It is for some the former [world, existence, etc.] via the latter [study of philosophical texts]. — Fooloso4

For a student of philosophy, sure.

Why is much philosophical focus devoted to the study of philosophers and their texts? Perhaps in order to use the work of others to articulate fresh concepts of world, existence, reality and truth. — Joshs

Except that for many, studying philosophers and their texts is not a stepping stone towards future practice, but the practice itself. Not that there is anything wrong with that - I didn't mean what I wrote as criticism of academic philosophy. It is what it is, but I suspect that many people don't realize that. They may think, when choosing their major at a university, that they would graduate to write about world, existence, etc. But chances are that if they pursue philosophy as a career, they will be doing something else.

Other academic disciplines are different in that regard. For example, philosophy, history and sociology of science are not considered to be part of science itself and wouldn't be studied in the same departments with scientific disciplines. On the other hand, your typical scientist probably never read any science text published earlier than 70 years ago.

For a student of philosophy, sure. — SophistiCat

Aristotle, for example? This is not the whole of his work but still an important part.

Commentary has always been used as a rhetorical strategy. A way of minimizing resistance to something new and different or controversial. It is not uncommon for philosophers to misrepresent those who came before them.

Philosophy is self-reflexive and dialogic. What others have said is not separate from what one says about world, existence, reality and truth.

Original ideas and concepts have always been the exception.

Have you ever happened across Wigner's essay — Wayfarer

Yes, some time ago, but nothing stuck, so I guess I wasn't moved by it.

↪jgill
Coming to think of it, here's a legitimate question within your area of expertise: there is a 'domain of natural numbers', is there not? And there are numbers outside that domain, like the imaginary number −−−√1 which is used in renormalisation procedures in physics. — Wayfarer

You must be referring to integral domains, commutative rings, generalized from the properties of natural numbers. From natural numbers one enlarges to rational numbers, then real numbers. And then extending this to complex numbers. Complex numbers are used as a powerful tool in QM.

Is there a question here?

Yes - is 'the domain of natural numbers' a meaningful term?

The word domain has several meanings in math. In number theory you have integral domains and when speaking of functions of one sort of another it refers to a set, let's say, of x's for which f(x) is defined.

Basically, it's just a set of objects defined in some sort of space. Not meaningful by itself.

Philosophy is self-reflexive and dialogic. What others have said is not separate from what one says about world, existence, reality and truth.

Original ideas and concepts have always been the exception. — Fooloso4

Thank you for this moment of clarity. In math what has come before is a stepping stone to advancements. The actual words of the pioneers are immaterial.

I never understood why we need more academic philosophers on an Internet forum. Don’t they have their colleagues to spar with? Us amateur philosophers often aren’t surrounded by that many other philosophically minded people, so sites like this give us an outlet for our thoughts.

Philosophy is self-reflexive and dialogic. What others have said is not separate from what one says about world, existence, reality and truth.

Original ideas and concepts have always been the exception. — Fooloso4

Yep. What is variously said about world, existence, reality and truth manifests the limited number of ways in which humans can model those ideas, which in turn is mediated by language and its limitations. As I recall having read Hegel somewhere say: "it is the same old stew, reheated".

So it is not surprising that there is very little conceptually new under the sun.

It seems the answer to the OP's query is No!

:up:

Don’t they have their colleagues to spar with? — Noble Dust

More often than not that sparing only occurs in a formal setting - via books, papers, and conferences. The free flow of ideas is stymied by the desire to establish and maintain one's territory and reputation. Professional jealousy is common. The number of contingent faculty is increasing. Adjuncts often feel isolated and are regarded as second class citizens.

Not to mention the creation of small circle of cliques of similar minded people who go around saying the same thing to each other in different settings...

It becomes narrow and repetitive quite soon. One finds interesting views in many places.

I did a Ph.D. in philosophy, taught philosophy at degree level for a long time, ended up in edmin (education administration), and finally jumped into retirement before I was pushed. I don't know whether I count as a professional philosopher or an academic philosopher or both.

I'm a bit hesitant about "coming out" because I found academic philosophy tends to reduce itself to a dance around a small number of doctrines with very little illumination at the end of it. Not knowing the background of members encourages an open mind. So I value the anonymity that this environment provides. Though I suppose I had better update my profile now.

The relationship between philosophy and other disciplines has been fraught for as long as I've been involved. People in other disciplines are seldom comfortable with interventions from philosophy; I think they think that they are best qualified to pronounce on anything to do with "their subject" and it seems reasonable to expect that a philosopher knows something about it before pronouncing on it. Some philosophers seem to manage it. Moreover "I don't know anything about *** but ..." is not a good starting-point for a discussion with a specialist. On the other hand, it seems reasonable (and even inescapable) that people outside the specialist walls, including philosophers, will have opinions about *** and should not be prevented from discussing it and making sense of it in their own way.

Philosophy struggles to define its own field and methodology. This presupposes that the model of other disciplines, like mathematics and science. But that model doesn't necessarily apply There is a version of the history of philosophy that identifies it as the chaotic starting-point of all other disciplines, which have spun off from it as they have developed through the chaotic discussions of philosophers.

Philosophy is not unlike mathematics or science in some ways. But it is also like disciplines such as Literature or History, and like them, a small number of texts function as canonical. These texts open the field of philosophical discussion and show what it is like; they also provide common reference points for discussion as well as a mine of philosophical mistakes - and since there are so few philosophical successes, the mistakes are all the help we are going to get. I have even heard it said that in philosophy, getting it right is less important than being wrong in interesting ways.

Philosophy struggles to define its own field and methodology [...] There is a version of the history of philosophy that identifies it as the chaotic starting-point of all other disciplines, which have spun off from it as they have developed through the chaotic discussions of philosophers. — Ludwig V

Perhaps, philosophy struggles to defines its own methodology because one of the main causes of this discipline is to be critical against methods used in previous academias or groups. Despite the fact that there were been many philosophers among all Western world, I think most of the doctrines and theories root from the same starting point: Ancient Greece.

If we look at Asian philosophy or culture, the scheme switches. It is different the disciplines of Confucianism and Daoism because these have as a cause the aim of pursuing wisdom and connection with nature. We will not see discussions on the verses of Tao Te Ching but just interpretations to get the meaning of our lives.

I don't want to diminish the great value of Western philosophy but I always wished I had more clear concepts and information about buddishm or the Analects of Confucius.

I have even heard it said that in philosophy, getting it right is less important than being wrong in interesting ways. — Ludwig V

Delightful! Thanks for a glimpse into the profession. :cool:

One of the most interesting features of the modern world, to my mind, is the interpenetration of the great traditions of the world. Western science seems to travel better than Western philosophy. Buddhism has, and still is, very attractive to many people in the West, but also great interest in Confucius and Daoism. Islam, of course, is also very present. Hinduism less so. I don't anticipate some great confluence where all are absorbed into one, but there are certainly influences at work.

Beyond that, it's very difficult to say anything coherent about what's going on. It would be wonderful to be able to see what has happened in, say, 50 years time.

:up:

Philosophy struggles to define its own field and methodology. This presupposes that the model of other disciplines, like mathematics and science. But that model doesn't necessarily apply There is a version of the history of philosophy that identifies it as the chaotic starting-point of all other disciplines, which have spun off from it as they have developed through the chaotic discussions of philosophers.

Philosophy is not unlike mathematics or science in some ways. But it is also like disciplines such as Literature or History, and like them, a small number of texts function as canonical. These texts open the field of philosophical discussion and show what it is like; they also provide common reference points for discussion as well as a mine of philosophical mistakes - and since there are so few philosophical successes, the mistakes are all the help we are going to get. I have even heard it said that in philosophy, getting it right is less important than being wrong in interesting ways. — Ludwig V

Can we not approach the subject of the value of philosophy in a different way than done usually in the forum? Usually the question asked is what philosophy is. Then discussions degenerate into some defense of philosophy's claims against some objecting that philosophy has made so little progress in comparison to science. The question then turns to whether philosophy should adopt some sort of scientific method or abandoned altogether. What if we just accept that philosophy is as philosophy does, that its method is what defines it? Just entertain the thought and accept for a moment that philosophy is actually its method. That browsing the ancient texts up to the new ones and that picking apart the arguments made and retracing the lines of thought is philosophy and that it is immutable.

What then can we expect from philosophy? If approached in this way we can see affinities with law, with history and theology. Its method is scholastic. It takes concepts to their extremes, using conventional points of view in various hypothetical situations and tests their limits. it uncovers assumptions we have to make when settling disputes about truth, beauty, justice and what not. When we consider its method immutable we see that it is not an empirical science and will never be. It therefore cannot yield any observable empirical truths about the world. What it can do is examine the concepts we use to think about the world. It can show us their relations, their mutual support or their antinomies. Philosophy then, is thinking about thinking, because the concepts we use to examine the concepts are the very same concepts themselves. It is a circular activity of reflection.

What is the worth of such an activity? The answer to that question depends on whether one holds on to the identity of thinking and being. i.e. the proposition that all that is, must be able to be thought and that being thought entails in any case the potential to be. If one holds on to that notion, the conceptual world is the same as the material one and by conceptual analysis philosophy explores the world as it is. The empirical sciences are simply the other eye which we use to look at the world. I would call this the idealistic position.

If one does not accept the assumption the role of philosophy is much more limited. Philosophy simply cures us for our bewitchment by language and works tirelessly to clear the debris of our thinking. The material world though is broader and always escapes our thinking about it. The more we discover the material world, the richer our concepts become. I would refer to that as the materialistic position.

I think both approaches may well be viable. I think it is illusory though to want something from philosophy that it cannot provide, empirical knowledge of the world. That claim is significant. For instance. Philosophy may teach us how we use the concept of justice, but cannot provide us with empirical knowledge of whether an act is just or not, not in the idealistic conception of in the materialist one. The idealist would maybe hold that justice exists and that some acts indeed are just and unjust. A materialist would have to either fold on the question or translate justice to some sort of material term like benefit. Such an excercise, here undertaken in a very ramshackle and shorthand way about justice, does reveal something though. It reveals the origins of our commitments and ay explain different usages of the term and therefore also the miscommunications surrounding it.

That is what scholastic science may do, retrace the history of our thoughts and our arguments. The exact value you attach to such an activity rests on your commitments, but it can only clarify itself and noting else. If that is enough for you, by all means do philosophy. If not, go ahead and do research in the laboratory or society at large and become a scientist.

Do you see any particular nuances necessary for post-modern philosophy or versions of phenomenology?

I'm not a philosopher, but I tend to think that there is 1) reflecting on one's beliefs and values and the limits of knowledge and 2) philosophy which does this and much more. I tend to privilege the first and have never privileged philosophy as such (not because I disregard the enterprise, just that I don't think the average human brain can do much with it - time limits, capacity, access to mentors, etc.).

The idealist would maybe hold that justice exists and that some acts indeed are just and unjust. A materialist would have to either fold on the question or translate justice to some sort of material term like benefit. Such an exercise, here undertaken in a very ramshackle and shorthand way about justice, does reveal something though. It reveals the origins of our commitments and may explain different usages of the term and therefore also the miscommunications surrounding it. — Tobias

Totally agree. And this kind of reflective practice, if you like, is invaluable in understand the various frames or world views people hold and how much these shape awareness and the meanings of ideas.

When we consider its method immutable we see that it is not an empirical science and will never be. It therefore cannot yield any observable empirical truths about the world. What it can do is examine the concepts we use to think about the world. It can show us their relations, their mutual support or their antinomies. Philosophy then, is thinking about thinking, because the concepts we use to examine the concepts are the very same concepts themselves. It is a circular activity of reflection. — Tobias

if philosophy is circular then so is science , since the empirical world it strives to represent is already prefigured in its theories. But for both science and philosophy, this circle may be seen as a spiral. We construct hypotheses which determine what and how we see, and the world talks back to us in the language we invent for it, triggering transformations in our conceptions. Through this reciprocal movement thought develops. As far as yielding an immutable method, this is neither true of philosophy nor science. In both cases , the methods change as ideas develop in their spiral fashion. In fact, the methods of science and philosophy evolve in parallel, since the difference between what science and philosophy supposedly do is somewhat arbitrarily defined in the first place. They are more of an inseparable mesh than discrete categories and evolve together over the course of history.

I’m trying to think of an example of something that exists only within philosophy’s practice (or doesn’t exist only within its practice). Put differently, isnt the aim of philosophy to address within its practice such inclusive concepts as world, existence , reality and truth?
— Joshs

Entities in thought experiments? Swamp man, twin earth, brains in vats, grue and bleen, the utility monster, Gigantor... — fdrake

What about human soul/spirit/self/identity BEFORE the person gets born and/or acquires it?

------------

EDIT: Sorry, that was actually stupid of me to ask that. And I can't delete the post.

There’s a book or two to be found in these contributions. Forgive me if I don’t reply in detail.

For what it’s worth, I’m very taken with Wittgenstein’s remark that “a philosophical problem has the form ‘I don’t know my way about’”. That fits with his idea that what he is looking for is an “oversight” (Übersicht) which I take to mean something like a map. Perhaps when one has a starting-point and a map, one moves into another mode of thinking which is more like other disciplines. Unfortunately, the world we live in changes, confusion returns and so philosophy continues. It may not look like progress, but that doesn’t mean there is no point.

Some further observations:-

The priority given to “science” (which is usually taken to mean the ‘hard’ sciences) and mathematics is not universal in philosophy but is local to ‘analytic’ philosophy. There are plenty of other kinds of philosophy.

It seems to me that the most helpful characterization of philosophy is ‘reflection’; this doesn’t mean just anything that might be called reflection but means a disciplined reflection – disciplined by the examples of other philosophers. Too narrow a conception of philosophical method risks (and usually falls into) a narrow focus, which, I think, is almost always fatal, except, perhaps, as a temporary tactic.

The institutional environment for philosophy and other disciplines has been revolutionized in the last hundred years of so by the its institutional context. Unfortunately, the search for a definition of philosophy has too often been weaponized in pursuit of the inevitable struggles within academia, in which it is necessary for each discipline to stake out its own territory and claim on resources. Philosophy suffers if it is too closely confined in that way.

That fits with his idea that what he is looking for is an “oversight” (Übersicht) which I take to mean something like a map. — Ludwig V

At PI 122 Wittgenstein talks about an übersichtliche Darstellung, a surveyable representation, (alternatively translated as perspicuous representation):

A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. - Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely that kind of understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate links.

The concept of a surveyable representation is of fundamental significance for us. It characterizes the way we represent things, how we look at matters. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)

It is surprising how little he says about it, given that he says that a representative overview is of fundamental significance.

A few key ideas touched on at PI 122:

‘seeing connections’
the way we represent things
how we look at matters

At PI 126 he says:

The name “philosophy” might also be given to what is possible before all new discoveries and inventions.

and at 90:

… our investigation is directed not towards phenomena, but rather, as one might say, towards the ‘possibilities’ of phenomena.

Elsewhere he says:

I am not interested in constructing a building, so much as in having a perspicuous view of the foundations of possible buildings. (CV 7)

An additional key idea:

possibilities

A representative overview helps make it possible to see connections, to look at things in a new way:

What a Copernicus or a Darwin really achieved was not the discovery of a true theory, but of a fertile new point of view. (CV 18)

Thank you for that collection.

Typical, isn't it? He mentions a metaphor and passes on, as if it was transparent. Then elsewhere, you find another metaphor from which he passes on. And another and another...

Yet they all seem to work together somehow.

I may have missed something - "surveyable representation" does not sound familiar - that's not a criticism - but "perspicuous representation" does. Is there a translation other than Anscombe's around?

@Wayfarer

Integers are outside the naturals.
Rationals are outside the integers.
Reals are outside the rationals.
Complex numbers are outside the reals.
Quaternions are outside the complex numbers.

The table of number systems at the bottom of the quaternion hyperlink might help you! There's lots of sets that have the integers inside of them.

He mentions a metaphor and passes on, as if it was transparent. Then elsewhere, you find another metaphor from which he passes on. And another and another... — Ludwig V

I think he wants us to see and draw the connections, or not. In an early draft of a forward for Philosophical Remarks he wrote:

For if a book has been written for just a few readers that will be clear just from the fact that only a few people understand it. The book must automatically separate those who understand it from those who do not. Even the foreword is written just for those who understand the book.

Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not be able to understand it. (That so often happens with someone you love.)

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside!

The honorable thing to do is to put a lock on the door which will be noticed only by those who can open it, not by the rest. (Culture and Value, 7-8)

The fact that there are things he deliberately hides is deserving of our attention. That there are locked rooms hidden in the pages of his work is an intriguing confession and interpretive challenge. The question of where these rooms are and what is hidden in them, is not something that is even asked in the secondary literature that I am aware of.

Is there a translation other than Anscombe's around? — Ludwig V

The 4th Edition translates it this way.

The fact that there are things he deliberately hides is deserving of our attention. That there are locked rooms hidden in the pages of his work is an intriguing confession and interpretive challenge. The question of where these rooms are and what is hidden in them, is not something that is even asked in the secondary literature that I am aware of — Fooloso4

I don’t interpret him as meaning that he deliberately hides things from readers, but rather that if one isn’t ready to recognize what he is saying, no amount of explication will help. It is not a matter of choosing the right words and phrases, for these will be misunderstood. The last thing he wants is to limit beforehand who has access to his thinking. On the contrary, he was desperate to share his ideas with as many as possible, and to write in such as way as to achieve this goal . The key to understanding Wittgenstein ( or any philosopher) is provided by the reader as much as the writer.

I don’t interpret him as meaning that he deliberately hides things from readers ... — Joshs

While there is always interpretative indeterminacy, when he says:

If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key.

I take putting a lock on the room that they do not have the key to to be a deliberate act.

if one isn’t ready to recognize what he is saying, no amount of explication will help. — Joshs

I agree.

The last thing he wants is to limit beforehand who has access to his thinking. — Joshs

It is not that he selects the reader but that the readers are self-selective, they are able to understand it or not. It is for the benefit of these readers who cannot that certain things are kept from them.

On the contrary, he was desperate to share his ideas with as many as possible, and to write in such as way as to achieve this goal . — Joshs

In the preface to the Tractatus he says:

—Its purpose would be achieved if it gave pleasure to one person who read and understood it.

In the draft for Philosophical Remarks he says:

For if a book has been written for just a few readers that will be clear just from the fact that only a few people understand it. The book must automatically separate those who understand it from those who do not. Even the foreword is written just for those who understand the book./quote]

What is written for just a few readers is not something written to desperately share with as many as possible.

In the preface to the PI he says:

Until recently I had really given up the idea of publishing my work in my lifetime. All the same, it was revived from time to time, mainly because I could not help noticing that the results of my work (which I had conveyed in lectures, typescripts and discussions), were in |x| circulation, frequently misunderstood and more or less watered down or mangled. This stung my vanity, and I had difficulty in quieting it.

...

I make them public with misgivings. It is not impossible that it should fall to the lot of this work, in its poverty and in the darkness of this time, to bring light into one brain or another a but, of course, it is not likely.

He doubts he will be understood by most. But his concern is not simply that he will not be understood, but that he will be misunderstood, his thoughts will be watered down or mangled. I don't think he writes despite the fact that he will be misunderstood but strategically so that what is most important will not even be noticed.

Integers are outside the naturals... — fdrake

Thanks. My question was about the sense in which a domain, such as the domain of natural numbers, is real, but not phenomenally existent. I notice that nowadays it is commonplace to say of anything considered real that it must be 'out there somewhere' - but even though such a domain is not anywhere, it is nevertheless real. See this passage.

He doubts he will be understood by most. But his concern is not simply that he will not be understood, but that he will be misunderstood, his thoughts will be watered down or mangled. I don't think he writes despite the fact that he will be misunderstood but strategically so that what is most important will not even be noticed — Fooloso4

Maybe I can put this another way. If one tries to dilute or dumb down their ideas in order to reach a wider public, one may end up not only failing to achieve the hoped-for understanding among the masses, but making the work incoherent for those most inclined to comprehend it. The only way forward is to write for an imagined kindred spirit, which will have the secondary effect of alienating a wider audience. We see the symptoms of such a choice all
the time on this site, as participants here complain about the ‘deliberately obscure’ writing style of various philosophers.