What is the cause of this? Too much leisure time? — frank

That would be a factor. Another would be self-love (the belief in one's own importance, and the resulting search for a justification or explanation for one's existence). Related to that would be the need to minimize the significance of ordinary, day-to-day life by positing the existence of some more satisfying reality behind it or transcendent of it. Also the "quest for certainty," based on, I suppose, fear of a world of probabilities and change. The disappointment of those brought up in the Christian faith when they find it to be incredible. That enough?

There is no compulsion to take current issues on board in order to survive.
However, I think the necessary self-questioning aspect of relevance is a good way forward, don't you think ? Thoughts travel... — Amity

The only formal education I had in philosophy was devoted to the study of Analytic Philosophy, Ordinary Language Philosophy, and (through a particular professor) Deweyian Pragmatism.

Dewey, unlike the other philosophers I studied, was deeply concerned with social issues. However, he was similar to them (I think) in his emphasis on the consideration and application of a method of addressing and resolving problems he called "inquiry." "Inquiry" is broad enough, I think, to include the methods employed by AP and OLP in addressing traditional philosophical questions. But Dewey felt inquiry should be applied not merely to philosophical issues but current social issues as well.

So, I have no problem with philosophy addressing social issues.

Instead of diligently cleaning it for the rest of eternity, why not just throw a few grenades in it? — frank

I think that's been tried, at least as to certain aspects of philosophy; metaphysics, for example. And yet it keeps reappearing in various guises--like a demon that refuses to be exorcised. Analytic philosophy (to mix metaphors) is therefore similar to a mallet which may be used in a game of Whac-A-Mole, the moles being replaced by specific philosophers or philosophical theories, satisfyingly wacked by those seeking clarity and rigor in philosophy and eschewing obscurity.

But the moles keep popping up until the game is over.

Again, I view analytic philosophy as a method--a tonic and roborative, perhaps even a purgative. It shouldn't pretend to be anything else, I think. It's not the end of philosophy, it's a way of addressing problems.

Analytic philosophy, like Joe Hill, ain't dead, and like rock 'n roll, it will never die, as long as it's considered to be a method or collection of methods by which the detritus of philosophy is cleared. Those methods may be usefully addressed to such as feminism or critical race theory, but I don't see why it must take them onboard in order to survive or flourish.

Then the Christian claim that another diety eliminates the need to make sacrifices. :chin: — Athena

Yes, but only because the one true sacrifice has already made, and is reenacted in the sacrament of the Eucharist.

It seems so, when you check his profile. He seemed to be seeking banishment.

I see the tiresome, one-trick pony is gone now. RIP, dear Mystic.

Has anyone ever been banned for sanctimony?

Well, I suppose that's an inappropriate question here, if this thread is to address specific bannings only. Perhaps we'll find out, someday.

You do realise Shakespeare and nietzsche really fucked a lot — Mystic

Well, some say Nietzsche had syphilis, but if that was so, it doesn't necessarily mean he fucked a lot. Chances are he didn't fuck much at all, poor fellow. Not that he was probably a virgin like that even poorer fellow, Kant. I like to think Shakespeare fucked often.

As for punctuation, Nietzsche certain loved his exclamation points, but I don't think either he or Shakespeare wrote...in such a manner...perhaps way, as in path...through the desolation of existence...so studied and contrived...to evoke so pointedly...the pretence of uniqueness.

We might ask why was it ever necessary to sacrifice animals, and how did a person come to holding the position of the official over the sacrifice and why was the temple essential to the sacrificing. — Athena

I'm reading a book on divination in antiquity, Divination and Human Nature, by Peter Struck, which considers the views of ancient philosophers regarding that practice. From what I gather so far, philosophers didn't necessarily dispute its efficacy, but rather sought to explain why it was effective. Divination didn't necessarily involve sacrifice, though the study of livers was thought to be significant in determining what was to take place.

The Roman Emperor as Pontifex Maximus performed sacrifices as part of the Roman state religion. There's frieze of Marcus Aurelius doing so that's well known. Sacrifice seems to have been a fairly universal religious practice.

Dewey position appears to lend itself to materialism and it was this that Heidegger wanted to avoid — Gregory

I would call his position naturalism rather than materialism. He certainly thought we are wholly natural beings which developed in the natural world and are not supernatural, but "nature" can cover a lot of ground. The Stoics are considered materialists, but they believed that the world an all that's in it is infused with a special pneuma, a kind of breath or fire which is the generative principle that moves the world and humans as part of the world (the Stoic God or Logos).

There are constituents of Nature that remain unknown to us, and may not be "material" as commonly defined.

Are you a fan of Woody Allen’s early work? Is it a comfort to you to draw a distinction between his work and his personal life? — Joshs

His early work, yes. His later work, it seems, was all about his personal life, so I'm not sure there's that much of a distinction between one and the other. But in all honesty, I prefer the silly Allen to the serious Allen.

I’m a great admirer of Dewey, but Heidegger’s work, along with Derrida, Gendlin and a few others , moves a step or two beyond Pragmatism. Dewey connects affect and intention-cognition , but still retains a distinction between the two that Heidegger was able to transcend. His analysis of the relation between the self
and the social is also more advanced. — Joshs

Well, I rather like the approach of Dewey and G.H. Mead when it comes to the self and society. Heidegger seems to me to have a fundamentally romantic, even mystical, view of society and culture I find disagreeable. I'm thinking of his Question Concerning Technology in particular.

But I get carried away when it comes to H, all too easily, I confess.

Dewey opposed what has been described as the "spectator" view of truth (or knowledge). He saw us as living organisms which are parts of an environment. What we learn, experience and know are the results of our interaction with that environment. We don't merely observe the world; we're a part of it. Generally, our interaction with the world isn't analytic. We only think when confronted with problems--very broadly defined to include any situation where we are dissatisfied and wish to change--which must be resolved. Otherwise, we act from habit and unthinking reaction.

What we call "true" is what intelligent inquiry and analysis determines to be the case based on the best evidence available. That can be discovered in various ways, through application of the scientific method, trial and error, the consequences of action taken to resolve problems, experience. We're warranted in asserting that to be the case until the evidence discovered indicates otherwise. He came to prefer "warranted assertibility" to "true" because "true" and "truth" carried too much baggage, or so he thought.

Dewey sounds arrogant — Gregory

That particular quote strikes me as uncharacteristic, as Dewey was generally quite mild in his assessment of other philosophers, including Bertrand Russell who was very vocal in his criticism of Pragmatism (which he seemed incapable of understanding, a problem Russell also had with Wittgenstein's work). The American philosopher Joseph Margolis claimed Dewey said this after Margolis asked him to read Heidi.

But it seems that others have noted that Dewey anticipated Heidi in various respects, as an Internet search will reveal.

n actual real world fact, it is extremely common for Christians to refer to themselves as sinners. — Foghorn

Oh yes. Some of them revel in being sinners, in fact, following the example set long ago by Augustine of Hippo. The more they sin, the more remarkable it is that they repent and are forgiven, and the more significant they become according to strange logic of the zealous. "Let he who is without sin....."

We're not Christians by the way. — Foghorn

I was one, as you might guess. I enjoy reading of the transition from the ancient Greco-Roman pagan world to the Christian West. It's an amazing story, but knowing it and knowing what I learned in life as a Catholic makes it difficult for me to admire Christianity the religion.

I wasn't aware Jesus loved dogs, too, thereby making it one of those Christian ideals you reference.

But certainly, ideals of any kind are ideals. What distinguishes Christianity and Christians, though, I believe, is the extent to which the ideals are promoted and relentlessly expounded as peculiarly
Christian while they're being ignored so blithely. Self-righteousness, exclusivity and intolerance make hypocrisy particularly notable, and while Christians may be no more prone to sin than others, they enjoy the pretense of sinlessness.

"A Swabian peasant trying to sound like me" is what Dewey is reputed to have said about everyone's favorite Nazi. I've read a good deal of Dewey ; not so much Heidi. But when it comes to the latter, his fans like to draw a distinction between the man and his work, so you may comfort yourself by doing the same.

It's about community, work for the community, and love of family and community. — Gregory

Perhaps it took some time for him to find a community/family he could love and work for, then. Consider it a kind of family portrait.

He's second from the right, sitting, at this rally for Peace and Love.

https://philosophynow.org/media/images/issues/121/Heidegger%20with%20Nazis.jpg

He's well worth reading. Quite philosophical, I think. A student of George Santayana, for whom he wrote a poem--To an Old Philosopher in Rome. Also a lawyer, who got into a fist fight with Ernest Hemingway in Key West.

Here's a very philosophical poem, by Wallace Stevens:

Not Idea About the Thing but the Thing Itself

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow . . .
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier mâché . . .
The sun was coming from outside.

That scrawny cry—it was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

I think Jews interpret the Bible more abstractly than Christians. — Athena

Well, they have to though, don't they? Otherwise the God they worship would be jealous, despotic and bloodthirsty.

Christians, on the other hand, may more easily be literal in their interpretation of the New Testament, but if they are they show themselves to be jealous, despotic and bloodthirsty. The Old Testament God, interpreted literally, is one actual Christians understand quite well.

God is made of cheese. — praxis

Perfect cheese, though.

Card-carrying Nazi Heidegger
(Whom Hitler had made all aquiver)
Tried hard to be hailed
Nazi-Plato, but failed
Then denied that he tried, with great vigor.

Since you brought up resolution, I'll throw in the Act of Contrition as well, and resolve to sin nor more.

However, the way I see it, it's a question of balance. A person may enjoy listening to Classical music whilst another may be dying of starvation. Materialist concerns are alright as long as they don't deflect attention from other concerns, e.g., from the moral or ethical sphere such as social or economic justice. — Apollodorus

I'll remind myself that people are starving the next time I listen to Brahms. That should quash that naughty materialist enjoyment. If that doesn't work, I think I still have an old rosary lying around somewhere, and listening to a symphony will have more than enough time to recite all Five Sorrowful Mysteries.

'm left a physicalist when I hear Brahms's First, an acosmist when I hear his Fourth. I think there's something about that E minor first movement that awakens my numinosity gland and suppresses my physicalist gland. — Tom Storm

They're my favorites among the symphonies, but I've never thought of them quite that way. I prefer his chamber music, generally--chamber music in general, I suppose--but that doesn't make me a minimalist, I believe. Quietist, perhaps.

I don't know you, so I can't tell. As I said, it depends: — Apollodorus

I'm just trying to figure out what you feel is or is not materialist or materialistic when it comes to interest in such things as music, poetry, science, gardening and, say, the arts.

If I listen to Brahm's First Symphony, for example, and don't think about God or the spiritual as I do so, but admire and enjoy the skill with which it's composed, the skill of the musicians playing it, and the sound of it, is it appropriate to describe what I feel or think as materialist or materialistic? I would say no, but there is no question--as far as I'm concerned--that my admiration and enjoyment is sensual in that my senses are gratified and that what causes that gratification is material--instruments are being played, sound waves/vibrations are created. Paintings are material, so are poems, so are flowers; so are we as we experience them.

The "materialist content" of interests was what I was talking about. — Apollodorus

Ah, I see. The materialist content of interests in music, poetry, science and gardening, then. So, if I'm interested in the music of Brahms because I enjoy it, or in the poetry of Wallace Stevens because I enjoy it, does my interest in them have a materialist content?

If they have a materialist content, which they tend to do, then yes. — Apollodorus

What kind of immaterial content would they have?

Anything that distracts from God, religion or spiritual things.

If you use your guitar etc. for religious purposes, e.g., to play religious songs, then it would be a different story. — Apollodorus

I've been exposed to guitar masses, and suspect attendance at them is mandatory in hell. But what is it that renders religious songs immaterial?

Sorry, but if they're immaterial because they refer to immaterial things, I wonder then what immaterial things may be. Things which are not material?

Facile anti Catholic hatred aside, it is a fact that the Catholic Church resisted Nazism to a greater degree than any other Christian denomination. — Olivier5

Sancta Mater Ecclesia did what it has always done, more or less successfully (e.g., the Reformation), for so long. That is, what was considered appropriate morally to the extent that didn't endanger its survival as a powerful institution, relatively content with its place and perception of itself as the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

A thorough survey of the philosophy of ethics reveals a stark and disturbing truth viz. no existent moral theory that's made a clean break from theism manages to draw a clear boundary between that which is moral (good, mandatory) and immoral (bad, prohibited). I — TheMadFool

Huh. Plato's ethics? Virtue Ethics? Stoicism? Confucianism? Buddhism?

If you hold the "Big Daddy" view of God, your moral point of view is inherently childish, selfish and fearful--what won't you do to avoid a good spanking? What would you do if there was no spanker, or if spanking took a holiday, so to speak?

https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2003/10/04/

Is the modern West in decline? is the culture corrupt? Are we lost and in despair? — CountVictorClimacusIII

I think paintings tell us more about the artists who made them than anything else. So, for that matter, do videos like this one. I don't know the answers to your first two questions. I'm not lost and in despair, though listening to all those portentous pontifications read by the narrator was disturbing. I don't know how anyone else feels.

Jews are still bitter at the Romans for that. — BitconnectCarlos

So I understand, and have been told before. The only people I know who got that kind of treatment from Rome were the Carthaginians.

No, they stole our land. — BitconnectCarlos

I'd hoped you'd abandoned that position, I confess. Really, it hasn't been Jewish land since (at the latest) the Romans, with that thoroughness and ruthlessness which was characteristic of them whenever the thought their imperium was threatened, crushed the revolt led by Simon Bar Kokhba in 136 C.E. Israel's existence is merely a fact, it isn't something which can be justified or explained as being the restoration of a "homeland" or the return of a gift of land by God, or as the return of stolen property to its rightful owner.

Those are the kind of theatrics that the new conservative loves. — James Riley

It's a sad thing, I believe. A once legitimate (if sometimes misguided) intellectual/political tradition has been suborned and replaced with a movement the representatives of which resemble, in character, knowledge and in intellect, the loudest know-it-all at the nearest bar for the most part, and the balance of which is made up of mere shills for various corporate interests which take advantage of them.

But I believe philosophy could benefit from taking nothing for granted. — Andrew4Handel

Cicero said, quite rightly, that there's nothing so absurd but some philosopher has already said it. But absurdity and stupidity don't seem, to me, to be worthy goals of philosophy.

In fact, justice and equality surely are Conservative values nowadays? — Benkei

I just love irony. But if they were Conservative values, I question whether Conservative values exist anymore here in God's Favorite Country.

It is possible to own almost anything now, from radio waves, stars, ideas, inventions, names, ever smaller slices of land selling for massive sums of money. — Andrew4Handel

It's possible to own whatever law says can be owned, in fact.

I don't know; the whole "War on Christmas" thing seems pretty convincing to me. — James Riley

Well, December 25th is actually the birth of Sol Invictus. The early Christian bigwigs pretty much acknowledged that they had no idea when Jesus was born, and were using the date to celebrate his birth disingenuously because of its well-established popularity as a pagan holiday. So, Christ was never there to begin with, I'm afraid.