Sure.

But who is saying that a person just need to be alone in a room with zero stimulus or just go to the mountain hiking with no thoughts in mind?

One thing is to say, you don't need to read the classical Western philosophers. Another thing is to say you'll be brilliant if you stare at paint drying.

But who is saying that a person just need to be alone in a room with zero stimulus or just go to the mountain hiking with no thoughts in mind? — Manuel

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet. — T Clark

That's within a context of a certain experience and understanding. Everybody has these, it's kind of impossible no to, as long as you are alive.

Just a little further below, he said.

Stop reading, arguing, writing, building little intellectual kingdoms out of the sand of your benighted psyches. Just pay attention. To the world and to yourself.

I add to this another of my favored positions - Most of the controversy in philosophy is related to differences in metaphysics and the fact that most philosophers don’t recognize that ways of seeing reality are not right or wrong, they are just more or less useful ways of seeing things in a particular situation. — T Clark

That seems to me to be a considered position based on personal experience.

Not a tradition I share, but legitimate nonetheless.

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet. — T Clark

Of course this is Kafka's original thought not T Clark's. I wonder why Kafka thought that. Was he recommending avoidance of literature? Seeing is one thing; if you want to be good at communicating what you see, then obviously some familiarity with the ways other's have expressed their seeing will no doubt be helpful

.

I wonder why Kafka thought that. — Janus

He might have been tuned so that being alone was intense enough. Should be noted that he worked an office job and made the equivalent of something like 100K. So he was in the world.
Anyway, I understand that artists cherish time alone, which they might use to simply daydream.

Imagination is spurred and provoked.

This idea of cloistered genius demiurging their way to brilliance is just neoliberal entrepreneurial values transposed into philosophy like a virus. Self-aggrandizing laziness arrogated to the status of virtue. — StreetlightX

That's one side of the polemic. As usual both sides have their truths.

So he was in the world. — hanaH

True, and being in the world intelligently would certainly seem to be a prerequisite for genius. But no doubt there are many different ways.

That seems to me to be a considered position based on personal experience. — Manuel

Is it?

The first line you quoted makes the incoherent claim that ignorance ("benighted psyches") follows from "reading, arguing, writing" (!).

The second line is nothing but cliche which every 13 year old boy who has read Nietzsche once likes to claim at some point: 'we don't need all these systems and distinctions! Why can't people see see how things are?" Please.

Sure.

I guess I'm tying myself into knots thinking how can someone have an original uncontaminated idea? These days it's very hard.



I suppose I may be interpreting him too charitably. I've had the experience of having read so much in short periods of time that I do feel pretty stupid.

As for your last point, yeah, that's a reactionary attitude.

"Metaphysics", whatever it is, is quite hard.

Sure.

I guess I'm tying myself into knots thinking how can someone have an original uncontaminated idea? These days it's very hard. — Manuel

I think you could have the idea without ever having encountered it elsewhere; but chances are that someone else already had it, and perhaps even 2000 or more years ago. One of the arguments I've heard for familiarizing yourself with the tradition is that you don't want to waste years coming up with ideas that you could have encountered in hours of reading. But it also depends, as you've already noted, what your aim is.

It would be strange to say that a pragmatist would argue against inquiry or thinking when only presented with problems.

It would be strange to say that a pragmatist would argue against inquiry or thinking when only presented with problems. — Shawn

True, and pragmatists (or at least pragmatacists) certainly valorize the community of inquirers.

One of the arguments I've heard for familiarizing yourself with the tradition is that you don't want to waste years coming up with ideas that you could have encountered in hours of reading. — Janus

That's very likely true.

On the other hand, when you've come to an idea you think is original and then discover someone had said very much the same thing hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, then I suppose that is a sign you may be headed in a good direction.

On the other hand, when you've come to an idea you think is original and then discover someone had said very much the same thing hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, then I suppose that is a sign you may be headed in a good direction. — Manuel

:up: There's also something to be said for the process of arriving at such realizations yourself; regardless of whether others already have. It's not a matter of competition, but of grappling with the human condition. No hard and fast rules.

Sending in a proxy to do some work that you did not want done. CIA. — James Riley

:party:

Or financing a stooge for Congress. :grin:

:lol: No mas, no mas!

It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.
— T Clark

Of course this is Kafka's original thought not T Clark's. I wonder why Kafka thought that. Was he recommending avoidance of literature? Seeing is one thing; if you want to be good at communicating what you see, then obviously some familiarity with the ways other's have expressed their seeing will no doubt be helpful — Janus

I think you're overthinking the Kafka quote. I read it as a description of a sort of meditation. I've certainly had moments in life where the world was writhing in ecstasy at my feet. Today, in fact. I went to Chinatown in Manhattan and ate a pork chop over rice and some wontons doused in hot chili oil. It was almost dusk, and I was sitting outside on a closed off street, watching the sun slowly set over the tenement buildings. I call that philosophy.

So, I’d like to put forth the hypothesis that I don’t need no stinking Kant, or Hegel, or Schopenhauer, or Kneechee, or any of those guys. I have expressed my skepticism about western philosophy many times before on the forum. Rather than being defensive about it, I have decided to raise laziness to the level of sanctified philosophical principle. Stop reading, arguing, writing, building little intellectual kingdoms out of the sand of your benighted psyches. Just pay attention. To the world and to yourself. — T Clark

I see two distinctions. The Scholar (those who study philosophers/philosophies with little to no bias in a dry and methodical manner) and the Thinker (those who just observe and play with their thoughts in regards to what is observed).

In regards to philosophy in general I genuinely think this is one area of human knowledge where we’d benefit if the field was more polarised between the two with fewer vying to claim hold of both ends.

Not directed at you, just using your words as the firing line.

Just pay attention. To the world and to yourself. — T Clark

The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other — T Clark

All empirical philosophy in general and cognitive metaphysics in particular, is contained right there. If the world can do no other than present itself, the fundamental paid attention needs be only to oneself, by oneself, in the receipt of such presentation. The benighted psyches diminish, making intellectual sand kingdoms predicated on them less likely, by the quality of attention paid, and the world necessarily becomes unmasked in direct correspondence to it.

Still, attention paid is the ends, which says nothing of the means. That attention is paid as ends is given, insofar as ignorance of the world’s presentation of itself is impossible, but the form attention takes and the method for its being paid, as means, are not. If the ends are deemed sufficient in themselves, insofar as we are taught about the world, the means under which the possibility of being taught, reduce to merely an interest, and, of course, interest doesn’t teach. The story could end there, under certain restrictive conditions, but in general, it doesn’t.

Interest in the means, can be called speculative metaphysics. Satisfaction in speculative metaphysics, theoretical philosophy. Satisfaction presupposes investigation relative to it, as is always the case, which reduces philosophy to investigation. At the very least, even if only in humans, the agency that pays attention to itself can be supposed to contain the capacity to investigate itself, though not necessarily, and at the very most it can be supposed that such agency actually exhibits that capacity. It follows as a matter of course, that the human agency can at least call himself a metaphysician, because he has an interest, and upon satisfaction with his investigations of that interest, entitles himself as a philosopher.

So here is exactly half the story, which supports the thread title. The other half, assuming the investigative pursuit of it, serves to support its negation. Are not other philosophers themselves presentations of the world, to be unmasked? Fundamentalist extremism aside, does the fact that getting run over by a philosopher carries different implications than a bus, make him any less something to investigate? Could be he’s just running over in a different way. And it could be that knowing something about buses and knowing something about philosophers, occurs by exactly the same method.

Cease fire!!!!

That might seem strange because, going by this forum, people seem to think philosophy is almost entirely a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with someone else, or with some statement, or with some argument. — Srap Tasmaner

It does seem that way. Philosophy to some just means debate.

shut up, sit still, think. — Bitter Crank

This didn't work 65 years ago when my mother told me in church and it won't work now.

I find most philosophical writing to be pretty tedious, both in its content and its style. Most of it doesn't make any difference! — Bitter Crank

Sure, but there's more to it than that. I don't get much of the philosophy that's out there, but I know there is something to be gotten. I've been listening to interviews with philosophers. Many times the guys are really interesting. They have a good understanding of the history of philosophy and the contributions of different philosophers. They usually show respect for the contributions even of philosophers whose ideas they don't agree with. The way they can pull ideas from other philosophers into discussions would be a really neat thing to be able to do. That's what makes me think I may be missing something.

I can only recommend someone depending on what topic you're interested in. If most figures aren't connecting with you, I don't see the problem. — Manuel

Yes, but listening to others discuss ideas, especially professional philosophers, I feel like I'm missing something. I'm trying to get a handle on that.

we are never absolved from doing our own thinking if we don't wish to remain igorant. Nobody loves a regurgitator or an insistent mediocrity. — Janus

I think my "body of work," if I may laughingly call it that, shows I am not afraid to do my own thinking, for better or worse.

So the great philosophers are like insistent poets, quite often fucking annoying; but if you are in the right mood to brook the insistence, and flow with them where they want you to flow; something may come of it. — Janus

Yes, and that's what I'm trying to get a handle on. Take Kant for instance. I think he is one of your insistent poets. I've tried reading him and haven't gotten very far. But people I respect keep saying his work is central to intellectual history and the scientific revolution. Again, I worry I am missing something.

Tell us, though, when ignorance was ever an indication that a job would be well done. — tim wood

Well, I'm not proud of my ignorance in this regard.... Ok, well, maybe I am. But I guess I envy people who have the ideas of others at their finger tips. I love to quote people who's ideas I respect. It would be nice to be able to do that with more than just my usual suspects.

What do you think the philosophers that made contributions to science? Pierre-Simon Laplace, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Isaac Newton (just to name a few). Back then great thinkers that were empirical minded were called "natural philosophers". Currently (unfortunately?) "natural philosophy" has been largely replaced by "science". — Wheatley

I make a separation between the kind of philosophy I am talking about and science. I understand what you're saying, but the distinction makes sense to me. I do read quite a bit of science. I can see how it underpins, or at least should underpin, my ideas.

I suspect someone will come on here and blast away at the lack of discipline and seriousness this approach displays. And how important subjects require hard work to understand properly. But I sympathise and have not privileged academic philosophy in my life. Nevertheless, I have often been curious to get a better sense of what I may have missed. Why I'm here. — Tom Storm

Your thoughts are similar to mine, although I have been hoping someone will come and blast away. Those are the people I'm hoping to hear from. I guess I'd like to be challenged.

no one makes any serious decisions in their life - who to live with, what house to buy, where to work, where to shop, who to vote for, etc - based on the problem of induction, whether math is discovered or invented, or if physicalism is false, etc. — Tom Storm

As I noted in my OP, my philosophy, if I may call it that, is intimately connected with decisions I have made in my daily life. It's true that, for me, practice comes first and philosophy later, but writing it down makes it clearer to me and helps me pay attention when I need to use these ideas again.

This didn't work 65 years ago when my mother told me in church and it won't work now. — T Clark

:100: :lol:

Yes, but listening to others discuss ideas, especially professional philosophers, I feel like I'm missing something. I'm trying to get a handle on that. — T Clark

I've take the view that I take with so many other issues: I can't know it all, and while I will not surrender my right to critically and analytically consider something, I will often suspend it. As stated in another thread, doubt does not preclude action. I'll defer to those I deem experts, in my own arbitrary and subjective vetting process. I've no interest in knowing everything.

I think my "body of work," if I may laughingly call it that, shows I am not afraid to do my own thinking, for better or worse. — T Clark

:100:

The more interesting part is learning to think differently. Sometimes that's trying out different terms and categories, a specific change like that; sometimes it's seeing an entirely different sort of approach to an issue or a problem. — Srap Tasmaner

This is a really well thought through and helpful post. I agree that philosophy is a good way of tightening up my thinking and learning to express my ideas better. Not arguing to argue, but bouncing ideas off
other people's. Seeing how they see things. That's the thing I like best about the forum. And I have been lead by philosophers to see another way of seeing things - Lao Tzu in particular.

Again, thanks.

You're a pragmatist. We get that. Not everyone has to agree with your pragmatism. — Wheatley

Of course not, but that opens up an interesting question. Is my understanding that metaphysical questions are not matters of fact but of usefulness a metaphysical question? I guess it is....