philosophy is a sick joke

[Plato]

after just one year doing my philosophy degree i have come to suspect that it's possible to make ANY viewpoint sound good. it's possible to believe in just about anything.... i mean seriously, to highlight what is possible for an open minded person: just this year i've been a materialist, a dualist, an idealist, a buddhist, a hindu, a daoist, a sophist, a platonist, an aristotelian, an atheist, a christian. i've seen the truth of subjective reality, i've seen the truth of objective reality. i've been a communist and i've been a capitalist.
it's disgusting. my brain is in turmoil!
i used to believe in common sense. dear me.
now i think i am an ironist. it's all just language games. i am a nietzschean in as much a sense as one can be A.K.A. create your own values, create your own world.

i think i'm going to create a website discussing just what a load of B.S. this quest for truth is.

[openeyes]

I would simply call myself a pantheist act utilitarian, though on facebook I list humor as my religion

[Niki]

Well I am a general truthionist, I love to discover the shared truths in all the ways of thought.

[Akashic_Librarian]

All facets of the same maginficant diamond, each facet is just slightly unique so that it alays somethingdifferent that your looking at!

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by Plato

after just one year doing my philosophy degree i have come to suspect that it's possible to make ANY viewpoint sound good.

Lol.
I think it took me about a week to realize what a colossal waste of time it was to study philosophy from a Mainstream college.

I know what you mean.

[Brutha]

i used to believe in common sense. dear me.

What a crazy belief Turn out that you have learned something through studying philosophy.

[The Cloud]

You're right, you can believe whatever you want and justify it because, at its root, all philosophy is based on fundamental principles that can have no proof. It's similar to fundamental principles in physical sciences, such as the speed of light in a reference frame. Light always moves at the speed of light relative to an object, no matter how fast that object is moving. There is no explanation for this, no more basic principle known that guides this behavior. It simply is, arbitrarily.

The same with philosophy. You can distill your beliefs down to the basic core, but no further. And that core is arbitrary, depending on what assumptions you want to make. A core assumption that other people are similar beings to yourself and thus deserve the same rights will result in drastically different behavior from a core assumption that other people are not similar beings and thus do not necessarily deserve the same rights. Both of these core assumptions can be justified through observation, but neither can be proven.

So reason, the most necessary tool in philosophy, is flawed because it is not reality. It can only crudely approximate the laws upon which your world operates on, based on assumptions that it cannot prove. It is just a tool, it is not reality. Just like you can create a computer program that will model this or that physical phenomena, but not one that recreates it, because if the program perfectly modeled the phenomena then it would be the reality itself.

So reason is self-limiting. It defines it's own bounds, and while it can catch glimpses of reality it will never quite be real. That's not to say it's useless, just like the computer model isn't useless. But it's not reality, it's just a tool. You are reality, not reason. Don't confuse yourself with your thoughts, thoughts are just tools. You are the reality of the experience, which can't be put into words and structured into diagrams.

[mercuryrising]

Sounds better than working at McDonald's.

[Cran]

Well, did you expect to study philosophy and emerging with THAT point of view that sounds good to everybody, especially you?
Probably not - you expected to learn about different schools of thoughts and why someone would follow them and why others would reject them.
Which amounts indeed to: All ideas are equal... unless you believe in one of them!

[wolfgang]

Plato,

Which one of those comes closest to ditching all beliefs? Did any of those isms or ists "believe" in no belief?

Also, isn't all philosophy of the mind? And the mind is not what really "knows"? I mean, there's intellectual knowing, but what kind of knowing is that? Concepts. It's just the mind trying to grasp something it can't. But the mind is so damn curious.

The search for truth by using the mind will just be theories. Because the truth that can be named is not the real truth (says, Lao Tze).

[Ecce Homo]

Originally Posted by The Cloud

You're right, you can believe whatever you want and justify it because, at its root, all philosophy is based on fundamental principles that can have no proof. It's similar to fundamental principles in physical sciences, such as the speed of light in a reference frame. Light always moves at the speed of light relative to an object, no matter how fast that object is moving. There is no explanation for this, no more basic principle known that guides this behavior. It simply is, arbitrarily.

The same with philosophy. You can distill your beliefs down to the basic core, but no further. And that core is arbitrary, depending on what assumptions you want to make. A core assumption that other people are similar beings to yourself and thus deserve the same rights will result in drastically different behavior from a core assumption that other people are not similar beings and thus do not necessarily deserve the same rights. Both of these core assumptions can be justified through observation, but neither can be proven.

So reason, the most necessary tool in philosophy, is flawed because it is not reality. It can only crudely approximate the laws upon which your world operates on, based on assumptions that it cannot prove. It is just a tool, it is not reality. Just like you can create a computer program that will model this or that physical phenomena, but not one that recreates it, because if the program perfectly modeled the phenomena then it would be the reality itself.

So reason is self-limiting. It defines it's own bounds, and while it can catch glimpses of reality it will never quite be real. That's not to say it's useless, just like the computer model isn't useless. But it's not reality, it's just a tool. You are reality, not reason. Don't confuse yourself with your thoughts, thoughts are just tools. You are the reality of the experience, which can't be put into words and structured into diagrams.

I couldn't have said it better myself!

[Plato]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

Plato,

Which one of those comes closest to ditching all beliefs? Did any of those isms or ists "believe" in no belief?

Also, isn't all philosophy of the mind? And the mind is not what really "knows"? I mean, there's intellectual knowing, but what kind of knowing is that? Concepts. It's just the mind trying to grasp something it can't. But the mind is so damn curious.

The search for truth by using the mind will just be theories. Because the truth that can be named is not the real truth (says, Lao Tze).

Well, like you say, from the perspectives of the eastern religions you should end with no "beliefs", just realisation of the Truth -- their particular truth! If you constantly suspect that no version of the truth will be adequate then we are in a similar boat.

According to a chap called Richard Rorty - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia it comes down to shifting beliefs until you find what suits you best. But you'll always know that it is suspect. So by this reckoning, philosophy is about comparrison of existing "vocabularies" and the creation of new ones... until you find a "final vocabulary" (or contingent set of beliefs) which are your own personal salvation. I suppose this is what Steve P's personal development is all about. When he says "living consciously" I think he means awareness that we cannot know an absolute truth, so rather than unconsciously assimilating beliefs from our culture, we choose ones that work for us individually. I don't think it's possible to live without some perspective Wolfgang, you need to choose a lens to view reality through.

[Jamie]

Taoism is not philosophy.

[Nicketas]

Originally Posted by Plato

after just one year doing my philosophy degree i have come to suspect that it's possible to make ANY viewpoint sound good. it's possible to believe in just about anything.... i mean seriously, to highlight what is possible for an open minded person: just this year i've been a materialist, a dualist, an idealist, a buddhist, a hindu, a daoist, a sophist, a platonist, an aristotelian, an atheist, a christian. i've seen the truth of subjective reality, i've seen the truth of objective reality. i've been a communist and i've been a capitalist.
it's disgusting. my brain is in turmoil!
i used to believe in common sense. dear me.
now i think i am an ironist. it's all just language games. i am a nietzschean in as much a sense as one can be A.K.A. create your own values, create your own world.

i think i'm going to create a website discussing just what a load of B.S. this quest for truth is.

Science.

[Plato]

Science embodies a perspective.

[Ecce Homo]

Originally Posted by Plato

after just one year doing my philosophy degree i have come to suspect that it's possible to make ANY viewpoint sound good. it's possible to believe in just about anything.... i mean seriously, to highlight what is possible for an open minded person: just this year i've been a materialist, a dualist, an idealist, a buddhist, a hindu, a daoist, a sophist, a platonist, an aristotelian, an atheist, a christian. i've seen the truth of subjective reality, i've seen the truth of objective reality. i've been a communist and i've been a capitalist.
it's disgusting. my brain is in turmoil!
i used to believe in common sense. dear me.
now i think i am an ironist. it's all just language games. i am a nietzschean in as much a sense as one can be A.K.A. create your own values, create your own world.

i think i'm going to create a website discussing just what a load of B.S. this quest for truth is.

I hear ya man. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, took it back. You get kind of jaded by the whole thing after a while. I agree with Akashic in reference to the diamond/facets metaphor. I've used that metaphor myself for a long time now in relation to being able to see the reality in all of those ideologies. It's kind of a gift too though, being a "post truthian". You can switch perspectives and philosophies and see the connections between them in a way a lot of people can not. It gives you an advantage.

[Plato]

Originally Posted by Ecce Homo

It gives you an advantage.

I agree that it's advantageous. Understanding how other people think is something most people can't even begin to do because they can't step outside their own prejudices...
I suppose something must be true but to even speculate is really beyond us. All we can do is choose our beliefs and enjoy the ride.

[Brutha]

So by this reckoning, philosophy is about comparrison of existing "vocabularies" and the creation of new ones... until you find a "final vocabulary" (or contingent set of beliefs) which are your own personal salvation. I suppose this is what Steve P's personal development is all about.

I don't think it is about coming to a final vocabulary. Sometimes lens (or vocabulary) A is better and sometimes vocabulary (or lens) B is better.

[Plato]

Originally Posted by Brutha

I don't think it is about coming to a final vocabulary. Sometimes lens (or vocabulary) A is better and sometimes vocabulary (or lens) B is better.

I think you're probably right. The difficulty is figuring out what criteria to judge them by. But I suppose through experiment you can find what works and what doesn't.

[The Cloud]

I was once in a similar situation to you. I spent a lot of time trying to find a perfect, universally applicable philosophy. A philosophy with no contradictions between itself and reality, and thus none of the negative emotions that arise due to those contradictions.

Then one day the idea that I did not exist as a discrete individual occurred to me and blew everything out of the water. Because you see, all my attempts at philosophy were centered around me, they assumed a discrete me to think the necessary thoughts and perform the necessary actions to hold the philosophy. But, realistically speaking, there was no 'I', and thus any philosophy would be incomplete because it would be based on something that does not strictly exist. So, in order to have a perfectly philosophy, it must be a philosophy of the universe, centered around existence as a whole.

But how does one do that? Once cannot think in terms of existence, because the universe can't think about itself because it does not have a reference point to compare itself to. It is everything. It just is. So we just are. Any concept we try to use to describe something is false, any word untrue, because fundamentally you cannot separate one aspect of the universe from another because they are completely interdependent. Concepts, ideas used to separate a whole into parts, cannot describe reality. Thus, they are not real, and should not be confused with what is real.

[Excellent Lodestar]

Originally Posted by infinitethoughts

Lol.
I think it took me about a week to realize what a colossal waste of time it was to study philosophy from a Mainstream college.

I know what you mean.

It seems many don't know what you know...
In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined - New York Times

[Neutral]

An essay by Paul Graham on this very subject.

I would say that this has been, unfortunately for philosophy, the central fact of philosophy. Most philosophical debates are not merely afflicted by but driven by confusions over words. Do we have free will? Depends what you mean by "free." Do abstract ideas exist? Depends what you mean by "exist."

The essay ends with hope. Philosophy is still an open field!

P.S. Bertrand Russell believed the same thing about the state of philosophy up to his time.

[helpmestartauniversity]

A couple of thoughts:

1) Philosophy saved my life. I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown before discovering serious rigorous philosophy at my university. I quite literally might have died face-down in a ditch by now without it. The primary benefits were twofold. First, it let me know that I was not alone in having the sorts of serious philosophical concerns and thoughts that dominated my mental life. Second, it allowed me to converse with the greatest thinkers in recorded history and learn about their responses to the same problems I was wrestling with.

2) A lot of people get turned off to philosophy because their soft thinking gets exposed pretty quickly when held up to the light of reason. Most people blissfully wallow around in fluffy nonsense and don't want to (or lack the mental capacity to) really engage the problems with precise, rigorous thinking. (Let me explicitly state that I'm not accusing you of that, Plato.)

Philosophy is hard. Damn hard. The pursuit of truth will scare the pants off you and take you to the brink of madness if you're perceptive enough to really understand the problems, and it will make no promises of a happy ending. If you're really gonna pursue truth, you've either got to suck it up and deal with the consequences, or cop out and turn to one of the fluffy la la land fantasies that most others choose to delude themselves with.

[windovervocalcords]

Originally Posted by Plato

after just one year doing my philosophy degree i have come to suspect that it's possible to make ANY viewpoint sound good. it's possible to believe in just about anything.... i mean seriously, to highlight what is possible for an open minded person: just this year i've been a materialist, a dualist, an idealist, a buddhist, a hindu, a daoist, a sophist, a platonist, an aristotelian, an atheist, a christian. i've seen the truth of subjective reality, i've seen the truth of objective reality. i've been a communist and i've been a capitalist.
it's disgusting. my brain is in turmoil!
i used to believe in common sense. dear me.
now i think i am an ironist. it's all just language games. i am a nietzschean in as much a sense as one can be A.K.A. create your own values, create your own world.

i think i'm going to create a website discussing just what a load of B.S. this quest for truth is.

Don't give up your quest for truth; it's as close as your next breath.

[wolfgang]

Originally Posted by helpmestartauniversity

If you're really gonna pursue truth, you've either got to suck it up and deal with the consequences, or cop out and turn to one of the fluffy la la land fantasies that most others choose to delude themselves with.

is studying philosophy the only way to pursue truth?

[Plato]

Plato -> Kant = poop.

Like The Cloud said, metaphysicians are very very good at throwing dust in your eyes through monstrous convoluted arguments which hide the fact they are based on initial assumptions of some kind. Logical arguments of this kind are a house of cards.

Conclusion: philosophy shouldn't be an isolated topic. A historical perspective quickly reveals that philosophy is nothing more than a tradition of beliefs that flow from one to another chronologically. Philosophical theories are embodied in ALL the literature of a culture, not just "philosophy" texts. Philosophy, rightly, is literary criticism.

Originally Posted by Neutral

An essay by Paul Graham on this very subject.
The essay ends with hope. Philosophy is still an open field!

P.S. Bertrand Russell believed the same thing about the state of philosophy up to his time.

Yeah, it's all language games.

[Dave Kaminski]

Originally Posted by Excellent Lodestar

It seems many don't know what you know...
In a New Generation of College Students, Many Opt for the Life Examined - New York Times

Originally Posted by New York Times

Jenna Schaal-O’Connor, a 20-year-old sophomore who is majoring in cognitive science and linguistics, said philosophy had other perks. She said she found many male philosophy majors interesting and sensitive.
“That whole deep existential torment,” she said. “It’s good for getting girlfriends.”

That, my friends, is why I love philosophy.

[ZHereford]

Originally Posted by Plato

Conclusion: philosophy shouldn't be an isolated topic. A historical perspective quickly reveals that philosophy is nothing more than a tradition of beliefs that flow from one to another chronologically. Philosophical theories are embodied in ALL the literature of a culture, not just "philosophy" texts. Philosophy, rightly, is literary criticism.

Hey Plato,
Philosophy is invaluable in teaching us how to think critically and determine our own values. Each of us has the freedom to choose what we want to believe and what makes the most sense to us. I found it the perfect guide for determining my personal belief system.

[helpmestartauniversity]

Originally Posted by Plato

Plato -> Kant = poop.

1) Like The Cloud said, metaphysicians are very very good at throwing dust in your eyes through monstrous convoluted arguments which hide the fact they are based on initial assumptions of some kind.

2) philosophy is nothing more than a tradition of beliefs that flow from one to another chronologically.

3) Philosophy, rightly, is literary criticism.

4) Yeah, it's all language games.

Yes, you certainly sound like a frustrated beginner.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Regarding #4, see #3.


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.

[helpmestartauniversity]

Originally Posted by wolfgang

is studying philosophy the only way to pursue truth?

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.

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

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?


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