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Thread: Is philosophy relevant anymore?

  1. #16
    Maybe YesNo's Avatar
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    That makes sense, Jack of Hearts. It occurred to me that some threads contain posts that function like free-flowing Socratic dialogue. I at least learn a lot from them.

  2. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by YesNo View Post
    It occurred to me that some threads contain posts that function like free-flowing Socratic dialogue.
    In what way? And how?

    Not to discredit the dialogues, of course, if you can read them you should. They seem to be exciting in the way they point out hiccups in common processes. They also sate a literary craving because there's an arc through some of them.

    And in the dialogues themselves Socrates admits that he has a following of young men who are interested in him humiliating others with his conversations.

    But, be it because it's either 'newer' or 'more in vogure' or 'what's actually going on,' phil of language probably has much to say about the dialogues that undermines them ontologically. In that way, maybe you'd only learn as much from 'the Socratic method' as phil of language would've told you in the first place.

  3. #18
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    I might be misunderstanding the Socratic method. It looks like a way for the participants to become aware of positions they held but did not fully understand.

    The method goes like this as it applies to threads. Someone makes a comment. Someone else either accepts it or rejects it. The process of adding to the comment clarifies what was originally written. Just the process of writing a response, as I am doing now, makes me aware of details I would not have thought about had I not written a response.

    Having more than one person contribute adds unexpectedness from each participant. This allows each of the participants to become more aware of the issues involved better than if each participant were simply talking to himself. I don't think Socrates knew where the original conversations were going to lead any more than modern participants in a thread know what to expect from it. He was not teaching as much as learning. Of course, his previous interest in the issues might have given him an advantage over other less experienced participants.

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    That seems to be a pretty good description of it.

    But from the dialogues themselves it seems Socrates' actual motives oscillate or are not readily apparent. It's been years, but yours truly seems to remember walking away from the works thinking of Socrates as a professional 'bubble burster.' And of course the struggle with the sophists, who used rhetoric to motivate a desired outcome, versus Plato n' friends who supposedly married rhetoric to reason.

    The more Jack of Hearts thinks about this, the sillier he thinks the 'Socratic method' is, especially as a learning tool. Not entirely sure how learning occurs, but that someone reached back into Plato and appropriated something they didn't bother to read all the way through, then made a generations of high school and college students participate in... seems somewhat cynical in nature.

    The dialectic. Really all that's happening is two people are imposing reasoning structures on conversation. It's definitely something you could do, but why not just study formal logic instead?






    J
    Last edited by Jack of Hearts; 05-03-2016 at 12:25 AM.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts View Post
    The more Jack of Hearts thinks about this, the sillier he thinks the 'Socratic method' is, especially as a learning tool.
    I am associating the Socratic method with a conversation between at least two people where they are arguing about something. They each learn in two different ways:

    (1) They learn by formulating their own position which they are not completely aware of but the process of writing or speaking their position clarifies it for them. This is what I am doing now by writing a response. I do not have an answer prepared in advance. I create it as I write it.

    (2) They learn by being surprised by what the other person has to say which forces them to look at an alternative they did not originally think of. This is what you offered me by responding. You have introduced something new that I would not have thought of from my own perspective.

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack of Hearts View Post
    The dialectic. Really all that's happening is two people are imposing reasoning structures on conversation. It's definitely something you could do, but why not just study formal logic instead?
    Were we computers, you might have a point. Even as computers we could not get past the inherent incompleteness of the axiom system we are using.

    Since we are not computers, what are we doing when we engage in a dialectic? This is where continental philosophy such as phenomenology or existentialism might offer insight by focusing on subjectivity. Can that be reduced to an analytic philosopher's attempt to reach certainty by removing subjectivity? Can the analytic philosopher make everything objective? I don't think that is possible.

    There is also an issue of what is an individual in the Socratic method or on a thread such as this one. A computer is an individual connecting to other individual computers through a network. They make this thread possible for us to read and participate in, but is what they do a good metaphor or model for what we do when we communicate to each other on this thread? I don't think it is. The reason it is not is because we are not individuals.

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    We'd probably be better off understanding the exchange as emotive rather than logical. Plato had the luxury of wrapping his arguments in characters and scenarios. Yet you can still disrobe them and find the skeleton and diagram Plato.

    We, on the other hand,aren't so lucky. How much internal consistency would you expect to find in Jack of Hearts throughout his day? How many stances does he hold, and how many logically preclude each other.

    If you could observe that, you might identify a bit more with the Christian Fundamentalist Staunch Republican hanging around the bathhouse. Kinda hard to judge a gymnastic while you're doing one yourself, trust.

    So probably Plato's dialogues inspired something called a 'Socratic method' but are probably not that. And probably, rather than exchanging with you or helping to enlighten you, Jack of Hearts is more entertaining you or offering you comfort as you march toward an oblivion as senseless as your formulation. Pardon the implicit premises.

    Maybe that's the 'dialectic.'

    Maybe it's all idiots howling. Hopefully this (Jack of Hearts') idiot's howling noise is amenable or soothing to you.







    J

  7. #22
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    Plato's dialogues were reworkings of whatever Socrates was doing when he talked to people. It is not the dialogues but the act of talking with others that is important here and talking to each other is what we are doing now. We are not writing dialogues but we are part of a dialog which is what I think Socrates was originally doing.

    I suspect the dichotomy between emotive and logical is false. It is not Captain Kirk and Spock. We aren't one or the other when we talk and perhaps we are neither depending on what those words are supposed to mean. You may have described it best: we are "entertaining" each other. That is a better way of looking at the Socratic method than to analyze it into emotive and logical components.

    The more I think of it, I really like the entertainment metaphor. Do computers entertain each other? They don't. The entertainment metaphor emphasizes our differences from computers. It emphasizes our subjectivity.

    What is the value of entertainment? Not necessarily to soothe, but to enlighten, because you provide me with something new that I would not have come up with on my own without you. That entertains and enlightens.

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    Quote Originally Posted by fajfall View Post
    Now that science answers so many matters philosphers used to ponder the existence/non-existence of, I'm wondering if it's worth reading?

    If so, what do you suggest starting on? I read Socrates' book a few years ago but I didn't find much in it, just that he proves that there's definitely a soul and that reincarnation is definitely real, which he proves by his philosophical reasoning.
    Reading the early philosophers is irrelevant unless you're curious about the roots of philosophy or plan on becoming a philosophy professor.

    Is philosophy relevant today? I think so. As long as humanity wrestles with questions of ethics, politics, and any other gray area you can think of, we'll need philosophy. Philosophy is the science of thinking, in my opinion; a philospher applies his training to tackle the big questions posed by his society.

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    What did Socrates have to say about transgender outhouse rules?

    I will tell you exactly. He said: "Transgender outhouse rules."
    Last edited by desiresjab; 05-20-2016 at 10:43 AM.

  10. #25
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    I have seen outhouses with two seats or holes. Perhaps if one wanted to be politically correct one should make an outhouse with five seats arranged in random order:

    1) A seat for men.
    2) A seat for women.
    3) A seat for people who are neither men nor women.
    4) A seat for people who are both.
    5) A seat for people who do not want to admit what they are.

  11. #26
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    Hindu philosophy pursues deliverance; Greek — with the exception of Pyrrho, Epicurus, and a few unclassifiable figures — is a disappointment: it seeks only . . . truth.
    Kant waited until the last days of his old age to perceive the dark side of existence and to indicate “the failure of any rational theodicy.” . . . Others have been luckier: to them this occurred even before they began to philosophize.

    These two fragments, taken out of Cioran's Anathemas and Admirations, suffice for explaining the meanders of philosophy.

  12. #27
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    A not so philosophic question.
    I´m a bit confused about the word "outhouse".
    In older texts outhouse would be a place to grow plants that can´t be grown in the garden, because they need a special temperature.
    On Litnet "outhouse" is used as synonym for toilet. Is it any kind of toilet, or toilets that are built outside the main building?
    Last edited by Danik 2016; 05-22-2016 at 03:54 PM.
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

  13. #28
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    I was using the word outhouse as a primitive toilet built outside the dwelling without running water. I think desiresjab was also referring to some court cases in the US against public institutions such as schools that raised questions about which public bathroom, the men's or the women's, those who consider themselves transgender are allowed to use.

    Edit: I think you are referring to a "greenhouse" or a "hot house" if the greenhouse is heated. There is also "garden shed" or "shed" where gardening tools are kept.
    Last edited by YesNo; 05-22-2016 at 07:52 PM.

  14. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by EmptySeraph View Post
    Hindu philosophy pursues deliverance; Greek — with the exception of Pyrrho, Epicurus, and a few unclassifiable figures — is a disappointment: it seeks only . . . truth.
    Kant waited until the last days of his old age to perceive the dark side of existence and to indicate “the failure of any rational theodicy.” . . . Others have been luckier: to them this occurred even before they began to philosophize.

    These two fragments, taken out of Cioran's Anathemas and Admirations, suffice for explaining the meanders of philosophy.
    Cioran makes too many assertions without adequate justification. I have tried reading some of his works without finding them very enlightening. They are more like prompts for discussions.

    Edit:

    To illustrate what I mean, consider what you have quoted.

    Hindu philosophy pursues deliverance;


    That is rather vague. It is sort of like saying, "The sky is blue." It is a kind of common sense that may be false in specific instances.

    Greek — with the exception of Pyrrho, Epicurus, and a few unclassifiable figures — is a disappointment: it seeks only . . . truth.


    This is another vague statement. Its purpose is to establish authority by name-dropping Pyrrho and Epicurus. However, as far as its content goes it is like saying, "The grass is green."

    Kant waited until the last days of his old age to perceive the dark side of existence and to indicate “the failure of any rational theodicy.”


    I have no clue if this is true or not nor am I interested in Kant's life enough to find out. However, he dropped the name Kant and offered a detail suggesting he knows what he is talking about. This establishes authority, but I have no way to tell if his authority is worth trusting any more than the authority of a car salesman who wants me to buy a specific make and model.

    Then he introduced the ideas of "failure", "rational" and "theodicy". He is building up for his irrational, as I see it, punch line:

    . . . Others have been luckier: to them this occurred even before they began to philosophize.


    What does "luck" have to do with this? It is another rhetorical tool, a distraction rather than an argument, to put the readers' critical processes to sleep.

    I'll admit when I read Cioran it was in French and I don't understand that language as well as English, but the example you provided of his writing in English makes me think I understood him well enough. He is not worth reading, but if you would like to discuss him, I would be willing to do so.
    Last edited by YesNo; 05-22-2016 at 08:41 PM.

  15. #30
    Registered User Jackson Richardson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danik 2016 View Post
    A not so philosophic question.
    I´m a bit confused about the word "outhouse".
    In older texts outhouse would be a place to grow plants that can´t be grown in the garden, because they need a special temperature.
    On Litnet "outhouse" is used as synonym for toilet. Is it any kind of toilet, or toilets that are built outside the main building?
    I imagine "outhouse" for loo, toilet, lavatory or WC is an American euphenism like rest room -which the British find very funny.

    If the enclosed space for growing plants has glass walls, it is a greenhouse, at least in the UK. Otherwise it could be a potting shed, garden shed or as my other half calls it "nursery". Any of those could be an outhouse, but the term means any space seperate from the main house whether used for gardening or not, unless I suppose it is a garage.

    Not sure what this has to do with philosophy.
    Previously JonathanB

    The more I read, the more I shall covet to read. Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy Partion3, Section 1, Member 1, Subsection 1

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