When it's done for ideological purposes.When Does Philosophy Become Affectation?
The historical reception of Descartes would be comical, if it wouldn't be so sad and had such enormous consequences.Apart from your disagreement with Descartes, how pervasive a problem do you see this kind of thinking as being within the contemporary philosophical community as a whole , or the history of philosophy?
— Joshs
Descartes isn't called the "Father of Modern Philosophy" for nothing. — Ciceronianus
How do we find out that we are mislead? By other empirical observations. You have to trust some observations to conclude that you've been led astray in the first place.
↪Ciceronianus
Right, we could adopt the pragmatist view, which is that we can accept positions based on the benefit they grant to us. In this way, beliefs don't have to be justified by their truth status, but rather by the benefits that accrue from holding them. Hume didn't have access to this line of reasoning though. — Count Timothy von Icarus
How do we find out that we are mislead? By other empirical observations. — Count Timothy von Icarus
...we are continually having to pragmatically recalibrate our criteria of truth and falsity. — Joshs
If that's the case, though, why purport to think, or believe, otherwise, i.e. contrary to the way in which you actually live your life? Those who say we should act in one way, and then act in another way, are called hypocrites. I don't say certain philosophers are hypocrites, or even that they're disingenuous when they contend that what we see and interact with every day without question isn't real, or can't be known, but when what we do is so contrary to what we contend, or what we contend is so unrelated to what we do as to make no difference in our lives, I think we have reason to think that we're engaged in affectation. — Ciceronianus
Wouldn't it be due to the nature of our reason? When reason reflects on itself, it cannot fail to notice the problems in the existence and the knowledge of existence. — Corvus
I'm wondering whether there is any such philosophical discussion. Can you give an example of the topic of such a discussion? — Luke
I take it that "how we live" includes the differing values, worldviews and/or philosophical positions of each of us, rather than assuming some universal common sense view. Further, that we each have the opportunity to consider and reflect on positions that may differ from our own or that we had never previously considered, as well as to question the views we hold at any particular time. — Luke
Does the present discussion meet its own criteria? Is it only those philosophical discussions that are anti-philosophical which are relatively free of affectation? — Luke
he problem with the purely pragmatic view IMO, is that, while it certainly works for justifying the use of induction, it also seems like it could be used to justify sticking your head in the sand on all sorts of issues because "it feels better." But how can we know if sticking our head in the proverbial sand will actually maximize our benefit? For that we need to know the "truth of the matter," and so we come back to where we started. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Instead of writing him off as yet another religious preacher, he was embraced as some kind of beacon of wisdom even by atheists. Well, apparently he and the RCC succeeded in their intents ... — baker
One may notice problems, but why extrapolate from them the notion that such problems are ubiquitous, regardless of considerations of context? — Ciceronianus
Does the present discussion meet its own criteria? Is it only those philosophical discussions that are anti-philosophical which are relatively free of affectation?
— Luke
It would seem to me that proposing that certain views are affectations isn't itself an affectation, as it would be to validate what we do all the time. — Ciceronianus
I don't understand the part after the comma. Are you saying: Proposing that certain views are affectations...validates what we do all the time? — Luke
Specific examples from the last 200 years please. — Joshs
But isn't Philosophy about finding out the nature of the world, our knowledge of the world, and the limitation / boundary of our knowledge? What would your points of Philosophy be? — Corvus
One may notice problems, but why extrapolate from them the notion that such problems are ubiquitous, regardless of considerations of context? — Ciceronianus
Esp. older generations seem to have been taught that they are inherently deficient, by default. The belief that we are born bad and defective and yet need to be corrected.We find out about the nature of the rest of world and the extent of our knowledge by our interaction with it, rather than by maintaining, without adequate evidence, that our interaction with it is inherently deficient. — Ciceronianus
Esp. older generations seem to have been taught that they are inherently deficient, by default. The belief that we are born bad and defective and yet need to be corrected. — baker
Specific examples from the last 200 years please.
— Joshs
Do you really think Levinas actually approached other people in daily life as if he was "infinitely responsible" for them? That he actually felt indebted to just everyone he met simply because that other person was "an other"?
Nietzsche. Hardly an exemplar of the Übermensch himself.
Pretty much every religious philosopher. — baker
I was thinking of the rather primitive versions, Pascal's Wager in particular. — Count Timothy von Icarus
If "sticking your head in the sand" works well enough, then you never have an incentive to go out and try to learn more. People tend to be, in economic parlance, utility satisfiers, not maximizers. They look for "good enough" in a lot of things. — Count Timothy von Icarus
What reason's do people have for pursuing philosophy? I would suggest that philosophy often comes from dissatisfaction and/or curiosity. Not everyone seems to need philosophy. It's not an appetite everyone shares. No doubt many of us can afford to examine our presuppositions and reflect on life with more 'critical thought' and compassion. But philosophy? Philosophy seems to me to be an umbrella term for many kinds of enquiry and speculative thought. Much of it superfluous (and dull) to the average person (I include myself in the average category). — Tom Storm
This is why a musician will claim that music provides the most primordial access to truth, a poet will insist that poetry is the most sublime art, a scientist will extoll their seemingly privileged access to what is truly there, and a philosopher will try to usurp all of these domains within their own. — Joshs
I don't understand the part after the comma. Are you saying: Proposing that certain views are affectations...validates what we do all the time? — Luke
It's a play off of the definition of "affectation" appearing at the beginning of the thread. If I criticize the view that we cannot know what the "external world" is, or whether it is, as an affectation I'm claiming that view is unnatural because we act as if it is and know what it is all the time. So, the claim it is an affectation isn't unnatural or aberrant, because it reaffirms that we act as if the external world exists and that we know what it is. — Ciceronianus
I don't think you could blame the monks who ended up beaten to death in fights over nominalism versus realism of being guilty of affectation. Even less the people who were tortured to death over questions surrounding transubstantiation. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This is what it looks like, yes. But I make no claim about their intentions in this discrepancy; in fact, their intentions in this discrepancy is what I want to understand to begin with.It sounds like you’re seeing philosophers as advocating a way of life and then falling short of this ideal in their own life. — Joshs
A model of the way things are -- for whom?But I would argue the central task of a philosophy is like that of a scientific theory, to present a model of the way things are.
I find this too hard to believe. I don't think it is possible to write a philosophical text, publish it (leaving aside for the moment the shenanigans surrounding the publication of some texts), without the author being aware that there are some, perhaps serious problems with what he has just presented.If a philosopher seems to fall short of what their philosophy argues for, I suggest it is not because they are hypocrites or have somehow forgotten what they have written, but reflects the limitations of their philosophy.
C: Look, there's Sulla across the street
X: I had no idea he's only 5 inches tall.
C: What the hell are you talking about?
X: Well, look at him. Look at my finger. He's only slightly bigger than it.
C: Are you serious?
X: Oh my God, he's growing!
C: He's just crossing the street towards us.
X: How do you know he's not growing? He looked small, now he looks bigger. If you're right, then we can't trust our own sense of sight.
C: Do you actually think he's growing?
X: Well, he might be. He might not. Why do you think differently? What's wrong with you? You're the crazy one. — Ciceronianus
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