What is the case rests on rules, criteria, norms — Joshs

If you are talking about the Tractatus, and the quote is from the Tractatus, that is simply wrong. Quoting what Rouse says of the later Wittgenstein, who had rejected the ontology of the Tractatus, has no bearing on what Wittgenstein meant. But if a "creative misreading" means using a few words out of context and contrary to what was said, then anything and everything can stand as a "creative misreading".

... the creative misreading of two Wittgenstein quotes. — plaque flag

What is the point of a creative misreading blind misunderstanding of Wittgenstein? What are you hiding?

the world is that minimal something that a self can be wrong about. ...What is the case is endlessly revisable. — plaque flag

Someone can be wrong if they claim that I ate the cake. If, however, it is the case that I ate the cake that is not endlessly revisable. I cannot eat my cake and have it too. Claims about what is the case are revisable, although not endlessly so without being pointless. What is the case is not. Something either is the case or it is not. Although there are cases that may be undecidable.

Such norms are appealed to in order to instigate their modification. That's what philosophers do. — plaque flag

Since you are deliberately misrepresenting Wittgenstein, you can ignore what he does, but he does not instigate modification of norms. He points to them and claims that philosophers create confusion for themselves by attempting to modify them.

What is the intention of the philosopher ? To impose a claim, establish as a premise for further use, stack one more brick on the tower. — plaque flag

A bit more from Wittgenstein. For him at least philosophy is the opposite of what you describe:

It came into my head today as I was thinking about my philosophical work and saying to myself: “I destroy, I destroy, I destroy– (CV, page 21)

Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? (All the buildings, as it were,leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble.) (Big Typescript #88)

Fundamental to Wittgenstein's philosophy, starting with the Tractatus, is the primacy of seeing over saying.

Working in philosophy–like work in architecture in many respects–is really more a working on oneself. On one’s own interpretation. On one’s way of seeing things. (And what one expects of them.) (CV 16)

But the primacy of seeing is not a peculiarity of Wittgenstein. It is a way of doing philosophy that goes beyond the fixation on language.

And yet that's 'what's right' with it! — 180 Proof

Yes. There is a wrong way and a right way to go wrong.

So were you suggesting that perhaps his thinking is a bit insular and self-referential? — Joshs

What I said is that philosophy has become self-referential.

You left me with a quote but it would require a new thread to even begin to do it justice. — Joshs

So you choose to say nothing? This actually points to the problem. If you cannot even begin to articulate what he means then there is something amiss.

Perhaps this explains why you are unable to recognize that there is a problem.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Bragg's lawsuit against Jim Jordan for interference.

Once again Republicans are doing what they accuse others of, turning a legal matter into politics. They are going to do whatever they can to make it go away.

So, I believe that we have to give philosophy a new opportunity for its "evolution". — Alkis Piskas

I am not among those who have declared the death of philosophy. I think interdisciplinary work in both a path forward and a path back in the sense that disciplinary boundaries are crossed and not regarded as a divide.

I read The Nature of Alexander. I think I read some of her historical fiction but can't recall.

You have moved away from and intentionally created distance from the thread topic.

That we think and have ideas is a truism. That our thinking and ideas develops within history and culture is nothing new, not something discovered by academic philosophers in the last hundred years.

What is at issue is not thinking but a thinking that is insular and self-referential. A thinking that calls itself philosophy.

I don't think of it as butting in.

Is pursuing ideas for their own sake pursuing life for its own sake? I don't think so. If the ideas pursued are about ideas themselves then unless those ideas relate to life they become increasingly removed from the concerns of one's life and the life of others.

The claim that learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live needs to be looked at in context. The context is certain trends contemporary philosophy. Is reading Heidegger a prerequisite of pursing life?

Unless of course the dualism you are presupposing — Joshs

Have your already forgotten what you said? It was only an hour ago. Let me remind you:

Here’s a little secret (don’t let it get around). Learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing life for its own sake. — Joshs

To complain about the specialization of philosophy is to insist it be a less serious kind of investigation than it is --- the kind that doesn't get anywhere, doesn't get more complex with time. — plaque flag

Specialization and seriousness are not the same. Getting more complex is not in itself getting anywhere.

To me this resentful anti-intellectualism is what takes philosophy to be a mere hobby ... — plaque flag

It is neither resentful nor anti-intellectual. If by hobby you mean something done in one's leisure time, then one is in the good company of Plato and Aristotle.

But trying to impose one's personal lazy limits on professionals is childish. — plaque flag

Creating a target in order to have something to hit is good for one thing, target practice. There are more than a few "professionals" who are critical of professional philosophy for the reasons given in the OP. My hunch is that it is a growing trend.

And speaking of professionalism, what are your credentials?

Here, too, we should then have to abandon any claim to immediate intelligibility.

This has always been the case.

However, we should still have to· listen, because we must think what is inevitable, but preliminary

For Heidegger the philosopher wears the robe of the prophet. The sacred and holy voice of Being.

Here’s a little secret. Don’t let it get around. Learning how to think is a prerequisite for learning how to live. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing life for its own sake. — Joshs

Here's a little secret. Learning how to think as a prerequisite for learning how to live is nihilism. Pursuing ideas for their own sake is pursuing ideas for their own sake, and often at the expense of living rather than "pursuing life" for its own sake.

There are several approaches, "problems of philosophy" which deals with issues in philosophy, history of philosophy, which is a summary of what the philosophers said, and reading the works of the philosophers. Textbooks sometimes combine them, identifying topics, giving an overview, and giving excerpts.

Different approaches appeal to different people, but wherever you start you can follow your interests. Often having a good teacher is the most important thing. But here again, different people have different opinions about what a good teacher is. If you find a teacher who inspires you to continue that is good enough to start.

Good luck.

Mostly primary texts. No textbooks. After the introduction course we followed a chronological sequence over four years.

Whatever was he doing in Syracuse, then? — Ciceronianus

Here is a good article on what he was doing there.

It is not that he did not succeed in making it useful, he did not succeed in persuading Dionysius I and Dionysius II to become philosophers.

It is because philosophy is not useful that they were not persuaded to practice philosophy, that is, to live a just life. Of what use is it to a king to be just? This is what is at issue in Thrasymachus' challenge to Socrates in the Republic. "How", he asks, "is justice to my advantage".

Although not useful in an instrumentalist sense, Socrates in the Republic attempts to persuade them that it is to one's advantage to be just. The just soul is a healthy soul, one in which there if a proper balance of appetites, spiritedness, and reason. We do not desire bodily health because it is useful, so too, we should not desire the health of the soul because it is useful.

Whether or not one is persuaded to live a just life depends on the person and not the argument.

Even in the quote from the PI there is still a kind of logic built into the actions, it's harder to define, granted, but it's still there. — Sam26

Why do you think there is a logic built into this kind of free play?

When I speak of logic, I'm not referring to formal logic, but the logic that is seen in our actions. — Sam26

That is the problem. I don't see the logic in the example given. You say it is there but harder to define, but on what basis or evidence can it be shown to be there?

Are you claiming that there is a logic to the actions of other animals?

when I leave my house I don't try to walk through walls, — Sam26

If you or some other animal were to try doing this it would not be because you or they are acting illogically but that there is something neurologically wrong.

go and read the Stanford Encyclopedia entry on "comensurability" — RolandTyme

I know what the term means.

assessing what other people are trying to say — RolandTyme

I was assessing what you did say. Not only did you say that you can freely substitute things for each other, you went on to argue that doing so is moral, even though the example you give of converting everything to crystals seems to argue against that claim.

The most charitable thing I can do is to take what you said seriously enough to respond and give you the opportunity to explain what you said and why you think it correct.

Is it possible some philosophers when writing run out of ideas, but continue writing? — jgill

For some, it seems to me, it is as if their words are in search of ideas. If they keep writing sooner or later they will stumble across something to say.

And there are some who just recycle the same idea.

I agree that there are other factors involved, but there would be no game of chess without the rules that dictate how, for e.g., a bishop moves. — Sam26

It is clear that the game of chess is played by fixed rules. But what about PI 83:

We can easily imagine people amusing themselves in a field by playing with a ball like this: starting various existing games, but playing several without finishing them, and in between throwing the ball aimlessly into the air, chasing one another with the ball, throwing it at one another for a joke, and so on. And now someone says: The whole time they are playing a ball-game and therefore are following definite rules at every throw.
And is there not also the case where we play, and make up the rules as we go along? And even where we alter them as we go along.

If we ask the person who claimed they are following definite rules will he be able to say what the rules are? If we ask the people who were playing, what would they say?

I am not both Arne and Pantagruel. — Arne

My mistake. Sorry. You Arne did ask:

How can any of us even say philosophy went wrong without having some shared understanding of what we mean by philosophy? — Arne

And did say:

Such tensions have always been in philosophy. — Arne

...it would be unreasonable to expect me not to use the term "philosophy" when responding to a post about how philosophy "went wrong." — Arne

The point is, you used the term and did not see it as problematic. It is not a term you are not familiar with. We may have difficulty trying to come up with a definition but there really is no need to do that. There is enough of what Wittgenstein calls a "family resemblance" that we can talk about philosophy and discuss our differences.

And just to be clear, none of us is any more qualified than the other to talk about those philosophical contemplations that were not committed to writing. That is just kind of a non-starter. — Arne

That is not the case. Pierre Hadot has done just that using ancient sources. It is not as if no one back then said anything about contemplative practice.

But nobody's permission is required. — Arne

Permission? What does any of this have to do with giving permission?

How could I possibly speak to those that did not result in writings? — Arne

That is the point. You said:

The actual amount of historical time in which philosophy per se was about "contemplation of the beautiful and the good" is actually quite minimal — Arne

But philosophical practice and philosophical writing are not the same. The ancient practice of philosophy was not about writing but a way of living.

Plato had a great deal to say about beauty. It is one of his trinity: the just, the beautiful, and the good.

And as far as I know, aesthetics and ethics are still lively subject matter. — Arne

So then, not as minimal as you claimed? Aesthetics as a "subject matter" is to push it aside in that it is treated as something on its own. Ethics is not the same as the good. Both beauty and the good are for the ancients more encompassing terms integral to many different aspects of life.

Are you suggesting that philosophy should be more limited in its subject matter or that it would become so if not dominated by the academy and/or industrial forces? — Arne

I am suggesting that it has become more limited than it was for the ancients and that this is a loss. The article linked about by Moliere addresses this as well as the good.

How can any of us even say philosophy went wrong without having some shared understanding of what we mean by philosophy? — Arne

And yet it is a term you have been using. You even claim:

Philosophy is not an end in itself, it is a tool. — Pantagruel

This addendum would have made me appreciate the original OP more. — Pantagruel

This is something that has been under discussion for some days now in the threads on Heidegger. I started this topic based on just this problem.

The opening paragraph of the OP is about this.

I was using commensurable in the technical sense - able to be measured on the same scale. — RolandTyme

You said:

if things can be aggregated, and are commensurable, then you can freely substitute them for each other. — RolandTyme

Plato pointed to the attitude that philosophy is useless, but he did not attempt to make it useful.

Modern philosophy certainly is nothing new.

On what basis do you claim that contemplation of the beautiful and the good" is actually quite minimal? Philosophical practice did not always generate or result in writings.

As worthy as the "contemplation of the beautiful and the good" may be, it was never a philosophical paradigm. — Arne

Of course not! It is not about the establishment or use of paradigms.

there has always been philosophy as industry. — Arne

Socrates neither produced or sold anything. Plato criticized the sophists for teaching for money. He did not require payment to attend his school. Aristotle's school was also free of change. Descartes inherited wealth but died poor. Spinoza was a lens grinder. In none of these cases was there a demand by an administration to produce.

But I think that an argument can be made that original thinkers can be spoiled (not to say damaged) by going through the academic process. — Manuel

I agree. I almost added something along the lines of a Hippocratic Oath for thinkers and thinking.

I think philosophers have always written for philosophers but not only for philosophers. A significant change occurred when mathematical certainty became the model of reason. Theoria was replaced by theory. Contemplation of the beautiful and the good pushed aside as being of no practical use. The question of how best to live replaced by the problem of how to secure the right to live as one wants.

How would philosophy look different if philosophy had not "went wrong"? — Arne

For one there would be no philosophy industry cranking out its product. Less emphasis on the pretense of "originality" and more emphasis on teaching and open-ended thinking that had as its goal the pleasure of thinking.

how can we expect original work to arise? — Manuel

Original work comes from original thinkers. They are born not made. I would not be surprised if originality will be found outside the university. As much as I prefer to read philosophy rather than watch and listen, the cost and barriers to posting videos is low, and can reach a much larger audience.

unless the incentives of university departments change — Manuel

I think that change is not going to go in the direction we might hope to see. As tenured professors finally leave it is often the case that they are not replaced by tenure track new hires. New instructors are either hired without that assurance or replaced by adjuncts who do not earn a living wage and have no benefits. Or the size of the department and courses offered shrinks. Bottom line administrators see this as a good thing. The cost to maintain the department far outweighs the funds they generate.

Because that generalization clearly doesn't hold for the entire spectrum of philosophical writing. — Pantagruel

Yes, there are exceptions. I said as much. I speak from within academia as do the authors of the article @Moliere linked to above.

Because you haven't offered any suggestions for reconciliation or remediation of the issue — Pantagruel

The first step is to acknowledge the problem. I can offer no solutions at the institutional level. On a personal level I attempt to speak and write simply and clearly, and when discussing the writings of philosophers who do not write so simply and clearly try to make their work more accessible. When I was teaching I used primary texts, and by example, how to read these texts. I do something similar here in my discussions of the philosophers.

Thanks for the link to the article.

I like this phrase:

... a hyperactive productivist churn of scholarship ...

It is what I was talking about in my response to Ying above.

A few, such as this one:

Once knowledge and goodness were divorced...

made me curious about who the authors are. Robert Frodeman was a student of Stanley Rosen. The influence is apparent. In the threads on Heidegger's downfall I quoted Rosen:

Nihilism is the concept of reason separated from the concept of the good.

Criticism is only valid if it is balanced. — Pantagruel

Must it be balanced? What does this mean? Wherein lies the balance? The good with the bad? The positive with the negative? What is the balance that turns my claim that:

Philosophy has become in large part insular and self-referential. — Fooloso4

from something that is not valid into something that is?

Who in particular do you have in mind? — Joshs

Not who but what. The philosophy industry. This includes not only names we might recognize but thousands we may never hear about. Those who write books and articles as well as those who publish books and articles few will read. Readers who name drop and come to sound like those they name.

But with regard to the names you name. Why does Derrida write the way he does? Who is he writing for? What does he mean, for example, when he says:

Here or there we have discerned writing: a nonsymmetrical division designated on the one hand the closure of the book, and on the other the opening of the text. On the one hand the theological encyclopedia and, modeled upon it, the book of man. On the other a fabric of traces marking the disappearance of an exceeded God or of an erased man. The question of writing could be opened only if the book was closed. The joyous wandering of the graphein then became wandering without return. The opening into the text was adventure, expenditure without reserve.

(Writing and Difference, "Ellipses")

Given the title of the essay something is omitted. A deliberate omission or the fact that something is always left unsaid?

Somewhere I came across Hegel described as Spinoza plus time.

From the preface to the Phenomenology:

#17:

In my view … everything hangs on grasping and expressing the true not just as substance but just as much as subject.

It is instructive to compare this to what Spinoza says about substance.

By substance, I mean that which is in itself, and is conceived through itself: in other words, that of which a conception can be formed independently of any other conception. (Ethics , Part One, Definitions, III)

Hegel continues:

At the same time, it is to be noted that substantiality comprises within itself the universal, or, it comprises not only the immediacy of knowing but also the immediacy of being, or, immediacy for knowing.

The universal is unity of the immediacy, direct and unmediated, of knowing and being, of knowing and for knowing.

However much taking God to be the one substance shocked the age in which this was expressed, still that was in part because of an instinctive awareness that in such a view self-consciousness only perishes and is not preserved.

I take this is a direct reference to Spinoza’s God. Hegel thinks it shocked the age not because, as is commonly assumed, threatening the status of God as distinct and separate, but because it threatens the status of man as distinct in his self-consciousness.

I think philosophy got hijacked by the universities. — Ying

I agree. The demand is that philosophy be productive, AKA publish or perish. The proliferation of journals and university publishers arose in order for there to be somewhere to store all this unread work product. The pretense of originality results in more and more being said about less and less. Teaching is in many cases no longer the primary reason for the academic profession. It is often regarded as secondary, a burden to be avoided if possible.

Indeterminacy is as old as philosophy itself, but it seems as though some today think it is their job to create indeterminacy. As if trying to navigate a ship on stormy seas so as not to run ashore will be benefited by making the landmarks indistinguishable.

Thanks jgill.

Philosophy is not an end in itself, it is a tool. — Pantagruel

That is one view on the spectrum you mention. One that I do not agree with.

Thanks Tom.

I can't help but hold the view that reality is an act of constructionism - we can't identify absolute truth (which is likely a remnant of Greek philosophy and Christianity) and philosophical positions we might hold appear to be culturally located. — Tom Storm

Plato begins to look very different once we separate Plato and Platonism. A couple of quick points: in the Phaedo the Forms are identified as hypotheses. This is not a break with, but rather a continuation of what is said about hypothesis in the Republic and Parmenides. In the Timaeus the arche or origin and ordering of the cosmos is a "likely story". Here the Forms are criticized for being stable and unchanging and thus inadequate as a causal explanation.

Also important is the activity of the imagination. The term 'constuctivism' is not used but poiesis meaning to make is.

I think we can still create tentative notions of 'the good' based on secular mechanisms — Tom Storm

I agree. This is the antidote to nihilism.

We no longer have a place in the cosmos - science tells us (or at least so it is thought) that life originated by a fluke combination of chemicals clustered around geo-thermal vents and then evolved by chance rather than design (and no, I'm not promoting ID theory, but the sense of life as essentially a product of chance, with no purpose other than survival and procreation, is one of the characteristics of nihilism.) — Wayfarer

There was no place in the cosmos staked out by Plato or Aristotle. In Plato's
Timaeus there is something he calls the "chora". It is said to be the third kind in addition to the Forms and sensible things. It can be translated as place. Rather than discuss it here I linked to it. For Aristotle there is the fifth or accidental cause. The implication is that the cosmos cannot be understood simply as teleological. The world is not as it is because it acts to fulfill some end. Because there are accidental causes, the world is indeterminate and does not yield a final account If you would like to discuss it I started a thread a while back on Aristotle's Metaphysics In both texts chance plays a role.

Would not the concept of beautiful and how one sees it depend upon one's wisdom? — Tom Storm

More often on one's education and opinions. Most of us are not wise but we may be fortunate enough to have teachers who are wiser than us.

Beauty is often treated as the starting point. I would suggest that it is the end point aimed for. The question of the beautiful stands beside the question of eros. The philosopher desires wisdom and is drawn to the beautiful. Both are seductive and are for that reason problematic, requiring a degree of critical distancing.

In moral teachings the beautiful is often connected to the good. We aspire to be and desire to have what is beautiful and what is good, as if with one we get the other. What is at issue is not simply the aesthetic judgment of what is beautiful but the poetic making of the idea or image of what is beautiful. For the former is dependent on the latter.