect if the most intelligent people in the world don't feel the need to improve it. Or am I wrong?

:lol: It helps to read history. Compared to our past, we are very fortunate people. Perhaps where I live has a lot to do with my positive attitude. I gather other states do not take as good care of their citizens as the state that is my home. I live in a small city, large enough to provide the benefits of a city but not like L.A., California, where I grew up and would not return. And I am past the most difficult years. There was a time when my life was not nearly this good. I am a very fortunate person to have such a good life, in a small city with a beautiful river path that goes for many miles and I don't think there could be a better place to be than along the river, or if I want, I can sit on the beach and watch the tide roll in, just an hour away.

Hum, as I understand democracy it is constantly unfolding, preferably with the education the prepares each generation to resolve the problems of their time and that is not education for technology. Our most difficult problems today are human problems. The US had a Capitol Building that was open to the public because all citizens treated it like was almost sacred. It was not an armed fort. Bad actors have damaged our reality and the Spirit of America and if we do not resolve this problem with education, the democracy we were, will not be known to those born today.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.....................................................

Do you believe that good moral behavior depends on good moral thinking? — T Clark

So you think Cicero was wrong about us choosing the right thing when we know what that is? Science is very important to knowing the right thing. What is the difference between knowledge and knowing the right thing?

What is the difference between knowledge and knowing the right thing? — Athena

Lived, reflective, experience.

↪TaySan
Ultimately philosophy is a personal orientation regarding our place in the universe. Since everyone is free to believe as they will it is unlikely that enough people will orient themselves in a way that will bring consensus on collective actions- no more than religion or politics can. — Proximate1

Well the US is about to experience a huge transfer of wealth. This is on top of feeding everyone, providing free medical care to many, subsidized housing, free education, affordable internet service, and instant communication with people around the world. How much more do people want?

My family has been very involved with the homeless, so it is not that I lack knowledge of less fortunate people, and am very thankful at this time I am not one of them. My granddaughter manages a camp for homeless people who have been given army tents, heat, and sanitation, and I am very proud of her. We are aware that what is being done is far short of what needs to be done, but compare to our past, what we are achieving today is pretty awesome. When I began advocating for the homeless, we had almost nothing for them and treated them like criminals. We have not been assuring people food until relatively recently. I see positive changes along with problems, but ignoring the good because of the bad, might be a mistake.

Lived, reflective, experience. — 180 Proof

And is that different from having knowledge?

Philosophy is the foundational questioning that ideas are built upon. Much of moral philosophy and modern politics are based upon philosophical ideas, questions and solutions. Philosophy is playing the long game, it shapes society over time.

In terms of the short run, like during this pandemic, there are numerous moral philosophers who help hospitals with how to judge who's getting treatment when capacity is over the limit. These kinds of hard questions rarely work without any kind of moral philosophy groundwork.

The problem with science is that all areas are niched. It's a spearhead that is focused directly at a small area that is then applied to fit into a whole. But you cannot get a full picture, analysis of the consequences, putting together the pieces and how they relate to totally other areas of existence. Take for example the nuclear bomb. It was developed by scientists, scientists utilized the splitting to make power plants, but no scientists truly analyze the consequences of any of it, other than a small remark here and there. It's philosophers who analyzed the post-bomb state of the world, who informed about the consequences and guidelines that are pretty much in place today that prevent total annihilation.

Philosophy questions and informs, science examines, then philosophy once again questions and informs and the cycle continues. Anyone saying science has made philosophy irrelevant doesn't seem to understand what philosophy is or how it works in academia.

What a complex question. I think happiness is just moments we live along our lives. I going to sound pretty pessimistic but life in general is full of sadness. Even when you are getting older. So I guess this is why we are so obsessed to pursue happiness because it is so ephemeral — javi2541997

:lol: You all are reminding me of the years when I was lost in Hades. Hades is a place where we all must all go, from time to time, to get a sense of meaning. However, we should never go there without the help of the gods because it is so easy to get lost in Hades.

For a long time my life was so painful I really did not want to live and then I saw a cartoon of a man standing at the customer service desk in heaven saying, "I don't like life. Do you have something better to offer?".

I know suffering and maybe I am over-exuberant now because I can avoid it. Not that there is no pain in my life. But there is nothing I can do about the family problems. Everyone wants to make their own mistakes and they don't want to know what an old woman thinks. So instead of focusing on what can make me very unhappy, I focus on what can make me happy and that works. It is the benefit of no longer being responsible for family.

PS I would not know happiness if I had not stumbled onto philosophy! If it were not for philosophy I would still be one of the most miserable people on earth. I clawed my way out of Hades, thanks to philosophy and gaining a sense of purpose.

Of course.

Knowledge (i.e. theoretical/practical capability) is acquired through learning or training. Experience (i.e. understanding-based competence), however, is developed through surviving and/or overcoming failure. The latter cannot be taught (or googled) as the former can.

How do you understand happiness? — Athena

Ataraxia & aponia (Epicurus) + scientia intuitiva (Spinoza) + amor fati / defiance / beatitude (Nietzsche / Camus / Rosset) ... in other words, momentary lapses in "boredom & pain" which (more often than not) accompany some daily form of play...