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Philosophy truely sucks.


sebbysteiny

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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.

 

the interesting thing about philosiphy is that it is purely objective. arguing differnt philisophical views (even regarding the subject of philosiphy), seems almost useless. each participant presents a view based of person experience gained through personal interaction with whatever subject.

 

taking philosiphy classes, while fun, is almost a waste of time. this is because, while the class peovides insight as to other alternative perception, this does no trick such as to change my personal view on anything. i almost regard ot as a tour of another imagination.

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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?

 

I showed you where in my post. You make a leap of logic that was not expressed by Sebby.

Sebby did not say that philosophy is noble and useful.
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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.

I think that is the crux of Sebby's argument. What does it matter whether or not you think it is called the same box. It is a box, what's the big deal if you think it is the same box as when it was first created.

Obviously there is a need for this in some occasions. The thought process behind whether or not it is the same box comes into play when pondering whether or not copying CD's into a digital format that can be shared via the web is legal.

Sebby would probably argue that we could just make a new law and end the debate, but others would say that it would not be right to make a new law until the debate was finished.

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It seems that, if my reasoning is correct, Sebby is a pragmatist. Only the reality and the usefulness of things matter to him. He has come to the logical conclusion that philosophy is unnecessary because it has no, or little, real-world value. It doesn't put food on the table, doesn't help others in a tangible way, so it is not necessary. There is probably reasoning that he used to come to this conclusion, weighing the arguments against and for, and deciding that it is the best...philosophy. This is the problem with a reasoned approach to claiming that philosophy "sucks". If it is well-reasoned, then it is philosophy. If it is not well-reasoned, then it is garbage.

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Taking into account that the author of this thread sees no value in philosophy, and also remembering that this is, in fact, a forum devoted to philosophy, I'm taking the liberty of moving it to the Strange Claims forum. Please direct any further comments or ideas you may have to that forum...............Infy

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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: :shade: :cup: :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].

 

Yeah ok Stebby. The scientific method is a specific form of philosophy, and in some cases a useless one. It is really only useful when there is not a difference in bias, when someone wants to use it to convince you of something there is a million ways to bias experimental data undetected. If the reasoning of a scientist is concealed as well this leaves another avenue for deception. Even when the gathered information is objective and not faulty in any way many scientists try to present their theories based on gathered experimental data as scientific fact when it is actually just their (potentially poorly reasoned) interpretation of the gathered scientific data.

 

A heap of gathered data by itself doesn't tell you anything really, only reasoning based on it does.

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Yeah ok Stebby. The scientific method is a specific form of philosophy, and in some cases a useless one. It is really only useful when there is not a difference in bias, when someone wants to use it to convince you of something there is a million ways to bias experimental data undetected. If the reasoning of a scientist is concealed as well this leaves another avenue for deception. Even when the gathered information is objective and not faulty in any way many scientists try to present their theories based on gathered experimental data as scientific fact when it is actually just their (potentially poorly reasoned) interpretation of the gathered scientific data.

 

A heap of gathered data by itself doesn't tell you anything really, only reasoning based on it does.

That is why scientific evidence is peer reviewed to see whether the results withstand repeated testing. Eventually, fraudulent dada will be uncovered.

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To me, philosophy is the synthesis of all knowledge: science, arts, humanities, spirituality etc. I think there is already a lot of compartmentalization of knowledge and learning and this has often created barriers in true understanding.

 

All branches of knowledge are but offshoots of philosophy. When we can't find an answer within a specific offshoot (say science), one has to turn towards the parent tree (philosophy). Yes, philosophy may occasionally be less objective and may raise more question than answers; but this is how it is a fuel for all branches of knowledge.

 

Philosophy does not suck; it is the highest form of enquiry.

 

DP

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I think Philosophy is the worst form of accademic subject.
Although as commonly used, “philosophy” refers to an academic subject, it’s worthwhile, I think, to consider the etymological definition of the word – which is, I’m convinced, also the word’s original meaning.

 

Philo – sophy is a “philos” (Greek for “loving”) of “Sofos” (“wisdom”). The litteral English translation of “philosophy” is therefore “the loving of wisdom”.

 

Philosophy is not an “-ology” (“study”). It’s a love. By this standard, the quality of philosophy should be the same as any love – passion, honesty, steadfastness, etc.

 

Many great thinkers (I have in mind keyboard player and main songwriter of the J. Geils Band Seth Justman, author of the immortal pop song ”Love Stinks” ), have concluded that the love of anything sucks. This is not the kind of sucking I believe sebbysteiny had in mind when he started this thread. I’m personally in the “love is nice” school of thought, and consequently, try to cultivate a love of wisdom, or “philosophy”.

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I think Philosophy is the worst form of accademic subject. It's not really about finding truth but obscuring it.
It's easy to undestand why some people might feel this way. It takes a truly great mind to become a noteable Philosopher. Aristotle, and Plato, just to name a couple. There are many folks past and present that have thought themselves philosophers when in truth they were only sitting on the lower steps of mediocrity when compared to the likes of the two I just mentioned.

 

 

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.
It is true that the garden variety we're turning out today, by and large, fall into this category. Nevertheless, the pollution of intelligent reason so often exercised by these would-be Platos is far from what philosophy should measure up to. Let's not attack the discipline because it's current propagandists are not worthy of the title. Credit only where credit is truly due.............

 

Philosophy truely sucks.
Like I've already said, let's not convict the discipline because the messenger has garbled the message...................Infy
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Don't jump the gun Zyth.

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.

Very true, Sebby didn't say that philosophy is noble and useful. He did say:

Originally Posted by sebbysteiny

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.

 

Indicating to me that he feels if something is useful to some, it is not useless as an absolute.

 

I am not claiming that because philosophy is useful to some that it must be useful to Sebby.

I am stating that his original premise 'philosophy sucks' is positioned as an absolute and therefore wrong since others find it useful.

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Wow, I've had one or two more 'friendly' posts who, although they don't agree with me, have understood the arguments enough to show how some of your others are sufficiently rebutted. But the problem with those rebuttels is that sometimes they then go on to make arguments that cannot so easily be rubbutted :). This thread on a critique of the philosophical method has also strangely been moved to a strange claim. No matter. Let's not let mistakes in identifying the correct genre get in the way of accidemic enquirey.

 

Also, many of you have listed arguments that I have already expressed a counter argument to. So in those cases, I'll just repeat what I've said, with perhaps a bit more emphasis of the bit that applies.

 

But first, there is one more argument I would like to put forward.

 

To answer the complicated questions of life and find solutions, governments hold inquiries, quangos and fund 'think tanks'. People considered of special expertise are invited to attend and put forward their views.

 

Vaste numbers of accademics and non accademics alike are invited to put forward their views. Scientists, doctors, nurses, busnessmen and even theologans are invited to put forward their views. Theologans are often necessary to see, for example, how a policy might be recieved in different communities. All useful.

 

But there is one type of accademic that is distinctly lacking in any of these tribunals, quangos and 'think tanks': the philosophers. Why? Because their area of expertise does not help answer any meaningful questions.

 

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

 

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

 

I would also like to repeat that despite the above, I'm so outnumbered that I can't have time to respond to every point made and although I try to rebutt the main thesis of most of your posts, sometimes I might miss it or be unable to reply for want of time.

 

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.

 

Yes I do. It infact it is so general that it covers all thought in all accademic disciplines which is a rediculous claim in my view.

 

Hidden amongst this argument is a claim over all the accomplishments that have ever been achieved in all accademic subjects but philosophy.

 

This leads to the debate about 'what is philosophy' which itself is a philosophical debate.

 

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 to get around the philosophical discussion about 'what is philosophy' I proposed a test about what is, and is not philosophy that takes into account all the developments of the nature of philosophy since it's first creation thousands of years ago.

 

So if it isn't tought in a pure philosophy class today at Oxford or any other University, it ain't philosophy.

 

The use of the scientific method thus falls OUTSIDE the sphere of philosophy.

 

And to explain the merits of that test, I pointed out that

 

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.

 

But this and other questions have lead me to propose sebbysteiny's third law of philosophical questions:

 

For every philosophical question, there is an equal and opposite non philosophical question.

 

Eg, The philosophical question is "what is philosophy?" This is a useless question with no answer.

 

The equal and opposite non-philosophical question is "what is taught in today's philosophy classes?". This is a question of great use to lesson plannings and organisation of academia as a whole and it has a concrete, certain answer.

 

This approach I think will be the main *new* point I make in this post and will be used in some of the more thought out attacks on my original thesis that

 

Philosophy truly sucks.

 

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.

 

A scientific theory does not necessarily require the scientific evidence for it to be classified as 'science'. Einstein just sat and thought about curviture and without any experiments, proposed general relativity, which was only proven EXPERIMENTALLY a few years after the theory was proposed. So just because the egg comes before the chicken does not make philosophy instead of science.

 

And correct me if I'm wrong, but were there not two theories of approximately equal prominence drawn from the ancient philosiphors in the days when the philosiphors were the only scientits: one said that the all metials contained atoms; the other said all matter can be devided until it was infinately small. It was only in the days when, I believe, brownian motion was observed that the debate was finally closed (or in any event, 1000s or years later). By which time, philosophy was well and truely on a separate path in that the same men did not study both subjects.

 

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.

 

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.

 

cwes99_03 is basically correct. Utility is judged OBJECTIVELY not SUBJECTIVELY. Treatments for aids CLEARLY AND UNDISPUTABLY helps because people who might die will not. Philosophy has not clearly and OBJECTIVELY helped people so your argument collapses as there is now a fundamental difference between the alleged benefits of helping save with aids from dieing and the benefits of one person THINKING that philosophy is useful without any objective reason.

 

QP for cwes.

 

argument you can say; It is patently rubbish to say that philosophy is useless because one person views it as useless.

 

At the same time, it is patently rubbish to say that philosophy is useful because one person views it as useful.

But there is one point I want to add. You have shown a clear use of philosophy: entertainment. Those bofins sitting in their armchairs discussing rediculous questions with no non-rediculous answers do enjoy themselves in their pursuits. But if you are RELYING on this to show a utility, then, implied within this is that philosophy is not an acedmic subject like science, but is just a form of entertainment like magic tricks and comedy.

 

I'm not convinced you will be happy for us to agree on that as I suspect you will probably only be satisfied with the conclusion that philosophy is a useful academic discipline.

 

I am stating that his original premise 'philosophy sucks' is positioned as an absolute and therefore wrong since others find it useful.

Having looked at the logic used in forming this conclusion, I can see you heavily relied on the phrasing of a particular argument.

 

Whilst what you are saying seems to me to be consistant with logic, it is not consistant with logic.

 

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.

 

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.

 

...

 

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...

 

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.

 

They do 'bunk' philosophy because philosophy will not provide any further useful insight into the questions of 'parenting'. A philosopher's approach would be to say things like 'how do we know clearing up poop is in the interests of the child?' 'What is the best interests of a child?' 'Are we just conforming to values imposed on us about what is right and wrong for a child?' 'If we are, what makes us think that our values are any better?' Sure enough, this will probably lead to the more classical questions like 'what are values?' and 'What is life's purpose?' Again, all fundamentally unhelpful questions aimed at undermining knowledge rather than contributing to it.

 

And lets look at logic. Logic in the philosophical sense is when you deconstruct sentences and arguments into a pseudo mathematical form and then TRY TO WORK OUT from the maths whether the argument IS LOGICALLY SOUND. It is extraordinarily complicated and in Oxford, entire terms are spend studying. Further, there are a number of systems of logic and some of them ACTUALLY CONTRADICT EACH OTHER in that some arguments are LOGICAL according to some systems, whist are NOT LOGICAL according to others.

 

But all of this is completely useless. It does not help to really check an argument for it's logical validity. It misses too much and the lenghs that are gone to to 'prove' what is pretty obviously correct. And sometimes arguments which are pretty obviously logical are shown to be 'not logical' by some systems of 'logic'.

 

Further, some arguments may be logically valid even though they are badly phrased. The philosophical approach to logic is not flexible enough to see through the phrasing.

 

So instead of all that intellectual garbage, Wikipedia's entry on logical fallacies is more than sufficient to test an argument for logical consistancy within arguments of all academic and non academic disciplines and they only take a couple of hours to learn. And since this approach is common to almost all academic subjects especially for essay subjects, philosophy cannot claim credit over it.

 

Sebbysteiny's third law: for every philosophical question, there is an equal and opposite non philosophical question.

 

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.

 

Not so. My grope is with the entire approach of the subject. And I will go on to say that in some cases, the approach of philosophy is fundamentally dangerous. For example, think of the consequences of what happens when you undermine the assumption that the holocaust and other genocides is bad!!!!!

 

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".

 

Great. Did anything useful come of it?

 

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.

 

I think that is the crux of Sebby's argument. What does it matter whether or not you think it is called the same box. It is a box, what's the big deal if you think it is the same box as when it was first created.

 

Alas cwes, under the rules of hypography, I can only give you 1 QP at a time.

 

Obviously there is a need for this in some occasions. The thought process behind whether or not it is the same box comes into play when pondering whether or not copying CD's into a digital format that can be shared via the web is legal.

 

The legal question here is that it is illegal to copy CD's for commecial or non commercial purposes, but not to lend them to, say, a friend. So the question here is, is file sharing 'lending' or 'copying'? I must admit, it is very difficult to say that it is 'lending' (damnit because I love free CD's).

 

So which is it? The difference is that, whist this could be a philisophical question if you let philosiphers get their grubby hands on it, it is infact a legal question and, as you shall see in the judgements, there will be a logical and full answer to that question.

 

The difference between the two approaches goes back to my third law of philosophy: for every philosophical question, there is an equal and opposite non philosophical question. The lawyers will deal with the non philosophical questions only.

 

Sebby would probably argue that we could just make a new law and end the debate, but others would say that it would not be right to make a new law until the debate was finished.

 

Probably, but in this case, alas, will not. I find it absolutely rediculous that the answer to questions depends upon the law of the country. Nazi's race laws does not make them correct or justified and sometimes many courts do come to the wrong decision and are subsequently overruled, sometimes years later.

 

But most importantly, I cannot accept that right and wrong depends upon which country one chooses to use to get the laws that give the correct answer. Cutting somebody's wrists off for stealing is barbaric and wrong no matter how many people elect to base right and wrong on the laws of Saudi Arabia.

 

So right and wrong must be found by some other means. The law should reflect the findings of the debate about right and wrong, and not the other way round.

 

So, how can this be done without getting into a philosophical debate on 'ethics'.

 

This links nicely with another question.

 

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?

 

I had a feeling you might pick up on that, and I'm glad you did, because this is where the most detailed discussion of my third law on philosophy kicks in.

 

In my understanding, it's not necessarily the question that makes something philosphical, but how the question is approached.

 

What is law? Law is usually the product of a great debate in the houses of governance by our elected leaders in which they propose that society should be one way, and others propose it should be another. These POLITICIANS discuss issues of "what is life?" "what is murder?" "what is theft?" "what is intellectual property?" "what punishment fits the crime?". However, what they say is usually incomplete giving lawyers a chance to answer these questions too in order to fill in the gap.

 

But are these politicians philosphers?? Absolutely not. Almost none of them have ever even studied philosophy and I am not aware of any occassion where a philosopher has been quoted or used as some kind of useful imput to the discussion.

 

Instead of pondering the philosphical issues of land ownership, they simply try to find a common phrase of words that defines what land ownership is in clear non-ambigous and sensible terms.

 

So as an example, you said, what about right and wrong? Huge books have been writen on the subject. "Is it wrong, just because it is against the law?" "Is it wrong just because it does not conform with our societies views?" "Who are we to judge what is wrong?" etc.

 

However, by I propose to have answered the question in 1 easy sentence in a way that dodges all the philosphical tangents.

 

"things that cause or potentially cause suffering to the actor or to a victim or potential victim."

 

Anything that 'causes or potentially causes suffering to the actor or to a victim or potential victim' I say is wrong. Anything that does not 'cause or poetentially cause suffering to the actor or to a victim or potential victim' I say is not wrong.

 

However, I am not infinitely intelligent, and I'm sure that holes will be found in my wording and examples found that do not support my wording. But each and every hole and contradictory example can be resolved by AMMENDING the words slightly. It may be that this single sentence would need to be expanded to a whole page to cover absolutely everything, but it would be still be an answer that is right, useful and does not require answering any philosophical questions at all. Answering 'tough' questions does not require the philosphical approach.

 

Sebbysteiny's third law: for every philosophical question there is an equal and opposite non-philosophical question.

 

I'm sorry to those I have not replied to yet. I will in my next post, but I want to save this incase it gets deleted by a computer fault.

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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.

Does it? Why should you not let her starve or just pass out sandwiches using undesputed, clear cut, philosophical reasoning alone? Is there any definitive reason why others should have a responsibility over the single mother's welfare? :) Naturally, only arguments that conform with all logic models are permitted ;) :eek_big: .

 

Yeah ok Stebby. The scientific method is a specific form of philosophy, and in some cases a useless one. It is really only useful when there is not a difference in bias, when someone wants to use it to convince you of something there is a million ways to bias experimental data undetected. If the reasoning of a scientist is concealed as well this leaves another avenue for deception.

 

...

 

A heap of gathered data by itself doesn't tell you anything really, only reasoning based on it does.

 

That is why scientific evidence is peer reviewed to see whether the results withstand repeated testing. Eventually, fraudulent dada will be uncovered.

 

QP to Freddy. No need to add anything further on this criticism of the scientific method other than to say that when scientific debate rages amongst the experts, one side is always right and the other wrong and no amount of bias or deception can stop the wrong side from eventually consceding defeat to the right side when faced with the overwhelming AND REPEATABLE scientific evidence.

 

Yes, philosophy may occasionally be less objective and may raise more question than answers; but this is how it is a fuel for all branches of knowledge.

 

Philosophy does not suck; it is the highest form of enquiry.

 

But the success rate of answering questions that have been past to Philosophy because the other accademic disciplines have not yet answered them is approximately 0.

 

I'm thinking of a toy that the older brother is bored of so he passes it down to the younger brother to have a play with.

 

Many great thinkers ..., have concluded that the love of anything sucks. This is not the kind of sucking I believe sebbysteiny had in mind when he started this thread.

 

IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT!!!! WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR? I HAVE NO DESIRE TO MAKE THIS THREAD X-RATED. :eek:

 

It takes a truly great mind to become a noteable Philosopher. Aristotle, and Plato, just to name a couple. There are many folks past and present that have thought themselves philosophers when in truth they were only sitting on the lower steps of mediocrity when compared to the likes of the two I just mentioned.

 

No dispute there. Being a great philosopher requires extraordinary genious. The only problem is it's completely wasted genious.

 

Disclaimer: plato was in the days when philosophy also covered other topics that are now separate accademic subjects and his advances in those areas were not completely wasted.

 

Nevertheless, the pollution of intelligent reason so often exercised by these would-be Platos is far from what philosophy should measure up to. Let's not attack the discipline because it's current propagandists are not worthy of the title.

 

This is a vary curious interjection. You are agreeing with me but not agreeing with me at the same time. It's practically quantum mechanics.

 

If you can't judge an accademic discipline by the people, topics and approach contained within it today, what can you judge it by?

 

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.

 

Thinking this way is useful how??????

 

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.

Every accadedmic discipline has the concept of reason. The only thing that makes Philosophy 'unique' are that these prinicipals are taken to inexplicably rediculous depths. I mean, what is reason after all?:eek_big:

 

The irony of your beef with philosophy is that you started a philosophical discussion about it.

 

Ooops, how clumsy of me. :eek:

 

Still Infamous our friendly neighbourhood moniter seems to disagree because he thinks this is a strange claim rather than philosophy!!! :doh:

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"things that cause or potentially cause suffering to the actor or to a victim or potential victim."

 

Ahh, but what KIND of suffering? Is mental suffering equivalent to physical suffering? And is it ever okay to inflict suffering? Let us say that I am being attacked on the street. Is it acceptable for me to strike my attacker - he intends only to rob me - to inflict economic suffering. Any physical suffering he inflicts is secondary to his aim. I however do not want to suffer, so I intend to physically restrain him from robbing me. Can I kick him in the groin? Can I stomp his arches or punch him in the solar plexus?

 

Aren't we now into the moral calculus of Jeremy Bentham? Let us say that I have ten dollars, and Bill has none. I need ten dollars to buy a tie for job interview, and Bill needs it to buy dinner for his kids. Am I inflicting suffering on Bill children by not giving him ten dollars? They won't starve in one night. Is Bill inflicting suffering on me by lowering my chances of getting a that job, if he asks for my ten dollars?

 

You could EASILY write several books about your one sentence, and STILL not answer all the questions.

 

Why should we find a cure for AIDS? Doesn't it decrease the net suffering of those without AIDS if we do not invest our resources in finding a cure?

 

Philosophy is something you can't avoid while living. Even your aggressive stance against it, which is uncomfortable reminiscent of "thinking with the blood" is a type of philosophy.

 

TFS

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Does it? Why should you not let her starve or just pass out sandwiches using undesputed, clear cut, philosophical reasoning alone? Is there any definitive reason why others should have a responsibility over the single mother's welfare? Naturally, only arguments that conform with all logic models are permitted

 

It tells you what the answer might be. It's the only thing that does.

 

TFS

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A scientific theory does not necessarily require the scientific evidence for it to be classified as 'science'. Einstein just sat and thought about curviture and without any experiments, proposed general relativity, which was only proven EXPERIMENTALLY a few years after the theory was proposed. So just because the egg comes before the chicken does not make philosophy instead of science.

 

And correct me if I'm wrong, but were there not two theories of approximately equal prominence drawn from the ancient philosiphors in the days when the philosiphors were the only scientits: one said that the all metials contained atoms; the other said all matter can be devided until it was infinately small. It was only in the days when, I believe, brownian motion was observed that the debate was finally closed (or in any event, 1000s or years later). By which time, philosophy was well and truely on a separate path in that the same men did not study both subjects.

 

Who here said that Einstein wasn't philosophizing? If you think about it, he probably was.

 

Because, if you think about it, as long as a scientific theory remains untested empirically, it is technically a philosophical proposition!

On another vast technicality, think of all the particles smaller than the atom: gluons, quarks, the basic proton etc. The only difference is that they can't be divided as such wiothout destroying a sizable area of the globe.

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