The basic thing of my "philosophy" is locality, of being born into history and thus into ever shifting meanings and customs and ways of thinking. I think we can never completely detach us from that inheritance: no "sub species aeternatis" for us ever. But we can make a serious effort to see, starting from this point of being locally born, into varyingly narrow circumstances on a likely random arc of a history - but the effort is way more harder than the contemporary academic philosophy seems to allow.

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting you, but it sounds like you are saying that there are no universal truths. Each of us, being born at a particular time in a particular culture, only has access to what seems true from our limited and highly conditioned perspective. Am I correct that you are saying this? If so, then it seems that you subscribe to a kind of relativism, perhaps cultural relativism.

I don't think relativism can be right. Firstly, because there are many universal truths that I think we do have access to, such as the principles of logic and perception. Secondly, because relativism is self-refuting. If there were no universal truths, it would not be a universal truth that there were no universal truths.

I'm guessing that I'm missing something in what you're saying. But I hope my point is at least useful for clarificational purposes.

Well, yes and no - we are local, but we can aspire towards the universal. It's just that we can never totally reach it. To be human means to be subjective and limited, but there are great variations in how subjective and how limited. I just think that every philosophical enquiry should start from history, from the narrative of how these particular meanings and concepts emerged in a particular place and in a particular continuum of slow time.

I think your roadmap is very good. Personally, I would define myself a non-naive relativist: I know that saying that “everything is relative” becomes instantly a non relative statement. I think that a non-naive relativism is based not on statements, but on endless research and criticism.
The problem of the concept of universal truth is that it contradicts itself: if a truth is universal, it must be able to face any consideration and, particularly, the consideration that we humans are unable to think without using our brain. This means that we are unable to think of the concept of universal truth without using our brain. Since any concept of universal truth is necessarily dependent on our brain, it cannot be universal, because our brain doesn’t seem so universal. The interesting thing is that this conclusion comes exactly from the premise that some universal truth exists. So, assuming that universal truths exists, brings us to the conclusion that universal truths do not exist. If universal truths exist, then they don’t exist. That’s the contradiction.
For this reason I think that basing philosophy on history, rather than on static statements, is a method that is much closer to our condition of human beings. We can notice that “history” is another word to say “time” and “universal truth” another word to say “being”: I have just adopted Heidegger’s perspective of “Being and time”.

Well, yes and no - we are local, but we can aspire towards the universal. It's just that we can never totally reach it. To be human means to be subjective and limited, but there are great variations in how subjective and how limited. — hwyl

I think I agree if you mean that no philosophical system can ever be truly universal, in the sense that it comprehends the fundamental structures of reality. Philosophical systems can represent reality more or less accurately, but none can fully comprehend it. So if universality means comprehensiveness, then yes, I agree that universality can only be approached, not realized.

However, if you mean that no single proposition can be universal, then I disagree. I think that the principle of non-contradiction, that the same thing cannot both be and not be in the same respect, is a universal truth. It doesn't come anywhere close to comprehending reality in its totality, but it comprehends one aspect of reality, namely, that reality cannot contradict itself. Non-contradiction is just the most obvious example of a universal truth, but there are others as well. In fact, I think all true propositions are universally true. If it's true that I woke up at 8am on June 7 2021, then it is true at all times and in all places and for all observers. Truth, I believe, is universal by nature, in the sense that the same proposition, insofar as its articulated with sufficient clarity, cannot be true for some and false for others.

I just think that every philosophical enquiry should start from history, from the narrative of how these particular meanings and concepts emerged in a particular place and in a particular continuum of slow time. — hwyl

I agree that all philosophers should learn about the history of ideas. But I don't think it's necessary for every philosophical work to be extremely attentive to history. If I wanted to write a book, for instance, arguing in favor of virtue ethics, it would probably good and constructive if I included analysis of the development of different ethical theories across the history of philosophy. But I don't think this historical analysis would be strictly necessary for the book to be worth reading. In fact, it might in some cases be better to cut the historical analysis for the sake of brevity.

Well, I'm a Humean when it comes to the possibly universal truth of you having woken at 8am today. You might be totally mistaken. You might not even be there though I think it is pretty likely that both things are sensibly true, you probably really did wake at 8am and you really most probably do exist. I think the best competitors for being universally true are logical propositions. But then again I just might imagine that a logical proposition is sound, as it is just my limited brain that tells me that it is universally true. It's not really within the realm of reasonable suspicion but it is within the realm of suspicion.

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I don't see myself as a relativist, I strongly suspect and think that there is an independent and objective reality, I just don't think that we can ever be sure of it. We are limited, our brains are limited. And yeah, I'm not a fan of Heidegger but I think that Dasein is a very relevant concept. That's what we have in this world, how we experience this world.

The problem of the concept of universal truth is that it contradicts itself: if a truth is universal, it must be able to face any consideration and, particularly, the consideration that we humans are unable to think without using our brain. This means that we are unable to think of the concept of universal truth without using our brain. Since any concept of universal truth is necessarily dependent on our brain, it cannot be universal, because our brain doesn’t seem so universal. The interesting thing is that this conclusion comes exactly from the premise that some universal truth exists. So, assuming that universal truths exists, brings us to the conclusion that universal truths do not exist. If universal truths exist, then they don’t exist. That’s the contradiction. — Angelo

Let me try to restate your argument.

Show that no proposition is universally true:
1. For all propositions P, if P is universally true, it is necessarily true for all thinkers. (premise)
2. For all propositions P and all thinkers x, if x thinks P, and x is human, x thinks P by means of a brain. (premise)
3. For all propositions P and all thinkers x and y, if x thinks P by means of brain and y thinks P by some other means than brain, it is possible that the truth-value of P for y will be the opposite of the truth value of P for x. (premise)
4. For all propositions P, it is possible that there is some thinker, y, who thinks P by some other means than a brain. (premise)
5. For all propositions P and all known thinkers x, if x thinks P, then x is human. (premise)
6. Suppose that some known thinker, b, thinks some proposition, Q.
7. B is human (5, 6, ui, mp)
8. B thinks Q by means of a brain (2, 7, ui, mp)
9. Possibly, some thinker, c, thinks Q by some other means than a brain. (4, ei)
10. Possibly Q has a truth-value for c, and possibly it is the opposite of Q's truth value for b. (3, 8, 9, ui, conj, mp)
11. Possibly, Q has opposite truth values for b and c. (10, simp)
12. If Q is universally true, it is necessarily true for all thinkers. (1, ui)
13. Q is not necessarily true for all thinkers (11, def.)
14. Q is not universally true (12, 13, mt)
15. For all propositions P, P is not universally true (14, ug)

Does this represent your argument well? Perhaps it is unnecessarily complex.

I think the problem is in premise 3. Now when I say, for instance, that P is true for x and false for y, this doesn't mean that x and y just have different opinions. I means that x is epistemically justified in believing P, and y is epistemically justified in denying P. Now this strikes me as impossible. For, Gettier cases aside, if someone is epistemically justified in assenting to a proposition, then the proposition is true. If this were not the case, then there would be there would be no criteria to distinguish certain from uncertain beliefs. And if there were no certain beliefs, then I don't think we could be justified in believing anything, not even in a probabilistic way. Because if I believe that something is probably the case, this belief is only justified if I am certain regarding my method of ascertaining probability. In other words, probabilistic beliefs require certain beliefs to justify them. If you disagree on this point, I will explain my reasoning further.

So, if it is possible that x is epistemically justified in believing P, and y is epistemically justified in denying P, then it is possible that P is both true and false. But this is a contradiction. I don't think a contradiction is any less contradictory if it is asserted as a possibility than if it is asserted as an actuality.

In order to avoid the contradiction, you could argue that epistemic justification is impossible for humans. But knowledge requires epistemic justification, so if epistemic justification is impossible for humans, so is human knowledge. But if human knowledge is impossible, then radical skepticism ensues. But I don't think radical skepticism is a tenable position, since it refutes itself. I can't know that I know nothing because then I would know something.

Thus, I think the only reasonable thing to do is to reject premise 3. Gettier cases aside, different thinkers cannot both be epistemically justified in affirming and denying the same proposition. It doesn't matter whether one thinks by means of a brain and the other the other thinks by some other means.

Now, you might ask, how are we justified in believing that thinkers who think without brains would come to the same conclusions as us? After all, we have no idea what it would be like to think without a brain. Well, it's not that they'd necessarily come to the same conclusions, but rather that, if we were both epistemically justified in our conclusions, we would agree. And, unless we want to be radical skeptics, we have to admit that we can be epistemically justified in at least some of our beliefs. So we must reject premise 3 and affirm the contrary: namely, that 1) we are epistemically justified in some of our conclusions and 2) if thinkers who thought without brains were epistemically justified, they would come to the same conclusions.

I think that in your reasoning there is a way of considering subjectivity that actually is an objectification of it. If we consider the subjectivity of other people, this is not a real radical consideration of subjectivity, because that way we objectify the subjectivity of other people, we deal with it as an object of study. If we want to make use of a real radical consideration of subjectivity, each of us must consider his own subjectivity in the “here and now” of the moment when he is thinking. This is the true consideration of subjectivity, that is able to demolish any idea of truth, be it universal or not. If I take into consideration my subjectivity here and now, I realize immediately that I have no way to give any kind of guarantee about what I am thinking of, what I am talking about.
Objective reasonings give us the illusion of being working, just because we forget ourselves in the moment we describe them.
This might be used as an argument against my conclusion about the contradiction I showed in my preceding message: since I can’t guarantee the correcteness of what I said, I can’t be sure that what I described was really a contradiction. But this makes me think that other people must be in the same condition: how can they guarantee that their reasoning is free from errors? How can they be less uncertain than me?
What is important now is that I ended up in questions, not in statements. Who will be able to put a stop to our questioning, our doubting?
Relativism and scepticism can be attacked if they are considered as sources of statements: “nothing is absolute”, “nothing can be known”. But I think that their real nature is questioning, doubting, without giving nor suggesting any answer.

The scientists don't seem to be able to formulate one single coherent thought — hwyl

I had this strange thought a coupla days ago. I'm myopic, both literally and figuratively, and without my glasses, I only see extremely blurred images. Quite indubitably the fact that the images I see when I don my spectacles become clear is conclusive proof that the problem or fault lies with my eyes, me.

However, it occurred to me that if reality itself were fuzzy, no matter how much I improve my vision, the image will forever remain grainy like old photographs or, in this digital age, pixelated.

To cut to the chase, that "scientists don't seem to be able to formulate one single coherent thought" maybe an indication of the inherent haziness of reality. Just saying...

Sure. I think that "reality" (of which usefulness as a concept I'm far from sure) is at least slightly out of focus for us. Permanently. But, this said, natural science does work: it predicts things that then do happen, it has explained most of the material world and might quite likely explain the remaining bits too. Scientists do very important work, but that does not qualify them to be profound or even semi-profound thinkers, unfortunately.

Well, I'm a Humean when it comes to the possibly universal truth of you having woken at 8am today. You might be totally mistaken. You might not even be there though I think it is pretty likely that both things are sensibly true, you probably really did wake at 8am and you really most probably do exist. — hwyl

By a Humean, do you mean a memory skeptic? I didn't know Hume was a memory skeptic, but I suppose it makes sense that he would be.

Here's an attempted rebuttal of memory skepticism. If memory skepticism is reasonable, then it is reasonable to think that we can't differentiate between knowledge in the memory and mental fabrication. But if we couldn't differentiate between knowledge in the memory and mental fabrication, then we couldn't make any reliable judgments. For rational judgments move from premises to conclusions, and we can only be justified in our conclusions if we remember their premises. We can be skeptical regarding individual memories, but if we suspect that our memory is generally unreliable, then this comprises our ability to justify any of our beliefs. Thus, whoever is skeptical of his memories is epistemically compromised i.e. he cannot be justified in any of his beliefs. If I am not justified in believing my memories, I am not justified in believing that I remember premises, so I am not justified in believing the conclusions I draw, in which case no judgment I form is justified. But this is self-refuting, since if no judgment I form is justified, my judgment that memory skepticism is reasonable is unjustified.

I think the best competitors for being universally true are logical propositions. But then again I just might imagine that a logical proposition is sound, as it is just my limited brain that tells me that it is universally true. It's not really within the realm of reasonable suspicion but it is within the realm of suspicion. — hwyl

If it's not within the realm of reasonable suspicion, then wouldn't it be within the realm of unreasonable suspicion? And if the suspicion is unreasonable, I think it should be discarded. Isn't one of philosophy's main functions to differentiate reasonable from unreasonable ideas, so the latter can be discarded.

I think that skepticism is not self-refuting, because it starts as trust, not as skepticism. Those who are skeptic at the end of the reasoning are not skeptic at the beginning.

1) At the beginning they trust memory and logic;
2) they just apply logic
3) and they discover that the application of logic demolishes trust in memory and, as a consequence, in logic as well;
4) then they become skeptic.

What is demolished by the application of logic is the initial trust on memory and logic, because this initial trust is the necessary base that makes possible the conclusion.

I think that you reach the conclusion that skepticism is self-refuting because you consider the question as everything happening in the same instant, like in a photo, while instead it is a sequence of reasoning steps that happen over time, by stages, like a film.

If we want to make use of a real radical consideration of subjectivity, each of us must consider his own subjectivity in the “here and now” of the moment when he is thinking. This is the true consideration of subjectivity, that is able to demolish any idea of truth, be it universal or not. If I take into consideration my subjectivity here and now, I realize immediately that I have no way to give any kind of guarantee about what I am thinking of, what I am talking about. — Angelo

Could there perhaps be confusion between psychological and epistemological certainty? Psychological certainty is how confidently I believe something. Epistemological certainty is how justified I am in believing it. Both pertain to the subject who believes, as opposed to the object of belief. Now psychologically, I feel quite confident about many things. But then, when philosophical thought puzzles are posed, my confidence may be more or less undermined, depending on how I react to pondering them. But I can be well justified in believing something even if my psychological feeling of certainty is very low, and I can be very poorly justified in believing something even if my psychological feeling of certainty is very high.

So what constitutes a good enough justification for a belief that one can be epistemologically certain that it is true? I would say I can be epistemologically certain of a belief if it follows logically from other beliefs of which I am epistemologically certain. But if I don't have foundational beliefs of which I am epistemologically certain, an infinite regress would ensue. So I would say that a belief is foundational if it is indispensable. And a belief is indispensable if it cannot be denied without undermining all my other beliefs. For instance, the belief in the principle of non-contradiction is indispensable because, if I deny it, then all my other beliefs may be true and false at the same time, in which case I can't really believe anything.

I would say that the belief that your knowledge extends beyond the here and now is indispensable. Yes, if all you knew were the here and now, you could not guarantee anything. For knowledge requires justification, and justification requires thought, and thought requires time. If I think something is true at this moment, then I must have justified it at some point in the past, otherwise I'd have no reason to believe it true. But if I only knew the here and now, I'd have no way of knowing whether I'd justified any of my beliefs in the past, in which case I'd have no reason to believe any of my beliefs were true. So memory must be at least somewhat reliable. For if memory were totally unreliable, then I'd have no way of knowing anything.

Objective reasonings give us the illusion of being working, just because we forget ourselves in the moment we describe them.
This might be used as an argument against my conclusion about the contradiction I showed in my preceding message: since I can’t guarantee the correcteness of what I said, I can’t be sure that what I described was really a contradiction. But this makes me think that other people must be in the same condition: how can they guarantee that their reasoning is free from errors? How can they be less uncertain than me? — Angelo

I think you may be sneaking a pinch of naive skepticism into your argument. Because you're claiming to believe two things 1) I am in this condition where certainty is impossible, and 2) since I am in this condition, others probably are as well. Either you're claiming 1 and 2 to be true or at least probable propositions, in which case you are guilty, I think, of naive skepticism. Or, you are just attempting to express your subjective experience of considering philosophical ideas, and you are not stating propositions which you believe are worthy of rational assent. What else could you be doing?

What is important now is that I ended up in questions, not in statements. Who will be able to put a stop to our questioning, our doubting?
Relativism and scepticism can be attacked if they are considered as sources of statements: “nothing is absolute”, “nothing can be known”. But I think that their real nature is questioning, doubting, without giving nor suggesting any answer. — Angelo

This sounds more like a spiritual practice than a philosophical position. In fact, I've heard that ancient skepticism, along with other ancient schools of philosophy, was a spiritual practice. As a skeptic, you refuse to give assent to any propositions, and instead you question and doubt everything proposed to you. Rather than seek out things to believe, you seek out reasons to undermine belief, and your goal is to believe as little as you can, ideally nothing. Or, perhaps that's not the main goal of your life, but it is your goal when you philosophize. Either way, I would call that kind of skepticism a spiritual practice, not a philosophical position, because it describes a way of life as opposed to a set of propositions to believe. Skepticism may be your way of life, or, more likely, it is not your way of life, but only the way you like to do philosophy. You may even selectively apply skepticism to some philosophical problems but not to others. For instance, you may be a skeptic when discussing metaphysics but a rigid dogmatist when discussing politics (I suspect that a lot of people on this site are like that, although perhaps you aren't).

If you have chosen to pursue skepticism as a way of life, I doubt I can convince you to stop by means of philosophical argumentation, because the whole point of skepticism is to undermine philosophical arguments. In fact, there's nothing really incoherent about believing nothing, although I suspect that most people who call themselves skeptics do believe in some things. But I think that the mission of skepticism is diametrically opposed to the mission of traditional philosophy. Philosophy, traditionally conceived, is love of wisdom, and wisdom, traditionally conceived, involves knowledge, especially knowledge of important truths that are fundamental to understanding reality and human life. Philosophy pursues knowledge of these truths by means of rational argumentation, and it argues by means of propositions that can be either affirmed and believed or denied and disbelieved. Since the style of skepticism you are proposing seems to replace affirmation and denial with perpetual doubt and propositions with endless questions, I think it falls outside the realm of philosophy. You can engage with a philosopher as a skeptic, but your mission as a skeptic is not the same as the philosopher's mission. He seeks truth, you do not. He uses argumentation to discover what ought to be believed, you use argumentation undermine all beliefs.

1) At the beginning they trust memory and logic;
2) they just apply logic
3) and they discover that the application of logic demolishes trust in memory and, as a consequence, in logic as well;
4) then they become skeptic.

What is demolished by the application of logic is the initial trust on memory and logic, because this initial trust is the necessary base that makes possible the conclusion. — Angelo

If memory skepticism really could be demonstrated from undeniable premises, then I suppose I'd have to assent to it, and, as a result, fall into radical skepticism. But once a radical skeptic, I'd have no reason to remain as such or not to remain as such. However, I think you're right that, if it is logically demonstrable that memory cannot be trusted, and human logic (by human logic, I just mean the ability of humans to use logic and trust that it leads to truth) depends on memory, then it is demonstrable that human logic cannot be trusted. And if it is demonstrable that human logic cannot be trusted, then it is unreasonable to believe in anything. Human logic would then be like a defective machine that conked out every time you tried to use it. It's not that 'belief in logic is unreasonable' would be a reasonable proposition. Rather, the very attempt to construct reasonable propositions would lead to self-contradiction and absurdity. Does this sound right? Is that what you're saying?

That's all true, assuming memory skepticism is demonstrable. But I don't think it is. I think it's perfectly reasonable to think it self-evident that memory is generally trust-worthy. Or, if I were, for instance, suffering from alzheimer's, and my memory was impaired, I would know my memory was impaired. But it may be self-evident that I was not, for instance, created one moment ago. That seems fairly self-evident to most non-philosophers. And even if you doubt it, I don't think you can prove that it's not self-evident. And since all our beliefs rely on memory, I can perhaps assert truly 'either memory is self-evidently at least somewhat trustworthy, or human knowledge is impossible'.

I think that you reach the conclusion that skepticism is self-refuting because you consider the question as everything happening in the same instant, like in a photo, while instead it is a sequence of reasoning steps that happen over time, by stages, like a film. — Angelo

I think your argument works insofar as it shows that, if having beliefs entails contradiction, it is unreasonable to believe anything. But then, once the conclusion is accepted, it must also be rejected, since if I believe that's it's unreasonable to believe anything, then this belief is also unreasonable. If reason is like the machine that conks out when you try to use it, you just have to stop using it. If you're computer conks out when you turn it on, you can't use your computer to look up what's wrong with your computer. In the same way, if logic refutes itself, you can't use logic to prove that one should be a skeptic. All you can do is observe logic refuting itself. So, to use your film analogy, you can observe logic undermining itself during the part of the film when logic is still in use. But then once you advance to the part of the film when logic has already been undermined, you can no longer use it to show that logic undermines itself. Yes, the argument unfolds in time, but no, you, as a temporal being, cannot step outside the time in which the argument unfolds and simultaneously assert both the premises the conclusion. Once reach the conclusion, all you have left of the premises is your subjective reaction to having watched logic undermine itself. You can't continue to assert the premises once you've accepted their conclusion, which undermines all premises. You don't have a logical argument to justify your disbelief in logic. You could rewind to the part where logic undermined itself and watch it again. But once it happens, you have to go back to believing nothing. I think Wittganstein puts this well when he says (roughly) that once you climb the ladder and stand on the higher, philosophical ground, you have to kick away the latter.

So, back to the proposition 'either memory is self-evidently at least somewhat trustworthy, or human knowledge is impossible': you cannot reasonable maintain that human knowledge is impossible. However, I see no reason why you can't reasonably maintain that memory is self-evidently at least somewhat trustworthy.

Here's one other possible argument against memory skepticism: change seems to be perceived, and one cannot perceive change without perceiving multiple instances of time. But if one perceives multiple instances of time, one must experience both past and present, because the present constitutes only a single moment, and the future cannot be perceived. And the perception of the past is memory. So it is self-evident that we have memory at least of the previous moment. But in the previous moment, we also remembered the moment before that. So we can at least remember the previous two moments. This argument cannot be infinitely repeated, for the further we recollect back in time, the more vague our memories become. Maybe the argument only works to prove that I remember the previous 10 seconds. Perhaps it doesn't work at all. I haven't thought about it much. But I suspect that other arguments against memory skepticism could also be formulated.

Philosophy, traditionally conceived, is love of wisdom, and wisdom, traditionally conceived, involves knowledge, especially knowledge of important truths that are fundamental to understanding reality and human life — Noisy Calf

You think that an essential aim of philosophy in gaining knowledge of truth, but...

the belief in the principle of non-contradiction is indispensable because, if I deny it, then all my other beliefs may be true and false at the same time, in which case I can't really believe anything. — Noisy Calf

...you think that something should be beyond dispute, because otherwise you can’t believe anything.

So, your love of truth is subordinate to your need to believe something.

How can you think of finding truth if there are things that you exclude from discussion?

It’s like saying: I’ve lost my keys, let’s look everywhere to find them, but, please, don’t look in that room. What if the keys are precisely in that room?

So, your love of truth is subordinate to your need to believe something.

How can you think of finding truth if there are things that you exclude from discussion?

It’s like saying: I’ve lost my keys, let’s look everywhere to find them, but, please, don’t look in that room. What if the keys are precisely in that room? — Angelo

It's not that the skepticism regarding the principle of non-contradiction (PNC) is excluded from the discussion, I don't think. I'm not saying we should cover our ears and sing 'la la la' if anyone ever calls PNC into doubt, or shush them and tell them that they can't ask those questions if they want to be in the philosophers' club. Rather, I'm saying that, after reflection, it becomes evident (at least I and many philosophers think so) that PNC is absurd to doubt. In his Metaphysics, Aristotle wrote a whole chapter, I think at least three pages, where he examined many of the absurd consequences that would follow if PNC were denied. So you should question PNC, and then, after seeing the absurd consequences of questioning it, accept PNC as a fundamental axiom of all rational thought. You can also question reductio ad absurdum as a method of proof, and I think you'll see that, if absurd propositions are worthy of rational assent, then human reason cannot distinguish between what is and what is not worthy of rational assent, in which case reason is a useless tool and we might as well stop using it.

Also, I think love of truth necessitates belief, in the same way as love of color necessitates vision. You can't love something to which your mind has no access. Truth and falsehood are attributes of propositions, and propositions represent beliefs. We can state propositions without believing them, but that is either lying, in which case we try to make others think we believe things which we do not actually believe, or some kind of game playing, like when we tell jokes or make up stories. But jokes and made up stories only make sense in the context of belief. Both of them rely on and mimic belief insofar as in telling and hearing jokes and stories, we consider something we do not believe, like an amusing scenario or a fantasy world, as if we actually believed it were true.

It seems to me that you pose rules to philosophy, such as need for rationality. Are there rules that philosophy must undergo in order to be philosophy? I think that the only rule philosophy should undergo is connection with what is usually considered its history, and I think even this rule should be considered in the most flexible and open way. Posing rules to philosophy means preventing philosophical research from exploring fields that don’t match those rules. Why? I think that rules are good for science, because science aims to being mathematical as much as possible. Is philosophy science? For example, Nietsche doesn’t seem to me very rational, very exact, very adherent to the principle of non contradiction: should we exclude him from the list of philosophers? Shall we exclude Zeno paradoxes from philosophy? Heidegger tried to change our traditional ideas on being, connecting them to time and to our human condition, so that being isn’t anymore, according to him, that so coherent and stable thing, typical of the principle of non contradiction, considering that being happens in connection with humanity and time. Shall we thing that Heidegger is not a philosopher?

Strange, memory scepticism et al. I had no memory of ever opening this thread and was about to write a pretty identical post :) Anyhow, my attitude still remains: philosophy is rather frustrating and its sub specie aeternitatis hubris breathtaking. Maybe it's worthwhile to try the impossible, but literature and history are to me more profound and much more interesting, and more comprehensive fields. Philosophy is a very useful angle to most human activity but it shouldn't be overdone as you will only get a headache and not get much anywhere :)

hubris — hwyl

:snicker: I hate myself!

I had this strange thought a coupla days ago. I'm myopic, both literally and figuratively, and without my glasses, I only see extremely blurred images. Quite indubitably the fact that the images I see when I don my spectacles become clear is conclusive proof that the problem or fault lies with my eyes, me.

However, it occurred to me that if reality itself were fuzzy, no matter how much I improve my vision, the image will forever remain grainy like old photographs or, in this digital age, pixelated.

To cut to the chase, that "scientists don't seem to be able to formulate one single coherent thought" maybe an indication of the inherent haziness of reality. Just saying... — TheMadFool

Perhaps "the inherent haziness of reality" is time, specifically futurity (à la Bergson's la durée).

I have been fascinated about literary attempts at describing the reality (or as I put it, our experience of being in the world) - like the great modernists Joyce and Woolf, both tried (among many other things) to put our everyday experience, the texture of if, the internal and the external, into language. Quite magnificently but it is still clearly obvious fiction, obvious art. Reality is elusive, the moment is: we control the past and the future by internal stories and small fictions but never really are very consciously in the present, we rarely really just are. Maybe sometimes in serious pain or maybe at the moment of orgasm - but then those moments are pretty empty, not having much meaning in themselves.

I have been fascinated about literary attempts at describing the reality (or as I put it, our experience of being in the world) - like the great modernists Joyce and Woolf, both tried (among many other things) to put our everyday experience, the texture of if, the internal and the external, into language. Quite magnificently but it is still clearly obvious fiction, obvious art. Reality is elusive, the moment is: we control the past and the future by internal stories and small fictions but never really are very consciously in the present, we rarely really just are. Maybe sometimes in serious pain or maybe at the moment of orgasm - but then those moments are pretty empty, not having much meaning in themselves. — hwyl

Well put. Perhaps we never just 'are,' because 'we' are ethical entities ('fictions') with serious work to do. To be an 'I' is to be responsible for a past and and future, smeared out over the present between memory and fear, sins and promises. 'I am the first mammal to make plans.'

I was on a Joyce kick recently, and Ulysses is great. The stuff that goes through our minds, flowing flowing flowing.

Anyhow, my attitude still remains: philosophy is rather frustrating and its sub specie aeternitatis hubris breathtaking. Maybe it's worthwhile to try the impossible, but literature and history are to me more profound and much more interesting, and more comprehensive fields. — hwyl

Maybe just imagine philosophers as protagonists in Greek tragedies, desperate to fend off the gods with the final hieroglyphic.

Maybe just imagine philosophers as protagonists in Greek tragedies, desperate to fend off the gods with the final hieroglyphic. — igjugarjuk

Well, I'm just glad that literature and poetry are my obsessions and not philosophy :)

Perhaps we never just 'are,' because 'we' are ethical entities ('fictions') with serious work to do. To be an 'I' is to be responsible for a past and and future, smeared out over the present between memory and fear, sins and promises. 'I am the first mammal to make plans.'

I was on a Joyce kick recently, and Ulysses is great. The stuff that goes through our minds, flowing flowing flowing. — igjugarjuk

That's a great way of putting it. I don't think we are very good at bearing the burden of "I-hood", "I-ness", but there still might at times be something there.

Joyce, yes. He was a phenomenon, easily the size of the poor, mad Friedrich, probably almost twice Nietzche and three times Heidegger. I have lately been thinking of the wonderful description of Bloom defecating in the morning - that so scandalized Virginia Woolf, of all people - one of those moments when Western intellectual history shifted, moved :smile:. It's still not very life like, is it? It's high art, utterly artificial.

Well, I'm just glad that literature and poetry are my obsessions and not philosophy :) — hwyl

I'm obsessed with all of them, veering especially between philosophy and prose. Not long ago I read Joyce's bio, studied Ulysses, and continued plugging away at FW, largely reading books about it, which means enjoying fragments in the context of interpretation. I've composed various fragments in that style myself. As I see it, some of the more exciting philosophers just brought in a killer new metaphor. So it's nonfictional in its seriousness but literary in its method.

probably almost twice Nietzche and three times Heidegger. — hwyl

Joyce was huge, so I mostly agree. But Nietzsche has golden moments that make him as big as anybody.

Joyce was huge, so I mostly agree. But Nietzsche has golden moments that make him as big as anybody. — igjugarjuk

Yeah, he is very sizeable - I don't think I could be a liberal without having considered him seriously. He is a deadly earnest challenge. Impractical, largely insane, unfortunate for a large part, but essential. I could easily let the rest of the unalterable army go, Heidegger (mr Blut und Boden as a solution for Western liberalism being boring and facile), Derrida, Foucault et al. But not mad Friedrich, never.

In terms of content (as opposed to tone), I'd lump Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault together as the same kind of thinker. Lee Braver does this in A Thing of This World. And then I'd lump them in with Hume and Hobbes. Basically I don't see the break in continuity, though philosophers often pose as being more revolutionary than they manage to be. Of course tone matters and is part of the message. If one reads Nietzsche as an American pragmatist misdelivered by the stork to Germany, and ignoring his own the ethical stuff, he fits in pretty well. And mostly no one would care. And it matters what Foucault and Sartre did politically, though personally I feel able and willing to pluck their insights out of context, just as I pluck myself out of topical issues, refusing to lose my cool. And I happily pluck deconstruction out of whatever US literary departments were doing with it. As discussed in a recent OP, Derrida can be read as adjacent to Wittgenstein, making similar points. Curious that Wittgenstein was never much politicized. I think he'd be hated more as a fraud if he was, given his indulgent aprofessional style in both major works.

Another little point. While it's useful to give an overall rating to thinkers, I think it's even better to think in terms of anthologizing passages. If you had 1000 pages of fill, how much space would this or that thinker get? I think Sartre is less interesting overall than Nietzsche or Derrida, but I love some of the stuff and Being and Nothingness and Nausea. I'd leave out some of the lesser passages of others to get some of these favorites in The Book.

And Heidegger's politics are boring and facile. Like Sartre though I'd give his better moments some space.

I'm obsessed with all of them, veering especially between philosophy and prose. Not long ago I read Joyce's bio, studied Ulysses, and continued plugging away at FW, largely reading books about it, which means enjoying fragments in the context of interpretation. I've composed various fragments in that style myself. As I see it, some of the more exciting philosophers just brought in a killer new metaphor. So it's nonfictional in its seriousness but literary in its method. — igjugarjuk

Finnegans Wake, now that is a text... I guess it is the kind of the place where you would go after the utter miracle of Ulysses - and I would still say a cul-de-sac, but obviously bloody impressive for it.

What I like about art is that it is consciously, almost self-evidently local and personal and reaches from that towards the universal with usually never believing actually of achieving it. The great Western tradition of thought - which the modern academic philosophy is timidly commenting about and tinkering with - aims for the unreal, sub specie aeternitatis, influenced by the Christ and the savage brilliance of the Greeks. But we are actually fresh ex-apes, randomly born on a speck of dust, we can never approach any actual universality: we, as we now are, will never be and think for all eternity, for all places, all situations, timelessly. That is not us.

Of course, once out of nature is a different question...