Philosophy and You. . .

[The Comedian]

Do you use the ideas of philosophy to understand your life or to add color and depth to your experiences? I'd love to hear stories of how traditional philosophical ideas have spilled out in the realm of personal experience.

[cafolini]

As I see it, philosophy has always tried to use me and to an extent it did when I was very young. As I matured I became religious to enhance my personal experience. Now I am also interested in listening to the spill and the circular reasoning of the philosophical, but it no longer concerns me.

[loe]

I'm still attracted to existantialism, which also might effect my way of living a bit.
But apart from this no conrete philosophical theory has a real influence on my life, I guess.

Much more my study in philosophy provided me in general with the possibility to consider more perspectives of a situation, made my thinking more flexible and so on.
In my opinion philosophy is an excellent and reasonable medium against narrow-mindedness.

[cacian]

philosophy tries hard to magnify simplicity into verbosity. it is a kick one gets out of wondering about what it could be could have and not into thinking how I could would make it be. Philosophy gets into trials of working out the ifs and buts and forgets about whys and hows. I may ask myself what is the meaning of life but then if forget to ask me what life means to me and so it is erosive and gets intrusive to the point of missing the point. It is not clear what the purpose of philosophy is in terms of practicality. It has many doubts and hardly any positives. Its performance lingers and so never establishes.
but and there is a small but if I may have a philosophy then I would say simple does it.
I consider philosophy as going around in circles and instead of up and down in a steady momentum that leads not somewhere but adjourns something and establishes another it goes about aspects of reality that have no bearing on everyday life.

[YesNo]

I've looked at Plato's Phaedo and Republic when trying to understanding near and shared death experiences.

In looking at free will, consciousness, quantum mechanics or the big bang, one is usually asking philosophical questions about evidence and causality especially to protect oneself against pseudo-scientific authoritarianism. The problem is to avoid jumping to a metaphysical or religious conclusion that the evidence does not justify. So one reads philosophy because people have been thinking about such topics for a long time and there is no point in reinventing the wheel.

[chrisvia]

I was just talking to a friend about this the other day. This friend is deeply enthralled with Spinoza, and uses his works as guides to cope with and understand life every day. But as we talked and I thought about my own experiences with philosophy, I realized something: I have always approached philosophical texts as I've approached the study of history: I read them to understand how we go to where we are now.

Last year was my biggest "philosophy reading" year, as I re-read many of the major western works (Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Spinoza, Hobbes, Hume, Locke, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, et al.), but I honestly can't say that I take anything from these work and apply it to my life.

Perhaps the reason is because I first read and experienced Hawking's work and offerings such as philosophy is dead, and now science reigns.

I really wish I could have these deeper experiences with philosophy, but I just don't. No matter how open I am, I just view it all as building blocks of history.

:-(

On the other hand, I recently read the Bhagavad Gita and was completely moved. I walked away feeling completely enlightened and as if looking at the world through new eyes. So, perhaps this is the precursor of a new journey through the rich world of eastern philosophy.

[ladderandbucket]

Philosophy has only really taught me that we don't know very much about anything and of what we think we do know we can't be very certain.

I read philosophy in the spirit of Borges's metaphysicians of Tlon who "are not looking for truth or even an approximation to it: they are after a kind of amazement. They consider metaphysics a branch of fantastic literature."

[Panglossian]

I read philosophy in the spirit of Borges's metaphysicians of Tlon who "are not looking for truth or even an approximation to it: they are after a kind of amazement. They consider metaphysics a branch of fantastic literature."

I like that. I concur.

The way I see it is this : there's more truth and reality in a crow's beady eye than there is in any philosophical work. Stick with the real I say. Let's just look and listen. Look and listen.

[cafolini]

I like that. I concur.

The way I see it is this : there's more truth and reality in a crow's beady eye than there is in any philosophical work. Stick with the real I say. Let's just look and listen. Look and listen.

But philosophy is very real. Real BS, but real. Yes, let's look and listen.

[Panglossian]

But philosophy is very real. Real BS, but real. Yes, let's look and listen.

Yeah, real, no realer than anything else. I've read my fair share of philosophy, all told none of it added much to my life, to my mind, not really, at least I don't think so - (maybe I'm underestimating it??) - As you say, "Real BS, but real". Science is killing it isn't it? No more mind**** just the pursuit of facts. That's where it's at. I can't see how there can ever be another *great* philosopher....

[YesNo]

Perhaps the reason is because I first read and experienced Hawking's work and offerings such as philosophy is dead, and now science reigns.

...

On the other hand, I recently read the Bhagavad Gita and was completely moved. I walked away feeling completely enlightened and as if looking at the world through new eyes. So, perhaps this is the precursor of a new journey through the rich world of eastern philosophy.

I think I remember Hawking (and Leonard Mlodinov) saying something negative about philosophy in The Grand Design. The book disappointed me, but it convinced me that we need philosophy more than ever today to separate pseudo-scientific speculation from real science.

I agree with you about the Bhagavad Gita. I suppose that could be considered philosophy although I usually lump it with religion.

[SFG75]

To me, philosophy is not a gross exercise of circular logic or understanding. Perhaps it is more like a maze. You change directions more than a few times, sometimes you face the way you are going, and sometimes you see options that are dead ends and you venture onwards, not knowing whether to go one direction or another. It's definitely not a hierarchical model like Erickson's stages of development that are crisp, clear, and linear. I would include religion in the tent of philosophy, in so far as it is an attempt to explain the meaning of life and how and why we have the present reality that we do. For man people, that orientation is religious in scope. I can understand the appeal of the Bhagavad Gita and its emphasis on consciousness. A Hare Krishna handed me a copy of the book in the old Denver International Airport in the early '90s and I remember reading it on the plane to this very day. A rich read, but nothing to trade in your present life for a sari. I still enjoy spiritual works and I have to say that Sufi poetry never gets old, ditto the integral psychology works of Ken Wilber.

Personally, I've been more influenced by the development psychologists of Piaget and Adler. I believe they are closer to the science of development and explaining how it occurs than anyone else. Jung was too far in the clouds for me, I try to read his works from time to time, but he is just on another plane entirely for me to take seriously. As for a philosophy to orient a person's life around, I would say that I'm more in conscious agreement with the tenets of pragmatism as espoused by John Dewey, William James, and Pierce. The humanist/existential line appealed to me in college and lead me to read and re-read the likes of Emmanuel Mounier and Karl Jaspers. The latter was a HUGE influence during those years. Yes, I've dabbled in zen and the like, but pragmatism holds out and continues to do so. Perhaps it's the western American-Anglo influence or something, I don't know. I still don't know it all, I jut try and learn each day and consider many view points. The only certainty is coffee.

[cafolini]

Plato and Aristotles babbling: obsolete. Will Durant's way of life: obsolete. Anything goes: obsolete.
Of course there is historical value, but none other to get but insane con-fusion. It'll never come back as a fountain of knowledge other than historical BS magna.

[osho]

philosophy tries hard to magnify simplicity into verbosity. .

This quote is appealing. You often come up with deep thought and I like the way you present things in a different and nontraditional way in defiance of the establishments the rest of us go about. Keep the spirit up cacain and of course we enjoy your experiment with truth along your different and bolder path.

[The Comedian]

Wow. Seems as if philosophy has succeeded in making many here angry: "BS", "verbose", "babble", "obsolete". Well, maybe this anger is coming from mostly one poster.

I think that my reading of philosophy has taught me a lot and it informs (either directly or indirectly) nearly any decision that I make -- and even more so with those decisions which require sustained reflection. From questions as mundane and personal as "should I tell my child that mom and dad are Santa?" to "how should I spend my money?". . . . . I guess some of the epistemological philosophy seems a bit dated insofar as it relates to science. But the lasting philosophy doesn't deal so much with facts; it deals with individual experience, ethics, and curiosity.

Maybe we have a more materialistic culture (not consumerism in this sense, but "materialistic" in the sense that we believe that matter is all there is) than those historical cultures had. I mean, sure, if bodies and atoms are all. . . . then morality, beauty, quality (so motorcycle-ish), and other hierarchies of being are either absurdly relative, fictions, or irrelevant. Under these conditions, then I can certainly see why there is so much issue with philosophy's application to individual experience.

Interesting.

[cafolini]

Wow. Seems as if philosophy has succeeded in making many here angry: "BS", "verbose", "babble", "obsolete". Well, maybe this anger is coming from mostly one poster.

I think that my reading of philosophy has taught me a lot and it informs (either directly or indirectly) nearly any decision that I make -- and even more so with those decisions which require sustained reflection. From questions as mundane and personal as "should I tell my child that mom and dad are Santa?" to "how should I spend my money?". . . . . I guess some of the epistemological philosophy seems a bit dated insofar as it relates to science. But the lasting philosophy doesn't deal so much with facts; it deals with individual experience, ethics, and curiosity.

Maybe we have a more materialistic culture (not consumerism in this sense, but "materialistic" in the sense that we believe that matter is all there is) than those historical cultures had. I mean, sure, if bodies and atoms are all. . . . then morality, beauty, quality (so motorcycle-ish), and other hierarchies of being are either absurdly relative, fictions, or irrelevant. Under these conditions, then I can certainly see why there is so much issue with philosophy's application to individual experience.

Interesting.

Maybe you better stick to comedy, because you are a disaster to serious matters. I can guarantee you that you will be comical if you don't try so hard to be a comical intellectual. LOL

[The Comedian]

What parts of my post did you "lol" the most?

Would I sound more intellectual if I said something like this: "philosophy sux; its just babbling BS"?

[Scheherazade]

~

W a r n i n g

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~

[Shaman_Raman]

Wow. Seems as if philosophy has succeeded in making many here angry: "BS", "verbose", "babble", "obsolete". Well, maybe this anger is coming from mostly one poster.

I think that my reading of philosophy has taught me a lot and it informs (either directly or indirectly) nearly any decision that I make -- and even more so with those decisions which require sustained reflection. From questions as mundane and personal as "should I tell my child that mom and dad are Santa?" to "how should I spend my money?". . . . . I guess some of the epistemological philosophy seems a bit dated insofar as it relates to science. But the lasting philosophy doesn't deal so much with facts; it deals with individual experience, ethics, and curiosity.

Maybe we have a more materialistic culture (not consumerism in this sense, but "materialistic" in the sense that we believe that matter is all there is) than those historical cultures had. I mean, sure, if bodies and atoms are all. . . . then morality, beauty, quality (so motorcycle-ish), and other hierarchies of being are either absurdly relative, fictions, or irrelevant. Under these conditions, then I can certainly see why there is so much issue with philosophy's application to individual experience.

Interesting.

Haha, motorcycle-ish, nice. Yeah I must say as well I'm surprised at the common theme I saw most posters here get to: philosophy is intriguing but not practical. I have to disagree with this. After all, aren't we using philosophy every day when determining any action or choice, based upon our reason?

However, that's not to imply we can't act in such a manner unless we've learned about it. For example, I've always been big on acting by means and duty, over what end gain I might achieve. I've never believed the end justifies the means. But when I took an ethics class, I found I probably act then more in accordance to a Kantian ethic for those reasons.

Also, I feel philosophical beliefs can be related all the time. Aristotle's Gold Mean seems strikingly similar to the Middle Way in Buddhism, just with different labels.

Perhaps the thread was too broad in its scope? I mean, there's countless theories and specific aspects of philosophy. Like, I could ask: do you lean more in the opinion on Absolutism or Moral Relativism? Do you think Feminism has been effective in creating equal rights for the sexes, or is their approach too aggressive? Etc.

[AuntShecky]

One problem with most philosophical systems is that they are just that: systems, not easily applicable to an individual's life. For instance, we may read about "transcendentalism" as espoused by Emerson and Thoreau, but the only emulation we are able to try to is to hang out in the woods for a while, following the example of Walden. Not that it wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Another thorny problem is-- let's face it-- so much of it is so damned hard to read and understand. The reason for this is that our colleges, especially in recent decades haven't bothered requiring students to read and understand philosophy; the United States, for instance, has never been party to an intellectual tradition that values education for its own sake, only as a springboard into a lucrative career. At the lower level, very few children are given the basics of logic and critical thinking -- both crucial in the understanding of the obtuse thought processes involved in philosophical theory.

Apart from an individual's life, the macrocosm has occasionally attempted through the millennia to adapt philosphical systems to the political and economic society at large. Look around you -- do you see any extant examples of More's Utopia? How about Nietzsche, Hegel, and Soviet-style Marxism--how did all that turn out?

Show me somebody who lives his life according to Kant or can actually put Russell's logical positivism into actual practice. Like practicing one's religion to the point of sainthood, I'm not sure it can be done.

[cacian]

Philosophy can burden the mind with obviouses that are evident but are interfered with in a stance manner of questions and impossibilities that the norms becomes the complex. Is the mind mystified simply because it refuses to see the ultimate proof or it is not receiving confirmation and instead seeks to outer the norms?
Everydayness in sameness can be a deterrent to what is clearly natural to the naked eye.

[ladderandbucket]

Ethics and political philosophy will always be important, but they are necessarily informed by metaphysics and epistemology, which I think of as being the true business of philosophy. It seems to me as though epistemology and metaphysics can't really progress beyond Hume and Kant respectively. Everything since can only be speculative or an elaboration on what has already been said. So how can we have any certainty about our everyday reasoning when it has such shaky foundations? Science didn't kill philosophy, it killed itself by undermining any confidence we could have in it. Its greatest achievement was to show us the limits of what can know.

I still keep reading philosophy but no longer to the point where it gives me a headache. It feels very much like turning a threaded screw.

[cafolini]

Science cannot kill philosophy because it doesn't deal with stupidity. Science cannot kill religion because it will never have enough knowledge to do it. Religion can kill philosophy because it is an only possible conclusion of maturity in the acceptance of the mystery of His Grace.

[Dark Star]

This is an interesting argument. Can you demonstrate how religion (a monotheistic one, specifically) is the only possible conclusion one can reach?

[cafolini]

This is an interesting argument. Can you demonstrate how religion (a monotheistic one, specifically) is the only possible conclusion one can reach?

I think it's pretty obvious and simple, which I think is also the motive some people don't get it. Any human concept posed as religion would defy the omnipotence of a God. The God would most certainly be enslaved by it.
Religion is not the belief that denominates a congregation. That's a mere framework that brings people together under some inescapable label for the purpose of identity. But a God that can be understood is no longer a God. The majority of people realize this and don't preach salvation but by His Grace.
It is a broad, very broad thought that cannot be broader than broad. It goes infinitely beyond evolution or creation. Another invalid thought regarding God with which people get con-fused is the idea of nothing or no thing. Thus some will postulate that there cannot be creation out of nothing, etc. We simply don't know and will never know. That's the beginning of mature thought.

Gods in a pagan, Epicurian sense do not transact with the flesh or human concepts. So they are neither a solution to the mystery.

[*Classic*Charm*]

philosophy is dead, and now science reigns.


I'm using this quote as an example, and I do not mean to address its author specifically, BUT...

If people do not consider science a philosophical matter, we have a BIG problem on our hands.

Philosophy of science is a matter studied in its own right and ought to be. I fail to understand why it is so frowned upon for individuals to have "blind faith", as religion is often termed, and yet, it's perfectly respectable to take science as truth without posing a single existential question. I am formally trained in the sciences and am devoting my life to their practice, but only having taken a good hard look at what I think science IS and DOES, and how I am served by it.

So to answer your question, Comedian, philosophy has given me a broader perspective on the existential premises upon which I plan to base my life's work and has taught me many ways to ask ethical questions that I had never conceptualized.

[Dark Star]

I think it's pretty obvious and simple, which I think is also the motive some people don't get it. Any human concept posed as religion would defy the omnipotence of a God. The God would most certainly be enslaved by it.
Religion is not the belief that denominates a congregation. That's a mere framework that brings people together under some inescapable label for the purpose of identity. But a God that can be understood is no longer a God. The majority of people realize this and don't preach salvation but by His Grace.
It is a broad, very broad thought that cannot be broader than broad. It goes infinitely beyond evolution or creation. Another invalid thought regarding God with which people get con-fused is the idea of nothing or no thing. Thus some will postulate that there cannot be creation out of nothing, etc. We simply don't know and will never know. That's the beginning of mature thought.

Gods in a pagan, Epicurian sense do not transact with the flesh or human concepts. So they are neither a solution to the mystery.


Perhaps we misunderstood each other; I'm not sure how religion is the only path one can reach without starting with the assumption of the existence of a deity.


I'm using this quote as an example, and I do not mean to address its author specifically, BUT...

If people do not consider science a philosophical matter, we have a BIG problem on our hands.

Philosophy of science is a matter studied in its own right and ought to be. I fail to understand why it is so frowned upon for individuals to have "blind faith", as religion is often termed, and yet, it's perfectly respectable to take science as truth without posing a single existential question. I am formally trained in the sciences and am devoting my life to their practice, but only having taken a good hard look at what I think science IS and DOES, and how I am served by it.

So to answer your question, Comedian, philosophy has given me a broader perspective on the existential premises upon which I plan to base my life's work and has taught me many ways to ask ethical questions that I had never conceptualized.

This is well said, but to be fair most of the individuals I've met that criticize blind faith in religion have posed existential questions related to science.

[cafolini]

I'll close my case by saying that a deity to be such must be far beyond being and existence. If you don't see it as a realization that needs no assumption a-priori, then we misunderstood each other. Have fun. Live well. Pray for His Grace.

[cacian]

Perhaps we misunderstood each other; I'm not sure how religion is the only path one can reach without starting with the assumption of the existence of a deity.

Religion is just a branch of study just like science. One sets out to say without proof and the other to proof without say. They are ultimately dependable. They are also not without decline.


This is well said, but to be fair most of the individuals I've met that criticize blind faith in religion have posed existential questions related to science.
Blind faith is because of how people are raised and so it is not so much religion as much the way one sees feels about things.
Religion is diasporate because it can leads to disbelief the same with science. They both have their differences and similarities but they both drive people away from them too.

[mal4mac]

Show me somebody who lives his life according to Kant ...

Look up one post, Shaman Raman says he does. Maybe not all of his life, but Kant appears to have had an impact. The original poster was asking if some kind of philosophy had an impact on people's lives, not if it had taken over peoples lives completely.

[The Comedian]

Look up one post, Shaman Raman says he does. Maybe not all of his life, but Kant appears to have had an impact. The original poster was asking if some kind of philosophy had an impact on people's lives, not if it had taken over peoples lives completely.

Yep. That's it.

[mal4mac]

If I've ever taken any interest in religion my understanding of Kant & Nietzsche has always come back to me and destroyed that interest. I think this is largely a positive thing; chasing after non-existent ghosts is not a fruitful activity. His ideas in ethics are also important to me, as a theoretical yard stick, but I cannot follow the categorical imperative. I'm driven by my impulses, and no one else is abiding by the categorical imperative, so I might as well just follow my impulses. But having gained some level of rational thought at least kids me into thinking I have some grip on the world, which is somewhat calming. An ongoing Socratic dialogue in my head, and sometimes in forums, gives me something enjoyable, and seemingly important (to me), to do, so gaining some knowledge of Socrates from Plato and others was important. Epicurus, Aristotle and the stoics have also been important, showing me that the practice of a simple, philosophical life is the good life, or at least a "good enough" life. Schopenhauer was important for keeping me inclined to literature and music , and giving good arguments for why they are such good things... Nietzsche as well...