Time again to let thought speak for itself. — Pantagruel
......we have elevated it too far; that in so doing, something has been lost. — Pantagruel
science cannot tell us what we want to know regarding the absolute primacy of human thought. — Mww
So Hume, Kant, Peirce, Russell and others all have plenty of stuff that needs correction and amplification, in my view. To start from zero is possible, but it ignores a large part of what's important in this Western tradition, which is a continued dialogue with its figures, even if it's only one of them. — Manuel
What is the philosophical project? — Pantagruel
It struck me recently that the philosophical project, at least my philosophical project, is about awareness. Western philosophy focuses more on awareness of intellectual process and reason while eastern philosophies take on a broader range. As Socrates is supposed to have said, it's all about examining our lives.
I think that's an idiosyncratic view, but I don't really see it being in conflict with the one you've described. — T Clark
And there are other paths to awareness than the philosophical project — Pantagruel
I think has the feature or benefit that it strives for clarity and communicability. Perhaps the significance is that it is a kind of "objectification. — Pantagruel
I agree. Aristotle referred to what we now call "Metaphysics", as "First Philosophy". But, for some on this forum Metaphysics is a four-letter word. And it may be true that some people will justify their out-of-bounds speculations under the pretense of merely doing metaphysics. But that's the risk we take for allowing freedom of thought. In a free society, we have to tolerate Neo-Nazis, even if we don't like what they say. Without freedom of thought, there would be no creativity, no progress. However, the free exchange of ideas must be funneled through a skeptical filter to remove the BS & cons. Yes, that's censorship, so even the skeptics must be subject to skeptical filtering.My hypothesis is that the philosophical project as such is, at its heart, metaphysical. Fichte says that. "To proceed beyond the facts...to go beyond experience as a whole...this is philosophy, and nothing else." — Pantagruel
This approach is not necessarily super-natural, but it is Holistic (another four letter word for those who fear thinking outside Pandora's box). — Gnomon
read a lot of non-contemporary philosophy, and a lot of out outlier material, Mannheim, Scheler, Laszlo. I also frequently revisit seminal and great works, Whitehead, Bergson, Fichte, Aristotle, Marx. I try to cover as much ground as humanly possible, philosophy, science, anthropology, sociology, political theory. To what end? — Pantagruel
I feel like by building up more and more contexts of understanding, new types of possibilities will open up. — Pantagruel
As someone who is here mainly to see what he may have missed in not reading philosophy what do you think you have gained from all this reading? What were or are you looking for? If it's awareness... what does that mean in practice? — Tom Storm
And have they opened up? Can you share an example? — Tom Storm
As someone who is here mainly to see what he may have missed in not reading philosophy what do you think you have gained from all this reading? What were or are you looking for? If it's awareness... what does that mean in practice? — Tom Storm
I started to be interested in eastern philosophies about 30 years ago. I started out with Alan Watts and finally came to the Tao Te Ching, where I immediately came to feel at home. For me, the wisdom in the Tao Te Ching is the most pragmatic, clear-eyed philosophy there is. It's philosophical engineering. — T Clark
about conceptualizing a goal-state — Pantagruel
What distinguishes a trivial unknown from a magnificent unknown? — Pantagruel
I am curious how that actually looks outside of abstractions. — Tom Storm
It isn't an abstraction at all, is it? — Pantagruel
It's easy enough to talk about concrete goals, but the whole issue is to what extent are idealizations susceptible of concrete realization? — Pantagruel
A very helpful idea I encountered around 30 years ago was from Albert Ellis, a psychologist, influenced by the Stoics. He said - "You have considerable power to construct self-helping thoughts, feelings and actions as well as to construct self-defeating behaviors. You have the ability, if you use it, to choose healthy instead of unhealthy thinking, feeling and acting.” That idea changed how I deal with others and how I deal with any information I come upon. — Tom Storm
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