However, how does one classify Marx in terms of being just a philosopher apart from 'communism' if at all possible. What are your thoughts? — Shawn

I'd say check out his early works. Or one of my favorites, because it's so side, The German Ideology.

What do you make of this quote? It summarizes much of what comes to mind when I think of Marx (as a non-expert who likes the guy as a philosopher and not as my political guru.)

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.

In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven. That is to say, we do not set out from what men say, imagine, conceive, nor from men as narrated, thought of, imagined, conceived, in order to arrive at men in the flesh. We set out from real, active men, and on the basis of their real life-process we demonstrate the development of the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life-process. The phantoms formed in the human brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their material life-process, which is empirically verifiable and bound to material premises. Morality, religion, metaphysics, all the rest of ideology and their corresponding forms of consciousness, thus no longer retain the semblance of independence. They have no history, no development; but men, developing their material production and their material intercourse, alter, along with this their real existence, their thinking and the products of their thinking. Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. In the first method of approach the starting-point is consciousness taken as the living individual; in the second method, which conforms to real life, it is the real living individuals themselves, and consciousness is considered solely as their consciousness. — Marx

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a2

First answer:
There's a way you can play this where it is a false dichotomy. But you have to go out into the desert and live on locusts and honey. If you are doing philosophy of math, you can basically say whatever you want. Personally I don't believe that odd numbers are real. (That's a joke, and it would be harder to make a case against the legitimacy of odd numbers IMO.) [You can say whatever you want and call it philosophy. And if no one agrees and you are truly OK with that, then you win. I mention this because of experience with infinity-deniers, anti-Cantorians, etc. ]

Second answer:
If you are asking a technical question, then it seems you have too options. Believe one or more anonymous posters who sound knowledgeable or find out which books are considered 'classics' in the field and see what you can make of them. I know something about the subject (but why should you believe me?) and I can say that lots of ink has been spilled on the issue by clever people. They exist, but not in such a intuitively pleasing way as natural numbers do.

The mainstream approach to giving the number √2 existence requires us to assert the existence the Platonic Realm (which I equate with an infinite computer), but extraordinary claims should be backed by strong evidence, for which I have come across none. Thoughts? — Ryan O'Connor

Not that you should believe me as a single anonymous voice, but no one has to embrace the Platonic creed to get degrees in math. People who know how to shuffle symbols correctly can still argue about what it all really means. Wittgenstein was heavy on phil. of math, probably because it's a toy model of philosophy in general. What people even mean by Platonic Realm is not exactly specifiable, is itself a kind of 'irrational number' in the everyday shuffling of words. Approximation and vagueness is the rule, and integers are glowing exceptions to just about everything else that's human.

I've never been thirsty for it myself. One of my friends has become somewhat wealthy, and it's a little awkward. Chris Rock jokes about men being willing to live in a cardboard box if it wasn't for women. Well, I'd need a cabin. But basically (perhaps you can relate), I just want a little simply security so I can read, daydream, walk in the sun, play chess, scribble now and then. Freedom from worry ! I'd happily sacrifice various expensive and complicated pleasures for that.

I would think that would be justifiable. Behind every fortune is a terrible crime (Balzac). — Tom Storm

I'm about to reread Cousin Bette, the only Balzac I've read. But, yeah! We all love and need money, and so all worship it to some degree, but perhaps only a few of us make it the metric. It's a universal half-god. If humans were immortal, the pursuit of wealth would be a more powerful religion perhaps. But we know that we must age and die, and this threatens every 'rational' comfort-seeking calculation.

"Casting pearls before swine" -- that's a way to keep up the appearance of one's worthiness and the worthiness of one's ideas. Because if (some) other people are demoted to swine, then one's ideas, however lowly they might be, instantly look more elevated, pearly ... — baker

This touches on one of the big issues of life. Even a socialist can't help turning up his nose at some people, in his heart if not in his public actions. There are books that I know are great that I wouldn't bring up with certain people. I wouldn't recommend them. Drugs sell themselves. The good things don't need hype.

Maybe one enjoys what feels like a relatively universal cure for existence. In that case it's natural to share it, celebrate it. But humans take such pleasure in going against the grain, being contrary...Who wants to be in the club that accepts everybody? Like many people, I've been interrupted by Jehova's Witnesses and Mormons. None of them struck me as good advertisements for the faith, and a cynic might say they were selling a product, since surely a tithe would finally be involved. Worse, I was supposed to pay for a manager rather than be paid by one. In this example, I guess I'm the swine. But what I have in mind is the first-person experience of remaining silent where speech would be futile. [For instance, I don't bother nice believing mothers with my atheism. One size does not fit all here, or it wouldn't feel right to harass them, enlighten/threaten them, etc.]

Absolutely right - this was my point before - recondite knowledge is the poor person's pathway to an elite status. I suspect this is behind the pursuit of much mysticism. — Tom Storm

I've tended to view things this way. Perhaps academia is a kind of middle path. The respected researcher making 120K might feel greatly superior to the billionaire. Warriors also come to mind. I suspect that Navy seals are as proud as billionaires. Invidia, the human essence?

You make a great point about the pridefulness of Cioran. As Cioran says somewhere, he's been a student all his life and is proud to have done nothing. He sees time pass. He thinks of it as the highest thing. He's too good, too splendid, to take life seriously. He's a beautiful loser. Or rather he would be a loser if he wasn't so fucking good at being a loser, at speaking from the place of loss. There's something castrating in nihilism. One identifies with the screaming void as a dark god. Or plays at it. I see Cioran as occasionally ecstatically happy. I have only read some of his work, but I'm reminded that Kafka would laugh hysterically at some of his work (according to a bio that change my way of thinking about him.) You mention Tim & Eric in another post, and some of that humor is so dark that simple laughter isn't the target. It's supposed to create some fascinating wound.

On the picking a fight issue, yes indeed that's stuff we humans do. And I wrestle with shame sometimes too, because there's the temptation to mock, challenge, subvert. Then there's perhaps the worse temptation to be above all this, to scorn all this in an even less forgiving pride (silent contempt.) If one knows this evil or aggression in one's self, it's hard to be earnest, because one expects it in others, especially in those who matter, because our pretty intellectual flowers grow in the soil of cruelty (something like that.) Messages are contorted as they are squeezed through defense mechanisms (like dream work of some kind.)

I do love the idea of sinners confessing to one another in humility. That's so not cool in our world at the moment. I'm tempted to think that Twitter/Facebook has made people worse, but perhaps it's just made the structure more naked, open to research. At least beautiful Christian collisions are possible in private. Privacy is sacred for that reason perhaps. A space to be naked and forgiving (and forgiveness itself is a public sin, excepting trivial cases.)

People don't necessarily proselytize to "prove the strength of their faith".
Some do it "to share the joy with others".
Some others do it out of a sense of entitlement to do so.
Some do it out of a sense of superiority over others.

In fact, it's what religion/spirituality is all about: a sense of superiority over others, a sense of entitlement over others.
All of one's religious/spiritual knowledge is in vain if one doesn't think it somehow makes him better than other people. — baker

Sounds about right. This can take complicated forms, of course, which look like humility to the unwary. Also seems important that people want to share in that feeling of superiority. It's not much fun to be enlightened or sanctified alone.

I do get @Tom Storm point though. People don't sell drugs. Drugs sell drugs. In other words, the real stuff shouldn't need advertisement. In general good things are difficult and exclusive. What is casting pearls before swine but being suspiciously thirsty?

That's scary, but when it does, you're left with a kind of beautiful feeling - "I don't know anything, but there's a powerful feeling coming in to fill that gap" and that's where the astonishment arises. — csalisbury

There's a Christian theme about loss and disaster being the path itself, the door. It's as if we have to be broken open, humiliated. Our pride in our knowledge of trivia and mastery of ritual blinds us and binds us. 'Astonishment' is a nice word here. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. There's a vague, dark reading of that that appeals to me.

I've been reading Cioran lately (The Trouble with Being Born), and the intersection of the dark and the light seems important here. If I live in some sense like I'm already dead, if I'm not so pathetically fucking thirsty for the recognition and ultimately envy of others, there's a new kind of life in that, while it lasts. Perhaps one does not taste death because the dying ego is no longer functioning as a center. It's the space between mortals that's interesting. I cough up my boring biographical trash only as a symbol, as a bridge, and not as of inherent interest. 'I' am nothing. 'I' am already dead. 'We' know this and are therefore more alive than ever, infinitely and bottomlessly alive. But we remain mortal and faulty, without a cure for the world beyond a little graffiti that may or may not signify for others and help them get over themselves now and then and feel less alone.



He said to them, "What you are looking forward to has come, but you don't know it."