Philosophy: books and discussion

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by TimMason

Philosophy is an umbrella term: Science, Religion, Morality are all sheltered beneath it.

No; parasol, brolly, rainshade, sunshade, gamp and bumbershoot are umbrella terms!

Sorry, frivolity mode disengaged.

Originally Posted by TimMason

Science was at first referred to as 'Natural Philosophy'; how what we call 'science' today developed out of that is a long story, and indeed a rather tangled one. Some would claim that science had its beginnings in the philosophy of Ancient Greece, while others would say that science really begins in the Renaissance.

Philosophy among the Greeks was a very practical matter; it included knowledge of the world, knowledge of the gods, knowledge of humans and how to persuade them to agree with you - a very important practical matter in democracies such as Athens. Philosophers wanted to live by and through their philosophies. Today's philosophers may inhabit the crumbling towers of the academy, but that's probably because they were displaced by churches, on the one hand, and the sciences on the other.

I've always considered the first and primary goal of philosophy to be to answer the question, "How then shall we live?" Certainly there is more to philosophy than that, and many of the things addressed by one or another branch or sub-branch of philosophy have nothing to do whatsoever with that question; but of all the questions to which it seeks answers, I consider that to be the most important. Perhaps that's why I'm especially drawn to that branch of philosophy that deals primarily with Ethics. It's also why I find myself so disappointed with philosophers whose personal lives are anything but shining role models of virtuous lives.

Originally Posted by TimMason

However, perhaps we are looking in the wrong place for our philosophers. The most canny of philosophers is a good plumber.

There's much to be said for that! It's better to be a loving, caring, decent human being with smelly hands than a brilliant but bitter academic with a disdain for his or her fellow humans.

That's not to say, of course, that one can't a loving, caring, decent, and brilliant academic!

BTW, Einstein was made an honorary member of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union when he stated that if he could have chosen any other career path than the one he followed, he would have enjoyed being a plumber!

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

The Tao of Poo?

Good god, Kenny!

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I've always considered the first and primary goal of philosophy to be to answer the question, "How then shall we live?" Certainly there is more to philosophy than that, and many of the things addressed by one or another branch or sub-branch of philosophy have nothing to do whatsoever with that question; but of all the questions to which it seeks answers, I consider that to be the most important.

I agree, Tom!

[TGS]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I've always considered the first and primary goal of philosophy to be to answer the question, "How then shall we live?"

And what answers to that question has it come up with?

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by TGS

And what answers to that question has it come up with?

Philosophers have come up with thousands of answers to that question, but not one of which has universal assent among them. Philosophy provides the questions and lays the groundwork for meaningful discussion. It will never have answers, for once an answer is derived to a question, it ceases to be philosophical speculation and becomes knowledge. Various philosophers can provide guidance, but ultimately the question must be answered by each individual. That doesn't mean in the least that striving for the goal -- that of actually answering the question of "How then shall we live" -- is not worthy of the best efforts of philosophers and laymen alike.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TGS

You may be right beppe, the earth may have an intention, it might even be a "she", but what experience could you imagine having that would throw light on, or settle the question one way or the other? The fact that one can imagine something to be the case doesn't make it so, or even make it that it is possible. I can imagine that the universe and everything in it doubled in size last night - and I can equally well imagine that it halved in size. But since there is no possible experience that I could have that would confirm or dis-confirm these imaginings, the imagining is in a real sense, meaningless.

Of course, one might have an emotional response to such imaginings, and that may be a good thing, but it doesn't help us to approach truth.

I am very glad that you picked up the imaginative character of my spiel.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TGS

You may be right beppe, the earth may have an intention, it might even be a "she", but what experience could you imagine having that would throw light on, or settle the question one way or the other?

I went down in the kitchen, made coffe for W and me, smoke a cigarette, discussed of football, and then thought that your comment was worth of a more serious answer.

If we discussed only of problems of which we know already the solution, then ... I'll let you feel the gap with images of your choice.

One difficulty in communicating with entities like that is the time scale.
Earth is around since about 5 billion years. Billion more billion less. Let us assume that we got here right in the middle of her life span. Her is honorific and cultural. So her time scale is chacterized by a number in the order of 10 billions years.

Our life span is of the order of 100 years.

A message that for us takes 1 hour to be transmitted, would last how long for Earth?

It takes 1 in one millionth of our life span as there are 10 thousand hours in one year.

That proportion carried over to Earth would mean 1 millionth of 10 billions, that is 10 thousand years. Not very practical, for us, just one hour of her time for Earth.

If we become that child, she might invite us to play. With Earth we can only be at the receiving end.

Things happen all the time and every where that we do not have the faintest idea of, with the huge space and time scales of universe. That is why I feel that extra terrestrial manifestations, along the schemes of our actual understanding of matter, and our human time scales, are just pure fantasy.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by beppe

Things happen all the time and every where that we do not have the faintest idea of, with the huge space and time scales of universe. That is why I feel that extra terrestrial manifestations, along the schemes of our actual understanding of matter, and our human time scales, are just pure fantasy.

Are you not falling into the trap from which Kant tried to save us? We are necessarily empirical realists - we cannot but take the empirical world to be real (ask an empirical idealist not to look before they cross a busy road and you will soon discover how untenable empirical idealism is) - but we are also necessarily transcendental idealists - we take there to be some reality to which we cannot have access, it is transcendent to our experience and, therefore, unknowable. So far, so good. The difficulty comes when we try to "know" the transcended with our empirical realist structures of knowledge. If there are things happening in the universe of which we know nothing then...well, we know nothing of them! If one of the things we don't know is whether the earth has intentions then we don't know it, and by your argument it seems that in principal we cannot know it, which I am happy to accept.

Recognizing the limitations of human knowledge does not take us beyond those limitations, and does not make the limited knowledge we have fantasy - it could only be characterized as fantasy if one had some knowledge of transcendental reality against which to measure the "unreality" of the empirical world - but then of course that "knowledge of transcendental reality" would be the subject of human knowledge and, thereby, would not be transcendent!

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TGS

Are you not falling into the trap from which Kant tried to save us? We are necessarily empirical realists - we cannot but take the empirical world to be real (ask an empirical idealist not to look before they cross a busy road and you will soon discover how untenable empirical idealism is) - but we are also necessarily transcendental idealists - we take there to be some reality to which we cannot have access, it is transcendent to our experience and, therefore, unknowable. So far, so good. The difficulty comes when we try to "know" the transcended with our empirical realist structures of knowledge. If there are things happening in the universe of which we know nothing then...well, we know nothing of them! If one of the things we don't know is whether the earth has intentions then we don't know it, and by your argument it seems that in principal we cannot know it, which I am happy to accept.

Recognizing the limitations of human knowledge does not take us beyond those limitations, and does not make the limited knowledge we have fantasy - it could only be characterized as fantasy if one had some knowledge of transcendental reality against which to measure the "unreality" of the empirical world - but then of course that "knowledge of transcendental reality" would be the subject of human knowledge and, thereby, would not be transcendent!

Nice. I follow you. you came very close to my attitude. I do not "know" the transcended with our empirical realist structures of knowledge.
I just let it come to me, if it comes good if not I feel a little more dry. Then I play a little with the idea of it, tease the whirls it leaves in my spirit and the shadows it leaves in my mind, may be there is something that I did not perceive and that has still flavor. Transcendent was originally dealt with Dionisiac practices. The old ways took tens of thousands of years to develop and it will take tens of thousands of years to erase them from our culture. Like the devotion to the Mother. The first gate to transcendent.

Logic will not get us anywhere. You a mathematician? Are you familiar with concept of left null space? There. It is not difficult to find references to it in the net.



O

[TGS]

Originally Posted by beppe

Nice. I follow you. you came very close to my attitude. I do not "know" the transcended with our empirical realist structures of knowledge.
I just let it come to me, if it comes good if not I feel a little more dry. Then I play a little with the idea of it, tease the whirls it leaves in my spirit and the shadows it leaves in my mind, may be there is something that I did not perceive and that has still flavor. Transcendent was originally dealt with Dionisiac practices. The old ways took tens of thousands of years to develop and it will take tens of thousands of years to erase them from our culture. Like the devotion to the Mother. The first gate to transcendent.

Logic will not get us anywhere. You a mathematician? Are you familiar with concept of left null space? There. It is not difficult to find references to it in the net.



O

And I likewise come very close to what I think is your position. Maybe the only difference is that whereas you let "it" come to you I meet "it" with "neti neti"*, (at least I do when I am on my toes!).

I'm not a mathematician so my understanding of null space is intuitive rather than technical but seems to correspond to the point of emptiness.

Here's an image I keep in my head. When we have a ring doughnut which consists of dough and a hole - the hole is that which is not the dough! However, if we remove all the dough because what we are really interested in is the hole, what becomes of the hole? It's not there - the hole only exists in relation to the dough. And so it is with the transcended - it has the appearance of being something from the point of view of the empirical but if we try divest ourselves of our empirical realist framework we find only the hole - emptiness.

*Let me know if you don't know the reference.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by TGS

Here's an image I keep in my head. When we have a ring doughnut which consists of dough and a hole - the hole is that which is not the dough! However, if we remove all the dough because what we are really interested in is the hole, what becomes of the hole? It's not there - the hole only exists in relation to the dough. And so it is with the transcended - it has the appearance of being something from the point of view of the empirical but if we try divest ourselves of our empirical realist framework we find only the hole - emptiness.

To an artist, the hole is the negative space, dough the positive. Both are essential to the whole....

[TGS]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

To an artist, the hole is the negative space, dough the positive. Both are essential to the whole....

Which brings us back to Kant! And the mistake that we often make that, because the whole consists in the dough and the hole, there will be something of the doughnut left if you take away the dough.

[beppe]

Originally Posted by TGS

I'm not a mathematician so my understanding of null space is intuitive rather than technical but seems to correspond to the point of emptiness.

I read about all different form of approach to transcendent and I am familiar (externally) with all of them. I am very familiar with the Catholic one which for me does not open any door.

For my personal practice I follow the Goddess (Mother Earth for some, the 3 faced moon for others) as close as possible to what I imagine my paleolithic ancestors did. Including fertility rites.
For doctrine, I read the Fathers of the Church. And of course the official documents. This Pope, the youngest Professor in Germany, BTW, (and this believe me, it is not a small accomplishment) is a source of incredible knowledge. Augustine in first line. I have more cultural resonance there.

For what concern left null space you could not be more wrong. So, in this case, pure semantic intuition is complety useless. I did not give you a man of the street description of the left null space, which I can give you any time, because I do not know on which mathematical concepts you can count.
So in this case, be the teacher of yourself or live without this fundamental notion. Wikipedia gives it, but it does not explains what it means. Too bad.

Make some effort and I will give you an hand. It will blow your mind. Seriously.

[WT Sharpe]

One of the problems with intuitive knowledge of transcendent reality is inconsistency. I may intuitively know that the Almightly Creator is male. Another may know intuitively that the Almighty is female. I may intuitively know that reality is one, another may know intuitively that reality has a dualistic or even pluralisic nature. But even if all humanity were intuitively in agreement on the nature of the transcendent, what would this prove? It would only prove that humans were hardwired by nature to conceive the nature of things beyond their ken in a similar manner. It would in no wise be a proof as to the validity of their intuitive "knowledge".

Reality is under no obligation to conform to human needs, desires, abstractions, or intuitions.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

One of the problems with intuitive knowledge of transcendent reality is inconsistency. I may intuitively know that the Almightly Creator is male. Another may know intuitively that the Almighty is female. I may intuitive know that reality is one, another may know intuitively that reality has a dualistic or even pluralisic nature. But even if all humanity were intuitively in agreement on the nature of the transcendent, what would this prove? It would only prove that humans were hardwired by nature to conceive the nature of things beyond their ken in a similar manner. It would in no wise be a proof as to the validity of their intuitive "knowledge".

Reality is under no obligation to conform to human needs, desires, abstractions, or intuitions.

Another problem is that, on any remotely rationalist sense of the word "knowledge", knowledge of the transcendent it is no sort of knowledge at all - it's "truth" cannot be verified, and it's belief cannot be justified.