Existential philosophyes- a waste of time?

Years ago I started reading for a while the works of Schopenhauer, Kant, etc, but I realized that I'm not gaining anything.
Here is what I think it's the matter: all these philosophers who give theories about our existence, our mind, soul and or perception, all have the same tools: speculation and contemplation. There are no actual methods of putting their statements to the test.
So why don't I start enunciating my own theories about our world and wrap them up nicely in a book? It should have the same importance like the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and others, right? (that is, if we exclude the appeal to the public-factor)

And that's why I started resenting philosophy. Then again, I may, more than likely,be wrong. What do you think?

Here is a funny thing I heard:

" The son has a vacation and comes home from college. He finds his father chopping wood for the winter.
-Hey son, good to see you... why the long face?
-Hey dad, nothing, it's just that I found out in my philosophy class that the world around us does not exist , and it's all an illusion of our senses, and we are nothing but energy traveling through the dark cosmos at infinite speed.
-... oh that's nonsense, cheer up, help me finish this firewood.
- What's the point, this wood doesn't exist, you and me don't exist, it's useless.
-...:mad5: Now listen here you ingrate moron. From the day you were born, I raised you, I fed you, I wiped your butt and stood all your crying, and now you come here all mopey saying we don't exist ?!!! Start chopping firewood before I stuck my foot up your ***.:cuss: "

Rather than re-hash old ground, we've actually just had a similar thread just here:

http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=51817

You should be able to gauge my view from very early on.

:D

sorry about the repetition.:banghead::(

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Originally Posted by Fuzzy_duck

sorry about the repetition.:banghead::(

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No need to be sorry! :D

I'm just trying to save the same arguments being done again.

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Originally Posted by Fuzzy_duck

Here is a funny thing I heard:

" The son has a vacation and comes home from college. He finds his father chopping wood for the winter.
-Hey son, good to see you... why the long face?
-Hey dad, nothing, it's just that I found out in my philosophy class that the world around us does not exist , and it's all an illusion of our senses, and we are nothing but energy traveling through the dark cosmos at infinite speed.
-... oh that's nonsense, cheer up, help me finish this firewood.
- What's the point, this wood doesn't exist, you and me don't exist, it's useless.
-...:mad5: Now listen here you ingrate moron. From the day you were born, I raised you, I fed you, I wiped your butt and stood all your crying, and now you come here all mopey saying we don't exist ?!!! Start chopping firewood before I stuck my foot up your ***.:cuss: "

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:lol: This is funny!

Yeah, it took you awhile to learn! :lol:

But, hey, philosophy is pretty interesting at times. They're just theories and we ALL have theories. The difference is that they can articulate some of the things they have in mind just a tad bit better.

Hi all, this is my first time posting here!

Fuzzy Duck -- you're right, you can publish any theory you have and it will have the same importance as anything anyone else has ever written. Nobody's opinion is worth more than that of another.
That said, if you're going to codify your ideas then you must make them into a cohesive system, or nobody will understand or take them seriously.

Nihilism /thread

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Originally Posted by Cat Square

Nobody's opinion is worth more than that of another.

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You dare to say that on a discussuion board?

:D

Pretty good first post - you can stay!

I'm more antagonistic against postmodernism, post-modernist and scientist are natural enemies.

Atheist -- thanks for your blessing :D

Pip -- I don't know anything about postmodernist philosophy, but I recognize postmodernism in art as collage or appropriation -- something that calls attention to the construction of the work.

I react very negatively to attempts at deconstruction of materialism as an attack on science. It's dangerous stupidity divorced from reality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_wars

Even rejection of philosophy is still a philosophy. :wink5:

There is no doubt that in the past fifty years, philosophy in general--as well as rhetoric--has received a bad name. I don't know if philosophy will ever recover. I doubt it. Most assurdely rhetoric hasn't--and won't.

from that wikipedia article I gather that the postmodernist critique of science is that scientific "truths" must be understood within their social/historical/cutural contexts.

I don't see a problem with recognizing this, it doesn't seem take away from the results, it just offers a more in depth understanding.

Am I missing something?

It adds no further understanding at all. Criticism of science is only valid within the limits of the scientific method. When you start criticizing science on the basis of political, ideological, and philosophical grounds you end up with dangerous nonsense like Lysenkoism, which completely destroyed Soviet biological science for 40 years. All because the Soviets thought that genetics was an anti-Marxist bourgeois science.

Gad! Who is this kid who pretends to know all?
Stuff 'n' nonsense.

I think the postmodernist need understand scientific studies in context is different than a government blacklisting science for political reasons. This criticism we're talking about seems to be about achieving a more nuanced understanding of scientific studies.



If an institution pays to prove a certain hypothesis about something so they can sell a product or convince a body of people of something, then don't you think it's important to consider what might motivate that institution to do so? I do.


I'm reminded of milk. In California, when you buy milk from a grocery store who gets it from a big corporate farm, usually there will be a label that reads: "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST-treated cows". Now I don't know if that's true or if it's not, but if I were interested in finding out, I would certainly check into who paid for the studies showing 'non-significant differences'. If the study that justifies this label was paid for by a dairy giant, then I would say the conclusions drawn from it should be taken with a grain of salt.

Sebas. Melmoth -- are you talking about me?

No, dear.
Are you worried?

Edit: as a matter of fact, I admire your consideration of biologically contaminated milk.

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Originally Posted by Cat Square

I think the postmodernist need understand scientific studies in context is different than a government blacklisting science for political reasons. This criticism we're talking about seems to be about achieving a more nuanced understanding of scientific studies.



If an institution pays to prove a certain hypothesis about something so they can sell a product or convince a body of people of something, then don't you think it's important to consider what might motivate that institution to do so? I do.


I'm reminded of milk. In California, when you buy milk from a grocery store who gets it from a big corporate farm, usually there will be a label that reads: "No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST-treated cows". Now I don't know if that's true or if it's not, but if I were interested in finding out, I would certainly check into who paid for the studies showing 'non-significant differences'. If the study that justifies this label was paid for by a dairy giant, then I would say the conclusions drawn from it should be taken with a grain of salt.

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At first this seems reasonable, but it lies on a weak foundation. If the study financed by a corporation (all studies in academic journals declare their funding so it's not much digging you'd have to do), were published in a peer reviewed journal then you would have access to the methodology and the data. The appropriate step if a bias is suspected is for the study to be repeated by an independent body. Moreover, the burden to find a difference should be on the ones making the novel claim. If there is no history of such a difference existing, and there is an absence of studies confirming there is a difference, then one shouldn't think there is a difference. Otherwise, all you're applying is subjective feelings onto what should be determined objectively.

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Originally Posted by Fuzzy_duck

It should have the same importance like the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and others, right?

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What I find slightly amusing here is that you choose Nietzsche - Nietzsche, by god! - out of every pessimistic or nihilistic philosopher for comparison as well as to uphold your mistrust of existential philosophy, if not philosophy in general, whereas Nietzsche was the first nihilist to manage, as a philosopher, to break free from out the dark dank moldy pit of Schopenhauer-ean nihilism with intact mind, and escape the morbid vacant torpidness of inactive thought, and begin to actively decry philosophy and Kant and Schopenhauer and nihilism as the beggars they are... Being called a philosopher was to him the greatest insult... a nihilist, the second...
Nietzsche is as beyond philosophy as is science; his voice is nearer music, his words closer to psychology - not as it is to be understood today with the eye of People magazine or Dr. Phil, of course, but as an actual appreciation of man as he is and might not wish himself understood - which I believe to be and ultimately have been the aim and purpose of philosophy from its onset - for no wisdom is wisdom that is not of man and the times he lives in...
And though I believe no opinion out-values another - for opinion can be based on practically anything and relies on as much or as little fact as may be deemed useful - still there come about once in a while certain observations to support views that actually manage to quake the intellectual balance of power and force the mind to look back upon itself and wonder, and just such a power of insight had Nietzsche, which is why over a hundred years later we still discuss his works, and the deeper we look the more dumbfounded are we and no nearer understanding even ourselves...

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Originally Posted by OrphanPip

At first this seems reasonable, but it lies on a weak foundation. If the study financed by a corporation (all studies in academic journals declare their funding so it's not much digging you'd have to do), were published in a peer reviewed journal then you would have access to the methodology and the data. The appropriate step if a bias is suspected is for the study to be repeated by an independent body. Moreover, the burden to find a difference should be on the ones making the novel claim. If there is no history of such a difference existing, and there is an absence of studies confirming there is a difference, then one shouldn't think there is a difference. Otherwise, all you're applying is subjective feelings onto what should be determined objectively.

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I'm not familiar with how the science world works, and I don't have access to academic journals. I suspect the postmodernist critique comes from a similar perspective.

I do think you're right that the social/cultural/political component is irrelevant to the data in a scientific study, but it seems the postmodernists were interested in something other than data. I think they were interested in who's asking what questions and why?


Melmoth - *whew* :biggrin5:

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Originally Posted by Cat Square

I do think you're right that the social/cultural/political component is irrelevant to the data in a scientific study, but it seems the postmodernists were interested in something other than data. I think they were interested in who's asking what questions and why?

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I just suspect it heavily of being an attempt at politicizing science. Attempts at deconstructing scientific findings strike me mostly as obfuscation, usually with the goal of trying to even the legitimacy of some alternative belief that lacks any objective evidential support. I don't think this is likely the intention of most philosophers, but that is essentially the result of what they were trying to do.

I see how this criticism could be bent like that and I'm sure it's been done many times.

I've just started reading philosophical literature (my most recent material was a transcribed lecture given by JP Sartre defending Existentialism and saying it is a type of Humanism)
I think it challenges and provokes more independent thought than any other type of literature. You really have to work and put in maximum effort to get much of any worth out of philosophy but I think it's worth the trouble. It also helps in the understanding of literature as a whole. Camus, Kafka, Sartre for example.

I won't press points too hard as - like I said - I'm just breaking through the outer crust of philosophical thought.

I would contend that 99% of philosophy is utter crap ,though good for skills in arguing and for developing brain power and theories for science.
Ironically of all the philosophers the only one i see of any use really is Nietzsche. His works to me dwarfs every other work by every other philospher in history.
But i think the human condition is far far better explained by literature which is why i think 'Notes from the underground' is the best book on philosophy and the human condition (even though its not a book on philosophy.) ever written.

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Originally Posted by Sebas. Melmoth

Gad! Who is this kid who pretends to know all?
Stuff 'n' nonsense.

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Melmoth, are you by any chance a member of goth.net forum?