Right, for me the great philosophers' ideas and systems have aesthetic value. They present us with novel ways to think about things―and they are admirable just on account of their sustained complexity of inter-related ideas. — Janus

Definitely. I mean I think we do have to ask, eventually when we think we understand the philosopher well enough, "So is it true, though?" -- and that's what I'd call the against the grain reading.

But generally I see more value in the with-the-grain reading because the whole value to me is understanding different ways of thinking. I find it fascinating.

Truth is an underlying concern of mine, but the value of philosophy -- much like science -- really does include knowing what's we've said before whether it was true or false. One, those thoughts might prove true in a different environment, so they are worth preserving so as not to have to reinvent them wholesale down the line. Two, if we forget a mistake it's more than likely we'll commit it again, so it's good to look for these thoughts on their own even if they are false -- I wonder about the truth or falsity, but their value is so much more than that.
 

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. I also see Hume as an immensely creative thinker and not at all a mere "nitpicker".

I'm open to reclassification on the basis of something. It's just a rough idea right now! :D And I'm attempting to classify such that it's appealing to all involved in the conversation -- rather trying to show that the idea is appealing as an idea for thinking through ways of philosophizing.

Attempting to use familiar names to get at what those differences might be is the method, but I don't imagine I have it correct.

If Language games are incommensurable, all sorts of problems ensue. So I think we have to go with Davidson here, and reject the idea of incommensurability in such things. — Banno

I think we have to make a case for, rather than assume, incommensurability between language games. I'd put the incommensurability on the side of intension, though, such that it's not an in-principle incommensurability -- insofar that people with two sets of assumptions listen to one another over time I think bridges can be built, and in fact usually they are not necessary at all. We simply mean different things by the same words and misunderstand one another.

But then there are times where it seems quite difficult to translate one explicit language game into another explicit language game -- insofar that we recognize that they aren't really doing the same thing then we would say these are not incommensurable. It's only an interesting sort of possible incommensurability when we have two language games of fairly equivalent persuasive power competing over both intensions and extensions of words.

Or something like that.

I think incommensurability needs to be bounded -- but there are times it seems to "fit", and insofar that it's not an in-principle incommensurability then it doesn't seem to contradict Davidson to me.

So the critic is actually a builder? That's your solution? — Leontiskos

Pyrrho didn't leave anything for us to critique. That's perhaps the most consistent sort of skepticism I can imagine. So, no, he had no need for them. The point was to counter them.

Also, I'd say that the builder metaphor can only go so far in philosophy. This going back to there being more than one way to do philosophy.

So the critic is actually a builder? That's your solution? "Critics don't need any builders, because they are builders too!"

You are conceding my point, namely that builders are necessary. You've merely conceded it by magically making the critic a builder. You are not contesting my point that critics cannot exist without builders. — Leontiskos

Do we die on the hill of a metaphor?

Suppose there were two people who like philosophy talking to one another and at the end of the conversation someone says "When you live in this house it will destroy you"

The once-contractor nods and goes about thier business.

Some time later the builder sees a path into the woods in the same place.

Before the builders there were people who just wondered about shit. It took the architectonics to come along and think that thought had to be a building to be worthwhile -- so indeed I do think it's the other way about, and sometimes we just want different things.

That's pretty much the way I see things between you and I. Philosophy isn't a wrestling match and we really can consider ideas without judging them as true or false in all cases -- we can provide caveats and exceptions and note difficulties along the way without it toppling all knowledge. In fact, in order to do so, we have to have some kind of knowledge to begin realizing that our categories don't hold up -- it's in the differences that we find true knowledge of the world, rather than their idealizations into sameness.

Well, naturally, I'd never dream to counter the phenomenologist which can see all of time-thought in the moment of the absolute...

The analytic tradition was merely the next necessary moment in the push towards Absolute Freedom.

What it actually addresses is the fact that there are two ways of philosophizing within the analytic tradition, and some do it rigorously and some do it sloppily. Those who are rigorous allow beliefs to fall as logic requires. Those who are sloppy maintain their views regardless of where they are contradicted, using analytic systems when it benefits their biases and ignoring the problems when it doesn't. — Hanover

I don't think the two ways are unique to the analytic tradition. At least I'd use Kant as a mixer between the two ways, and Hegel as the world-builder.

In early modern philosophy I find it hard to find another comparison for the critical grump. Hume leaps to mind but I'm wondering if that would not count as a continental since he's from across the aisle, when I'd say he's part of the Enlightenment tradition which seems to count as continental to my mind.

Right, reason becomes trapped in the disparate fly-bottles of sui generis language games. Man is separated from being, either by the mind, or later by language. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I tend to think that Wittgenstein's intent, at least, is to lead the fly out of the bottle. Noticing that a language game contains one way of looking at that whole world outside it is what I draw from that metaphor.

He is like the separated lover who can never reach his other half in the Symposium. Language, the sign vehicle, ideas, etc. become impermeable barriers that preclude the possibility of union, rather than the very means of union.

Well that fits with my sympathies. Along with...

Doing philosophy is a human endeavour. While it reaches for glory and joy, it stands in mud, puss and entrails. :wink: — Banno

Once one consummates philosophy I believe it ceases to be a certain kind of philosophy, at least -- and sometimes it becomes a science or something else rather than what philosophers care about.

But the philosopher is one who reaches for the erotic, rather than consummates it.

I think such remarks are self refuting and mischaracterise both mathematics and philosophy by falsely implying that they are separate language games. — sime

How would you group mathematics and philosophy into the same language game?

I'd say they are different in the sense that math is a science, and sciences differ from philosophy. That may not be enough to claim a separate language game, though -- it'd depend upon how we want to talk about language games.

(** philosophically archaic definition, so as not to be confused with the way the term is commonly used on this thread, yet consistent with the immediate subject matter.) — Mww

:D Hey, I'm the one defending the nit-pickers. I had you in mind in crafting the thought -- it's always a bit of an art in trying to simplify the greats to a manageable idea we can all work with and think through.

As an example of the monolithic style of thought I'd say Hegel takes the cake. No one seems to claim to understand so much as he does. In the Adorno reading group I'm reminded of...

Next he looks at an early criticism of Hegel by Krug, who "objected that if he really wished to do justice to Hegel’s philosophy he would have to be able to deduce the quill with which he had been writing." — Jamal

Hegel's response being "that's not relevant to philosophy" as a way of dealing with a possible counter-example.

Now it could very well be the case that this is a stupid thing to say in relation to another thinker, to have missed the point. And truthfully I think for any research program to be productive -- be it philosophical or scientific -- there are going to be some counter-examples that are simply ignored as not pertinent to what the thinkers are trying to get at.

But I think it worthwhile to note that Hegel's approach, though it feels like it encompasses it all, can be turned on its head and re-intepreted.

And, further, it's actually good philosophy to do so, sometimes. (Re-interpretation seems to require both the critical and the narrative)

In Kant? Isn't there apprehension prior to judgement? There is intuition/understanding/reason, which is clearly influenced by the three acts. He takes quite a bit from Aristotle. That's sort of Hegel's critique. "Oh look, I started presuppositionlessly and just happened to find Aristotle's categories." (I never found this critique of Hegel's strong, maybe the categories have held up because they are themselves strong).

Kant would deny truth as the adequacy of thought to being in the strong sense, or the idea of form coming through the senses to inform the intellect. I suppose the response here is that he rejects this because he presupposes representationalism and he has no good grounds for doing so (totally different subject). I'm also pretty sure he falls into identifying falsity with negation. So there would be other differences. I just don't know if the differences hold up without also accepting the fundamental axiom of "we experience only ideas/representations/our own experiences, not things," and of "knowledge of things in themselves," (as opposed to things as revealed by acting, actuality) as a sort of epistemic "gold standard" to aspire to. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Naturally it's tricky and subject to interpretation. Something that might be of value here is that Kant kind of does sit astride the line being explored here. I can say how I understand it, but mostly what matters in my summoning him is in his limitation on metaphysics. I recognize he takes a lot from Aristotle, but his modifications definitely put metaphysics into question as a science -- and I think it's a fair reading to say that the powers of judgment "underly" the categories.

"That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt...But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. -- Intro CPR, Gutenberg edition




In the Kantian sense, sure, but "perception" isn't even the same thing as we normally mean it when we speak "in the Kantian sense" :D

The priority is of the forms of reason -- most importantly for our discussion here I'm thinking of Kant's critical turn on metaphysics, in particular. With respect to metaphysics Kant is the nit-picker, and with respect to scientific knowledge Kant is the world-builder.

When you say apprehension comes prior to judgment I can't help but think of Kant whose whole project can be read as "Judgment is the single fundamental unity to Reason in all matters philosophical" :D -- I'm not sure there's such a thing as apprehension prior to judgment at all. Hence theory-ladenness, though I wouldn't put it at the level of structuring our perceptions very frequently. More that our ideas give us an idea about what's important to consider, and this is a learned kind of judgment, and there was no such thing as apprehending before learning how to judge -- it was just ignorance.

So I wonder if the notion of a contrary can do the work you're wanting it to do here in demonstrating that falsity is posterior do to our state of knowing. Seems to me that we can explain our state of knowing in terms of Judgment, which in turn requires a notion of the true and the false, sort of like the categories. In the state of ignorance we lack any sort of notion of either truth or falsity.

I mean, I kind of get the idea, but where my thoughts go is that you needcan't have one without the other. I don't really think of falsity as a privation of being. If anything falsity has more to do with how we judge, and being cannot be privated by such things.

Considering it I can make sense of the notion, but given all of my stated perspectives. . . :D

Seems to me that once we understand what's true we also understand what's false -- at the very least the object is an object and the object is different from the foreground which is what makes an object an object and not just a wash of meaningless perceptions. To see any individual we have to be able to say when it is-not the background.

Other examples could be Wittgenstein or Kant -- anyone that sets a limit to philosophical knowledge would in some sense qualify as a skeptic, I think, in a softer sense. There's something we can't know, and it doesn't build up from our prior knowledge. Else that'd be a rather uninteresting philosophical skepticism: if we could eventually find out everything then are we really skeptics in a meaningful sense?

We can't just paper over your invalid objection to my claim that without builders there can be no critics. That is the central and older part of the conversation, and it is the part that an auto-didact will have an easier time with. I focused on it for a reason. — Leontiskos

The critic criticizes themself. They don't have to learn how to build in order to do that. Suppose the builder goes away and the buyer decides to try what they had said they wanted. It falls apart like the builder said, and the buyer becomes a builder.

But there is Pyrrho's option of simply not building. How does that not count to your mind? The very point is to not believe -- so one does not need to know how to make inferences in order to stop making inferences, or even pointing out ways in which they are unsatisfactory. It's not like Pyrrho kept to this stubborn skeptics task, at least in the telling of the story -- he learned how the rationalists spoke and used their arguments against them.

I don't see it as unprincipled when I'm directly telling you why I'm thinking what I'm thinking. I think we really can use different metrics at different times -- different solutions to the Liar's Paradox are valuable to know. There isn't a single way to respond to the Liar's Paradox as evidenced by the philosophical literature on the Liar's Paradox. There are times when dialethia are appropriate and times when the simple logic of objects is appropraite.

If you have to resort to the extremely controversial example of the Liar's Paradox then your answer is going to be highly implausible and controversial. — Leontiskos

Sure, I agree with that.

Surely you've noticed these aren't things I attend to :D

I do in fact think of the implausible and controversial.

I've already given you my thoughts on the Liar's Paradox and I obviously think your analysis is incorrect.

Yeh, a bit of an impasse. But if asked it is what comes to mind.

Yep. I am saying that, "If you claim that something is false, then you must already hold to some truth in order to say so." The counterexample would be, "Here is an example where someone claims that something is false even though they do not hold to any truth in order to say so." — Leontiskos

This may be koan like, but it is at least a concrete example from the opening of the SEP's article on Pyrrho.

With the exception of poetry allegedly written while on Alexander’s expedition (which, as far as we can tell, did not survive that expedition), Pyrrho wrote nothing; we are therefore obliged to try to reconstruct his philosophy from reports by others.

"This sentence is false" seems to fit to me, but I'm not allowed to use it. :D

In a straightforward way if the LNC and LEM holds then there is nothing this sentence is about "in the world", right? It points to itself. Its referent is itself. Is the sentence an object in the world?

I'd say if we maintain the LNC and LEM as the standards for what can be considered, or all that is worthy of consideration, then a straightforward assignment of "False" to "This sentence is false" is an example of a falsehood that needs no truth.

Sorry, I chose it for a reason last time and it's still the one that fits now.

I just don’t give analytic dissection the priority. We need to assert, and then dissect. Whatever is left is truth about the world.

There is very little truth about the world that has survived the dissection. But I see it. — Fire Ologist

Well, yeah. It's right there!

Banno and Count seem to be arguing what wisdom is.

Well it is not error or nonsense, and it is not a ham sandwich. So it is something. And I see it is worth scrutinizing to try to define better.

For sure. I find philosophy pleasurable, so even supposing the skeptic is correct I'm not a Pyrrhonic skeptic. For me I just don't think philosophy is scientific knowledge, strictly speaking. I apply different standards to both disciplines, and tend to think they're better when they stop trying to control one another towards the "right" way to think. (But then can be productive together when both are valued)

"2+2=5" is false.

There's a sense in which we have to know things about "2" and "+" and "5" and "=" and "...is false"

So it seem easy to assert, without much specification on priority, that such an assertion would require some truths.

In just a first-go thought, that one would not qualify.

While they are contrary opposites, on the view of truth as a transcendental property of being, falsity is parasitic on truth for the same reason that evil is parasitic on good—it is an absence. If truth is the adequacy of the intellect to being then its lack is a privation. Likewise, without ends, goods, the entire concept of evil makes no sense, since nothing is sought and so no aims are every frustrated. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How is it you understand the truth without falsity, though? What's this part where you're not thinking about the false, but instead -- prior to falsity -- only the true?

I asked you what a critic is supposed to criticize if there is no builder, and in response you pointed to a critic who criticizes a builder. Do you see how you failed to answer my question?

This began when I said that if there are no builders then there can be no critics, and you responded by saying that in that case the critics would just criticize themselves. So again, your example of a critic who criticizes a house-builder is in no way an example of critics criticizing themselves, sans builders. — Leontiskos

Do you see how it's correct for the critic to still say that they don't know?

That's what I was hoping the example to demonstrate -- they don't have to say "Look, here's a better house" in order to say "I don't know how to build a house"

Their opinions may not be relevant to the construction of the house, sure -- but they'd still be right in claiming ignorance, so there are circumstances where it's better to claim ignorance rather than propose a solution.

I'm just asking you to give me an example of an assertion of falsehood which presupposes no truths. Can you do that?

"John wrote 2+2=5 on his paper. Bill said that his answer was false. But no truth needs to exist in order for Bill to say that the answer is false."

Something like that. Something straightforward. An example. — Leontiskos

Oh, OK. Sure, I can.

Your examples of the kinds of examples helped me get what you were after better.

So you want a circumstance where bill said some statement is false, and there is no truth that needs to exist in order for Bill to say that the answer is false.

Correct?

So it's about the conditions of assertability? When a person can assert they believe something is false?

Still thinking about a good one, just asking for more information

Like “I think, therefore, I am.” Or have I already said too much? — Fire Ologist

I actually wonder if that'd qualify... I'm not sure.

I was more thinking insofar that we weaken our requirements for knowledge so that the skeptical problems become irrelevant then in a very common sense way it seems to me that the mechanic knows cars -- a mixture of know-that/know-how that in some way connects the mechanic to the economic sphere such that they can take care of thems they need to.

I'd be more inclined to say we don't need to know the cogito, but we do need to know enough about some trade to live.

So we know something, surely -- but the devil is in the details.

But it is another thing to say “you are wrong because that doesn’t exist”. That is a positive assertion highlighting something that does in fact exist (namely, the landscape surrounding the hole you just carved where that thing you said doesn’t exist was supposed to be). Skeptics can’t say someone is wrong about what exists, just whether their manner of speaking is coherent or valid. — Fire Ologist

Why not?

Suppose a person who is skeptical about some things existing and not skeptical about other things existing -- so not the Cartesian scenario, but a little less grand.

Once you are talking about what exists, you need a metaphysician.

Maybe.

Though it's hard to believe when lots of people understand their environment well enough to get along in it -- I can't deny that there's a pull to the realist case, especially if we have no need of metaphysics whatsoever.

It's so easy to navigate that it's hard to theorize. Surely we must know something about what exists, even if we don't study philosophy at all.

If nothing is built there is nothing to criticize. Without builders what do you say that the critics criticize? If the critics are to criticize themselves, they will first need to learn how to build. Hence my point. — Leontiskos

That's not true. Suppose you hire someone to build you a house. You don't know how to build the house, but your criticism is important to how the builder proceeds.

Now the builder could tell you "Look, if that's what you want, I'm telling you you aren't going to get a house, it will collapse" -- but the person would still be justified in their claim that they don't know how to build a house.

Then provide a response to my argument. Provide an example where "this is false" presupposes no truth, and where "this is true" presupposes falsehood. — Leontiskos

There's one solution to the liar's paradox which says there is no problem -- "This is false" is straightforwardly read as a false sentence, and not true.

For the other I'd point to our previous discussion on the dialetheist's solution to the liar's paradox where the solution is to recognize that the liar's sentence is both true and false.

Now, that's just co-occurrence to demonstrate a dyad between the two to the standards you laid out. But I think that "...is true" and "...is false" presuppose one another to be made sense of. That is, there is no "...is true" simpliciter, but rather its meaning will depend upon the meaning of "...is false", and vice-versa.

So there is no prioritizing one over the other.

Haha. That's what I'm trying to avoid -- it's worthwhile to note that there are definitely aesethetic differences. And something about Plato is that he doesn't just myth-build, but rather the myths are there for a point: To train the untutored mind to begin to study the forms, which are surely not so literal as the texts say.

At least, that's a charitable way of putting it, while avoiding that question: "What is philosophy?" -- just note "however we justify it, it's philosophy in some way because Plato did it" Now would that fit into the builder side or the critical side, or both? It seems both to me. And which we would want to emphasize in Plato is whatever our preference for reasoning is -- narrative or myth or what-have-you that's greater than human experience, or taking apart how it is we do these things.

I think the greatest philosophers end up doing this -- Kant's a good example there where he manages to sort of fit both categories whichever which way we may want to put the categories.

So for the critical philosopher that doesn't seem to be a problem, to me. It's almost like you'd expect that in some way instead. So it's easier to render these as a sort of aesthetic, and some philosophers manage to express themselves in both . .. modes?

Oh if you're fine with it I am. I mostly didn't want to distract from your main point but if you think it's on topic then it's on topic -- it's your OP.

The NAACP has a bit of writing on the origins of police that is short and provides another perspective other than the law-and-order picture of dutiful citizens protecting their fellows.

Well, categorically speaking, myth-making is part of philosophy though, right?

I'd say there'd have to be some kind of "reasonable", whatever that amounts to, way to include myth-making in philosophy. Not all myth-making, but Plato is the immediate myth-maker that comes to mind there.

When someone is doing the Monty Python thing their telos is a kind of agonstic opposition, and this is not yet philosophy. Of course, there is a very significant difference between these two options:

"After dissecting your claims I have found that you are wrong, and I utterly refuse to try to say what I think is alternatively right."
"After dissecting your claims I have found that you are wrong, and I am open to trying to constructively work out a better option."

"I don't know" could represent the first or the second. The Monty Python thing is a comical instance of the first. — Leontiskos

I think it really could be the case that some questions' correct answer is "I don't know"; why does one need a guess to say "I don't know"?

I'd say that would require some sort of shared assumptions about how to make inferences, and the like.

But I find "I don't know" to be a far more productive realization, because it'll lead me to something else. Keeping in mind our lack of knowledge -- no matter how much we learn -- is how we learn more.

So I'd put in a defense for the skeptics that don't know -- they don't have to in order to say whether or not that they know.

Now, you don't have to teach anyone, either. A more curious student than an obstinant skeptic is a lot more rewarding for the teacher, most of the time.

But I think it's important to maintain the ability to say "I don't know", and reassess our beliefs because of our ability to make errors, or at least miss some things.

Bad arguments are better than nothing at all — Leontiskos

Why?

The builders can exist without the critics. The critics cannot exist without the builders. — Leontiskos

But the critics can criticize themselves!

They have no need of builders -- once you're curious enough to be a philosophical skeptic you will not have any need of a philosophical builder ever again. You'll be busy tearing down your own buildings, finding their flaws, rebuilding, finding their flaws, rebuilding. . . . or just stop building and see where things go. The Pyrrhonic skeptic, at least, has no need of the builders. Beliefs are the thing to be combatted.

Just as the critic lacks parity with the builder, so too does falsehood lack parity with truth. "This is false" presupposes some truth, whereas, "This is true," does not presuppose any falsehood. This is why your fundamental approach to knowledge based on judgments of falsehood is mistaken: — Leontiskos

Well, for the analogy to hold. . .

Though if this be the analogy I'd just say truth and false form a dyad: You don't understand the one without the other.

First, I would point back to the twins. Again, one's activity is parasitic and one is not. Philosophy does not exist without those who construct, but it does exist without those who deconstruct. Therefore deconstruction is not as fundamental to philosophy as construction; falsity not as central to philosophy as truth. — Leontiskos

I'd make the case that the builders need the critics -- else you get backbad arguments.

Yeah, it's messy in-fact. Just presuming some hedonic calculus, and supposing a belief that is false did not harm anyone then that calculus, unless for some other reason that's hedonically relevant, then believing that belief is good.

Not that one ought to do so -- maybe one ought to do something else. Maybe there's a better good out there, like "figuring out the truth" that's more satisfying than believing a false belief.

I think the key recognition that should be made is that philosophy is the love of wisdom, not the love of knowledge or the love of truth. One might believe the pursuit of truth or knowledge is the wisest path of all, but to believe that is a particular philosophy that can be challenged. What this might mean is that the acceptance of beliefs that are untrue might be wiser to hold. — Hanover

I'm intrigued. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to think about these sorts of things -- meaningful beliefs that are false, sometimes to the point that their falsity isn't exactly the point.

In fact, I was going to enter the recent essay contest with a thesis along these lines, but I was given too much time and never got around to it. Yes, too much time results in a lack of urgency and lack of effort ultimately for some.

Knowing that the next challenge is due July 1, 2025.

But my point would be that religion and I'm sure all sorts of beliefs fall into the category of not being valid upon a purely logical analysis, but I wonder what comfort one has upon their death bed for having had a firm committment to miserable truth as opposed to having chosen a more joyous path, filled with magical wonder and profound meaning and purpose in every leaf fluttering in the wind. Which sort of person is more wise is the question.

I'm not sure I'd put it in terms of one's death bed, but I would put it in terms of one's happiness. If believing a false belief, such as "Ice cream is good, and it's so good that anyone who says otherwise probably hasn't figured out the truth of it's goodness" makes a person happy, and it doesn't hurt anyone, including themself, then by the hedonic metric that belief is not only acceptable, but good.

Wondering who "she" is throughout the essay I kept feeling compelled to want to read, which is an interesting choice. I got the sense that "she" is philosophy itself — Moliere

OK, now I'm guessing "she" is Oizys @Bob Ross

I can't give this constructive feedback because it was, and is perfect to me -- both/and, the past and the present and the future and the pluperfect and. . .

I love the wonderful reflection that would be hard to explain in the abstract but which comes across naturally through the dialogue, and I like the playful anthropomorphism with the attendent puns, as well as the childrens' story wonderlike quality to it. I often think people overlook children's capacity for philosophy out of a prejudice -- if you just listen to them and ask questions about the world you'll hear them make all sorts of distinctions and debate about what is what or which rule is better or what is fair, and if you ask them questions about it they are more likely than any adult to answer "I don't know"

For this reason I'd say that this book isn't just a children's story, and is a children's story. It's more or less perfect and I'd buy it as a book to give to my kiddos.

I think I empathize with the ravencrow the most :)

Wondering who "she" is throughout the essay I kept feeling compelled to want to read, which is an interesting choice. I got the sense that "she" is philosophy itself. (Although upon knowing the title I might have to rethink this...I had this typed from before the reveal -- updated the title @Bob Ross).

I'm wondering about the voice of the author, though -- from where does the author see her? I wouldn't be wondering that except for when you say you abandoned her to the dead it: Who is the one who abandoned her, and now sees her from afar with her struggles? Does the voice of the piece ever come into contact with her again, or is it philosophy itself which is eudemon and our speaker who has abandoned her remains afar? Is it that she is abandoned by all of us and yet she pursues the thankless task set before her all the same?

Not that these have to be answered. Part of what makes this work is that there is a lot of mystery throughout the peice. But I'd like to know about the voice, only because "I" is used -- if it hadn't been then I'd have kept reading this as a third-person impersonal essay.

***

I definitely get the feel that this is influenced by existential thoughts just from the bibliography. But then that has a tension throughout because of the third-person narration throughout. It's not philosophy's soul that's like the dead sea, but the speakers, who sets out to no longer abandon her.

But then the story is of philosophy overcoming, while our author continues to simply notate what she struggles through. Or is the speaker speaking in third person about itself, and so this is philosophy reflecting on itself, but to keep a distance she tells her story in the third person?

****

The style draws me into the world. I like that a great deal, but I think that the essay would benefit from something to help readers to grasp where you're going. I like poetics in philosophy, but I -- to speak poetically -- feel that there could be more of the "rational" side in this piece that, if incorporated, would strengthen the writing.

I don't know if the best way to do that is the answer my questions -- especially since that's what drove me to keep reading -- but I can see the desire for more to make it feel more "philosophical". Not necessarily quotes there... it'd be interesting if you could tie Kierkegaard and Nietzsche to Aurelius in your reflection. Then they'd look more like coherent references for your thoughts.

Which is making me realize a fourth way might be seen as naive common sense. Non- analytic, non-metaphysical, immediate like mystical, but the opposite of transcendent. — Fire Ologist

Why limit ourselves to a scheme of four possible ways to philosophize? :D

It's how I see things.

Close to:

There is also philosophy as the study of the history of ideas, not necessarily as a tendentious attempt to find authoritative confirmation for the enquirer's own beliefs, but just for its own sake. — Janus

It is a pleasure unto itself, and this is enough to justify one's activity in doing philosophy.

But then I think when we do that -- read philosophy for its own sake (and here I only mean the sorts of names that frequently come up within a particular culture's practice of philosophy) -- we see there's more than just two ways to do philosophy.

Naturally I want to progress by way of example, so something that comes to mind is Spinoza's Ethics where we have a logic derivation of. . . everything? And on the other hand we have Hume as the nitpicker.

In more modern times I might contrast David Chalmers with Daniel Dennett.

So I don't think the point of the distinction is to be wide-reaching as:

Dissecting vs. comprehensive seems like a false dichotomy. True dichotomies would include things like analytic/synthetic, hedgehog/fox, forest/trees, cased-based*/systematic, or critical/constructive. — Leontiskos

Rather it seems to me best thought of as aesthetic categories. There is a drive in philosophy to build big stories of the world as it is. The Timaeus, for example, which is surely philosophy but not exactly nitpicky or even skeptical. So surely this is a good part of philosophy, and I'd say you can't have one without the other, really.

But I'd focus here:

But this is a philosophy forum, not a Vanity Press. If you present your thoughts here you must expect them to be critiqued. In a very central and important sense, this is what we do. — Banno

While world-building is part of philosophy, so is the skeptics. Pyrrho comes to mind here for me as a kind of arch-nitpick, with a moral cause to justify it even so it fits within that ancient mold of philosophy as a life well lived, even. Picking-nits is very much part of philosophy, and one need not have a replacement answer -- "I don't know" is one of those pretty standardly acceptable answers in philosophy. Aporetic dialogues having been part of philosophy as well.

Alright. Sorry for the delay, work called -- but now the big reveal!

[TPF Essay] Wittgenstein's Hinges and Gödel's Unprovable Statements @Sam26
[TPF Essay] Bubbles and Styx In: Pondering the Past @hypericin
[TPF Essay] Dante and the Deflation of Reason @Count Timothy von Icarus
[TPF Essay] What Does It Mean to Be Human? @Vera Mont
[TPF Essay] Cognitive Experiences are a Part of Material Reality @ucarr
[TPF Essay] The Frame Before the Question @James Dean Conroy
[TPF Essay] Part 1 & Part 2 @PoeticUniverse
[TPF Essay] Technoethics: Freedom, Precarity, and Enzymatic Knowledge Machines @Baden
[TPF Essay] The Authoritarian Liberty Paradox @Benkei
[TPF Essay] An Exploration Between the Balance Between State and Individual Interests @I like sushi
[TPF Essay] My Soul is like the Dead Sea @Bob Ross
[TPF Essay] The Insides and Outsides of 'Reality': Exploring Possibilities @Jack Cummins
[TPF Essay] The importance of the Philosophical Essay within philosophy @RussellA

Now that you've been revealed -- I'll say yours is one of the ones I'm struggling with to come up with a relevant reply. Excellent stuff.

I much appreciate having the opportunity to share these ideas in this format. The event really motivated me to put the work in. — Baden

I appreciated your essay so much because it was more than I expected -- it's a strong thesis that explains itself and causes reflection in me. I suppose now that you've revealed I'll join in the back-and-forth.

(if mostly continental) — Baden

(if mostly the good guys, yes) ;)

It's there. I PM'ed him to point out which one so that I didn't give hints.