What are the characteristics of a Philosopher?
- Thread starter i-am-your-idea
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Was Archimedes a mathematician or a philosopher? Does it matter? We don't call every branch of academia 'philosophy' any more. Philosophy as a specialist discpline is something quite modern even though it has its roots in history. The specialist discpline is not about anything in itself, this is my point. If you want to talk about the achievements of polymaths then that's all well and good.
Knotted, you have clearly decided that philosophy means 'sitting around and thinking about things that aren't very useful or important', so that when presented with the suggestion that in fact the discipline of philosophy (in the Western tradition) was in fact responsible for everything that separates us from a pre-modern society, your response is to think 'Ah, but that can't be true because philosohy is just sitting around thinking about stuff'.
You don't have an argument, you have a presumption. Thinkers didn't change the world by being polymaths, they changed the world by using the tools of philosophy to alter the way in which we perceived and manipulated phenomena.
You don't have an argument, you have a presumption. Thinkers didn't change the world by being polymaths, they changed the world by using the tools of philosophy to alter the way in which we perceived and manipulated phenomena.
I haven't presumed this. I'll perhaps have a go at what I think philosophy is, but really I don't see the point in saying that something like chemistry is philosophy, because its clearer if I just call it chemistry. This is partly to do with the academic division of labour and all.
Is a chemist doing philosophy? Does he know it? Did the chemists invent his methods or did philosophers? The philosophy of science is much younger than science.
I'm not talking about the philosophy of science, which as far as I know has done nothing for humanity, but the methods of science itself (or as we used to call it, natural philosophy). The objective investigation of the natural world came from the philsophical principles of empiricism and reasoning.
The fact is that I'm not going to convince you of anything because you've already decided that any useful academic knowledge is, ipso facto, not philosophy.
I disagree. I think empiricism and reasoning are products of the objective investigation of the natural world.
Your last post has got me thinking. But to be honest I think you have made your mind up as well.
Actually I'm saying more than this. I am saying that there is no such thing as philosophical knowledge (metaphysics if you like). I am not saying that philosophy is useless. Give me an example of philosophical knowledge and I'll show you that it isn't.
Everything you think you know is in reality nothing else but the incentive to a question and the answer to that question the introduction to an other one.
salaam.
I don't know if this is supposed to be an example of knowledge in philosophy, a retort or even possibly a characterisation of what I am saying.
However it is possible for something to be the incentive to a question and for it to be something else as well. These things aren't 'real'. They don't have such and such a quality as if we could investigate it. They are just questions and statements. Different questions and different statements can be different things in different contexts.
"Where's my wallet?" "On the table." "Oh OK."
It ends there. There is nothing else of relevance to say.
But anyway, enough mumbo jumbo.
OK more mumbo jumbo then.
Is epistemology (the study of knowledge) itself something we can know about?
If so then epistemology contains knowledge about epistemology. That is there are some topics which include themselves as an object of study. Call these improper topics and the converse proper topics.
Is knowledge of proper topics in general itself a knowledge of a proper topic?
(I mangled this first time round, please ignore earlier edits)
To quote Wittgenstein on the Russell paradox:
I don't say this or quote W because I don't think epistemology is not worthwhile. I just don't think there are real discoveries to be made in anything that is fundamentally self-referential. Talking about talking. Knowing about knowing. etc.etc.
In so far as epistemology deals with real problems it is science, logic and theory if you want to call this philosophy, then fine (but then don't suppose that this is a topic which underlies other knowledge - its rather side by side and not required by some particular example of theory). In so far as it deals with self-referential semantics then it is just philosophy and not a branch of knowledge, no matter how cryptic and well hidden the self-references are (but now you can say that it underlies this or that particular theorising).
[The above looks like it contains two competing definitions of 'philosophy'. It doesn't, but I think they are good ways to view what is happening in philosophy - if it isn't then something else similar to this picture will be happening. There is no definition of philosophy btw. Anybody who has a temptation to get out a dictionary should be clouted with it.]
I once thought that a certain style of dialectics might overcome this sort of problem. This is just bosh, though.
I've thought about this WAY TOO MUCH, and I encourage others to think about it considerably less.
Is epistemology (the study of knowledge) itself something we can know about?
If so then epistemology contains knowledge about epistemology. That is there are some topics which include themselves as an object of study. Call these improper topics and the converse proper topics.
Is knowledge of proper topics in general itself a knowledge of a proper topic?
(I mangled this first time round, please ignore earlier edits)
To quote Wittgenstein on the Russell paradox:
I don't say this or quote W because I don't think epistemology is not worthwhile. I just don't think there are real discoveries to be made in anything that is fundamentally self-referential. Talking about talking. Knowing about knowing. etc.etc.
In so far as epistemology deals with real problems it is science, logic and theory if you want to call this philosophy, then fine (but then don't suppose that this is a topic which underlies other knowledge - its rather side by side and not required by some particular example of theory). In so far as it deals with self-referential semantics then it is just philosophy and not a branch of knowledge, no matter how cryptic and well hidden the self-references are (but now you can say that it underlies this or that particular theorising).
[The above looks like it contains two competing definitions of 'philosophy'. It doesn't, but I think they are good ways to view what is happening in philosophy - if it isn't then something else similar to this picture will be happening. There is no definition of philosophy btw. Anybody who has a temptation to get out a dictionary should be clouted with it.]
I once thought that a certain style of dialectics might overcome this sort of problem. This is just bosh, though.
I've thought about this WAY TOO MUCH, and I encourage others to think about it considerably less.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
*facepalm*
The most absurd of all here is you, actually - Alde got you by the short and curlies, and so did Alex. A bit of a wall: intransigent, thinking you have nothing to learn and you have everybody here to "drive around"... as it were, so clever are you....
Oh gorski, I don't mind you, alde or alex. At least you get to the starting blocks.
I really think you got your nick right: you are all in knots and as such you don't get anywhere...
That's why I chose it. I'm not entirely full of myself, you know.I don't claim that there is a special kind of philosophical knowledge. But this is not what we were discussing earlier. You explicitly claimed that philosophers had never said anything useful - a claim I suggest is false because it was philosophers that enabled the invention of all that useful shit that makes us what we are today, viz. computers, engines, medical science, capitalism and so on.
You're now claiming something very different, namely that there is no such thing as philosophical knowledge, where 'philosophical' refers to such things as are currently studied in philosophy departments.
I don't really know what to say to that. I don't think that there's a special realm of stuff about which philosophers have knowledge. (No Platonic forms that we can sit around contemplating.) Knowledge is based on experience and reason, and it matters very little how we choose to label the various different things we can know.
You're now claiming something very different, namely that there is no such thing as philosophical knowledge, where 'philosophical' refers to such things as are currently studied in philosophy departments.
I don't really know what to say to that. I don't think that there's a special realm of stuff about which philosophers have knowledge. (No Platonic forms that we can sit around contemplating.) Knowledge is based on experience and reason, and it matters very little how we choose to label the various different things we can know.
WOW!
Truthful but not heartfelt. I don't have a heart.
While we're doing truthful. Do you agree with Alex on post 91? I remember having to explain to you how broad philosophy used to be. It was a very slow and painful process. Like hitting a wall.
Read the quote carefully and you will see the word 'except'. Read on after that.
I don't know why you think that philosophers enabled us to invent lots of stuff. What did philosophers do that enables this? Give me hint. A clue. A sign from god. Whatever. I can't find this convincing until you give some sort of argument of some type in some way.
Alex B said:
Yes this is something very different, but I suspect its closely related.
Alex B said:
I agree, of course.
To put it somewhat poetically, they freed us from the shackles of superstition. Do you think that neolithic man would have got around to building a steam engine if he'd just thought about it for long enough? Well here's the thing: he had fucking millennia and did fuck all.
But get this: a few hundred years after philosophy gets a grip (proper decent philosophy, empirical and logical and English-speaking) we have the internet and cancer treatment and liberal democracy and Sky+ boxes and the emancipation of women.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Types of philosopher (taking Gramsci's 'Everyone is a philosopher' comment to heart...)
Idiot philosophers...typified by giant, open and poorly phrased questions, a preoccupation with semantics when other's answers don't go their way, and their own answers lack internal logic, consistency and/or are unrecognisable as having real world value
Academic philosophers...two sub groups...Pop philosophers who make a living (mainly in Europe, but there are a couple in the UK such as Alain de Botton) from being controversial; Ivory Tower types who understand method and theory wonderfully but who's ideas run into the wall called reality
The Others...anyone inbetween these two groups...
Idiot philosophers...typified by giant, open and poorly phrased questions, a preoccupation with semantics when other's answers don't go their way, and their own answers lack internal logic, consistency and/or are unrecognisable as having real world value
Academic philosophers...two sub groups...Pop philosophers who make a living (mainly in Europe, but there are a couple in the UK such as Alain de Botton) from being controversial; Ivory Tower types who understand method and theory wonderfully but who's ideas run into the wall called reality
The Others...anyone inbetween these two groups...
"a few hundred years" and "English speaking"?
Are you trying to bring down the brick wall with handing out a few jokes?
salaam.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
Oh yeah, one other thing.
A professional who will never be called to account for the results of his actions (writing of ideas). No professional liabilty for a philosopher who's ideas are taken up by lots of people which then fuck up completely (well, aside from beheading, defenestration and hemlock anway)
A professional who will never be called to account for the results of his actions (writing of ideas). No professional liabilty for a philosopher who's ideas are taken up by lots of people which then fuck up completely (well, aside from beheading, defenestration and hemlock anway
)Donna Ferentes
jubliado
I'm not sure this'll pass as an argument.
Some people are so fussy.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Nature of philosophy.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
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