Amen.

Can you blame anyone who experiences inner anguish to want to formalize a worldview? What's another way to respond to inner anguish in which a worldview isn't subsequently formed? — Noble Dust

I believe that one ought not to jump too deep into the pessimism, nihilism, and absurdism rampant in philosophy. It seems like every other day we get a thread about the need for therapy instead of dwelling on the sad and negative emotions.

Obviously, there's nobody around to tell you that. Is this a failure of philosophy as a discipline itself?

That's not the same as real inner anguish, though; quite the opposite... — Noble Dust

See, and this is in my opinion the problem with philosophy or continental philosophy. Namely, that that inner anguish serves as a volition to create a world view (through intellectualization and emotive reasoning) via philosophy. Not all philosophers fall into that trap, as Wittgenstein did not; but, some never recover (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, nihilism, pessimism, and so on etc.)

Surely there's other folks to turn to for inspiring quotes other than Witty. — Noble Dust

Indeed, Hegel stands pretty high on my list, along with Kant. Hegel for asserting the truth that every person can find a place working towards the betterment of society, and Kant for being true, genuine, and sincere in his philosophy.

Too bad — Posty McPostface

Well, this runs deep into what I fundamentally believe philosophy is to many (not all!) people. A coping mechanism meshed with a large amount of the defence mechanism of reality manifest in intellectualization. Some call it mental masturbation; but, I digress.

I just want to read something inspiring from Wittgenstein instead of the constant deepness present in all his remarks about language, reality, and the world.

That's a good one. Too bad Wittgenstein's motivation/volition to do philosophy was in large part driven by his tormented soul.

But surely even a flawless argument is only true if the premises are secure.

So the gap that omniscience would have to fill lies in the truth of what gets assumed as motivation for your premises. — apokrisis

Rereading this I find it important that you mention "motivation". Or the desire to do "good". This leads me to believe that science is devoid of this important aspect of incorporating the will to do good or at least is not guided by it. Hence, I return to the question posted in the last sentence of the OP...

And then when it comes to the general validity of some topic, like ethics, there are the metaphysical level premises that are always going to be open to question. — apokrisis

Generally, yes. There is some ambiguity always present in the process of determining what moral truths are generalizable. There have been some outcomes due to this manifest in relativism of moral and ethical truths. However, I do believe that as a species we all have some fundamental desires that can be generalized, such as the golden rule. I guess the divide between the empiricists and rationalists is manifest here; but, we aren't entirely subjective creatures living in our own worlds, so to speak.

Is morality objective or subjective ultimately? Either choice is just a necessary leap of faith to secure some definite further line of argument. — apokrisis

Both. I don't quite understand the obsession with picking sides with either/or.

So deduction alone never bridges any epistemic gap. The only hope of at least minimising that gap is pragmatic reasoning - a cycle of abduction, deduction and inductive confirmation that can measurable narrow the divide between what was assumed for the sake of argument, and then how that works out in the long run. Given that the question had some purpose. — apokrisis

Yes, that is again a roundabout way of saying that science can answer these truth per the pragmatists.

I mean we're quite sure that philosophy is a ''good'' thing but morality itself seems to be beyond philosophy's reach. — TheMadFool

One of those epistemological gaps manifesting itself in this thread; but, how do we know the practice of 'philosophy' will be a 'good' thing? And, how does one remove the authoritarian tendency of thinking about 'philosophy' in the 'right' way?

It's easier to say that philosophy is morality than that morality is philosophy. — TheMadFool

Interesting. So, you're assuming a process based theory. Namely, that the practice of 'philosophy' itself will lead to 'knowing' what is ethical or moral. Somewhat circular but, I get the gist.

Is that right?

One important distinction that I haven't seen crop up in this thread is that there are conditions or states of being that are a result of individual psychology and/or physiology. A distinction between the two is hard to make; but, whereof one cannot reason through a condition (I call it a condition instead of a disorder due to the negative connotation of being "mentally-ill") thereof one can try medication...

Thankfully, the USSR collapsed and the stand-off ended. — frank

Yeah, living in fear is no fun. Glad we ended up lucky in the end.

In MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), you hold your enemies resources, population, buildings, land hostage, and so does your enemy to prevent nuclear war. That's the penalty for breaching the rules of the game. Thing is it just takes one lunatic or simple mistake to end everything that you hold dear. The premise of the whole game is that you hope your enemy is as rational as you are.

Too high a price to pay to maintain such a strategy, as I've always thought.

They have 1.37 billion people. That's a lot of bunkers. — frank

Hey, will I give them an A for effort instead of adopting MAD policies of holding your enemies population hostage and exclusively saving the same people who profess such an ideology.

I like China. They actually build bunkers for citizens in case of a nuclear war, instead of for politicians. And, I don't think they're lunatic like the presidents we had in the US. Not to portray them in a shining light of gold and silver; but, they've come along from the tendencies of Mao.

I sense something other than plain good will. — frank

Like what?

You're thinking that it's standard procedure for countries to give statues to one another. One of the most famous cases of it: the Statue of Liberty in NY, NY was a symbol of solidarity between France and the US. Is there supposed to be solidarity between China and Germany? — frank

The ulterior motive is good PR, rather obviously. China is trying to build something called the One Belt Road or something like that, that would create a corridor of trade between Europe and China, and they are trying really hard to appeal to the world in a positive light.

As the article in the OP mentioned, the gap between rich and poor in China is growing due to its embrace of capitalist practices. So I don't think it's a cheese situation. — frank

That's something the current leader of China is trying to solve. I don't follow the news in China that much; but, from what I gather Xi Jinping wants to go back to or appeal to communist ideals for the poor last I remember.

I'm not sure if anyone has noticed my comment in the other thread, where Hex posted; but, to practice "actual philosophy" requires an epistemic gap in knowledge that is manifest in an appeal to authority or someone who knows what "real philosophy" is. Hence, why Plato gets such a bad rap in regards to people who made that epistemic bridge possible with their own appeal to authority.

It's a non-sequitur in general, for the most part, to draw false dichotomies between "real philosophy" and "babble".

That's like asking why a cheesecake is made with cheese.

China is communist after all, and most tourists to Marx homeplace are from China.

I think you will find it easier to understand MWI if you drop all attempts to divide things into the 'real' and 'not real'. — andrewk

Then it would all be metaphysics and sophistry then, no?

Ok, well I hope I'm on the same page now.

But, my question still is undecided or still stands. That, I only experience this world and not any other. I mean to say that my world is the only one that seems real to me.

This state of affairs leaves me questioning some issues. Namely if anything meaningful can be said about alternate realities and if the idea is logically or scientifically sound.

I don't know what you mean by 'the real one' and I suspect that you don't either. — andrewk

I'm not trolling, so let me recap.

You assert that each world is real, as would any other version of me would say upon being asked upon in any other world. I assert that I only feel one world to be real, and not any other. Is there some linguistic game at play with what is 'real' or is this problem of multiple realities inconsistent with the way we use language?

I'm not sure how else to phrase the issue.

This was answered in post 2, and has been answered again in the post immediately above this. You say you find the response 'circular' but you have not explained what you mean by that, or why you think that. — andrewk

Then, which version of 'me' is the real one? I feel as though I am the only real Posty McPostface living life, and none other.

I find that hard to believe.

I always thought the claim that there is no God, a stronger belief than asserting there is a God.

All hail our new King!

I think you might have a misunderstanding of MWI. There is nothing in it, so far as I know, that says anything about a relationship between consciousness and decoherence or wave function collapse. — andrewk

Well, that's the point isn't it? The wave function doesn't collapse in MWI. Just splits apart when an eigenstate is realized, as far as I know. So, why would this reality seem real to me, rather than some other?

What you're describing is the fact that the stochastic distribution of my likelihood of winning the lottery being so low, that I am not experiencing that particular reality. But, the implicit assumption here in this thread is that reality is governed by the super-determinism of the MWI. So, again, why should this reality appear real to me, and seemingly obeys the probability distribution of events happening in a certain way, this denying the 'truth' of MWI.

Seems like a circular explanation to me. Why not assert the inconvenient truth and say that consciousness does not factor into the evolution or decoherence of a wavefunction in MWI. Then, this would ad hoc deny everything metaphysical in this thread and the suicide thought experiment?

That's cool with me and makes me happy. — Mayor of Simpleton

What purpose does philosophy serve you?

I have already stated what I think philosophy seems to be for me, am quite interested in other opinions too.

Thanks, fun talking with you Mayor!

So, instead of contemplating the philosophy of shoe picking... May I ask about your take on the Humean saying that reason is (instrumental) or a "slave" to the passions/emotions/desire?

Edit: The reason I ask is because as a former adherent or believer of stoicism I find it incommensurable with that philosophy, despite it seeming true. Hence the cognitive dissonance.

On the other end I have the thought about Buddhist realizing ''nirvana'' as a state of mind similar to which the mind is no longer constrained by desire/emotions/the passions.

Does that sound correct to you?

Why not say seems concerned or seems to focus mostly upon? — Mayor of Simpleton

Thanks for polishing that sentence for me. Yes, concerned or focused seems more apt here.

I wasn't aware that I made use of emotions to pick a pair of shoes. For the most part the reasons for the choices of my shoes are a combination of comfort and color/texture in relation to the rest of my outfit. — Mayor of Simpleton

Comfort seems to be the key word here. Comfort is a attitude or emotion elicited from some state of affairs. That state of affairs seems driven by urges, needs, want's, which all are emotionally driven, in my mind.

I cannot ever remember making an emotional driven decision about my shoes. — Mayor of Simpleton

Well, when you pick a pair of shoes at the store, then your decision to pick some pair of shoes is highly emotionally driven. Don't you think so?

Really?

I find this quite odd as the people I know who are basically running their lives upon emotional basis find it extremely difficult to make and decisions out of fear of making some sort of potential emotional conflicts. Often I am consulted by them to aid them in their decision making processes as I can basically ignore the emotional baggage and make a logical choice. — Mayor of Simpleton

In another thread, you talked about cognitive dissonance. If we were really or 'truly' reasonable, then cognitive dissonances would never arise. Just using that as an example to make the point clear.

Also, I would suggest that emotions have not cornered the market on irrational behaviour in the same manner that applications of pure logical can be irrational in terms of tendency toward a cognitive bias. — Mayor of Simpleton

Again, if we were 'truly rational' being then cognitive bias or dissonance would never occur.

We basically react on the basis of either logic or emotion or a combination of both to any given state of affairs coupled with predicating factors leading the way... whether we are aware of these predicating factors or not, but nonetheless we simply react. — Mayor of Simpleton

So, you're going one step further or (backwards, if you prefer) and talking about needs, wants, and instinctual desires, is that correct? Perhaps, the unconscious is at play here, in some unknown manner to us all to psychologize the issue.

True enough.
But I would argue it is more appropriately reasonable to care about being safe from bodily harm than to care about footwear aesthetics. With competing passions, reason has shown me which one I should choose.
Hence, not being governed by passions, but reason tampering or redirecting these if they are inappropriate. — NKBJ

Again, your desire not to feel pain or induce bodily harm decided that the slippers weren't the optimal choice. Reason was simply instrumental in that decision.

I'm not sure I understand how you understand the word appropriate if not entailing that we do things going against our comfort zone at times because reason tells us we ought to? — NKBJ

Reason doesn't tell us anything. It's not like some God entity that commands the mind to act in a certain way. Emotions do that for us.

Um, no. That fallacy would entail my argument is so self-contained that counter-examples can be dismissed out of hand simply for being contrary to my argument... which I can't.
I'm not making any claims about specific instances of "true reasonability." I'm saying reason and emotions help us assess what might be so. No guarantees, but it seems to me our best bet. — NKBJ

'Truly reasonable', is what you said, and it doesn't make sense to me to talk about reason in that way. Maybe you can expand on what you meant so I can clarify my misunderstanding.

I really, really like my slippers. My reason is telling my passions that if I go out hiking in slippers I can reasonably expect to be injured. Reason has saved me from my passions. — NKBJ

I think it's the other way around. Emotions, or your instinct for self preservation or the adversity of feeling pain told you to act by choosing the more preferable alternative to go in boots for a hiking trip, not slippers which would result in (most likely) blisters or generally a painful experience.

Got it Greg. Took me some time to conceptually polish that turd up.

I'll just rest my case and stick to philosophers being known as lovers of wisdom.

Philosophy is a discipline and a practice like any other - metallurgy say. — StreetlightX

What do you mean by "practice" here?

There is an expression "doing something for its own sake". Perhaps philosophy is one of those things that is, in many cases, done for its own sake. — MetaphysicsNow

That doesn't quite sound right, or maybe it's a tautology. I think philosophy serves a need. I'm quite interested in what need that may be.

Is it just me or does this limit the scope of potential purposes/applications of philosophy to a single aspect?

Perhaps asking what's a purpose of philosophy would be a better question as it rids the question of the bias of central purpose? — Mayor of Simpleton

Well, I couldn't phrase the question differently without sounding illiterate or my grasp of English is eluding me.

Allow me to rephrase the question:

What purpose does philosophy serve you?

I'm sure the answers will be various; but, some common theme might become apparent.

But this is also a typical philosophical move that ties us up in knots. — Ilyosha

How so? Genuinely interested.

Our opening salvo is to distinguish the material, the base, the bodily, the pleasurable, from the intellectual, the noble, the spiritual, and sublime. And I would like to suggest that this is not the best way to approach anything human. — Ilyosha

What alternative do you propose? The Nietzschean will to power?

Heidegger rushed Being & Time in order to gain tenure, Hegel was motivated by bitterness towards his Tübingen classmates, Dostoevsky wrote to pay off his gambling debts, etc. etc. — Ilyosha

But, what does that prove?

We can certainly accept that there are "reasons apart from material gain" for philosophy and still be skeptical about how philosophy plays into the full gamut of human goals, desires, inclinations, wills to power; a crude reductionism to "material gain" is not our only alternative. — Ilyosha

Sure, there are differing motives for doing philosophy. My primary question that I just stumbled upon in making this thread through my response to you is, "What affective need does philosophy fulfill?"

I would like to clarify any ambiguity about my attitude towards philosophy. I am not proposing that philosophy serve as a utilitarian purpose here, since what utility does the Mona Lisa serve?

It's quite clear from what I've read about the dropout rates of grad school philosophy, that the people who make it through it are motivated by reasons apart from material gain or financial wellbeing. So, hence I return back to my original premise, that philosophy serves an affective need to be fulfilled... in some intellectual sense or otherwise.

An interesting corollary question would be to ask other members what affective need does philosophy fulfill in you?

I hope I clarified my position adequately.