Assuming that the Gnostics were (and still are) "onto something important" with the role of Gnosis in their perception of life, can it be considered legitimate wisdom? In other words, can personally revealed wisdom be considered truthful and authoritative? — Bret Bernhoft

I don't think there is any robust evidence for revealed wisdom, Gnostic or otherwise.

A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

Fish picked examples of impractical philosophy. — hanaH

Actually I picked these at random. I forget what Fish said - I should have paid closer attention.

Or consider the philosophes who freed us from the dominance of superstition. — hanaH

Agree. Or consider the scientists who freed us from disease and gave us cell phones. I don't read any science if I can help it.

So, I’d like to put forth the hypothesis that I don’t need no stinking Kant, or Hegel, or Schopenhauer, or Kneechee, or any of those guys. I have expressed my skepticism about western philosophy many times before on the forum. Rather than being defensive about it, I have decided to raise laziness to the level of sanctified philosophical principle. Stop reading, arguing, writing, building little intellectual kingdoms out of the sand of your benighted psyches. Just pay attention. To the world and to yourself. — T Clark

Nice work.

A lot of folk read the 'big' philosophers for name dropping rights and I think there is an assumption made that in reading them you've read them correctly and understand them. How likely would this be?. Most serious philosophical works (Heidie's Being and Time, Spinoza's Ethics) require years of careful study.

I suspect someone will come on here and blast away at the lack of discipline and seriousness this approach displays. And how important subjects require hard work to understand properly. But I sympathise and have not privileged academic philosophy in my life. Nevertheless, I have often been curious to get a better sense of what I may have missed. Why I'm here.

Stanley Fish (a critic I am no real fan of) has a routine he calls 'philosophy doesn't matter'. His argument is while it is true that people hold views about things (derived from philosophical positions in a haphazard way), essentially no one makes any serious decisions in their life - who to live with, what house to buy, where to work, where to shop, who to vote for, etc - based on the problem of induction, whether math is discovered or invented, or if physicalism is false, etc.

Ok. Is it a question which interests you is it just something you have to respond to?

I was acknowledging Baker's answer to my response. I wasn't aware that respect meant that I had to be in total agreement too. :gasp:

I’m curious about this profundity that reasonably supports optimism. — praxis

I thought this was a turn of phrase. I certainly understand how people might view optimism in a complex world like ours as requiring a profound or robust framework to hold it up. I'm not sure that I am an optimist. I generally hold to that often quoted aphorism from Pablo Casals, the great Catalan/Spanish cellist: "The situation is hopeless; we must take the next step."

If you had to write an essay about this question what would your axes be? — Lea

When is your essay due? Any comments yet about all the responses to your question or are you just raiding the place for paragraphs?

I've never met a competent person - mechanic, doctor, engineer, cook, cashier, dentist... - who didn't care about providing good service to their client, customer, patient. — T Clark

Indeed well put. Yes, and the pride in quality work means you do it just as well for someone you do not particularly like or who does not like you.

I like the Emerson quote. You may know this, Nietzsche adored Emerson and called him his "twin soul".

Thanks. I guess everyone brings whatever experience they have to the table. I find the work rewarding but it has its days.

I should say am not an expert on therapy and therapeutic modalities. My background, amongst other things, is in suicide intervention, post incident trauma support and alcohol and drug counselling and psycho-social services management. I prefer to leave it there.

Therapy is so broad and complex a subject that almost anything you say about it, the opposite is also true. There are dubious therapies and bad therapists. The best practice, I believe, informs the person you are working with what the principles of the process and beliefs behind it are. Some people will want a reading list. Some people will disagree and move on. That's ok too. Therapy is unlikely to work if it is not voluntary and if it isn't largely directed by the client who sets the goals.

I also think that often people require less therapy and fewer professionals in their lives and more meaningful connections and activities.

For the most part, yes, but the comparison was a bit glib so not to be take too literally. I was essentially making the point that good professional care does not require a deep emotional connection. In fact, an emotional connection or a friendship is often a hinderance - the person who has an emotional investment in the client is likely to screw up. You don't hear or see very well if you are emotionally involved.

The care offered by a professional is like being friendly without being a friend. It's an important distinction that probably needs to go with a lengthy dissertation on professional boundaries and the like. A professional offers care in the sense of a duty to provide a quality service that meets the person's needs, just as a reputable mechanic provides a quality service to a car that ensures it is safe to driver regardless of who the drive is. All very general I know.

Didn't you get the TikTok dancing racoon video which proves this?

I've come to see that. I've certainly been guilty in my time for holding absolute certainty that there is no absolute certainty and other neophyte conceptual gaffes.

Can you doubt your death or your purpose in life without presuposing your life? Each act of doubt rests on something that is undoubted.

That's part of the logical structure of doubt.

The habit in philosophy has been to focus on doubt, with the result that most philosophical discussion - especially amongst dilettantes - is excessively cynical. The result is malformed notions such as idealism and solipsism.

So take the notion you used: "absolute truth". What that is remains obscure. Like Douglas Adams ultimate question of life the universe and everything, folk don't take the time to work out what it is they are looking for. The result is they jump to absurdity, perhaps god, perhaps nihilism.

SO if you really want to doubt, try doubting that you understand "absolute truth". Do some conceptual analysis, see if you can work out what you mean. — Banno

Nicely put. Crystal clear.

Thanks for your response. I respect this. :up:

Do you think that CBT or REBT would work on someone like Prince Siddhattha? I think it wouldn't. Would you say the reason would be that he had some kind of brain damage? — baker

Clumsy. I have no knowledge of religious figures like the Buddha, but brain damage might explain them. But no - when I highlighted that point it was to find you one example of people who might not benefit. .

You and your three monkeys again. — baker

They are actually your three wise monkey's again. And I guess the interpretation of this favored line of yours is an attempt to suggest that I am not seeing the full picture. Presumably through some kind of selective blindness. Is this a smear, or was your intent less cynical than it appears?

Or maybe it was just an expression of your unwillingness to trust another person's experience on the internet? I understand. You have no idea who I am and what I know, so it's kind of a random statement. If I have your intent correct, I would have probably asked instead - "How do you know that you are not cherry picking your results here?" My answer would be - evidence over three decades. Now this doesn't have to satisfy you and nor should it. And you can't investigate it further as you won't have scrutiny of the work.

Gary Cooper would never be cynical as you sometimes appear to be. Maybe you need to turn in your little tin sheriff's badge and be the deputy instead.

IE, art happens, art being a subjective experience of an aesthetic, when an observer having a particular state of mind resonates with a particular objective fact in the world. — RussellA

This seems very prescriptive. May I clarify? Does this mean if I walk up to Rembrandt's Night Watch and have an experience no different to looking at a lunch box lid, the paining does not count as art? And does this mean that art can be any object which causes a mind to resonate aesthetically?

I think people worry about all sorts of doubts, like whether the surgery will work, whether the job will remain, whether the relationship will continue, whether the team will win, etc. — Hanover

I agree. But I guess I don't put those into the category of doubt so much as undifferentiated anxieties of living. But what you've highlighted is just how fast and sprawling the question is and how it would benefit from some specificity. I took it as being about ontological dread. Perhaps wrongly.

Living with doubt may involve some mental anguish — Jack Cummins

Perhaps, but have you noticed that it depends upon what belief you are doubting? No one is traumatised by the notion that they doubt if the platypus is a mammal. Generally anxiety takes place if you are conditioned into thinking that certainty is possible and specifically that it is possible about 'supernatural' beliefs - for instance life after death and god stuff. The other belief that seems to preoccupy certain people is whether we are living in a simulation or not or if what we call reality is a fancy cover for some heavy duty idealism.

I was wondering what are the thoughts of the community about this, let me know:) — Lea

It's hard to know what the question means exactly so I guess I'll answer this as if you are asking: "Can a person hold beliefs which they doubt?"

Yes. Doesn't everyone except fundamentalists and crack pots?

Would life as an immortal real be with less meaning? Can't we just invent it as we go in any event? — TiredThinker

If people were immortal (a horrible idea) it would obviously make life utterly different in every way imaginable from the question of meaning to how often to have a colonoscopy. :joke:

You don't have to be dead to be disheveled. Trust me. And if you've ever met my uncle Frank you'll see that decomposition can happen to any man who hasn't had a new idea since 1965. Spirits or soul however - I don't accept as a thing. They seem to be suggested to make us feel better about the inevitable trajectory from cradle to grave and oblivion.

I think you're working with an impoverished notion of faith. Faith can consist in an elaborate metaphysics as much as it can consist in simply accepting Jesus into your heart. — Janus

I think we often use the word faith in various imprecise ways. Normally it refers to the process by which people believe, not the content of the belief. As in Hebrews 11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. At its most charitable, faith is understood as an intuitive or personal understanding (if not certainty) of a god.

In theory this Nobody could identify with the species and its rare, heroic specimens (Einstein and Tolstoy and Lincoln, etc.) — hanaH

A subcategory I am very amused by is the person who has read a great philosopher and assumes that they are now a philosopher too, with all the abundant creative powers of that famous writer.

Ok, yes I have said the same many times. Ironic and truthful. Nicely put.

The 'magic' of identity is still here after all, if one can manage it. — hanaH

Tantalizing. Can you expand briefly?

Interesting how you choose to see this. My experience over 30 years suggests no contempt and good results. There is no need for a worldview be it religion or humanism. Ideas from CBT work as a practical tools. That said, I am no disciple of Eliis' or any therapy.

Do any ideas work for everyone?
— Tom Storm

Why is that so? Surely you, given your profession, must have some explanation for it. You can't just chalk it up to Mercury retrograde. — baker

People don't always have explanations. But I do know that if someone has significant brain damage (which is very common in people with trauma histories - injuries/suicide attempts/overdoses) they may not be able to participate for reason of memory, and diminished capacity (for want of a better term).

Perhaps you could cite something — Janus

Just YouTube video interviews where they ask Dawkins do you want all religions ended. And is there anything good in religion? If I'd known I were going to need to cite it I would have made notes. :smile:

Hitchens was out out and out, unequivocally against religion. — Janus

I think the problem with the popstar-atheists is that they use aggrieved hyperbole too frequently and this is taken for a lack of humor and a fanaticism. Hitchens is perhaps the only fun one of the 4.

I agree that they would all like religion to be gone as the end game but surprisingly they also said positive things about some features of religion and especially the impulse behind religion. I may have look to see what I can find and keep these on record as this comes up sometimes.

Why doesn't it work for everyone? — baker

Do any ideas work for everyone?

I haven't read that, but I get what you mean by "sterility or humorlessness about the enterprise". Some, like Dawkins and the so-called "Four Horsemen" seem to want to dismiss, even eliminate from human life, all religion, and that is in my view a ridiculous, not to mention arrogant, aim. — Janus

They are not my favorite people but I don't think what you have said is correct. I have heard at least three our of the four horsemen (esp Dawkins) talk specifically about not wanting an end of all religion and also venerating religious architecture and hymns and writings as being fundamental pillars of civilization. They also elevate the sense of the numinous - Harris particularly and has gone into a kind of pseudo spiritual self-help mode. Dawkins talks about being moved to tears by religious music and art. I think it is way more complicated.

Cool. All I know about him is that he became a venerated and influential teacher.

Pinker defends scientism essentially — hanaH

I think that's too strong. Pinker defends the Enlightenment tradition (which is unfashionable in many parts and provokes anger) and certainly privileges science and rationality. This does not necessitate scientism. Philosopher Susan Haack, who disparages scientism, is also a fulsome defender of the Enlightenment tradition and defends science as one of the most useful methods for acquiring reliable knowledge to meet goals.

Sounds like something said by someone very powerful, someone on whom others depend for mercy. — baker

That might be because it was said by someone very powerful... But you know what? It's been used powerfully with people who are homeless and on the margins for many years and it often transfers effortlessly to them. People who slash themselves with broken bottles and run into oncoming cars as a way to manage emotional distress can change using this approach. Does if work for everyone? Of course not. But it does for many.

Duh, of course it's an important term! People have been fighting over it for millennia, so it definitely has to matter! — baker

Are you prepared to say some more? People will fight over jelly beans.

Well, someone making the claim "No one can ever know that they have access to truth in any absolute sense" certainly presumes to have access to absolute truth. — baker

Yes, if you take the claim literally. I guess J is using 'absolute truth' to mean something a bit more adventurous, possibly transcendent. It is an interesting question. Absolute truth? What is this meant to be?-It is such a versatile term and can represent anything from Sufi mysticism to Scientology. Is this a term that means anything much to you?

It is true that reality is conditioning us to be predators. In a certain sense you could even say that all the evil things human ever do come from beeing tricked by their environment. I consider for example my brain to belong to my physical environment and it can trick me hard into doing evil things especially if it is hurt into the wrong place (brain injuries can turn you into a psychopath). However if dualism is right one might say that my soul is not exactly evil but very flawed if it can be tricked into doing any type of bullshit by such outside forces. — FalseIdentity

You throw around a lot of terms and ideas that suggest a systematic view of reality and a pecking order of ideas. How do you determine what is evil and what is good? How do you decide what is harm and what fosters flourishing? What is your foundation for using such ideas - apart from emotion?

Thank you.

Prove yourself brave, truthful and unselfish, and someday you will be a real boy, Pinocchio. :joke:

Yep.

There an old TS Eliot essay Shakespeare and the stoicism of Seneca.