philosophy is a sick joke

[Plato]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Yes, you certainly sound like a frustrated beginner.

That's harsh. Still I'll justify my points to see if I can persuade you.

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Regarding #1, are you trying to make the point that we should toss out everything that's based on initial assumptions? That leaves you only with theorems in logic (a branch of philosophy) and mathematics, and even with those, it would be purely syntactical (you'd lose all possibility of semantical value). I'm not sure that you fully realize that reasoning of any kind about anything (including new age fluff) requires assumptions of some sort. Even coherentists have to make basic assumptions about the world and the power of reason.

I'm saying that since everything is based upon initial assumptions, we might as well choose the perspectives that suit us, since it's possible to believe just about anything. Studying philosophy is useful for seeing what some of the options are.

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Whatever you do, don't for one second make the completely nonsensical jump from "nothing can be shown to be objectively true without assumptions" to "so I'll give up on thinking hard and instead subscribe to new agey fantasy BS." I'm sure, if you think about it, you'll realize that new agey nonsense is susceptible to the same complaints that rigorous thinking is...and more.

Well, if you think Nietzche, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Hegel, Foucault, Goodman and Rorty (the philosophers whose understandings of the meaning and purpose of philosophy I tend to agree with) are new agey nonsense.

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Regarding #2, that's just plain false. As a matter of fact, it's the direct antithesis of Philosophy. Are you trying to make a joke? Philosophy is about the thorough vetting of ideas, concepts, and beliefs. It's about questioning everything to the fullest extent that our powers of human reasoning will allow, and using the results to form our belief systems.

Perhaps you're being led astray by noticing that philosophical discussions and advancements stretch over centuries in an ongoing dialog. Serious philosophers are playing the same game--pursuing truth via reason--so as different avenues are found, discussions progress. But that's drastically different from saying that the belief systems themselves are passed down.

I'm not saying beliefs are passed down. They are inherritted by philosophers and changed and new ones created. Since you are a Professor of philosophy(?) I assume you've read Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue"? My ideas of philosophy as historical analysis are from him. I disagree with his arguments in support of Thomism and virtue ethics but I think his analysis of the state of modern philosophy is bang on. If you haven't read it he argues that the Enlightenment project to justify an objective morality absent of a teleology could not succeed and the further attempts of Utilitarianism and the post Kantian attempts to justify a morality fall flat on their face.

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Regarding #3, that's more false nonsense. To say that what Plato/Kant/Hume/Aristotle/Locke are doing is literary criticism is beyond ignorant on your part. Get real.

No, they are being metaphysicians. I meant philosophy should be literary criticism. (That is taken from Richard Rorty's "Private Irony and Liberal Hope")

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Regarding #4, see #3.

My ideas are from this man (edit: whoops wrong link, I mean his later philosophy, not early) Ludwig Wittgenstein (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). If you remember he argued that the role of philosophy is language therapy.

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Look, I know it's frustrating that philosophy doesn't dole out nicely packaged answers for you. Quite often the best you're gonna get out of a study of philosophy will be a better understanding of the real problems of human existence, exposure to a wide variety of great philosophers' proposed answers to these problems, and improved critical thinking skills.

Unfortunately, from your perspective, no religion, cult, or new agey nonsense will fill that gap for you, either, since you'll be able to easily shred their belief systems as being built on faulty logic and based on unjustified premises. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the answers that you seem to be wanting are not accessible to humans. Yeah it sucks, but you're gonna have to deal with it.

I'm not looking for answers any more. That was the point of this thread. I realise there are no answers. However, that doesn't mean I'm tossing all reason out of the window. Far from it! My applications of critical thinking are only just beginning.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Depends on what level of depth you're going for.

If you're going for shallow truths about your current emotions (such as "I feel angry" or "I feel that I love Beth"), well, that's as easy as doing a little meditation and simply checking on what your body's telling you.

I tend to think this route goes much deeper. Meditation and being present brings the nature of reality/self/mind into experience such that there's a knowing or communion with "what is". where "what is" is the truth. questions do not become part of this experience. it seems to be the separate mind that questions things.

If you're going for deeper truths, then the only serious attempt you can make is through philosophy.

well, I hope not. I mean, I've tangled my brain enough trying to figure out what to belief enough to think, thinking isn't going to really answer things. I don't think there are canned answers to the truth.

To define deeper issues, here are some of the basic categories and some additional questions:

1) What is there? (Metaphysics)
2) What is knowledge? How do I know? How do I know that I know? (Epistemology)
3) What should I do? (Ethics)
4) How should we govern ourselves? (Political Philosophy)
5) What is logical/rational? (Logic)
6) What am I? (Philosophy of Mind)

Am I the same person I was yesterday? What are the conditions of personal identity?
Am I free in the ultimate libertarian sense?
Do other minds exist?
Is the world physical, mental, or both?
Is phenomenal experience causally efficacious?

when I look and these questions I go into the brain to the point of forgetting my wholeness. Although, they could be taken like Zen koans and maybe I'd instantly be enlightened.

The path to grasping these problems at all, much less in their full hairy monstrosity, is through philosophy.

Then it's philosophy that has also made the questions. And the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house - but that getting philosophical.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the answers that you seem to be wanting are not accessible to humans. Yeah it sucks, but you're gonna have to deal with it.

that says it all!

[The David]

"Philosophy" is little more than scholarly arguing. Although it helps if you really are open-minded, instead of just being open-minded to the fact that everyone is an idiot (I'm still trying to find a reason why people agree with Robert Nozick. It's very stressful being someone like me).

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

Sounds better than working at McDonald's.

Ooh! I have an interview there tomorrow!

[helpmestartauniversity]

Originally Posted by Plato

That's harsh.

You stated right off the bat that you were a newbie, then proceeded to say the things newbies say. It's not a put-down.

Originally Posted by Plato

I'm saying that since everything is based upon initial assumptions, we might as well choose the perspectives that suit us, since it's possible to believe just about anything. Studying philosophy is useful for seeing what some of the options are.

I agree with that...so long as you continue to abide by such basic logical rules as the law of contradiction; that is, you should be able to eliminate options if those options are contradictory or otherwise nonsensical.

Originally Posted by Plato

Well, if you think Nietzche, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Hegel, Foucault, Goodman and Rorty (the philosophers whose understandings of the meaning and purpose of philosophy I tend to agree with) are new agey nonsense.

When I think of 'new agey', I think of the crap that predominates 'spiritual' discussions on the net: stuff that is necessarily vague, because if it were made less vague, it would be clearly shown to be illogical and nonsensical.

On a broader stroke, it seems that your sympathies lie with continental philosophy (CP). I will admit that I don't respect CP and regard it as soft. It's much more like literature, whereas analytic philosophy is more akin to math imo.

Originally Posted by Plato

I'm not saying beliefs are passed down. They are inherritted by philosophers and changed and new ones created.

Again, the belief systems are NOT inherited--only the adherence to the rational pursuit of truth is passed down. Each real philosopher builds up his/her own system based on rules of logic and the best possible arguments made to date on various issues.

Originally Posted by Plato

Since you are a Professor of philosophy(?) I assume you've read Alasdair MacIntyre's "After Virtue"? My ideas of philosophy as historical analysis are from him. I disagree with his arguments in support of Thomism and virtue ethics but I think his analysis of the state of modern philosophy is bang on. If you haven't read it he argues that the Enlightenment project to justify an objective morality absent of a teleology could not succeed and the further attempts of Utilitarianism and the post Kantian attempts to justify a morality fall flat on their face.

I'm not a professor. I recently withdrew from a top PhD program to pursue a (what I consider to be a world-changing) philanthropic venture.

I completely agree on the thrashing of the objective morality systems. I rebelled like you, probably much worse. I was vitriolic to an extreme in my Ethics courses. I was pissed that Ethics was in such a sorry state, I was pissed that I couldn't find concrete answers, and I was pissed to the extreme that ethicists pretend (lie) that their systems of choice--which OBVIOUSLY rely on arbitrary, unjustified first premises--are objectively true in an ultimate sense (as opposed to relativistically).

And yes, as is implied in that last sentence, I totally disregard the Eastern fluff about one's experience being able to serve as a self-justified based from which to derive.

Originally Posted by Plato

I'm not looking for answers any more. That was the point of this thread. I realise there are no answers. However, that doesn't mean I'm tossing all reason out of the window. Far from it! My applications of critical thinking are only just beginning.

Glad to hear it. Welcome to the quagmire.

I just want to emphasize one more time, not just to you but to everyone, that if you throw out Philosophy, you throw out everything. Philosophy is NOT sets of beliefs (well, it is according to a trivial alternate definition, but we're not talking about that shallow meaning here): it's something you do. Philosophy is the art of wondering about yourself and the world, and using reason as rigidly as possible to pursue truth. Philosophy underlies all human intellectual endeavors.

The same arguments used to undercut philosophy (not trusting logic/reason, citing lack of justified initial assumptions, etc) wipe out every endeavor. All arts, sciences, religions, crafts, cultures, family systems, ethical systems, argumentation, everything. Everything based on thought in any way would have to go...including new agey BS, since new agers use thinking to get to the conclusion that thinking doesn't lead to truth.

[helpmestartauniversity]

Originally Posted by The David

"Philosophy" is little more than scholarly arguing.

Philosophy directly gave rise to science, psychology, sociology, and most other fields in a typical College of Arts and Sciences. Besides that major stuff, here's a smaller specific example: modern computers would not be possible without fairly recent advances in Logic (a sub-field of Philosophy).

I think most of this confusion is a result of people having ill-formed and wickedly narrow partial conceptions of what philosophy is.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Philosophy directly gave rise to science, psychology, sociology, and most other fields in a typical College of Arts and Sciences. Besides that major stuff, here's a smaller specific example: modern computers would not be possible without fairly recent advances in Logic (a sub-field of Philosophy).

logic seems to have found it's answers ok. at least it's a closed system without much room for debate. or maybe there is? that's kind of interesting that it could be considered a sub-field of philosophy.

"one or the other but not both" - just remembering what "exclusive or" is.

I think most of this confusion is a result of people having ill-formed and wickedly narrow partial conceptions of what philosophy is.

I know, for me, it made me think too much. I'm glad there are others to do that. I do prefer to experience things like "who am I?" instead of actually thinking I can answer it with thinking. But I also don't like ungrounded new agey stuff that is inconsistent.

"I think, therefor I am" - that really started it all, didn't it? And I feel we all are much more that what we think, don't you?

Don't worry, I'm not trying to say philosophy is nuts - it just makes me nuts.

Don't some spiritual approaches touch on the same questions philosophy does? I mean, "who am I?" is big in the spiritual questions too? And the answer in that world, is not a thought. It's a knowing that is inside us.

Some of the questions kind of drop away. Like "can you find yourself?" - if you really look for yourself as a separate self that we think we are, eventually there's a realization that there is no self, the illusion of the ego drops by just trying to find it. At least that's what I read in a book by the Dalai Lama. Now you can have a field day about me being new agey!

[coLLege kid07]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

is studying philosophy the only way to pursue truth?

Truth can only be found right now; through this moment happening right now. It cannot be found through thoughts.

[helpmestartauniversity]

New Ager!!

Questions like "Who am I" and "How do I find myself" don't come up in academic philosophy, at least not in any of the Western Anayltic philosophy courses I've ever taken or helped teach. Questions about finding oneself often arise in folks who have a philosophical bent (i.e. folks who are exceptionally smart, perceptive, and inquisitive), but aren't discussed in class. "What am I" gets a lot of burn in Metaphysics (particularly Philosophy of Mind and issues of Personal Identity), though.

Regarding logic, I guess I wasn't really aware that people didn't realize it was one of the 4 pillars of philosophy:

Metaphysics (What exists?)
Epistemology (What can we know, and how can we know it?)
Value Theory (Ethics, Social-Political Philosophy, Aesthetics)
Logic (rules of reason)

[Brutha]

I just want to emphasize one more time, not just to you but to everyone, that if you throw out Philosophy, you throw out everything.

No, you can still make decisions and life your life without philosophy. Ethics philosophers aren't more ethical (and they are the people that set the standards) than other people as study show and as a result you don't lose much. You don't lose anything that improves behavior if you throw out the study of ethics.
You lose as much as when you throw out Shakespeare. Literature is nice but not essential.
Philosophy is also nice but not essential.

logic seems to have found it's answers ok. at least it's a closed system without much room for debate. or maybe there is?

In 10-20 years we will have quantum computers. Till then we need some improvements in our understand of quantum logic to program these things.
On the other hand I don't think that the important work in that area will be done by philosophs but by mathematicians.

[helpmestartauniversity]

Originally Posted by coLLege kid07

Truth can only be found right now; through this moment happening right now. It cannot be found through thoughts.

And how do you know that? And how do you justify your justification for claiming that? And do you only have a vague idea of what you're trying to convey, or could you spell it out in very precise detail?

I gather you're claiming that thoughts can't lead to truth, since thoughts require multiple moments (like how a movie requires multiple frames). Is this accurate?

So what led you to this conclusion? Surely it was thought. But wait!! Thought can't lead to truth!!! That's bad news for your theory--

Since truth can't be found through thoughts, and since thinking led you to the claim 'truth cannot be found through thoughts', then that means your claim ('truth cannot be found through thoughts') must be false. So that means truth CAN be found through thoughts, hmm?

[helpmestartauniversity]

Originally Posted by Brutha

No, you can still make decisions and life your life without philosophy. Ethics philosophers aren't more ethical (and they are the people that set the standards) than other people as study show and as a result you don't lose much. You don't lose anything that improves behavior if you throw out the study of ethics.

First of all, ethics is but one tiny sliver of philosophy. But more importantly, how on earth are you going to make reasoned decisions without philosophy? Take away all of philosophy, and you're not allowed to use logical reasoning (aka philosophizing), and you're not allowed to assign reasoned value judgments to the various considerations. [Using logical reasoning, value judgments, etc is an exercise in philosophy, so if you need to use them, you're proving my point about you needing them.]

There would be no judgments of better/worse, good/bad, right/wrong etc unless you support them with an ethical theory of some sort.

Also, take away philosophy and there's no United States (constitutions and social systems are based on political philosophies).

At a more abstract level, take away philosophy/philosophizing, and there would be no reflective thought of any kind. Seriously, try to imagine the scope of that. Every reasoned action that you take is the result of philosophizing (aka reasoning) about what you should do. And guess what? The very rules of reasoning itself are under the domain of philosophy, so without them, you have to give up all the tools for proper reasoning.

Take away philosophy from humanity, and you'd be left with purely unjustified randomness...which would quickly lead to mass extinction and degeneration to a non-thinking animalistic state of affairs.


And BTW, most logic work is done by logicians, and logicians are philosophers. They can also be mathematicians, but they're first and foremost logicians, which makes them first and foremost philosophers.

[Plato]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Take away philosophy from humanity, and you'd be left with purely unjustified randomness...which would quickly lead to mass extinction and degeneration to a non-thinking animalistic state of affairs.

I have to question your consistency at this point. First you assert that philosophy cannot provide answers, that all moral philosophies are unjustified because they depend on the assertion of a first premise and then you claim that philosophical theories influence politics and this is a GOOD thing. All we have is a facade of objectivity.

To say that the removal of such facades would lead to the destruction of society is ludicrous. We aren't united by philosophical doctrines, we are united by shared vocabularies which are derived from shared hopes. It is entirely backwards to assert moral good or bad absent of a functional goal. The goal or hope comes first and the shared vocabulary is a promise of the fulfillment of that goal. If modern society seems bleak it is due to our lack of ability to formulate convincing stories with the increasing shortsightedness and greed of the surviving democracies, coupled with the exploding poverty in LEDC's.

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

And how do you know that? And how do you justify your justification for claiming that? And do you only have a vague idea of what you're trying to convey, or could you spell it out in very precise detail?

I gather you're claiming that thoughts can't lead to truth, since thoughts require multiple moments (like how a movie requires multiple frames). Is this accurate?

So what led you to this conclusion? Surely it was thought. But wait!! Thought can't lead to truth!!! That's bad news for your theory--

Since truth can't be found through thoughts, and since thinking led you to the claim 'truth cannot be found through thoughts', then that means your claim ('truth cannot be found through thoughts') must be false. So that means truth CAN be found through thoughts, hmm?

If you are holding a picture of an explosion are you afraid of getting hurt?

Truth is a state of being and the thought "truth" is a symbolic representation for it. Thinking only leads to more thinking. You have to transcend the symbolic interface that we exist in to know Truth. And when you come back, you can only describe it by what it is not (in Vedanta: neti or "not this") or through paradox or nonsensical statements like a Zen koan.

The concept of Truth is up for revision, but that is a concept and not Truth itself.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

There would be no judgments of better/worse, good/bad, right/wrong etc unless you support them with an ethical theory of some sort.

Exactly. What is evil? Is it tangible? Is it represented by some kind of physical constant or measurement? No, it's a concept. An idea. Ideas have no objective existence, or at least none that science has discovered. So all judgments are based on concepts that have no reality. Do you think it is necessary that people, real physical beings, rely on something wholly non-real to dictate their behavior?

Reason is a tool, one that has allowed human beings to accomplish fantastic things. But mistaking the tool for the carpenter is what is resulting in the current insanity of war, starvation, hatred, and fear that the world is experiencing. Everything has gotten all out of perspective because almost everybody is trapped in a world of reason, a world of their own creation, and they have lost sight of reality.

Many atrocities are committed in the name of fighting evil and wrong-doing, because what is evil according to one person's reason may be good in another's. Terrorists don't kill people because they want to be evil, they kill people because they think we are evil. And we do the same, although perhaps with a bit more discrimination. All done because of the reasons they have constructed in their heads and mistaken for reality. A reality that, because at its root is not real, must be made to be real through blood or coercion or any of the other methods men/women use to try to force the people or environment around them to bend to their wills.

[Brutha]

Also, take away philosophy and there's no United States (constitutions and social systems are based on political philosophies).

Social systems are based on people interacting with each other.

Terrorists don't kill people because they want to be evil, they kill people because they think we are evil.

I don't think that is a good explanation of why terrorists do what they do.
After people do what they do they justify it with some sort of philosophical explanation but the philosophical explation doesn't cause the action.
If philosophical explanations would cause action you would see people who study ethics behave more ethically than people who don't.

Every reasoned action that you take is the result of philosophizing (aka reasoning) about what you should do.

No. Actions are the sum of external effects like the ideas floating around, peer pressure, authority and your genes.

[The Cloud]

Originally Posted by Brutha

I don't think that is a good explanation of why terrorists do what they do.
After people do what they do they justify it with some sort of philosophical explanation but the philosophical explation doesn't cause the action.
If philosophical explanations would cause action you would see people who study ethics behave more ethically than people who don't.

Knowing and believing are two different things. People who study ethics do exactly that; they study ethics. Does a man that studies animals become more like an animal? Terrorists don't study or question, they just believe. They have a reason for everything. Those reasons may contradict each other and be covered up by hollow justifications, but they are built on some kind of reasoned structure with some basic core beliefs. In a way it is the opposite of what people that study ethics do. An ethicist can study ethics without becoming ethical, and terrorists can be what they consider "ethical" without studying the actual ethics of what they are doing. The ethicist can know but not believe, and the terrorist can believe without knowing.

[Plato]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

Knowing and believing are two different things.

Indeed. Knowing is an illusion. Belief is a perspective.

[schola]

A philosophy, an ideology, is just a tool. Just like any other tool.

It doesn't define reality it just helps us to interact with it. It is a construct. When you find a better construct, you discard the old one and use the new one. Neither one was better or worse, one was just more useful at that time.

When you start insisting that your preferred philosophy is really "the way things are," that's where you will run into trouble.

[The David]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Philosophy directly gave rise to science, psychology, sociology, and most other fields in a typical College of Arts and Sciences. Besides that major stuff, here's a smaller specific example: modern computers would not be possible without fairly recent advances in Logic (a sub-field of Philosophy).

I think most of this confusion is a result of people having ill-formed and wickedly narrow partial conceptions of what philosophy is.

Who said arguing can't accomplish great things?

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Plato

Indeed. Knowing is an illusion. Belief is a perspective.

I thought knowing was the truth.

And belief is the illusion because it's just a perspective or snap shot.

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by Plato

it's all just language games.

I love it.

Basically it all comes down to that right there - language games.

The fatal flaw of most philosophy majors is that they aren't intellectually honest.

If they started putting a serious effort into being intellectually honest, I think they would eventually realize that problems of the mind cannot be solved on the level of the mind. (Which you seem to be realizing)

There is this antiquated notion of "conscience" which points to the idea that approaches truth. How did Nietzsche deal with his realization that philosophy was so fatally flawed? He appealed to a higher authority within him that trumps the mind. This higher authority - this thing we all know is there but can't express on the mental level.

I suppose the best word is "awareness" or "consciousness" or "conscience".

Most philosophers would rather be "right" than happy. They are doomed to suffer until they choose happiness over rightness. Once they choose happiness they transcend the word games.

Truth can be pointed to, but it can't be named.

Godel already proved this to us when he proved that all logical systems are necessarily incomplete as long as they remain logical. This does not mean there is no truth - it means that logic cannot express truth. "The Matrix cannot tell you who you are" as one philosophy movie says

This is why a Sutra or Parable doesn't bother arguing with logic and doesn't bother explaining itself. Any elaboration, any argument -- any logic -- is futile.

[yossarian]

Just to be a sophist:

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

Philosophy is hard. Damn hard.

Define "philosophy"

Round and round and round we go...

IMO most of the "great philosophers" ((define "great", define "philosopher")) worked from a place of no-mind anyway which is why they were actually able to make useful advances in the world. At this point in time however we have exhausted "pure thought" and all logical systems are exposed for what they are. The great philosophers of today are not called "philosophers" unless you want to get into an endless argument about "what makes philosophy" which is so incredibly useless.

The real question is "what brings happiness".

[fwellers]

The real question is "what brings happiness".

define happiness.

[Plato]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

I thought knowing was the truth.

And belief is the illusion because it's just a perspective or snap shot.

What I mean is: "All I know is that I know nothing." To attempt to convince anybody that something is definately true is quite literally creating an illusion.

Meanwhile, we can actually hold beliefs whilst being aware on some level that we can't justify it through hard rationality, because that path only leads us to extreme skepticism or fideism (randomly picking a world view). However, there is a middle ground called soft rationality, although I prefer the name "soft fideism", which basically advocates shifting belief systems and gaining experience until you feel able to judge which belief systems are the best. Then commit to it fully in your actions and make the world view congruent.

The objections to soft rationality are basically in the gist of "how can you choose a worldview when your criteria for making judgments come from within the context of your current world view?" And I admit it's a very good point. However by the same token hard rationality is circular in this way too.

It could also be argued that the view you eventually settle upon is that which satisfies you best psychologically, because this is a form of subjectivism, but to be honest I don't care if that is the case. It's better than randomly picking beliefs and it's better than being a skeptic. A thing that I find frustrating is that most hard rationalists ardently support liberalism (being able to choose for yourself) but then they deny the subjectivist philosophies which are born of liberalism. And they support human rights in spite of the fact human rights can't be justified through hard rationality. Bunch of hypocrites.

[yossarian]

Originally Posted by fwellers

define happiness.

Happiness, n. The state of being happy.

Sadly, no one can tell another what happiness is. Happily, everyone knows it when they find it. And they know it when they don't have it. And they eventually find it once they decide they want it.

[Plato]

Happiness is polymorphous: hence Utilitarianism failing.

[Erock]

Hey I didn't get a chance to read all of the responses but I just finished my intro to philosophy class so I thought I'd chime in. Basically, eastern thought makes a lot more sense to me than western thought. I spent a long time pouring through classic western philosophical works this semester and I really was not as impressed as I thought I would be. A lot of it seemed like circular logic, and most of them-even when they claim they did not-still made some very basic assumptions.

Erock

[mercuryrising]

Originally Posted by Plato

Bunch of hypocrites.

Nicely written.

You remind me of an old Indigo Girls song:

The less I seek my source for some definitive,
The closer I am to fine.

[shnu]

Amusing back-and-forth between Plato & helpmestartauniversity.

I'm not a Wittgensteinian, but I do agree with Wittgenstein's idea of the limits of (pure) philosophy: philosophy alone cannot lead you to the truth, but it can help you recover from delusions we contract from trying to understand what is going on, and without this therapy, your chances of finding the truth are not good...