Philosophy truely sucks.

[Qfwfq]

Without philosophy, we wouldn't be discussing most of the topics here at Hypography.

 

:doh:

[Chacmool]

Philosophy truely sucks.

Accurate orthography truly rules.

[cwes99_03]

I don't believe the thread was intended at all philosophy. I believe its intended target was the philosophy on existence. Pondering things solely for the comfort of ones own conscience.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum

 

This was my point of post 12.

 

The posts since have focused on the idea that philsophy is science, rather that anytime we think about something we are philosophizing. (Thus the illustration of the cows, Sebby and Socrates.) I do not believe Sebbysteiny has a problem with invention or thoughtful endeavors, though he didn't clarify that well in his opening post.

[infamous]

Accurate orthography truly rules.

Absolutely......poor spelling truly sucks.................Infy

[paigetheoracle]

I think Philosophy is the worst form of accademic subject. It's not really about finding truth but obscuring it.

 

All it does is try to undermine completely obvious stuff by attempting to find and challenge base assumptions that should not be challenged.

 

Like, for example, why should one need to 'think therefore I am' to prove that the thinker exists in an attempt to challenge or overcome the pretty obvious assumption that we are not being tricked by a devil into thinking we exist when we don't?

 

By reducing all knowledge to unanswerable questions in that way, philosophy undermines knowledge rather than contributes to it and it's only practical application is to obscure reason.

 

Philosophy truely sucks.

 

It can certainly seem that way but it's a kind of defence, just like in football. What is trying to be found is a way of saying something that isn't open to argument rather than is (Ultimate truth rather than ephemeral). It's like a kid coming up to you as a parent and continually bugging you with dumb questions. If you can something to say that dumbfounds them, then that kills that line of enquiry (I'm very good at it, which is why a lot of my threads end up unanswered by other people: As Infinite (or someone else) said in reply to one such post "I thought forums we're to ask questions, not to make statements" to which I replied "But statements are questions to our peers, asking how thorough is my work? [is there any loopholes, you could spit peas through that I can't see because my ego (pride) is in the way?).

[cwes99_03]

Paige, it isn't the thoughts you espouse that is the problem. It is the style and form of your writing. You often spout thoughts and ideas without foundation or more often without structure. Perhaps this is related however to the topic at hand. Some think (like Sebby) that this is pure malarky. That it is worthless drivel as it lacks substance. Your writings will gain substance when you clearly state your thoughts in a pattern that is recognizable.

 

Similarly run-on sentences lack organization of thought, and you tend to be a king of them.

[catholiboy]

Philosophy, and sheer mental thought, led the Ancient Greeks to believe in the existence of a single particle, which could not be broken down any further, which was the building block of all material things. They called it the atom.

 

How can you say philosophy is worthless?

 

How can you actually deny any of what people like Kant said. Becaue the truth is, we can know nothing.

There is only belief - and personal opinions constitute all of philosophy

[sebbysteiny]

Wow, look at all these posts.

 

It's everybody in this thread, vs, erm, me.

 

Okay, bring it on bad boys.

 

I can't deal with every post, so I'll do a 'best of' special selection.

 

I like honey, but you don't. To say that honey is useless would be, not only a stretch, but wrong.

 

That's like saying life saving treatment for aids is useless because it is not usefull to some. That's patently rubbish. If it's useful to some it's clearly useful. Endlessly debating the meaning of 'useful', however, is not useful to anybody. I'm having visions of a man, and he's made of straw.

 

A person's philosophy of child rearing is their belief of how child rearing should be done. The psychology of child rearing is the study of child rearing with regards to the psychology of the child.

 

Child rearing, of course, was just one of a number of apparently useful 'philosphies' that were put forward but because I started using it as an example, it seems to have taken undue prominence. But since it is now very prominent and it seems to now symbolise everything that is wrong with philosophy, I will explain.

 

There is nothing useful that you can get from a lecture of the philosophy of child rearing than one cannot get far more easily and far better from a book titled "the idiot's guide to parenting". If a child is sick, take it to a doctor. If it's hungry, feed it. Clear up the poop. Don't leave it on it's own. What is the problem?????? You can now bunk your philosophy class on child rearing.

 

The most valuable class I had, and think anyone can have is 'Logic 101'. Basic structures of logical arguments. What makes for bad/illogical arguments?

 

Here is everything you need to know about logical arguments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy. Now you can bunk your philosophy class in logic.

 

If we didnt philosophise, err is that a word?

 

We might still think the earth was flat, but we questioned and came up with a philosophy of the shape of the earth.

 

I'm not going to get into a philosophical debate about "what is philosophy?". Instead I'll just answer the question.

 

A few thousand years ago, philosophy used to include all academic study. But now some branches become so fundamentally different from others that they became seperate subjects in their own right leaving nothing useful left.

 

Science, arts, humanities etc are no longer philosophy.

 

So if it isn't tought in a pure philosophy class at Oxford or any other University, it ain't philosophy. The idea that some pompous git in his confortable armchair discussing "what is the nature of the phrase 'the nature of'" can claim any credit for the discovery of the cure to small pox is verging on the barbaric.

 

There are some questions which simply cannot be answered simply, studied scientifically, or understood to be the same for everybody. Why are we self-aware? Why does the universe exist? What defines a thing? How do we know what we know? How can we be certain of one thing flowing to another? These questions, among others, don't seem to be easily answerable.

 

"Why are we self-aware?" Because evolution made us that way, and we are not the only animals to possess that talent.

 

"Why does the universe exist?" Check out the big bang theory. It may be incomplete but that does not make it a philosophical question.

 

"What defines a thing?". 19 definitions. One of which is "An entity, an idea, or a quality perceived, known, or thought to have its own existence." For more, check out the dictionary.

 

"How do we know what we know?" Science, other 'non phylosophical' acedemic studies and direct observation (which is actually kinda science).

 

"How can we be certain of one thing flowing to another?" Maths and experimental verification. Also check out the above link on logical falacies

 

There you go. Yet more philosphy classes you can bunk.

 

Beyond the philosophy that you seem to rail against in this thread, there is moral philosophy - what is good, why is it good, how do we distinguish good from evil, how do we make moral decisions

 

This is just a matter of finding the correct wording. How about "things that cause or potentially cause suffering to the actor or to a victim or potential victim."?

 

You might be able to ammend the wording slightly, but can you think of anything useful that might come out of going into this any deeper? [and what do I mean by "deeper"????????????, What do I mean by "mean"????????????

 

Lets say you have a cow named Stebby and a cow named socrates. They both get herded around all day long and get to eat all the grass they want and are protected from predators etc. Stebby the cow thinks socrates the cow is obnoxious because he questions his surroundings with what seems like no cause. Socrates asks the question how do we know our whole life isn't just some carefully designed ploy to fatten us up so one day we can be eaten by someone. Stebby thinks this is rediculous and declares by fiat that there is no reason to attach such a cynical ulterior motive to their everyday lives. As the day goes by, Socrates notices that some cows go to a certain place and never come back and considers that this might be evidence that the such a scenario is the case. Stebby thinks it is strange but makes no such conclusion since he refuses to consider such a scenario. One day the farmer tries to make stebby and socrates go to that place. Socrates freaks out and runs away, and stebby thinks socrates is crazy. The next day all that remains of stebby is a few steaks and hamburgers and a pile of bones.

 

Newsflash for ya. We are not cows and we are not being farmed.

 

The scientific method is very adept at distinguishing between the scenarios you have described. My grandparents died of natural causes, not being slaughtered. That's SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. Everything that comes from your rediculous and completely useless premise must be itself rediculous and completely useless.

 

And my name is SEBBY not STEBBY. There is no T. There never has been, there isn't now, and there never will be. If I am going to be put in the same story as old fasioned, highly intelligent but completely useless nitwits like Socrates, I want to do so under my correct name. grrrrr:evil: :) :eek2: :doh: :eek:.

 

[disclaimer, Socrates may have come up with many technical advances of great utility in his day all of which may deserver tremendous praise and respect but lets not let this little inconvenience get in the way of a dramatic defence of my name].

 

If you are having problems I would suggest you read Sophie's World, a book that explains most of the major philosophical thinkers in the clearest way I have ever encountered.

 

Thanks for your thoughts. I do not believe I am having problems though. At Uni, I had many friends who studied philosophy and had great long arguments delving into the depths of the topic. Clearly though I have not studied it.

 

The problem was that when we were trying to organise a trip to the pub for a drink, I suggested the Radcliff Arms, others suggested the three horseshoes and my philosophical friend said 'but what is a pub?'

 

How does this help, say, a single mother struggling to bring up her kids?

 

How do rocket ships help? Or maybe fighting terrorists? Or carbon nanotubes, or movies, or literary criticism, or lawyers, or anything that isn't giving her a job or passing out a sandwich.

 

Again, this single mother theme sybolises the greater uselessness of philosophy, but since you have now asked the question.

 

Rocket ships helps us to discover the world and the greater universe. This may lead to the advent of better technologies that will help society as a whole (and therefore the single mother) or even the single mother's lifestyle directly. Carbon nanotubes are similar.

 

Fighting terrorists will help to keep the single mother's kid from being an orphan.

 

Movies give people entertainment which can offer a powerful insight into their own life, as well as improve moral and general happiness of the population.

 

Lawyers may help keep crime down and ensure that the single mother is free from any distractions that might stop her from supporting her kids.

 

All these things benefit society as a whole too.

 

One is that you are espousing a philosophical doctrine in this thread.

 

One might say you have poised a proposition for consideration. The debate began with the onset of the thread and the introduction of the proposition. This is known as logic and debate.

 

Or in the alternitive, one might just say I asked a question.

 

Your other points about ethics were dealt with above.

 

"What purpose does philosophy not serve?". The fact that you ask and answer questions means that you on some level engage in philosophical discourse.

 

Not to say that in the field of philosophy there aren't some quacks, but really what field is without it's mad men, and false prophets?

 

All other academic fields also contain questions and answers, even theology. There is nothing about Philosophy that makes it 'unique' on those grounds. The only thing that is uniqe about Philosophy is the rediculousness of the questions. Philosophy is ENTIRELY full of mad men, and false prophets.

 

Asside: Good to hear from you KickAssClown. It's been a long time since we have tangod together. I'm going to give you a quality point just because I like you. I guess I could justify it as I tried to give you other well deserved quality points a few months back but couldn't 'because I had to distribute QP's around more'.

 

Accurate orthography truly rules.

Thanks for that deep insight.

 

What is trying to be found is a way of saying something that isn't open to argument rather than is (Ultimate truth rather than ephemeral). It's like a kid coming up to you as a parent and continually bugging you with dumb questions. If you can something to say that dumbfounds them, then that kills that line of enquiry (I'm very good at it, which is why a lot of my threads end up unanswered by other people: As Infinite (or someone else) said in reply to one such post "I thought forums we're to ask questions, not to make statements" to which I replied "But statements are questions to our peers, asking how thorough is my work?

 

Couldn't have made the point any better. Philosophy is a way of obstructing reason and understanding rather than contributing to it.

 

Personally, with my knowledge of physics, I can't wait for my 6 year old child starting kindergarden to start asking me those annoying questions only to be confronted with the full and correct scientific answer worthy of a University degree.

 

Paige, it isn't the thoughts you espouse that is the problem. It is the style and form of your writing.

 

Now now children.

 

Philosophy, and sheer mental thought, led the Ancient Greeks to believe in the existence of a single particle, which could not be broken down any further, which was the building block of all material things. They called it the atom.

 

How can you say philosophy is worthless?

 

That's not philosophy, that's science.

[TheFaithfulStone]

You could address the important part of my post and not the rhetorical part.

 

Philosophy isn't useless because it tells you not only why you don't just let her starve, but also why you don't just pass out sandwiches.

 

TFS

[pgrmdave]

Philosophy, and sheer mental thought, led the Ancient Greeks to believe in the existence of a single particle, which could not be broken down any further, which was the building block of all material things. They called it the atom.

 

How can you say philosophy is worthless?

That's not philosophy, that's science.

 

Actually, sebby, that was philosophy. They didn't have any way of testing that, they simply sat around and thought logically until they came to the conclusion that there must be indivisible parts of a whole. The scientific method did not come about for many more centuries. Study your history.

[cwes99_03]

Yah seems Sebby you overlooked the substantive statements in your excessively long post.

 

The thread isn't so long you can't answer each substantive one individually and ignore the rest. That being said, you correctly identified some of the posts, and missed others.

 

I'll suggest my post which you skipped.

 

There are two levels of philosophy. 1) is to put forth a point of view after studying a situation. 2) is to ask seemingly meaningless questions to find meaning in everything. The second is actually a type of the first, it is the philosophy that by asking questions one can open one's mind to other things that he would not be able to observe without the open mindedness. ZEN. This is actually a philosophical approach to Budhism.

 

Do you understand that philosophy covers a vast array of thought. That was the point.

 

I think you are talking about a very narrow part of philosophy. There are philosophies of child rearing, philosophies of education, philosophies of marriage, philosophies of goverment rule, etc. etc. etc.

 

PGRMDave, hit it on the head. This is your philosophy on the philosophy of thought.

[Zythryn]

That's like saying life saving treatment for aids is useless because it is not usefull to some. That's patently rubbish. If it's useful to some it's clearly useful.

 

So then you agree that your original premise (Philosophy truly sucks) is incorrect for the same reason you stated above? Some find philosophy truly fascinating, useful and important.

 

There is nothing useful that you can get from a lecture of the philosophy of child rearing than one cannot get far more easily and far better from a book titled "the idiot's guide to parenting".

 

Here is everything you need to know about logical arguments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy. Now you can bunk your philosophy class in logic.

 

The alternative sources you mention are in fact other philosophies of the subject matter. They don't 'Bunk' philosophy, they are other examples of it.

 

I think your issue is with some of the more ephemeral questions the are philisophical in nature. Such as who are we. Why are we here.

Your friend that asked 'what is a pub' was most likely making a joke. It is a very common format for a joke, especially amongst philosophy students:hyper:

[cwes99_03]

Don't jump the gun Zyth.

Sebby said that the premise of helping someone is noble and clearly useful. Sebby did not say that philosophy is noble and useful. Just because you feel that philosophy is fascinating, useful, and important doesn't make it so, and Sebby obviously has a different viewpoint.

Our part is to draw out his viewpoint and demonstrate to others that either he is being rash and irresponsible in the useage of the word, or that our opinions differ (or perhaps he is wrong and irrational). But you cannot force him to agree with you.

[Cedars]

The problem was that when we were trying to organise a trip to the pub for a drink, I suggested the Radcliff Arms, others suggested the three horseshoes and my philosophical friend said 'but what is a pub?'

 

All other academic fields also contain questions and answers, even theology. There is nothing about Philosophy that makes it 'unique' on those grounds. The only thing that is uniqe about Philosophy is the rediculousness of the questions. Philosophy is ENTIRELY full of mad men, and false prophets.

sebby, Maybe its not so much philosophy that bugs you, rather it is the mad men who are attracted to it and scour the earth, trying to turn every question (or worse yet any word mumbled) into a philosophic discussion.

 

I really didnt have an opinion on Philo myself other than it doesnt interest me. Until the Matrix came out. Teens and young adults (presumably with a whole 6 weeks of their semester work completed) flooded particular areas of the net where I was active, pondering "whether or not the matrix is real".

 

bleh...

 

Thats when I became aware of the potential for madness entwined within the attraction to philosophy.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_people_with_a_philosophy_degree

[Zythryn]

Don't jump the gun Zyth. You are obviously twisting his words to make him sound a fool.

 

Such was certainly not my point, and I apologize if I misrepresented Sebby's words in any way.

 

This is what I saw:

 

Originally Posted by Infinite Now

I like honey, but you don't. To say that honey is useless would be, not only a stretch, but wrong.

 

Originally Posted by Sebby

That's like saying life saving treatment for aids is useless because it is not usefull to some. That's patently rubbish.

 

My position is that by the same identical argument you can say; It is patently rubbish to say that philosophy is useless because one person views it as useless.

 

If Sebby or anyone thinks that is not accurate, I would be interested in where?

[pgrmdave]

"What defines a thing?". 19 definitions. One of which is "An entity, an idea, or a quality perceived, known, or thought to have its own existence." For more, check out the dictionary.

 

Ah - how about this though - Let's say that I have a wooden box handed down through generations of my family. As the wood begins to rot, or break, we replace any planks that need replacing. Over the course of time, all the planks are replaced - is it the same box as when it was first created? This is a philosophical question that has no definite right or wrong answer, only logic, which can support both arguments.

 

"How do we know what we know?" Science, other 'non phylosophical' acedemic studies and direct observation (which is actually kinda science).

 

There is no way to prove definitively that we know anything - because that in itself requires knowledge. There is no way to prove definitively that we exist outside of our minds because all information we receive is first filtered through our mind - nothing we experiance is actually outside of our minds.

 

"How can we be certain of one thing flowing to another?" Maths and experimental verification. Also check out the above link on logical falacies

Prove that an experiment will yeild the same result next time. You can say that it always has, but you need to

 

 

Beyond the philosophy that you seem to rail against in this thread, there is moral philosophy - what is good, why is it good, how do we distinguish good from evil, how do we make moral decisions

 

 

This is just a matter of finding the correct wording. How about "things that cause or potentially cause suffering to the actor or to a victim or potential victim."?

 

I'm not sure what you mean by this - can you explain it in a different way?

[IDMclean]

All other academic fields also contain questions and answers, even theology. There is nothing about Philosophy that makes it 'unique' on those grounds. The only thing that is uniqe about Philosophy is the rediculousness of the questions. Philosophy is ENTIRELY full of mad men, and false prophets.

 

Yes, Stebby, that is my entire point. What we are doing is talking philosophy. Your arguement ("a connected series of statements to establish a definite proposition.") is a product of philosophy. As it was said earlier in the thread, there are many types of philosophy. The irony of your beef with philosophy is that you started a philosophical discussion about it.

 

Your arguement would seem to be said to be self-falsifying. Like I said, the mad men do not make up the most of the field. Though there are branches of philosophy which deal with things which have nothing to do with anything at all, that is not the whole of philosophy.

 

Philosophy is pure axiom and theory. When we talk about anything, we are using philosophy to do so. When we talk about "reasonable" arguements, or what is real what is not, we are talking branches of philosophy.

 

Philosophy, Wikipedia