. In this sense, I embrace the postmodernist idea of deconstruction. — Jack Cummins
Yeah, and we wouldn't need to walk upright and have greater use of our opposable thumbs if we hadn't fallen out of the trees in the first place ...I think that confusion can be a starting point. We would not need to find the way if we hadn't got lost in the first place. — Jack Cummins
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CnVf1ZoCJSoCover me,
when I run
Cover me,
through the fire
Something knocked me out the trees
Now I'm on my knees ...
Um, it ain't about "monkeys", mate. :sweat:I like the Peter Gabriel song about monkeys. — Jack Cummins
You throw your pearls before the swine
Make the monkey blind
Cover me,
darling please ...
↪Nikolas The problem is that we have no way of judging who on the ship is an able helmsman independent of the opinions of those on the ship, who all think themselves able helmsman. That’s not to say that there is no such thing as able helmsmanship or that it is not better that the ship be helmed by someone who is able rather than someone who merely thinks he is but isn’t. It’s just to say that everyone on the ship reckons that they are the most able helmsman and so on account of that the one who most deserves the helm.
IOW an actual philosopher-king would be great, but everyone equally reckons that they themselves would be that philosopher-king, and so anyone who stands up and says “away with all your mere opinions, I am the one with true knowledge!” is most likely just yet another fool who thinks himself wise, his supposed knowledge just more opinion. — Pfhorrest
↪Nikolas So we can tell who is best to helm the ship by looking for someone who professes to have no idea how to helm the ship?
What if they were telling the truth, and honestly, truthfully know even less about helmsmanship than the people who say they do but probably don't?
Or, maybe, the conclusion is that nobody can accurately be assessed as the most apt helmsman? Do we then go unhelmed(?), or do we have to somehow figure out between all of us how to navigate the ship, knowing that none of us can be fully trusted as the certainly best helmsman on board? — Pfhorrest
↪Athena
I agree with all that. What I meant was that it would be great to actually have a leader who is wise, to be able to rely on a truly wise person for direction and guidance. The rest of what I wrote that you didn’t quote was about the difficulties of being sure that that’s what we’re really going to get from someone. — Pfhorrest
I am not sure that everyone in the world enjoys thinking. — Jack Cummins
Philosophers are just confused.
There's no glory in confusion. — Banno
But if you study the "Ship of Fools" with a little humility it becomes obvious that humanity as a whole does not know how to escape Plato's cave or the eventual catastrophe of arguing over which way the ship should go. Opinions lead to conflicting opinions until society falls apart. Then the cycle begins again. Is that our only alternative? must humanity remain not human and trapped in animalistic binary thought? Can philosophy of a certain quality reveal the way out? — Nikolas
Online one's mostly a dialectical rodeo clown; otherwise, just another wayward fool who happens to be studying-recovering from folly.If one can answer the question “what is a real philosopher” then they already are a real philosopher! — Present awareness
And what about the lived (existential) implications for e.g. 'well being' or 'agency' of those philosophical relationships? (Asking for a friend. :smirk:)The relationship between man and his or her environment is of course a philosophical question as it is a peculiar manifestation (ethics) of our relationship (ontology) to the world. Just like our relationship with science is a philosophical question (epistemology). Philosophy is the practice of interrogating(deducting in its peculiar Kantian sense)our presuppositions about these relationships — Tobias
We have serious global problems and what value does philosophy have if it does not help us resolve those problems? But perhaps we need to ask new questions that are relevant to today? What are the best economic choices we can make? What political choices should we make about working with the rest of the world? — Athena
↪Nikolas
↪Nikolas
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." Socrates
— Nikolas
— Bartricks
Have you found a reference for that quote yet? — Bartricks
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