Zizek: seems like a nob

[xslavearcx]

so has a consensus as to the question of whether zizek is a nob emerged yet?

 

[Jeff Robinson]

so has a consensus as to the question of whether zizek is a nob emerged yet?

I think Chomksy had him nailed.

 

[xslavearcx]

Kant isn't the final word, but if someone who is interested in the limits of knowledge were to ask me who to read, I would direct them towards Kant first, I think.

Just out of interest LBJ, why Kant first, rather than say Locke or Hume?

 

[CharlieChaplin]

I watched a BBC programme about the French revolution and he was basically supporting Robespierre and justifying the death of so many people. I think he is a bit of a tit also.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I watched a BBC programme about the French revolution and he was basically supporting Robespierre and justifying the death of so many people. I think he is a bit of a tit also.

So I take it you support the Aristos and the old guard?

 

[Fruitloop]

I thought he was ace in that.

 

[CharlieChaplin]

So I take it your support the Aristos and the old guard?

No, but the bloodshed is not excusable.

 

[audiotech]

"Rivers of blood" especially.

 

[butchersapron]

No, but the bloodshed is not excusable.

That must be why you're joining the army then. You realise pro-revolutionists killed 20 000 tops (and for proper crimes), and the royalists killed around 100 000 civilians in revenge? (Their successors killed 30 000 in a single week in 1871. Who do you a) condemn? b) Know about? Are taught about?

 

[audiotech]

The British Army?

 

[Knotted]

I tried the Niels Bohr "it works even if you don't believe it" gag at work yesterday. They were having an argument about whether jade brings you luck. I said I didn't believe it did but added it works even if you don't believe it. "See it works even if you don't believe it!" was the reply I got. Whoosh. Woman in question isn't stupid either (just a bit superstitious). I'm not sure if Bohr's joke really is the cutting edge of social criticism.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Just out of interest LBJ, why Kant first, rather than say Locke or Hume?

Kant saw clearly what philosophy is, and importantly what it isn't. He prefigures Wittgenstein's Tractatus in this, I think. Critique of Pure Reason, VII:

Such a science must not be called a doctrine, but only a
critique of pure reason; and its use, in regard to speculation, would be
only negative, not to enlarge the bounds of, but to purify, our reason,
and to shield it against error--which alone is no little gain.

He sees what he is doing as science. It can be nothing else. He goes on:

This investigation, which we cannot properly call a doctrine, but only a
transcendental critique, because it aims not at the enlargement, but
at the correction and guidance, of our knowledge, and is to serve as a
touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all knowledge a priori, is
the sole object of our present essay.

This bit - 'which we cannot properly call a doctrine' - is the key point. There are no doctrines to be found in philosophy. Wittgenstein saw this, too - If you understand what I write, said Wittgenstein, you understand how little it says. (I paraphrase him here).

My knowledge of the history of philosophy is patchy, but Kant is the first I know of to express this so explicitly. Kant defines what philosophy is and what it can be. He shows all the ways in which the likes of Plato with their doctrines were wrong. And I can't see how anyone can do philosophy after Kant without acknowledging what Kant shows.


ETA: With Kant, I'm only really referring to his Critique of Pure Reason, btw. I've read other bits by him, but find his ethics and political writings to be pretty worthless, as I do most moral philosophy, tbh. Philosophy is mostly an examination of the bleeding obvious, but some bleeding obvious things are simply not that interesting or puzzling to warrant examination.

What I object to most about the likes of Zizek and other continental philosophers is that they take the obvious and instead of simplifying it and clarifying it, they complicate it and obscure it. At its best, continental philosophy is 5 percent poetry and 95 percent bullshit. But that bullshit can be damaging, I suggest, when it is mistaken for obscure, hard-to-grasp wisdom. I think a lot of people are put off by analytical philosophy because of its lack of poetry, which is fair enough, but there's no need to turn towards the obscurantists. Why not just stick to poets?

 

[audiotech]

I tried the Niels Bohr "it works even if you don't believe it" gag at work yesterday. They were having an argument about whether jade brings you luck. I said I didn't believe it did but added it works even if you don't believe it. "See it works even if you don't believe it!" was the reply I got. Whoosh. Woman in question isn't stupid either (just a bit superstitious). I'm not sure if Bohr's joke really is the cutting edge of social criticism.

But confirms in a small way the "spiritual hedonism" that is developing at a rate.

 

[yield]

What is "spiritual hedonism" audiotech? To be frank I prefer Zizek to Chomsky. He makes me laugh and makes me think even when he is wrong.

What are we to think of Foucaults relationship with Islam or Heideggers with Nazism except for laughter? It's funny.

"What is to be done?" in In Defense of Lost Causes is worth serious thought but yeah let's ignore it because he's a buffoon?

Zizek takes the scatter gun appraoch to philosophy. Sort the wheat from the chaff it's worth it.

 

[audiotech]

Chanting mainly, with candles and incense and warm baths with salts, that if you don't give time to dissolve graze your arse. All that 60's crap about cult leaders, mysticism and the like. Ended up with the 'Manson family'.

 

[yield]

Chanting mainly, with candles and incense and warm baths with salts, that if you don't give time to dissolve graze your arse.

Sounds like hippies audiotech. Is that what Zizek is encouraging?

 

[audiotech]

Discouraging. To use his words: "No bullshit".

 

[articul8]

What is "spiritual hedonism" audiotech? To be frank I prefer Zizek to Chomsky. He makes me laugh and makes me think even when he is wrong.

What are we to think of Foucaults relationship with Islam or Heideggers with Nazism except for laughter? It's funny.

"What is to be done?" in In Defense of Lost Causes is worth serious thought but yeah let's ignore it because he's a buffoon?

Zizek takes the scatter gun appraoch to philosophy. Sort the wheat from the chaff it's worth it.

Foucault's thing for the islamists just showed him up as a bit of a twat - whereas Heidegger had people forced from their jobs and into labour camps. Not laugh out loud funny if you ask me.

 

[butchersapron]

Did he?

 

[articul8]

Well he forced people out of their jobs for being Jewish. I wasn't accusing him of directly forcing them into the chambers, but indirectly I his actions contributed

 

[butchersapron]

Well he forced people out of their jobs for being Jewish. I wasn't accusing him of directly forcing them into the chambers, but indirectly I his actions contributed

whereas Heidegger had people forced from their jobs and into labour camps

Jesus christ.

 

[articul8]

having been stripped of your job for being a Jew would make you a more likely candidate for the labour camps, no?

 

[butchersapron]

whereas Heidegger had people forced from their jobs and into labour camps

 

[frogwoman]

I didn't know he had forced people out of their jobs for being Jewish. I thought he was just a water-carrier for them. That's bad enough mind.

 

[articul8]

He was installed as a university rector and oversaw the early attempts to force Jewish profs out of their jobs in the earliest days of the regime (he quit after about a year, but stayed a member of the Nazi party until Hitler's fall).

 

[butchersapron]

whereas Heidegger had people forced from their jobs and into labour camps

 

[frogwoman]

oh ok so involved at a very early stage and basically just an ideological water-carrier. so a total cunt but not very involved in the whole state apparatus then?

 

[articul8]

Not in state apparatus no - but entirely aware of, and prepared to take responsibility for, early de-judification of workforce.

 

[Santino]

oh ok so involved at a very early stage and basically just an ideological water-carrier. so a total cunt but not very involved in the whole state apparatus then?

More or less. It's very murky though, and there is a whole cottage industry in researching Heidegger's involvement with the Nazis.

 

[butchersapron]

Not in state apparatus no - but entirely aware of, and prepared to take responsibility for, early de-judification of workforce.

So whereas Heidegger had people forced from their jobs and into labour camps?