It uniquely took over Rome and subsequently became a uniquely ideologically complex religion by virtue of being a forum for diverse perspectives. — frank

We're making claims regarding different things. I was addressing the OP's statement that Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism "preannounced the message of the gospels" and contention that this made them "methods of Christian apologetics." Apologetics is the defense or justification of a religious doctrine. My point is that defending Christianity as a religion because it assimilated the doctrines of much older religions/philosophies isn't much of an apology, as you're merely saying it's derivative and proposes nothing new.

I tend to agree that Christianity's success was remarkable, and attribute its success to its relentless incorporation of pagan philosophy and the rituals of mystery and salvation cults popular in the Roman Empire, combined with its intolerance and state sponsored favoritism and persecution far exceeding the infrequent and irregular efforts made to suppress it. I don't think that was what the OP was intended to assert, though.

. Being a Christian, I have come to see the respective systems of thought as preannouncing the message of the gospel in terms of ethical questions about life. — Dermot Griffin

That's odd. Others might find it more sensible to consider "the message of the gospel" as you put it as being merely derivative of these systems, which after all had existed for centuries before the gospels were written, or for that matter as derivative of the Western philosophical systems such as Stoicism, which also preceded the gospels by hundreds of years. Establishing that Christianity borrowed heavily from other religions or philosophical traditions wouldn't seem to indicate there's anything unique about it.

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

Well, to give him his due he seems to have been a great mathematician. Perhaps the perceived need for absolute certainty worked to his benefit. Everyone seemed to desire that. I think of Berkeley, and his use of God to serve as a reassuring remedy for the results of his musings.

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

We know by sticking our head in the sand and seeing what happens. Before we do that, though, we'd consider what it is we wish to achieve by doing so. In fact, there are quite a few things we do without looking to determine what's "true."

William "Wild Bill"James may have said things suggesting what is true is what "works" but I think you'd find that Peirce and Dewey, and others, don't. Dewey thought the word "true" carried too much baggage. He thought that it's inappropriate to think only of propositions as true or false, but consider judgments as the subject matter. He felt that we are justified in making judgments when we act on the best evidence available. What that evidence indicates is what we are warranted in asserting.

Sometimes that evidence will be what "works." Sometimes it won't be. It happens that induction has been used successfully in the resolution of questions and problems for a very long time. Justification lies in the results of it use time and time again--the best evidence available on which to make a judgment of it.

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

Yes.

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.

I'm wondering whether there is any such philosophical discussion. Can you give an example of the topic of such a discussion? — Luke

Most discussions related to ethics or questions of value would qualify, I think.

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

One may notice problems, but why extrapolate from them the notion that such problems are ubiquitous, regardless of considerations of context?

I understand Hume's scepticism as his endeavour trying to find the ground for certainty and warrant for belief in the existence of the world and self, not the actual existence itself. — Corvus

That may well be. And it may be that a desire for absolute certainty is behind the effort. But I still think the fact such skepticism is so contrary to how we live our lives that it should count against it, so to speak. If inductive reasoning (for example) is something we "have to do" by virtue of living, what induces us to think that there's no basis for it? Why question it in the first place?

So who is this mysterious ‘someone’? — Joshs

I intended to refer to Hume, who had been mentioned as doing so, or those who took his position.

You don’t believe there’s an external world apart from us? — Joshs

Not apart from us, no, because we're a part of it. What is called "the external world" isn't external from us; it includes us.

I would just add to that that the real is what is constantly changing with respect to itself. — Joshs

As Marcus Aurelius wrote: "The universe is change."

What (or whose or what topics in) philosophy is not affectation, in your view? — Luke

Any philosophical discussion which doesn't require us to disregard or consider of no real value how we live in determining the nature of what we interact with in the course of living will, in all likelihood, be relatively free of affectation.

After reading the OP and its supporters posts, it reminded me of a severe case of Projection Defense Mechanism symptom in Psychology.

One of the extreme cases of Scepticism was by Hume. He even doubted his own "self".  But we don't call him someone who indulged in affectation.  

"I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception. When my perceptions are remov'd for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist."  (Hume, Treatise) — Corvus

I'd never heard of this mechanism. Those psychologists are so clever, with names.

How odd, and revealing, it is that Hume thought he didn't exist while he slept. How was it, you think, that he tried to "catch himself" without a perception? Did he try to "sneak up" on himself so to speak, only to find that he was aware he was doing so and continued to see, hear, smell, etc.? What would have been the case if he succeeded?

I wonder what ‘adhering to the real’ could possibly mean? Perhaps to the ever changing definitions of the real that have made their way into use over the past few millennia? I say we should all adhere to the mugwump, since that is about as clarifying. — Joshs

But there are mugwumps among us, and the number of them is said to be growing. Didn't you know?

If we want to know what Stevens thought the real to be, we'd all have to read his book The Necessary Angel. Absent that, I think his poem The Snow Man may give us a hint.

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

It's just my interpretation, but I note that the poem states that we must have "a mind of winter" to behold the frost and crusted boughs, junipers shagged with ice, the cold winds of that season, rather than thinking of aspects of the season as expressing "misery" in the sound of the wind and the few leaves. The listener, who actually listens in the snow, beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is there, the listener being nothing. "Nothing" I take to mean "nothing in addition to the world" as the listener is a part of the world, not apart from it. The world is without the accoutrements we try to dress it in when we consider ourselves separate from it. That, I guess, is what he refers to when he uses "real" in this context.

That's not to say that the accoutrements don't themselves exist. Stevens was pupil of Santayana. I think he distinguished between what philosophers and poets do, but thought that imagination expressed in poetry and art is a means by which we may affect the real, transform it, understand it. But the more it detaches itself from"the real" the more it loses its impact.

As you might guess, I have some sympathy for this point of view. I think it's similar to the view that we're participants in the rest of the world and thereby part of the real and our lives are our interaction with it.

I'm only a servant of the devil, not the devil himself. The demon that Descartes pretended was tricking him into believing what he clearly believed in the first place is a good friend of mine. We share a laugh about this, he and I, as he tricked Descartes into believing Descartes existed.

A favorite quote of one of my favorite philosophers, specifically addressed to Descartes' faux doubt if I recall correctly.

All of this is merely your own conception of what you consider practicing philosophy. — Vaskane

What I conceive is certainly my own conception, but I haven't said anything about what I consider practicing philosophy. I've addressed philosophical positions taken in metaphysics and epistemology by some people. I think I've made it clear that philosophy encompasses more than those positions.

IDK, wouldn't the Earth being round, the Earth rotating around the Sun, etc. all be examples here? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think Austin was addressing such circumstances. If someone told me the Earth is flat, or the Sun rotated around the Earth, I wouldn't say his senses are deceiving him, and therefore they can't be trusted.

This isn't inconsistent with Hume saying that "of course we still end up using inductive reasoning, because we sort of have to." — Count Timothy von Icarus

If we "have to" there's something about it, or us, which requires or provides for its use. How/why is it appropriate to insist it's use must be justified if that's the case? What induces someone to claim that what we have to do by virtue of the fact we live is unwarranted?

Someone should start a thread about that... — Banno

That's a great idea.

As you say, such things are normally put forth as though experiments. What they generally try to show is that the common sense explanation of things cannot be the case, not that the silly view is the case. This isn't always true, but it often is. I think that when people embrace extremely counter intuitive ideas of the world, it is because the problems with the naive view start to become insurmountable. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think those like Austin show that in most cases, if not in all of them, the "naive view" starts to "become insurmountable" only due to confusion and error. But I'm curious how we come to think that a stick in a glass of water and other such things establishes that we cannot trust our senses. Do we really believe the stick bends on contact with water? No. Why, then, do we claim we think it does? It's a kind of special pleading.

Because I think it is one. I don't think non-conscious non-mental stuff can produce minds and consciousness. — RogueAI

What happens when you wake up?

And besides, one has to try on different philosophies for size, so to speak, given them a trial run. That's not hypocrisy. — baker

I don't think what I refer to is hypocrisy. But I think there's more involved than a "trial run" by the curious. I do think it's peculiar, and aberrant in a way, requiring an explanation. I'm wondering if it's a kind of contrivance on the part of those who engage in it.

Well, one is left wondering if some professional philosophers were unduly pretentious. If not He of the Great Moustache, then certainly some of his acolytes; Feyerabend, maybe - Hero of the Left as he was; a few more recent French "thinkers", perhaps...

But one's prejudices will show: I'm authentic, you are ostentatious, he's a wanker. — Banno

According to Wallace Stevens, "Imagination loses vitality as it ceases to adhere to the real." I think the same goes for philosophy.

I don't mean to claim all philosophy is affectation. Consider this a preliminary inquiry into when it becomes affectation.

have a thing where I lose confidence that the road in front of me will be there when I get to it. I think it's along the lines of OCD. I get through it by humming. For some reason, the worst drive is through West Virginia when the big open valleys appear between the peaks. In other words, philosophy probably isn't for you. :razz: — frank

Interesting that I loved driving through the mountains in West Virginia. Beautiful.

But I think some of philosophy may be genuine.

I think this is all a dream, but it's a remarkably persistent and painful dream that I'm currently unable to wake up from. — RogueAI

Why call it a dream, then?

What was Simon Blackburn’s quote - everyone is a realist when they walk out the door. — Tom Storm

Yes. But I'm wondering what it means when they're not a realist otherwise.

My suspicion is that it is found in those with a little philosophy, but not enough. — Banno

I hope your suspicion is correct.

Hume elsewhere confesses that he does indeed expect the future to be like the past, and the ground not to collapse beneath him. — unenlightened

Which I think some (like me, maybe) would maintain constitutes a confession he himself
disregards the claims he makes in philosophy all the time. One would think that should make a difference to him, and to others, in assessing the validity and value of his claims.

My understanding that he is not in fact attacking the common-sense understanding of the world at all, Rather he is attacking the over-reach of "reasoning". — unenlightened

In that case, he's attacking a view neither he nor anyone else genuinely accepts, if our conduct is any guide.

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. Descartes had, and in some respects still has, his followers. It seems to me that Kant, with his things-in-themselves, and any of those who accept dualism, the view that there is an external world, apart from us, the mind-body distinction; those that believe we can't be directly aware of the world, all participate in what seems to me to be an affectation.

or Dewey's belief in procedure (or something like that). — Antony Nickles

Method, more specifically, I think (the method of "inquiry").

Part of philosophy’s problem (exemplified by Ayer) is that the desire for a perfect knowledge, and the subsequent resignation to an imperfect knowledge, both only allow for a fixed outcome (of knowledge, or a “perception”, or “appearance”, or “mental process”, or “meaning”). — Antony Nickles

You keep reminding me of Dewey. That's a good thing for me, but perhaps not for others. See his The Quest for Certainty. Analytic and OLP philosophers weren't the only ones seeking to cure philosophy of its various ills.

We - and I mean this loosely - about immediate family - can go through an entire holiday eating, drinking, visiting resorts and watching dolphins, without one word, one word, mind you, about the starving people of the world. Give lip service at least. Think about them. At least Elon Musk tried, and he says 'its not the money - there are wars...'.

I seem to be the only one thinking about this. — FreeEmotion

Luke 18:11

↪J I'm not onboard with the James quote, for two reasons. First, what counts as a simple is down to context, and here I'm thinking of the later Wittgenstein: and second, I'm not certain of the implied physiology - that we build our sensorium up from patches strikes me as overly simplistic. Do you see the red patch and the bands and build Jupiter from them, or do you see Jupiter and then by being more attentive divide off the patch and the bands? Or some combination? These are questions for physiology, not philosophy. — Banno

Not sure about James, but I think Dewey would say that context is all important, and the tendency to ignore it, which is to say to treat perception as a philosophical issue, is at the bottom of most of the so-called problems of the external world, other minds, mind body dualism, appearance versus reality, etc.

In fact, in most cases we don't bother to think about what we see or sense generally, simply because questions don't arise that can't be addressed adequately by "common sense" as it were, except in special circumstances. Very few are unable to distinguish between dreaming and what takes place when we're awake, for example. Nobody would think a stick in a glass of water is "bent." It doesn't occur to us even to focus on the cup we use to drink let alone wonder if we see it or something else.

What philosophers have done is, in a sense, unnatural, by which I mean disregarding how we actually live and treating our experience as made up of isolated instances to be subjected to analysis as if they are separate, but then, perversely as it were, extrapolating from them general conclusions to apply in all cases.

There, I said it. Philosophy is unnatural and perverse. Must do a thread on that.

Thanks for the clarification. The pie I got hit with was rather tasty, but I'm glad you avoided getting hit by one.

I've never believed little blobs of color are fundamental to perception, so I missed out on the pie. I don't think any scientists believe that either, if any ever did. — frank

I don't recall mentioning "little blobs of color" or their relation to perception. Perhaps you're being deceived by your senses, yet again.

He is not offering another theory to explain “perceiving” or something to replace it. He is claiming that the problem that everyone is arguing about how to solve is made up; that the whole picture that we somehow interpret or experience remotely (through something else--sense perception, language, etc.) or individually (each of us) is a false premise and forced framework. — Antony Nickles

He's establishing that as well, to my satisfaction at least. The "pie in the face" moment as I like to call it is when you understand you've been on a wild goose chase all along. It's not an easy thing to acknowledge, as is being shown.

This kind of philosophy is well described as therapeutic, I think. It's directed to the treatment and (it's to be hoped) cure of a kind of disorder or disease which leads us to believe that we are, in effect, the homunculus Banno refers to, watching a movie screen or TV in our minds.

But his method (as with Wittgenstein) is to set out what we say and do about a topic as evidence of how that thing actually works. That is to say, he is learning about the world. For example, in examining what we say and do about looking, he is making a claim about how "looking" works, the mechanics of it. “Seeing” something is not biological—which would simply be vision—and neither is judging, identifying, categorizing, etc. (“perception” is a made up thing, never defined nor explained p. 47). . Austin is showing us that “seeing” is a learned, public process (of focus and identification). “Do you see that? What, that dog? That’s not a dog, it’s a giant rabbit; see the ears.” — Antony Nickles

I think you see this in Deweyian pragmatism as well. Perceiving, thinking, doing is how we learn of and interact with the rest of the world. The tendency of philosophers has been to treat "the mind" as something different from the world in a sense, unconcerned with the mundane when appropriately engaged and thus capable of ascertaining what lies beyond the prejudices of the "common herd" regarding the nature and reality of things with which it deals every day, like cups.

I hope the absurdity is plain, and that you see the relevance of ↪Ciceronianus's joke. — Banno

I figured you'd notice the joke and the irony. Perhaps others will now that you mentioned it.

there is nothing to understand — Banno

The pie has hit your face when you recognize this to be the case. There's a kind of self-deception at work. or affectation, when we question whether or not we really see a cup.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmiro.medium.com%2Fv2%2Fresize%3Afit%3A656%2F1*X4OCziOUe9xYm1nN06mG5A.png&tbnid=91WtSbFg1eQ_mM&vet=12ahUKEwizpJbeprKCAxVJ0MkDHShEDt8QMygSegQIARBy..i&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2F%40kleong54%2Fconversations-with-pi-buddha-versus-descartes-1fab2563a230&docid=heNqkIjfpn3A0M&w=656&h=481&q=ghost%20in%20the%20machine%20drawing%20philosophy&hl=en&authuser=1&ved=2ahUKEwizpJbeprKCAxVJ0MkDHShEDt8QMygSegQIARBy

Ah. That's better, isn't it?